#die and save the world from literal hell or live and watch humanity crumble???

[scattered-winter]

devastated to announce that I'm back in my maze runner era thanks to this fucking au.

[bambeptin]

the map of infinity was wild as hell: an analysis

ok, let's get this out of the way first: there's no reason why Professor Paradox had to make the Map of Infinity other than "for fun".

which makes sense! he’s immortal, he’s been travelling for a while, and he’s likely very, very, very bored. anything he does is probably to chase new stimuli. his sense of morality is off, from human standards.

it's the complete space-time map of 17 different dimensions, which Paradox doesn't technically need, since he has the Chrononavigator and his own innate time powers. he doesn't even need it to reach the Forge of Creation, since he can literally just like, walk there whenever. Paradox was the person that made the barrier between the Forge and the rest of the Universe in the first place. was it even always outside of the universe? did he send it out there? I imagine it sort of went like this:

"boy, am I bored today!"

"let's see if I can make an in-depth map of a bunch of different dimensions"

fought Celestialsapiens when he reached the Forge of Creation, K6BD-style. they can't kill him (his powerset matches up well against theirs) and he can't kill them all (and they’re starting to mess with his time plans), so eventually they agree to a treaty. he found the war sorta fun

bored again

"what do I do with this map I made? destroy it? no, that would be pointless..."

"oh! I know!"

"split it into 4 parts, 2 of which are keystones to a world and 2 of which are in death trap temples, because that would be 1. fun to make and 2. could lead to fun situations in the future"

let's go over them all!

Map Piece 1. Mykdl'dy

gesundheit. if you don’t remember this planet, it’s the half hot/half cold one that Paradox made a death trap temple on, which is now guarded by Necrofriggian cultists.

"welcome to my crib....... I enjoyed creating brutalism-inspired shapes of dark grey prisms against the ever-changing backdrop of ice and fire. in front are two statues of a mysterious person in robes, because I thought it would look cool. within are some dastardly traps that I designed myself, so watch out! the Necrofriggian colonists making a religion out of it wasn't my intention though. it's just a coincidence that they're the same species as the statues! I felt like the high point of this temple is dragon-wyrm that I created! the acid is a fantastic extra touch.”

“dungeon design is my passion.”

it seems like he decorated the inner parts the most, lovingly, with his shade of blue, used a bunch of magical spells (presumably; elaborated on later) for that part too, then realized that it would be a bit of a pain decorating the rest of the place and made the rest plainer. I wonder if he made it all himself, or like, hired some dudes

Map Piece 2. Piscciss

it’s hidden as the anti-gravity multiplier that holds Piscciss together.

“huh?” you might ask. “why would that piece have that power?”

I don’t know, maybe they all had that power or something. maybe if Aggregor just took one and started blasting everyone with anti-gravity the arc would be over way faster. maybe it’s magic. maybe Paradox is fucking with you.

“wait???” you might ask next. “it’s hidden as WHAT????”

that’s right! this is the little thing that keeps Piscciss a planet and not a bunch of water filled with dead fish floating around in space. “haha yeah this works perfectly... trust me it's not a macguffin that will be stolen and break your planet apart and someone in the future will have to sacrifice an alien to replace it lol...” - Paradox handing the anti-gravity multiplier to the Piscciss Volann when they were making an artificial water planet for them to live on

either that or the Piscciss Volann stumbled on the piece in an unseen other death trap temple, found its powers, and decided to use it, which sort of goes against the whole “Paradox hid all the pieces” thing if he simply never checked up on them

Map Piece 3. Perplexahedron

I know they went to Ledgerdomain third but that is saved for the end because it’s fucking mental. so we’re gonna talk about the Perplaxahedron. it’s the cube from Cube (1997).

if you don’t know what that is, it’s an absolutely huge artificial planet/building that’s entirely made of death traps. each new room is an exciting and fresh way to die. invigorating! while it does have a simple design, it’s efficient at what it does, and the clinical nature adds to the theme of being an unknowable deadly object. that’s what he probably describes it as anyways. again, did he build all of that himself? can I make a “Paradox construction squad” OC?

maybe Paradox made these dudes to help build the place, and kept them around as guards, because that’s efficiency.

this dude’s sole purpose in life is to wait there and hand over the Map of Infinity piece to whoever’s smart enough to get inside. I assume Paradox made him, because he disappears from reality like ten minutes after he hands it out, but Paradox has hired people to be guards in his temples before. the pay must be really good. maybe their culture is like that. maybe he didn’t disappear and actually it was an actor to squeeze the most drama out of the universe.

anyways, if he was real, Ben basically ruined his life before he died by tossing out the very important piece of the Map to Aggregor for basically no reason. oops!

Map Piece 4. Ledgerdomain

“he can reach the Forge of Creation. so obviously he can reach Ledgerdomain, a dimension of pure mana. what’s the problem?” well, there’s really no problem. it’s quite cool! no, what’s wild is that nobody really thinks about the ramifications of this piece of the Map of Infinity. for a refresher, this is what it’s hidden as:

“It is an object as old as time itself, through which all magic flows. It is the keeper of the true name of [Ledgerdomain]; source of ultimate power! And it is mine!“ - Charmcaster

the secret true name of magic. if you have it, you have power over magic itself.  it can revive the dead or instantly kill people. that power corrupts its wielder easily. also, if it’s removed from Ledgerdomain, the realm loses all natural entry/exit points, destabilizes, and begins the crumble. that’s right! it’s the Alpha Rune.

Paradox is confirmed to have actually made the Alpha Rune, not just hidden a piece as the Rune. I implore you to think about what that entails.

he knows magic (3-page minicomic I made about that topic). he doesn’t just know magic, he knows the secret name of magic, automatically making him a disgustingly powerful mage. either that or it’s possible to get the secret name of magic without knowing magic, which is fine too, but just being around the Alpha Rune makes you able to cast spells. he probably ripped the Alpha Rune from the Omniverse and bound it to his will because he had nothing else better to do that day. could he make even more Alpha Runes (even if they’re weaker copies), since it knows it already? did making it into Rune form rip it from his own mind? I like to think that the reason why he can’t lie is because if he does, his latent magical abilities will automatically attempt to cast a spell to make it real.

here are three ways you can interpret “Paradox made the Alpha Rune”.

he found the secret name of magic and made the Alpha Rune out of it

he literally made the secret name of magic. i.e. he made magic itself. that would be wild as hell.

the writers didn’t really think about the ramifications of any part of the Map of Infinity past “cool artifact”, which, to be honest, fair enough.

he probably finds all the magic really useful, since it helps streamline all of his temples and stuff. all of the bright blue lines connected to Paradox’s creations might even be magic! or his time powers.

by the way, he pulls the same split-something-into-pieces-and-hide-them-with-death-traps stunt with Maltruant, so I think this is his hobby.

[spockandawe]

I’m so unbelievably weak against characters who make terrible choices because they’re hurting and upset. I love the subtler resentful decisions that quietly build up ill will, and I love the big dramatic choices that end with everyone going down in flames. But more than anything, I love love love hurting myself with the emotional flavor of a character struggling with the tension of simultaneously realizing that people hate/mistrust them (or how much people hate/mistrust them, or which people hate/mistrust them), while also realizing that those people just have... no idea where they’re coming from.

I was thinking about this first because of Mu Qing, who is honestly a very low-key version of this scenario (and it’s also quieter since he’s not a lead character and rarely takes the spotlight himself). But the first big tgcf flashback honestly made my heart ache, seeing him trying to walk a line between maintaining his own independence/pride and not belonging to someone he wants to be peers with, but when he tries to be tactful, people decide he’s being shady.  He was picking cherries, to bring a treat to his poor mother (and the poor children around his home), but then got accused of stealing, and then didn’t want to say that it was because his only remaining parent was living in poverty. And it continues through the present day! He knocks out Feng Xin so he can save him from a burning city, because Feng Xin refuses to leave, and people are like ‘>:OOO MU QING ATTACKED FENG XIN??’ In some ways, this character hurts me more than the others, because he rarely does anything wrong, he has a bad attitude, but his most significant “missteps” tend to be like ‘you could have been a little more kind, tbh.’

But also too, I’ve been working my way through the svsss extras again, and... Shen Jiu. God, Shen Jiu. This character is agonizing, and I love him so much. He makes terrible choices! He does terrible things! He tries to set up an actual literal child to die horribly, because he resents that this child had a parent who loved him, and that he found his way to Cang Qiong young enough to reach his full potential! It’s absolutely unforgivable! But nobody except Yue Qingyuan has any clue how much Shen Jiu has been through and how to possibly help him grow or heal or how to support him into better decision making. And Shen Jiu is so hurt by the way Yue Qingyuan left him that he refuses to let Yue Qingyuan help him now. Like! This child was a slave, begging for food on the streets, then was sold to a rich boy who abused him in sexually-flavored ways and planned to marry him to his sister so he could keep him forever, and then his “rescuer” was a scumbag adult who taught him to steal and murder. 

And while Shen Jiu was suffering, he thinks Yue Qingyuan, who came from the same beginning and who promised to come back for him, was living in careless pampered luxury in a prestigious cultivation sect. Shen Jiu’s own self-evaluations are incredibly harsh, from the moment he’s reunited with Yue Qingyuan. He calls himself terrible, he calls himself a thing, and once it’s clear that he’s going to pay the price for his bad decisions, he tries hard to shove away the one person who cares about him and find some way to protect him. Yue Qingyuan never stopped loving him and defending him, but literally nobody else in the world has any sympathy for him whatsoever. How am I not supposed to be heartbroken? Shang Qinghua sighs over how his readers used to hate on Shen Qingqiu for having no motivations, which, sure, that’s understandable from what’s on the “Proud Immortal Demon Way” pages, but seeing the trauma driving his choices in svsss and seeing his own self-awareness and self-loathing and knowing that one (1) person in-universe has any inkling of his internal world (and that person died trying to help him), I’m! In pain!!!

Plus, in svsss proper, I saw a post in passing once that was something like... ‘readers are hard on luo binghe, because he’s the only mxtx protagonist where we see the worst decisions of his life and aren’t in his head to understand why he’s making those decisions.’ Which I still find fascinating, and think about often. It makes sense to me. And as far as my terrible-decision-making children go, he’s very interesting to me because he doesn’t really deal with the widespread distaste/mistrust that mu qing and shen jiu experience, it’s very much targeted on one person. I live for the parts of svsss where all Luo Binghe has to do is breathe, and Shen Qingqiu flinches and bolts. And Luo Binghe is not acting in kind or well-considered ways, a lot of the time! But he was seventeen, and his beloved teacher had told him that ‘humans can be good or evil, demons can be good or evil,’ but the moment Luo Binghe turned out to be half demon, even though he’d just been fighting desperately trying to protect Shen Qingqiu, that teacher he trusted more than anything immediately turned on him, stabbed him in the chest, and threw him into hell.

That’s agonizing!!!! Even without the aftermath, that’s agonizing to read! And when Luo Binghe comes back, years later, he’s upset, he’s hurt, he’s lonely, he’s still stinging from that betrayal, of course he’s not making good decisions. I follow good blogs, because I haven’t seen any terrible Luo Binghe takes on my dash, but I’m kind of :c that these takes apparently exist. Again, it’s not that I think he makes good decisions, but I can see why he makes bad decisions, and I can see other characters missing that context, and I am rolling in terrible, glorious pain. Luo Binghe shows up secretly in Huan Hua Palace and starts taking it over and generally acts shady as heck? Well, Shizun wouldn’t let him beg for forgiveness when he was a disciple, and he’s afraid to face Shen Qingqiu until he can meet him on a semi-equal footing. Luo Binghe gets angry and spiteful when Shen Qingqiu asks if he’s responsible for the sowers? Yes he does! He’d always, always tried to do right by Shen Qingqiu, and trusted Shen Qingqiu when he said demons could be decent people, but the moment he turned out to be half-demon, Shen Qingqiu immediately started expecting the worst from him at every turn. It hurts! I don’t blame him for acting on that hurt! And I am so endlessly compelled by the way that Shen Qingqiu completely fails to recognize the context for where Binghe is coming from.

And like... I cannot leave out Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao. Xue Yang is fascinating in his own way, because the steps are... a lot more explicit and clear-cut than some of these other characters. Shen Jiu’s downward spiral is very internal and he curls up tight to hide his weak spots even with the person who values him most in the whole world, but Xue Yang very plainly tries to lay out his reasoning for his most important person. His whole world is crumbling by the time things reach that point, and it was probably beyond salvaging, but god! He tries so hard to explain the position the world placed him in, from childhood onward, helpless and vulnerable, and that nobody was going to defend him except himself. 

But when Xiao Xingchen doesn’t understand what he’s trying to communicate, when he realizes that the person he values most isn’t willing to hear what he’s trying to say, he starts lashing out again and trying to hurt. It’s the same lesson he learned when he was young, in some ways. ‘If I’m stupid enough to trust you, you’re going to use that to hurt me.’ And then the logical next step, ‘If you’re going to hurt me, all I can do is try to hurt you worse.’ You can see the trauma playing out right there on the page, and it’s agonizing. I can understand some people not enjoying reading things that make them hurt that way, but I have trouble Getting it when people don’t at least find that kind of dynamic compelling as hell. I’ll sometimes avoid media that I know is going to make me sad, but if I’m in the mood to Experience Sadness, I know a dynamic like this is going to grab me by the heart and shake me like a ragdoll.

And... Jin Guangyao. He was on my mind too, partly because I’ve seen a few takes on his motivations lately that honestly kind of baffle me? Like, to each their own, especially since mdzs never takes us inside his head. But I see posts that like... he was bullying Nie Mingjue, or what if Lan Xichen could Tell he was never genuine and mistrusted him on some level, and how to put this. It’s not that I agree with the choices he made, though I really don’t want to play fandom purity police in any way, shape, or form (murder is good, actually), but I understand the choices he made enough that those sort of interpretations that skew towards the cruelty-for-the-sake-of-cruelty territory honestly kind of upset me.

There’s some interesting comparisons to be made with Mu Qing, in some ways. They both grew up poor, without a father, in “shameful” single-parent situations (a sex worker mother vs. a father being executed for being a criminal). They were poor boys with ambition, but no matter how they tried to carry themselves with dignity, those poor beginnings were rubbed in their faces, years after the fact. I think it does make a real difference that Mu Qing’s shame is mostly based in his own history (sweeping floors) while Jin Guangyao’s is more external (son of a whore), and that Jin Guangyao’s also insulted a parent who he loved dearly, and that Mu Qing was seeking the respect outside of famiial structures while Jin Guangyao was desperate to be accepted by his father.

There’s so much of Jin Guangyao’s early life that’s like ‘I’m Just Trying To Live My Life, My Dude,’ and it hurts me to watch. He really didn’t have goals that were all that excessive! If his goals were excessive in some way, it’s only by virtue of how highly ranked his father was, which isn’t his fault. His goal: ‘I want my father to accept me into the family.’ What the world saw: “oh my god, this son of a whore SERIOUSLY wants to be brought into this noble family, lmaooooo.’ There are characters who are more compassionate than that, and a lot of that reaction is down to the nature of the setting, but LORD, man! It’s honestly a pretty restrained goal for a kid to have! Especially when his father totally promised to come back for him someday, and he waited patiently for years before setting out on his own.

And even once he gets kicked down the steps of Koi Tower and dials back his ambitions, he gets so little space to breathe. He’s learning cultivation late, he takes a position as a nobody in a different cultivation sect, he’s just trying to live. But no matter how he rolls with the punches, no matter how he smiles and bears it, he’s being constantly, constantly prodded in that old, painful bruise. I’ve been finally working my way through The Untamed, and it was painful to watch, in Gusu, when he’s trying to present the Nie Sect’s gift to Lan QIren, and people just start focking gossiping about him, right there, perfectly audibly. And when we see him back in Qinghe, he’s perfectly polite and deferential, and that one disciple is still like ‘fuck you, ur mom was a whore.’

He makes bad decisions, but even when he makes good decisions, he can’t win. I don’t get anything from him at all that suggests he had Hugely Lofty Ambitions from a young age, he just wanted some kind of decent life, but almost nobody would cut him a break. Nie Mingjue did cut him a break, and Lan Xichen was gentle and kind to him, and that made such an impact on him. But I also think it made it that much worse, when he made later questionable decisions, and Nie Mingjue refused to let him explain himself. Nie Mingjue’s rigidity breaks my heart in lots of ways, but especially when it comes to Jin Guangyao. I don’t want to make this all about personal attachment, but it’s kind of inescapable in this situation. Nie Mingjue sends him a loud, violent message that if he’s not perfectly morally upright, he’s Done. But by now, Jin Guangyao has years of history of people being cruel to him based on a history he never was able to control. Nie Mingjue protected him, but hes made it clear that protection was... conditional. There could be arguments about how conditional, and what the non-murdery limits would have been, but the murder has been done, and it was already clear that Nie Mingjue never had the power to protect him from everything.

I can’t read Jin Guangyao’s later actions without also reading that fear and insecurity into his decisions. He even tries to say it outright, that he’s afraid of everyone and everything, and Nie Mingjue misses the point. Jin Guangyao hurts me a lottle, because he suffers both in terms of the general public’s judgment of him, but also in the judgment of someone he cared deeply about. I can see the reasoning and trauma, but so many other people in the story can’t. Jin Guangyao gets pushed to the edge by how his father holds him at arm’s length from the family, the atrocities he tells Jin Guangyao to commit on his behalf (and then maybe I’ll treat you like my actual son, maybe), but when he tries to express that, Nie Mingjue is like ‘can’t you just endure more, though??’ He builds a temple with a statue with the face of his dead beloved mother, and the public is like ‘omg, he made that statue with his OWN FACE, can you believe it??’

In some ways, the way Lan Xichen determinedly loves and trusts him makes it all hurt even worse. I absolutely believe Jin Guangyao when he says that he never once wanted to act against Lan Xichen. So many of the terrible decisions Jin Guangyao makes tie so directly to him seeking either safety or security. But he works hard in social gatherings to keep the peace and people think he’s two-faced. He endures years of mistreatment before hitting back and people judge him for hitting back at all and say that well, what else could we have respected from someone with that background. Nie Mingjue threatens to kill him multiple times, and he was a very straightforward, honest man, of course Jin Guangyao was frightened of him and decided it was safer to see him dead. I live for the pain of seeing a character I love make decisions I strongly disagree with, understanding why they’re making those decisions, and seeing other characters not understand, and simply hate them for the decisions.

This isn’t exactly new, this is why I’ll never be able to shake my love for Starscream, even if his quality of motivation... varies by continuity. And Pharma and Prowl are two of my favorite characters in all of idw1 for exactly this reason. I’ve got  at least three fics brushing up against Pharma’s resentment over ‘yes, i got ordered to run a hospital on a garbage planet I was sharing the most violent, sadistic decepticons in existence, I SURE WONDER WHY I WAS DRIVEN TO THIS DESPERATE POINT, BUT THE LOVE OF MY LIFE THINKS I’M JUST A TERRIBLE PERSON, SO I GUESS THAT’S THAT.’ 

And in the murderbot books, I genuinely get reduced to tears when murderbot has to deal with people compassionately interpreting its behavior instead of giving it no credit, the way its used to. I find the raksura books intensely, intensely satisfying in how Moon struggles to fit into a highly social, close-knit society after growing up so traumatized and alone, and how his colony gradually adapts to him and gets used to his quirks, instead of driving him out, the way he’s experienced so many times. No real conclusion here, I was just spacing out during a work training call, and got overtaken by how much I love characters who experience this particular flavor of emotional isolation.

[writingsoftheunderworld]

Hey, could you do a request please where Damon and the reader have been going out for like a really really long time, and eventually he gets sick of saving the world and stuff and worried about her getting dragged in so he goest to live with her full time 💖💖

Hey, hope this fits what you wanted, if not I’m more than happy to go for an alternative to this. This is what came to mind when I read your ask, do let me know if you enjoyed it.

They’d met by pure chance in New York. She’d been out with a couple of friends, dancing, drinking, enjoying herself, and he’d been looking for information. She’d met his companion first, she remembers, the tall blonde isolated in the corner, dispassionate and lying in wait for him to return having just scared off one of the brave souls that tried to get with her that night. Y/N recalls scowling at the blondes’ aggression, but grudgingly admitting to a small amount of admiration as well when she saw him return, all leather and baby blues and a jaw you could cut diamond on. She’d been transfixed, but didn’t allow it to wallow in her mind for long as she was swept by the mass of dancing people around her and the buzz of alcohol mixed with blood she’d been nursing. They hadn’t talked that night. And he hadn’t seen her.

The following morning she woke up on one of the bars, her hand dangling, a stain of what she thought was tequila on her jeans. She groaned and slowly got up, being a vampire always surprised her with random they pain they experienced was, she could get a sore back from sleeping badly, but no hangover. She could have her head pounding due to daylight, but no problem walking off a hole in her stomach. She was always amused by it, had been since she’d turned in the 1700s. But it kept her on her toes and reminded her of her mortality enough to make things fun. She was checking her phone, to assure herself that her few human friends hadn’t ended up eaten in the flurry of last night when the loud banking of fists on metal echoed through the empty bar. She went to the roof, a small nod to the owner for once more allowing her to pass out here as she went. The endless blue was the first thing she saw, the scowl was the second. The words only ever registered after he’d already left, phone in hand, angry gesturing and words following behind him. The owner of the bar was how she learned the name.

They didn’t meet until some years later, once more by pure chance. She’d been running from her former sire, who she’d bet her life on had been dead for the past 15 years when they literally bumped into each other. She’d almost forgotten who he was, and likely would’ve just run passed and never looked back if he hadn’t pulled her to him, sped them to the nearest building and let the weirdo with a crossbow take down her sire, the weirdo with a crossbow that he was chasing and tried to kill both of them. Almost succeeded too, as he’d been hit several times with a vervain soaked arrow that knocked him out. As she patched him up, and demanded answers in exchange for the huntress, Y/N found out exactly how true the rumours about Mystic Falls were and she was intrigued. She went with him for the next few months, hoping for some break in her usual monotony. She did this every couple of decades, found an adventure to latch onto until she grew bored and returned to her everyday life. She hadn’t expected to fall for him, she certainly hadn’t expected for him to fall for her. And yet that’s exactly what happened, a near death experience ending with him kissing her so thoroughly she actually was left breathless.

But her drive for adventure faded as quickly as it came, as it always did and she returned to her small apartment in New York as their relationship only grew stronger. They didn’t get married since what was a small piece of paper to people that lived centuries, but they may as well have been, after 7 years of essentially living together. It would have been perfect, except he was still imbedded in the fabric that made Mystic Falls the bedrock of supernatural activity it was and he its reluctant protector. She didn’t mind, not at all, except for when he returned home looking just a little bit more broken than before, but that was fine too since she had no problem reminding him what it meant to be whole and how to piece himself together again. And she understood. Mystic Falls was his home, it held his precious people, exactly like how New York held her precious people. But Damon, oh he had doubts. The world kept getting broken for his home town rippling outward and the more supernaturals around the town the higher the stakes. He’d worried before Y/N that he might die in one of the schemes to save the fucking town from the newest bad guy. He’d never worried about her. Or better said he never had to worry about her since she didn’t get involved usually.

And then Cade happened. And Hell. And Y/N couldn’t let him face that alone so she came with. It was the first time she got seriously hurt. So hurt he worried she might die. So hurt Bonnie had had to intervene and help, even despite the fact that Bonnie herself had almost died. And the danger wasn’t even over yet. Damon had felt that kind of fear only once before in his life and that was when Stefan had been taken by the tomb vampires. And even then it hadn’t reached the heights he felt now. He was powerless to help her, all he could do was remain at her side and hope she’d awaken. Bonnie had been hopeful and the rest of their small gang had dealt with the remaining danger, but Y/N didn’t wake for three more days. It was that hell scape, those three long harrowing days that made up his mind. He’d already talked to Bonnie about leaving, but that had been for her benefit, he never expected to ever catch a break from the constant death that Mystic Falls seemed to bring with it. But three days looking at the woman he loved, the woman who for all other intents and purposes could and had outlived him lying pale and unmoving because of him made him rethink how much he cared whether Mystic Falls burned to the ground or not and found that he couldn’t care less if the ground literally opened up and swallowed this cursed town whole if she was safe.

When she woke up, she knew something had changed in Damon, but she hadn’t realized what until he packed all his belonging from his family home and followed her back to her apartment. Not until another crisis befell Mystic Falls and all he did was help with the planning and then lay down next to her. To say she was surprised was an understatement. She’d long since made peace with the fact that she could only have him half of the time, that saving the world was always going to loom behind a corner and he’d chase it while she waited with her heart crumbling for him to return to her alive. But here he was, his clothes in their closet, his car in the garage, his books on the shelves and his life strewn about the apartment, lying with his head in her lap watching a comedy while somewhere in Mystic Falls new saviours fought. He still was tied to the town, still helped save the world, but he was there, with her, while someone else put their life on the line. Slowly, the pieces he’d lost along the way made way for new ones to replace them and they lived. And if adventure wanted to knock on her door every once in a while, well then Damon had a cursed town he called home that she could visit. But not for a while yet. For now she was content with their weekly date night and living their lives. There were still days they barely saw each other, be that because her friends dragged her away or because his did, but the fear that had been there in each other’s absence was gone. 

[purplecatghostposts]

can you tell me about xen bound benry and CYWO benry? :0

I CAN!! Honestly those two might be the most interesting, here we go!

So Xen Bound is an AU I made fairly recently and it very much plays into the idea of ‘Benrey is an alien from Xen’ headcannon.

The main idea goes like this: Taking place immediately after Benrey’s defeat, Benrey disappears in a flash of light and the area they were fighting him in starts to crumble. The creatures of Xen attempt one last attack against the Science Team and the only way out is a portal on the opposite side from where everyone is. Gordon quickly yells at everyone to get through the portal while he shoots at the creatures of Xen to keep them back and give the rest of the Science Team cover.

It works in saving the rest of the team. However once the last member is through, Gordon attempts to escape as well but he’s just a tad too slow. The portal collapses. Gordon’s on the wrong side of it. He’s stuck on Xen with no idea how to get out.

Gordon has to survive on Xen and search for another way out, though he’s not even sure if there is one. The remaining members of the Science Team work on getting Gordon back. Gordon avoids the creatures of Xen as much as he can butttt eventually he gets noticed and cornered.

Cue Benrey, who is very much not dead and not looking his usual self.

Benrey’s pissed. See, Benrey is actually from Xen but he really doesn’t like it there. He’s known as their ‘Champion’ but isn’t quite treated like a person all the time, more like a weapon that Xen can use to their advantage, which Benrey hates and it was the whole reason he left in the first place. Gordon destroying the ‘passports’ were his tethers to Earth and now he’s stuck on Xen too.

Benrey saves Gordon from getting killed by the creatures of Xen but less out of the goodness of his heart (though there’s still some sentiment there) and more because A: He doesn’t want to be alone, and more pressingly, B: Gordon’s stuck too and it’s easier to find a solution with help rather than alone. Reluctant allies who are still bitter at each other but do deep down care about each other and bond over time and eventually actually become pretty close, anyone?

It’s an AU I’m gonna have a lot of fun with. Benrey can change his shape and can essentially gain features of different Xen Aliens (I.E. lots of eyes like Peeper Puppies/Houndeyes, Can turn his tongue into a ‘Rope’ like Barnacles, Etc.) but he kinda likes acting human because he’s fond of Earth so that’s kinda his whole deal.

As for CYWO Benrey, hoo boy, he has some issues.

CYWO stands for Claw Your Way Out which is both the name of the AU and of the Fic I plan to write and for good reason. The idea is that Post-Game, while Benrey does actually die for a while and everyone else is moving on with their lives, Benrey doesn’t want to be dead. He’s pissed as hell in fact. So, like the title suggests, Benrey quite literally claws his way out of the Afterlife and back into reality.

Only problem is that since last time he died, he was in Boss Mode, he’s still pretty messed up and low key not out of that mode so he takes on a more monstrous form with claws and low key kinda werewolf-y? (He’s big, he’s fluffy, he moves on all fours type of thing). He finds it hard to communicate at first, only being able to express himself via Sweet Voice and just spits out a WHOLE LOT of White (White means he’s not alright).

Forzen finds him on accident as Benrey kinda ends up in an alleyway with no idea where he is or what’s going on and only vague memories at first but he recognizes Forzen. They used to be best friends- he can trust him. And Forzen is veryyyy confused what’s going on with Benrey but his bro needs help so of course he’s going to help. (Since he lives with Darnold, he has to call him and be like, “uh yeah so I found Benrey and he’s not looking good, can I bring him home?” And kinda takes Darnold way off guard because last he checked, Forzen was supposed to be getting groceries, what happened?? But he can’t in good conscience just leave Benrey in the alleyway so he says it’s okay and Forzen guides Benrey back to their apartment).

Benrey stays with Forzen and Darnold while he recovers and he actually starts to regain his previous form. He takes a humanoid shape again, he’s losing his multiple eyes each day and slowly getting closer to his usual two, and while his clawed (and kinda fluffy) hands aren’t really gone yet, it’s progress!! Benrey’s almost looking himself again.

Then one day, Benrey decides he needs fresh air and leaves the house for the first time in a while. And he runs directly into Gordon. Almost instantly all of that progress is gone and he’s back to looking absolutely monstrous as Gordon is not happy to see him.

Don’t want to spoil too much but it pretty much spawned from me going, “Hey so what if I took one of those ‘Benrey came back from the dead post-game’ classic ideas and instead he came back really fucked up and pissed off?” And ran with it. I haven’t been able to work on physically writing the main Fic of it but I had Forzen thoughts and specifically made a little character study of him called ‘Frozen and watching as the world passes by’ that kinda acts as a prequel to how Forzen is characterized and a rough idea of what is relationship to Benrey is in the main story.

But yEah! That’s some of the basic information on those two! Xen Bound specifically is one of my favorites I’m not gonna lie-

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

I.T. & Grace Monroe (Again) Chat

Thank you for such a great response! I can’t every imaging the suspense waiting a week for each episode! Lemme tell you the first season I was annoyed with tulip but understood when she was used to expose the trains true meaning /use. MT/Lake story was equally annoying but I appreciated how they used her brattiness to reenforce the methods of the train. What seems impossible to handle in real life becomes more palatable on the train...it brakes it down into bite sized pieces for the passengers to understand and consume. It’s a vr problem solving machine(who would want that). But the major flaw becomes visible to me, by the end of season 1, adults do not fair as well as kids. Amelia did not fair well, her mind was so fixed on the outcome she wanted, that she overlooked any lessons from the train. She forced a square peg into a round hole and her numbers started rising. When she ran into Grace as a child even though is seems like a brief interaction, Grace was already primed to become another Amelia. Her background of affluence, she knows exactly how adults change the world around them to their liking. She already knew the game to be played, so seeing someone with power and influence in that train car , save her, control the enviroment (like her parents would) and have the most numbers she knew what to do. I think she was there to learn not to live to please others, not to feel abandoned and powerless, that not all attention and power is good, that she can stand alone in safety. When she met Simon, she was right back to her old behaviors. What was sad is that by the last episode of that season you know that his real life situation was full of hate and abuse. Grace fell into her enabler and Simon thought he found a mirror. They trauma bonded. It looked like he even developed romantic feelings for her. Still every chance the train sent her to learn those lessons she literally did that opposite of what she wanted. She did what she and Simon agreed to do, Simon looked like he was the mastermind behind all of the Apex rules. I can imagine them trying to figure out how their gang would run with Simon saying something and Grace agreeing then adding to it. I bet Simon felt judged, inferior and misunderstood in real life, because he just could not adapt to seeing Grace form a bond with Hazel and Tuba. The fact that his numbers were decreasing along with Grace’s at one point due to him following her lead was a telling, he was there to learn to find and accept the similarities with the train’s life forms (sorry I forget what they called them) and to build a found family based on that. His attacks on Grace were so brutal, he went to the cat with intent to find something to make Grace fall back inline, to force her back into his ideal world. He rallied the Apex kids to turn against her. He couldn’t even accept the conductor, the ‘god’ of his reality when he met her he just wanted what all adults wanted on that train, to make his world his way. So many adults do this, it’s got to be the reason the train exists right? Catch them as kids, teach them how to find the solution to their problems and send them back into the real world to teach others. Like a gigantic roomba for mental health issues lol. I didn’t expect that Simon wouldn’t make it but there was no way he would have ever left that train on his own. Grace was his way off, and I think he knew that deep down. Makes you wander just how bad his life was, or if he just had an untreated psychosis. Grace’s relationship with Hazel and Tuba became stronger the moment she accepted what she wanted and not what was good for the gang. The years that passed and the numbers that accumulated were undone in a few weeks by that bond, and Simon was watching his world crumble right before his eyes. I really love watching interracial couples on screen, and it’s been great to see how they made Grace and Simon. BwWm (or any combo of black and white or biracial) relationships don’t all have to be racism struggle or forbidden love. It can be as unique as this, scared kids in a new environment. Love it!

You know, to be frank, I shipped this as a ship before it became a season. Whenever I saw them last time, I was like, “Well, they seem cute n’ cozy.” Then, of course, whenever they were revealed to be a hate group, I was like... Well... I hope we find out more because I definitely fucking feel a way about them now. I don’t have very good history with hate groups. My activism hasn’t allowed it, my hometown didn’t allow it - I just have too many bad experiences with hate groups and so since I was reading them as such, my main purpose of watching their season was to see how the train was going to help to change them.

I honestly was like, “Ship be damned,” by the time we got to 6-8 and was just hoping for maybe some friendship building and growth together as better humans. Like. I could care less about a ship on just about any given day (which is why even whenever “my ships” fall apart (and mine always involve Black girls, so that’s like a what 98% failure rate, just because creators never like to see Black girls or women happy anyway), I’m usually fine with it not taking place IF the girl is in a good place and/or there aren’t hella people around her all boo’d up while she’s the strong single. Shadowhunters, looking at y’all bitch ass with a hard side-eye. You as well, Glee. You as well, Battlestar Gallactica and True Blood... Y’all killed the bitches for really no reason. ANYWAYS, I was fine with them not being a ship if it meant growth...

I was shocked that he died, but I also didn’t feel as hurt as I would have had he not done EVERYTHING in his goddamn power to overthrow and murder this girl. Because, I had to repeatedly be like, “This dude is technically a goddamn child,” but then again, so is she. They never grew up in any healthy environment, and I ABSOLUTELY envision Apex creation and building exactly as you did. See, it’s something we got as older Black women looking at this story that the girls just be missing. The signs were so obvious to me that he was the muscle and she was the face, but a lot of people were extremely convinced that she had somehow strong armed this poor, innocent boy into her belief system, even though she literally was always the one with the soft voice.

They read this as manipulation a lot, and perhaps because I’ve been in situations where I knew, “If I don’t charm this person, it is gonna be a very bad day, indeed,” I just didn’t read her actions as harmful. I didn’t see her using her charms to get someone killed or anything dangerous. Only to cheer him up when he was moody, get him to go along with something that wasn’t bad for him at all, etc. So, I mean, whatever, if it’s manipulation, oh well. We do it on a daily basis in the real world whenever we try to let folk down gently as to not get shot on the side of the road, so I’m never jumping to any conclusion that any girl, especially not a Black girl is manipulating somebody without actual evidence, which, I saw none of. She was labeled as his motivation for being a villain from the moment she appeared, so the petty Black fangirl in me rejoiced that canon shot that all straight to hell, and then I received icing on the cake when she not only did not die, but got a redemption arc? YASSSSS BITCH. GIVE MAMA MY THANGS!

I’ve seen a few “fix it fics” and AU’s, but only reading a few of them. I didn’t need anything fixed. I’m just enjoying a little side content (as best as i can anyways. I generally check out if anybody feels like they about to rewrite to go ahead and try to make Grace look responsible for any of that boy’s shit. That fuels my wrath. Because, people really think that they only do shit like this theoretically with fiction, but you not gon’ make me believe that the same people who want to overlook Grace’s trauma, and the way that Simon intentionally harmed her, or downplay her guts to face him head on and try to speak to him about changing and being wrong and not even attack him? (Which, tbh could have been because it’s her instinctual response to protect and care for him, because she’s been doing it since they met and also, nobody is convincing me that he *changed* into this person. That person was always there and Grace had to manipulate his ass into staying docile), but to try to take away that aspect of the story, which is super important to escaping abuse, escaping cults, and building up self - I can’t commit to stories like that. Those are the same people I equate with the people that my ex was COMPLETELY right about whenever he told me that people were always gonna believe him over me because he’s white, smart, and nice. And if we’re being 100, they don’t have to be all three to get people rally behind them while they literally try to hurt and kill you.

So, I just appreciated that the story rallied around the right one and that they didn’t make any room for for blaming his target, although fans will lie and say that they did. That’s just the regular degular misogynoir coming out to play. After leaving a situation in real life with someone like this and having SO MANY GODDAMN PEOPLE try to tell me how the fuck I was wrong, I don’t have patience for that shit. Honestly, if a roach dog monster could have melted and disintegrated Josh, I’d have had a fucking party. And maybe Josh was emotionally and mentally stunted and still a boy dealing with trauma, so that’s where my gray area comes in. It’s like, it’s sad that he chose not to change, but also like, had he been real and did what he did, I definitely would say he should die and not feel bad about that. So, gross scene, but I haven’t a lot of sorrow about it, either. He didn’t give ME much room to feel that bad for him, personally.

Girl, I’ve talked more about Infinity Train on this blog than any other series. Lol. 

[gills-corn]

The water running down Ligaya's hands turn reddish-brown. The tang of blood still lingers in her mouth but she allows herself to breathe. She could just easily wash that down with water. Bloodied palms are more damning, more dangerous, but God be damned if she didn't feel something course through her body as she fled the scene.

"You're home?" a groggy voice asks behind her.

Ligaya starts and smacks her hand on the sink but it's just Anita, looking ruffled, her hair and clothes windswept and there are traces of blood on her mouth and clothes.

Ligaya relaxes her shoulder and beckons the other woman to join her, clicking her tongue. "You have blood all over."

Snorting, Anita nudges Ligaya with her hip, grinning up at her. There's something in Anita's eyes as she flicks her gaze throughout her face, eventually settling on Ligaya's lips. Ligaya feels her heart stop.

"Having a few droplets of blood wouldn't put me in danger, Li," Anita whispers, her breath practically fanning Ligaya's face.

"You should still be very careful," Ligaya replies, as gently as the other girl.

The flickering of the oil lamp casts shadows on Anita's already sunken face but Ligaya is still hopelessly staring at her face as if it's the last thing she'll do. It's painful and pointless - this has been going on for fifty years, would she let herself crumble now?

"Anything for you," Anita replies with a wink.

Her tongue darts around her mouth, wiping off the excess blood. Ligaya, despite the abundance of blood in her system, feels like she could faint.

She takes a step back, picking up the pieces left from her shattered sanity, like a loon gluing back pieces of a broken vase. There's no saving her - she and Anita both, really - but she could pretend. She has gotten pretty proficient at that. Still, Ligaya is not a good actress. And Anita is too smart for her own good. Ligaya, despite not wanting to take her eyes off her friend, turns around and busies herself with a empty mug.

"So, who did you - "

"Eat?" Anita supplies, turning on the faucet.

Ligaya hears the water run before promptly nodding. "Don't forget to use soap."

"Fine," Anita grumbles.

Ligaya doesn't know how she still complains - half a century of doing this should be routine to Anita by now.

"I, uh, had a little excursion with Dominador - I think his last name is Tan? I'm not so sure," Anita answers, her voice a little too light.

Ligaya could hear the grin in her voice and she feels her chest clamp up. Stupid, stupid.

"And you ate him afterwards?" Ligaya asks, immediately having the courage to turn around and face Anita, who is now wiping her hands hastily on her skirt.

"Ligaya, darling, eating him was the excursion," Anita says, pursing her lips. "Are you suggesting - "

"Well, how was I supposed to know?" Ligaya exclaims, throwing her hand in the air. "I still don't know how you get these men alone and feast on their blood."

Anita smiles up at her, the type that makes Ligaya weak on the knees. She just scoffs and leans against the wall of their cramped kitchen, pulling out a lone cigarette from the pocket of her shorts.

"I have my techniques and you have yours," Anita replies. "Let's just say both of us are pretty good at what we do."

Sighing, Ligaya rolls her eyes and strolls towards the lamp, where she dangles the end of her cigarette at the flame and waits for it to light. Anita's right - while she's more of a femme fatale (a title Anita so rightfully claimed when she learned the word, referring to herself as such while Ligaya wanted to tear her hair out of her head), Ligaya's more of a 'corner-a-person-in-a-dark-street-and-literally-suck-the-life-out-of-them' kind of person. However differing their methods may be, they make it work. They feed, they survive, they push on as 'normal people', whatever that means. They constantly move places, for fear of being tracked down or seen as the death rates keep rising. They live. And living is more than enough for Ligaya, even if that means losing Anita to another man every single night.

She takes a drag and puffs it on Anita's face. Shame. Doesn't even do anything to mar her looks. Ligaya bites down a laugh as the other woman coughs gently, waving her hand around the air.

"Li, not funny," Anita remarks, sliding off the counter.

"We're virtually immortal, Ani. Besides, it's - it makes me destress," Ligaya answers, watching Anita bustle around the kitchen.

For whatever reason, Anita always scarf down 'human food' after eating literal humans. She says hunting is physically draining. Ligaya wouldn't know. All she does is wait in silence and try her best to not move but she always prepares something for Anita, or at least buy her something from the store. Because she's such a good friend, who may or may not have been following Anita like a lovesick teenager for the better part of the century.

"There's food in the fridge. From McDonald's," Ligaya answers, as casually as she can.

Anita pouts as she wrenches the door open, pulling out a slightly damp container. "I prefer Jollibee."

"Take what you can get, asshole," Ligaya mutters, inhaling another puff of smoke.

"Fine. Ooh, chicken!"

"So," Ligaya asks, watching Anita swallow down fried chicken like a starved dog, which is supposed to be disgusting but instead she finds incredibly endearing, "where did you dump the body?"

"Details, details," Anita answers, barely coherent with her mouth stuffed with food as she waves around a chicken bone. "I just placed him. . . somewhere."

"Jesus Christ," Ligaya groans.

"Hoy! Do not use His name in vain, remember?" Anita reprimands, making a quick sign of the cross with the chicken dangling on her hand.

"Anita, we literally kill and consume actual, live human beings. If hell were real, we'd be in it by now."

Anita lets out a cackle of laughter, something that kids in their town said resembled that of a witch. Well. Look where they are now.

"You sound like my mother. The oil lamp doesn't help. We have an emergency lamp, Li. We're not in 1950 anymore."

"Eh, I like this better," Ligaya says, gesturing to the lamp hanging near the kitchen sink. "Besides, I love the smell of kerosene."

"Of course you do."

There's no hint of malice in Anita's words - it was almost fond, tender - but Ligaya would prefer them to be that, anything else than what gives Ligaya cascades of something strange at the pit of her stomach.

Ligaya stubs out her cigarette with the tips of her fingers, which Anita once said was cool (Ligaya wore it like a badge of honor, like she would never accomplish anything better than extinguishing fire with her various body parts). As the smoke dies out, the electricity flickers back on. She almost misses the way how the orange blaze of the fire made Anita look in the dark but it doesn't really matter - in whichever lighting, Anita always manages to disarm Ligaya, over and over again. It's pathetic.

"You have work tomorrow?" Anita asks.

"Yeah. My manager says that I'm his 'favorite employee of the month', whatever that means."

"Ooh, maybe you can get to take him."

"Or maybe he's being a total creep."

"Your point does make more sense, not going to lie," Anita says. "You heading to bed soon?"

"I'm still too worked up to sleep. I can still feel the guts of the lady I ate earlier inside my stomach."

Anita snickers, in a tone-down version of that laugh of hers, and presses a kiss on Ligaya's cheekbones, light as a feather. Ligaya feels like she could melt onto the floor of their kitchen as Anita walks to her bedroom, her footsteps getting heavier and heavier with each step, clearly tired. For whatever reason, Anita was always a morning person, not even after this whole thing happened to them.

Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Ligaya sighs as she leans her head against the wall, too hopeless, too dumb, too in-love. She wants to bash her head against the wall and die but she doesn't want Anita to see that image, however often they see dead people.

Anita and Ligaya are far from normal but Ligaya tries to be. She's just your usual young woman in the city trying to go through day-to-day, despite of the fact that she turns into an actual monster at the stroke of midnight. In a way, her pining over her best friend, makes her feel grounded, makes her feel more humane in some way. She knows others don't consider her as human, but if loving and hurting are all just part of the human condition, then she'd be the most perfect human to ever exist on the planet.

She's just Ligaya, a seventy-five year old in the body of someone fifty years younger, a waitress at a restaurant, has some sort of nicotine dependance, eats people on the side, hopelessly in love with another woman with the enticing dark eyes and sickening grin. Human or not, she decides, she's still living - whatever living is, she still isn't quite sure, but she has an idea. Living is what things in this world are meant to do and it's what fuels Ligaya every day.

"Hey, can you go to bed?" Anita suddenly says as she emerges from her bedroom, her face groggy and her body swamped with a huge set of pyjamas she might have stolen from a victim.

Ligaya thinks that she's still too beautiful, too close to perfection.

"Why?"

"I can't stay up thinking that you're not sleeping."

"I said, we're im - "

Anita sighs. "I know. Just - go to sleep? Please?"

Ligaya, like every other living creature, is a fool. And, sorry to Anita's Catholic guilt, God be damned if she isn't the biggest fool on the planet.

She nods and follows the other woman to their shared bedroom. Tomorrow's another challenge, she thinks, but tonight, she's going to let herself let loose, like her wings against the midnight sky when she's feeling ravenous for blood.

[ziracona]

So last night I wound up reading Amanda's wiki and It made me kind of sad for her, because it very much sounds like she was suffering from stockholme syndrome of a kind there, to me, atleast. Which makes me wonder, what do you think of the pig/amanda? What's your Amanda like in your stories? Do you think she had any potential for redemption (with A LOT of work)? I guess I just wanna hear your thoughts on her character because ur always rly good at it?? - Sleepy

Yeah, whoever wrote the Saw wiki loves Amanda and hates Hoffman and it’s genuinely hilarious. They make a lot of assumptions (like that her motive for killing Adam after he won his game was mercy killing, which is a throughly unconfirmed opinion), and use the most sympthetic & extreme language possible. I’ve watched all the Saw films, and as a character, Amanda is a very enjoyable villain, but as a person? She’s a truly awful human being. (Side note—this typed last— So, mentioning certain Saw characters sends me flying into a rage like a D&D berserker, so this is gonna get angry as hell, but 0 of it is at you. I love you. This is at the Jigsaw squad. WHO I FUCKING HATE. Ahem. Anyway. Felt like the level of unbridled and sudden fury needed a heads up lol.) It’s not Stockholm syndrome. In Saw one, she’s a victim who is put in a reverse beartrap and forced to either die, or cut the key out of the stomach of a paralyzed by drugs but very alive (which she knew) other kidnap victim, whom she cut open and killed. After enduring that trauma and barely surviving, she immediately accepted John’s offer to join him. She was not forced, she was not tricked. He asked, and because she wanted to feel special and important, she agreed to inflict suffering she knew goddamn well the horrible level of on others first hand, and went willingly. She is self-centered to her core, and became dependent on and infatuated with John, and obsessed with his approval. She kidnapped Adam and Lawrence with him, who were kidnapped for fuckall reason (literally John just thought photography was pathetic) and for almost cheating on his wife (lol this was John’s ‘stated’ reason—his real reason was John is the world’s pettiest bitch, and Lawrence was the doctor who told him he had cancer. I’m not fkn kidding he’s that level of petty self-absorbed, self-righteous bastard) respectively. Then killed Adam after he won his game, which should have given him freedom but John reneged on like he always does like the pissy little bitch he is, Amanda killed him for reasons up to speculation. However, given John usually tests people who win a second time or tries to get them to join or some bullshit, it’s more plausible to assume her motive was seeing him as a threat than that it was mercy killing, and it’s only stated in-film to be an emotion based decision, not her actual movtive. Everyone’s opinion on this action is just that—opinion. With varying degrees of factual basis behind the educated level of educated guess.

In Saw 2, she helps John kidnap a bunch of drug addicts like herself who all got false arrests by the same officer at one time or another, along with a poor fucking 15 year old whose crime is having that cop for a dad. She then spent the next two hours watching people whose only crime was drug use, like herself, die horribly of organ deterioration, knowing at any time she could have stopped it and saved them all because she knew how to get the antidotes. Bitch even holds one girl in her arms and stokes her head and pretends to care about her while she hacks up deteriorated lung and blood and fucking dies, when at any moment she could have chosen to let her live. Literally no one should be more sympathetic to them than her. She knows how addicted to drugs feels, and the help you need. Anyway, she doesn’t, she lets them die and plays with them, and then when it’s to her, the 15 year old—who multiple times saves or helps her when hurt by other participants, and is nothing but kind—and one other man, the man shows up to kill her to get an antidote, and the poor fucking 15 year old child kills him with a saw to save her, traumatizing himself to a breakdown afterwords, and instead of being even thankful, she attacks and knocks him out, ties him up and attaches an oxygen tank so he won’t suffocate, and locks him in a fucking like tiny ass safe to be a game piece for another trial and leaves him there. His dad, who admittedly needs to serve jail time but isn’t a fucking murderer at least & does love his son, shows up distraught looking for his kid he’s afraid is dead, and she sneak attacks and takes him down, then leaves him chained up in a nasty lost bathroom to starve slowly to death, and doesn’t even do him the decency of telling him his kid isn’t dead. When he breaks his foot to get free and comes hobbling wounded after her, she sneak attacks again and he nearly wins, but she fucks up his broken foot and starts to leave, then comes back and beats him (she thinks) to death becuase he said she would never be Jigsaw, and she’s that petty and proud. Kid never gets to know what happened to his dad, and even alive, will definitely die young from the complications one, you know, gets from almost dying of chemical organ deterioration.

In Saw 3, the main victim is a man whose kid was lost in a hit and run. Jigsaw has Amanda kidnap his wife because she’s a surgeon and also was once not as sympathetic as he thought she should be when talking to him about his cancer at the hospital (I’m not even fucking exaggerating—side note, I will beat John Kramer to death myself with my huge fucking meat fists and laugh as I watch his bones crumble to dust). This poor bitch just lost a kid, then separated from her husband because he was a fucking mess consumed with revenge against the poor college kid who accidentally hit his son & totally withdrew from the world, and she wakes up with a collar filled with shotgun shells basically a 360 gun blow off your head collar deal on, and Amanda wheeling her around in the wheelchair she’s tied to. They tell her if she keeps John alive until the person being tested finishes his test, she can go free. The whole movie, Amanda keeps trying to convince John to kill the poor woman even though she complies just because she’s a throughly selfish, petty, conceited, self-pitying bastard with no regard for others, and wants this “Bitch” to die for fun. She feels she’s a threat for John’s attentions, and John isn’t even romantically inclined toward her, but she’s obsessed and doesn’t care. Amanda decides between Saws 2 and 3 that people aren’t fixable—even though she herself was supposedly “helped” by her Jigsaw game and this is hypocritical as fuck—and just starts straight up fucking torture murdering for fun. To the point even John thinks she has to be stopped. Like if John fucking Kramer thinks you’ve gone to far? Jesus help you because no one else can. She still does the torture, but instead of like, chopping off your own hand with a paring knife and getting to live, you chop it off and then still slowly get your head crushed between two beams being screwed closer and closer together. She kills Kerry for fuckall reason except she wants to (Kerry is a detective who did jack shit wrong—she was just on the case. It’s utter bullshit). Kidnaps her, straps a thing with hooks in her ribs that will tear out her rib cage when a timer runs out, and kill her that way, and had her hung up above the ground tied by chains, and tells her if she burns her hand up in a bottle of acid to get the key at the bottom which is hard period in the suit—never mind losing the hand—she can live. And Kerry fucking does, ruins her hand, unlocks the lock, and the suit won’t come off becuase the cunt rigged it. Then Amanda shows up to watch her die for fun just to smile smugly at her and watch her fear. Because she’s a fucking soulless, sadistic, evil, self-centered, self-important asshole.

Obsessed dad let’s a fucking bystander whose only crime was seeing a hit and run and running off freeze to death stripped naked and sprayed with water in a freezer slowly, saves a judge who gave too weak a sentence to the hit and run kid after the man begs, and then lets the poor fucking college kid who did it and already feels awful get his arms twisted till they snap off, legs twisted till the same, and then his head twisted around back so far it twist snap kills him. The rack is fucking beyond inhumane death. Amanda monitors this while threading Lynn (the poor doctor lady) for fun and crying over poow wittwe John who is dying of cancer (thank you god for doing what we couldn’t), and being miserable. Eventually, Hoffman sends her a letter saying if she doesn’t kill Lynn, he’ll tell John that she was one of the people there to steal drugs the night his wife got injured and miscarried (he probably already knew 🙄), and becuase Amanda cares about nothing more than Amanda, she fucking monolgauges at John about how special and sad she is how he needs to fix her and she’s a murderer but she doesn’t care because you know—she’s depressed : ( so she gets a pass for her self she’s UwU sad so her poor little crisis can have a massive torture body count bc she’s that special UwU and why is Lynn not gonna die even though she did her job!??? So unfair! No one changes kill them all but tell me I’m special I’m symapthetic because I’m sad and that makes it fun for me to tear people’s ribs out :’( —and then she fucking shoots Lynn becuase she cares less about an innocent woman’s life than the potential for John to be mad at her :’-( you know—such symapthetic stuff! And then John is like “Ok then fkn die :’(“ and Jeff/unstable dad/Lynn’s husband runs in and shoots her and then kills John.

Anyway! I fucking hate Amanda with a passion, and John. I cannot stand humans who hurt each other for fun, especially when they target those who most need help. But above all I cannot abide a person who is a sadistic, selfish, wholly self-absorbed fuck of a human, and refuses to take any responsibility for their actions or admit how fucking bad they are and has the goddamn nerve to act like a victim. Like if you’re going to be an evil son of a bitch, at least have the decency to admit it. If you’re a self-pitying “im uwu special and sad and better and more important than everyone else” —double points for “& becuase I am attractive I can get away with being a soulless shit without any being held accountable” from fandom or the media itself, tripple if from both—? I will kill you myself. I will rip out your eyes and chew on them. I will kill my self on a bomb to take you too. I will chew off my left arm for the sole purpose of getting to beat you to death with it. The wiki writer bends over back so bad they’re gonna need a brace the rest of their life to make her sound sympthetic, but they’re just a fan. She’s not. At all. She doesn’t have Stockholm, and I see people say “she got manipulated and used : (“ all the time, but without fail so far it’s people who think she’s hot and just want a reason to stan that because somehow a hot white woman with short hair even if canonically infatuated with John Kramer is somehow both a lesbian, and excusable for every horrible torture murder she ever did to feel uwu special in her depressed sad times. She wasn’t manipualated. It happened fast, she wasn’t courted into it, and she didn’t even hesitate to say yes. He offered her an out, made sure she was serious, and she stayed. And then she escalated to the point John took her out to stop her, because it was worse than what he wanted to do. I enjoyed her as a villain but as a person I fucking hate Amanda, and don’t really want to see her get another chance. Bastard doesn’t deserve one. I can’t say there’s no continuum in which she could never improve or be redeemed becuase who the fuck knows, and I like to think there’s a smidgen of hope for anyone, but that said, I do think the more evil you willfully do, the more you lose your humanity, and you can hit a point there’s just no person left. So. Anyway, hah, I don’t think she’s redeemable and frankly don’t want her redeemed. I want to burn her to death myself if I have to die that way too. Also! This was a wildly angry answer but none of it is directed at you. That wiki writer does make her sound symapthetic, I’ve read the wiki too—just I go into a blind rage any time John or Amanda is even mentioned and it takes me a half hour to come back down. I fly into a rage. If I ever go into anaphylactic shock, all a friend has to do is start mentioning the names of Saw villains and my adrenaline will start pumping like jet fuel and I’ll be fine. I just have a whole lot of righteously just rage at horrible awful self-righteous self-absorbed malicious manipulative dehumanizing self-pity bastards who take 0 responsibility for their evil or admit it, and Amanda & John are two at the way top of that rage list. It’s a dark but powerful headspace when I think of them. I become very powerful...but also very enraged. Lol, anyway, here’s the breakdown you didn’t need, but it is throrough!

[shekorla]

Linked Universe and Magnus Archives

So, I really love Linked Universe, and I also really love the podcast Magnus Archives. I decided to try and see which fears fit each link. I tried to see which fear would haunt them, not which one they would be an avatar for, might do that later. In other words which of the fears would be the one that keeps them up at night and sneaks in to eat at the edges of their mind. If you are seeing this because you love Magnus, check out linked universe here, it’s a cool Legend of Zelda AU with all the links traveling together. If you are seeing this because of LU check out the Magnus Archives here (or literally any place you can get podcasts), its an awesome horror podcast made by rusty quill gaming. If horror isn’t your cup of tea check out their other stuff too, they've got a lot of cool stuff. The list ended up being pretty long, so I’ll put it under the cut.

·       Time-The Web. The web is the fear of being controlled, it’s the fear of being trapped with no escaped. I chose the web for time because I saw a connection to The Mother of Puppets. With his masks particularly the fierce deity mask and the possible loss of control and insanity that comes with the power that it gives. He saw what the power of Majora’s mask did to skull kid and fears that the same will happen to him. Not only that but Majora set up a lot of tricks for him and more or less used him as a plaything. After being used and thrown away by Hyrule when they needed a hero, not great. He tried his best and went through hell to live up to destiny and follow the path set for him by fate and by the sword and then he was told to forget anything ever happened and go back to being a kid. So, I think that the fear that would fit him best would be the web, particularly The Mother of Puppets side of it. I think that the fear of not being in control of anything in his life or losing control to some force out there would be something big for him.

·       Four- The Lonely. The lonely is the fear of being alone. It is the fear that you are alone, no one cares for you, and you will always be alone. This one isn’t as deep as some of the others, I think four’s biggest fear is being alone. He has lost Ezlo, then he lost shadow, and in a way lost his four parts. I think he is afraid that one day he will be all alone without his parts, or any of his friends.

·       Twilight- The Hunt. The hunt is the fear of being hunted, it is about the thrill of the chase, violence, and the victory of the final kill. I think that twilight fears that when he turns into a wolf he will lose himself. He’s never had that problem before, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. I think twilight is afraid of losing himself to the thrill of the hunt and end up hurting someone he cares about. On the other side of the coin, he has also been hunted. When he was first turned into a wolf he was chased out of his village by people he considered family. To top it off questing to save Hyrule and being hunted by monsters is never good for one’s sanity.

·       Wild-The End. This one may seem weird because the end is the fear of death and wild is an adrenaline junky who can literally come back from the dead. but I think that his death and failure to save Hyrule the first time around haunts him. I think that some part of him deep down is afraid of dying, and what his death will mean for Hyrule. I don’t think he is afraid of the pain of dying, but the end of life, does something come after, if so what, what will happen to Hyrule without its hero. I think that there may also be a part of him that fears that he can’t die, whether that means that the world won’t let him die, or that he physically cannot die no matter what. What if he is forced to live on and watch as everything he worked for crumbles before him.

·       Legend-The Web. So, Legend was really hard to pick just one fear for Legend, there were multiple that could have worked. I almost chose the spiral, which is the fear of madness and nothing being real, because of his experience on Koholint, and the thought that maybe nothing is real and it’s all just a dream. In the end, I decided on the web because the kid has been on something like 6 quests and it probably seems that he will never get to rest. Not only that but with traveling with the other links he must have learned from Hyrule that all his work was for nothing, in the end Ganon came back. So, I think the web is the fear that haunts him, the fear that no matter what he is trapped by destiny to fight, loose people, and do it all over again until he dies. And it will all be for nothing.

·       Warrior-The Slaughter. The slaughter is the fear of war, violence, and killing. It’s not about the chase like The Hunt is, and it is very much about human death, unlike The Flesh which is very animalistic. I picked the slaughter for Warrior because you don’t just walk off leading an army through a war, and having to kill your own men when they turn traitorous without some kind of permanent backlash. I think that sometimes he is afraid that he is nothing but a mindless killing machine lost in the violence of war. I mean in the games you kill about 1,000 enemies a level, most of the time more, that’s probably more then you might kill in the entirety of some of the other games. I think the mindless brutality of war haunts him.

·       Wind-The Eye. The eye is the fear of being watched, it is the fear that someone out there knows all of the secrets you would rather hide. I don’t think Wind has a lot of secrets to hide, he’s pretty open, and freely tells stories about most things. But I don’t think he likes being watched. In his first quest he was being watched and judged by the gods, to see if he was worthy of the title of hero. Then when battling the phantoms even the smallest millisecond of being spotted could mean death. He has a lot to live up to with the eyes of everyone in the past looking at him. I think that keeps him up at night, trying to live up to everyone’s expectations and fill the shoes of the mythical Hero of Time.

·       Sky-The Spiral. I don’t think the madness aspect of the spiral would really get to Sky, he seems to be pretty grounded, but the corridors are an entity of the spiral. I don’t remember if that is what it is called, but whatever Michael is. The endless hallways full of doors that trap people. I think this works for Sky because I think that he fears being endlessly trapped chasing something. He spent a lot of time chasing Zelda, and I think that he blames himself for not catching up with her and helping her sooner. His low stamina doesn’t help. He was also too slow to stop demise, which lead to all of the others being cursed. So, I picked the spiral for him because I think he has nightmares of running and running and never quite being able to catch whatever it is, no matter how far he travels.

·       Hyrule-The Flesh. I had the opposite problem with Hyrule that I had with Legend. To me, he seems like a guy that doesn’t let anything hold him back and doesn’t hold on to trauma. The flesh is usually a fear only associated with animals and has to do with slaughter and butchery. This may seem a bit out of place for Hyrule, but if you think about the events of Zelda 2 he spends the entire game being hunted like an animal for his blood. I almost used the hunt for this, but they are specifically after his blood which I feel plays into the animalistic nature of the flesh very well. I considered giving him the lonely, but then I realized I don’t think he fears being alone. For him being alone is the norm, maybe after spending time with the other links and going back home the pain of being alone may hit him, but I think for the most part he doesn’t fear being alone because he doesn’t realize he is alone. he doesn’t realize that most people spend most of their day surrounded by others.

These are just my thoughts feel free to share yours if you think I got one of them wrong, let me know. I’m always open to constructive criticism or just to hear your thoughts. I might make some art for these later, or make a list of the avatars that they would each be. I don’t know stay tuned.

[i-can-do-tricks]

deltarune aus?? in MY blog????

it's more likely than you think

@deltashuffle cool au belonge to @manycats and is FANTASTIC so I did something. bye

Tap-pat-tap-pat.

You walk quickly through this strange world of darkness, still not quite sure if this is all real or not.

You weren’t sure where the robes you’re wearing now came from or perhaps where your normal overalls went, but at least they’re comfy.

Lancer, your best friend, skips behind you, his short second tongue lollygagging back and forth out of his mouth.

He didn’t seem to be put off at all by the gloves and armor and cloak and hood and the ridiculously short knives on his belt that he had found himself in, all of which looked very silly on his dough lump of a body. He seemed to be more taken in by the colorful surroundings the Dark World offered.

You almost wish that you’d stop and appreciate the surroundings, too.

Oh well. Such is the way of the vessel.

Lancer shouts before you see it.

“Look, Ralsei! Over there!”

A castle loomed in the distance to the left.

…Or maybe it’s just really small for a castle.

The Angel took the time to save at the pond in front of the entrance before you and Lancer went in.

As you walk up the stairs, a voice calls out to you.

“Welcome, heroes. (Finally.)”

A figure in a flowing blue dress stands at the end of the courtyard, watching you approach.

“Hey. I’m the Princess. Now! If you don’t want me to beat the shit out of you within the next ten seconds, you’ll listen to this really boring prophecy so I can finally take off this stupid dress.”

She’s very purple and rather dinosaur-like.

Lancer turns to you, wide eyed.

“Did you hear that!? She said a tier-TWO swear word!”

The Princess frowned and turned to look at Lancer.

“Oh my God there’s a baby here. What the fuck. What do I do. What the fuck”

She picked him up. She’s Really Tall.

Lancer grinned wide. “You’re Really Tall, purple girl! Can you swear some more??”

The Princess looked at you, terrified. She really didn’t know what to do.

You would have been fine, watching for a little longer, but the Angel made guided you to remind her that she was in the middle of explaining the Prophecy.

She looked a little relieved. She hoisted Lancer under one arm and put her other arm around you, grinning with large, yellow teeth.

“Alright, alright, if you insist. The name’s Susie, Princess of Literally Nothing other than whatever the hell you want to call the empty ass excuse for a castle behind me. I’m gonna be quick with the Prophecy so listen up.

“Light. Dark. Needs to be balanced. Lightners and Darkners used to live in peace etc, Lightners = assholes and abandoned Darkners, and here we are! No grudges or anything, nah. The King of Hearts’s a total pushover. World’s gonna end, so we need a team of a Human, Monster, and any sort of Darkner royalty to save it. Neither of you are humans though, so that sucks. Guess we’ll die. Got all that? Good. ‘Cuz I’m never repeating that again.”

Susie set Lancer down before ripping her dress off and into shreds.

“God I hate this dress”

Underneath it, she wore a cool vest thing and badass spiked bracelets, among the rest of her battle gear, making both of Lancer’s jaws drop.

“Holy Mother of Clowngels that is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!!”

Susie grinned, flattered, and rubbed the back of her head.

“So, I got this friend coming over for pie, before I realized you were here and had to go talk to you. They’re supposed to be at least one of the heroes in the prophecy, I think. At least they satisfy two of the requirements. I’ll introduce you and then you’ll set off and do whatever it is you heroes are supposed to do, I guess.”

Lancer frowned a bit.

“You won’t be coming with us??”

Susie looked at him startled. “Huh? Oh, uh, it’s just I don’t really think all that hero stuff is for me, yknow.”

“NOT FOR YOU, YOU SAY?”

A voice echoed around the courtyard, and a figure on top of one of the crumbling walls swung down on a vine, promptly tripping as they hit the ground and hit their shins.

“(shit shit SHIT) GREETINGS, HEROES! I AM THE BAkhh-h-h-h-h-h” They broke off in coughing and their voice grew hoarse, probably from rehearsing this several times a day in preparation.

Susie rolled her eyes and helped them up. They were dressed in some red, heart-shaped plate armor around their body, a sort of green sidecape with a yellow stripe down the middle, and a red heart mask hiding their face.

“Jesus Krist, Kris, I told you this would happen.”

She turned them to face the two of you.

“Guys, this is my friend Kris-”

“The BAh-h-h-h-”

They attempted to shout again, but immediately broke off into coughing again.

“(The Bard, of Hearts.)” They finally finished it through a hoarse whisper, having completely lost their voice.

Lancer just grinned. “Nice to meet you, Mx. Bard! I’m Lancer, and this is my friend Ralsei!”

You bowed in greeting, knowing that the Angel couldn’t do it for you.

Kris nodded.

“(I can’t see you.)”

Susie snorted.

“That’s because you still have the mask on, dumbass.”

“(Right. Can I have some pie?)”

“No, Kris. You have to go with them to save the world or whatever. You can have some when you get back.” Susie sounded sad. Or maybe just annoyed.

“(I..thought you were coming with, Susie…)”

“I CAN’T, Kris! It’s just you, and them! I’m just supposed to die or something after I tell them the prophecy. I don’t matter anymore, if I ever did!!”

Kris was silent under the mask.

They rubbed their shins a little, then suddenly did a backflip and landed at the courtyard entrance!

“(Heroes!)” Still hoarse whispering. “(I will gladly accompany you on our journey to save our worlds. However! You must complete a series of challenges beforehand, to test your, uh…you! The first of which, will be to chase after me in the horrible Maze of Death!)

Susie rolled her eyes. “Really, Kris? That maze is so easy.”

You got the feeling they were smiling under their mask.

“(For YOU it is, because you’ve used it plenty of times. THEY don’t, so they’ll get lost!)”

Her eyes widened in sudden realization. “Wait, what the fuck, they could DIE in there! You’re going to leave them here by themselves!?”

“(I sure know you won’t do that, my dude.)”

And with that, they dashed off down the path.

“They’re so funny!” Lancer was on his back, laughing. “Will we get to see them again?”

Susie stared at him, exasperated.

“Fuck. They’re so right. I can’t leave this fucking baby here he’ll get swallowed whole”

Susie narrowed her eyes at you.

“..FINE. You. Ralsei, was it? I’m coming with you. You better not lead this baby to his death or you’re going to fucking get it, hero or not. Don’t do anything stupid, alright?”

Your heart lifts as the fanfare rings inside your head (or maybe elsewhere? You’re not sure) and the Angel guides you down the path toward the Maze of Death and your destiny.

..You kind of wanted some pie, though.

Oh well. Such is the way of the vessel.

[kurainohikaru]

Ozma/pin and Salem. The Duality of Choice: Confrontation, Complacency and the Missing Compromise Between Them.

So I felt this topic deserved it’s own separate conversation in regards to episode 3 of Volume 6. Specifically I want to talk about Salem and Ozpin, and what they and their struggle represent, at least in my opinion. If you want to hear some more of my general thoughts on the episode check out my previous post here.

SPOILERS BELOW Also TW for Slight mentioning of Suicide attempts

So let’s start with the elephant of the room and what has probably the most discourse of this episode. Who’s truly at fault? Most would probably lay that with Salem, others with Ozma, or the gods for their outward cruelty in how they handled the whims of humanity? Well I’m here to say the entire point of this episode was to show the exact opposite of this mindset. Prior to this episode many a spectator, myself included were theorizing as to whether or not ShadyOz(TM) was a morally grey good guy or had ulterior motives and was the true evil. This episode has simultaneously made the viewer feel sympathies for his plight while also expositing Salem, who prior to this point has been not much more than the evil puppet-master. She has, from the beginning, touted her respect for humankind, in their unity and resilience, and now we have a much greater understanding for the framework behind the respect of that which she is seemingly out to destroy. The Lost Fable redeems not only Ozpin but Salem as well, for they are two sides of the same coin. They are the duality of choice, Salem of confrontation and Ozpin of complacence. Let’s explore this throughout the episode, screenshots will be posted and I’d like to pay careful attention to expressions here.

This moment was the beginning of everything. Salem lost the only person she had ever known and loved and it sent her into a deep despair. Desperate to have Ozma returned to her, she ventured off to the god of light, her very first confrontation of many. Only to be told that though he could easily return him to the world, he would not, in doing so he would overwrite the delicate balance that he and his younger brother, the God of Darkness had striven to create. Now I’m sure some people already found themselves frowning at how Disney Princess-like this may feel but rationally let’s think for a moment about what this would mean for Salem.

That deep frown and tower was her life. All she ever knew was to be locked and confined within this tower, and unlike her Rapunzel counterpart, there was no happily ever after foretold in the cards that she was to expect. Yes many a warrior came to try and conquer the tower for her hand and beauty, but what does that mean to her? She knows nothing and no one outside these walls, save for the failed attempts of heroes who saw her nothing more as prize to be won and conquered. And then that all changed when a knight who came to save her because it was the right thing to do, and not because of her purported beauty.

You’d be hard pressed to tell me these two didn’t fall in love in this moment, these looks on their faces. I’d wager a guess this is the first time Salem has ever been free from the constrictive rule set by her cruel father. Salem finally had the world to explore, but the definition of her world changed, now her world was Ozma.

We all as humans have undergone the deep pit of despair that is loss. Loss of a friend, a pet, a family member, a partner. None of these losses can be compared to one another but they all lead to the pit of utter despair. And now I posit a question for you, did you ever wish you could change it? Think, “What if things had been different, if they were still here now?” I certainly have. It is a dangerous cycle and one difficult to break and Salem lives in a world where the possibility of resurrection has tangible weight of possibility behind it making that cycle even more difficult to come out of. So how does one break themselves from the self-destructive what ifs and grieving? Most would say time. Time and support. Support from the interpersonal relationships you’ve built over the course of your life and fostered into lasting friendships that will carry you through arduous times. Surely Salem could have moved on as the God of Light told her eventually? Except Salem has NO ONE.

As far as we are made aware, her family is her father who locked her up in the first place. Ozma was the ONLY person in the world she had to support her. He was ripped from her when she finally could see a road that was paving the rest of her life and it crumbled right before her eyes.

That’s not fair. That’s not fair!

And to her it really wasn’t. And I know some people will say “Life’s not fair,” and that is correct. Objectively speaking, Salem was selfish in choosing to confront him and plead for the creators of her world to take pity and bring him back.

That’s the point. After all, can you say as a human you are 100% objective and selfless, especially in a time of great trauma and desperation?

“You monsters! Give him back to me! Give him back!”

And so Salem ventured to the Realm of Darkness to plead with the younger brother of darkness, her second confrontation. She gets her wish, if only for a moment.  I won’t comment much on the actions of the God’s here, saving that for a separate post, but I will say that their inexperience and inability to understand the emotional complexities behind this situation laid the foundation for the chessboard game we know today.

I can’t possibly imagine what the hell this would do to Salem’s mental state. To literally see her love brought back and ripped away from her twice in quick succession would have been anyone’s snapping point. To have something you wanted so desperately you were willing to prostrate yourself before, and even manipulate gods to achieve, only for it to be taken from you just as quickly would be maddening.

Yes I did say manipulate. I know this post has been very Pro-Salem up until this point but that’s because personally, I don’t think she has done anything outlandish enough to be branded as pure evil as some people have been. Is she selfish and arrogant as the God of Light later says? Oh absolutely. Is that out of the ordinary for a human? Not in the slightest. Not to mention Salem has literally been locked in a tower for what we can assume is the majority of her life. Now that is not to say she is unintelligent or naive, but I imagine her social graces are lacking to the point she comes off as childish. Children are arrogant and petulant and selfish, hell most humans adults are, I don’t see Salem acting this way as bizarre at all.

The god’s respond to her manipulation by cursing her to never be able to leave the mortal realm, namely granting her immortality so that shew may never rest with her beloved Ozma. Again I won’t comment on the gods too much in this post, but that punishment seemed rather infinitely torturous. They basically made her immortal with a vague purpose of her needing to understand the delicate balance of life and death. That being said that way does not imply that she would be set free once she did. I would say current time Salem understands that balance very well, even if she uses it for her own gains and manipulative strategies, and she’s still very much immortal as we know it now.

They... were fallible.

Even if Jinn claims this was out of spite towards the gods, don’t you think it’s rather tragic that the girl in the tower, who spent her whole life wanting to see the outside world finally got it and now it’s all worthless without Ozma? That great beautiful world and she’d rather die. Maybe I’m reading too much into this scene but it really made me feel for Salem, and it’s clever given how things develop later.

The gods had hoped Salem would learn from her eternal curse. And she did. She had learned that the hearts of men are easily swayed.

Salem has resolved herself to fight the gods and rid herself from their curse, using her immortality to manipulate humankind into following her with the promise of said curse, not knowing her true goal was to rid herself of it. And so she amassed her army and made her choice to fight, her third confrontation.

And just like all the others, it didn’t end in her favor.

And once again, Salem was alone.

The gods’ retaliation was ruthless, Salem the last remnant of humanity as they shattered the moon and left the planet, their “beautiful experiment” no longer worth staying on the planet and becoming pseudo-deistic as they watch from afar awaiting judgement day, more on that later.

Salem was despondent at this point, nothing to live for but unable to die. She stumbles back into the realm of darkness and lets herself fall into the pits of Grimm, her last hope for the death she craved. The result?

She was wrong.

Now I’ve seen a lot of people write her off as irredeemable by this point once she has been transformed like above. However, I would argue everyone in this story is as redeemable as they are irredeemable. A Choice made is not something that is constant. It can always change because that’s inherently what choice is, the act or decision to decide from a number of possibilities. You are choosing the way you act and you can change your choice just as easily as you cannot. Salem chooses confrontation and it has always been her strategy, the reverse of this is complacency, the inaction based in comfort of the Status Quo, or Ozpin’s side. Let’s move to him for a moment as the episode does.

Where you seek comfort. You will only find pain.

So in an ironic twist the God of Light takes a card out of Salem’s book and manipulates Ozma into accepting the role of reincarnation and humanity’s jury, with the god brothers’ as Judge and executioner through the relics. Ozma also begins to make his first choices of complacency here.

“I’m sorry but that world just isn’t as dear to me without her. If I may, I’d rather return to the afterlife to be with Salem”

Ozma decides that the life of savior is not for him thinking he should return and be with Salem, now that humanity is extinct he can be with her as they both have so long wished for. Nobody could fault him for that. In fact he’s preserving the very “balance” the God of light was up in arms about in the first place. He causally forgot to mention the reason that Salem is still alive is thanks to their curse, instead cryptically stating she was corrupted and no longer the woman he once knew (woo for petty manipulative gods, just like the good ol Greeks).

Ozma either sees through this or wishes to see Salem enough he will ignore the warning and accepts the role almost immediately and then finds himself in the body of this young man, the world reborn from dust like in the WOR episode mentioning it (which I totally forgot about in my last post). Ozma finds himself confused by the presence of Faunus and the absence of Magic, dust replacing it in a shoddy attempt at the gifts of magic he possessed. He hears rumors of someone else possessing his gifts a witch of sorts. He seeks her out and...

“ What do we do now?” “Whatever we want.”

the two reunite again as lovers and we see each of them lie to one another almost immediately. Salem out of fear of rejection and Ozma out of not knowing what the truth was. You could argue this was complacency on both of their parts and I wouldn’t disagree, but the motivations don’t quite work out that ways considering the status quo was nonexistent since they had spent literal lifetimes apart since then.

“These humans have no one to guide them. Perhaps that’s all they need.”

Salem believes that they could be the new, more benevolent gods that the previous god brother’s could not be for them. Ozma clearly was not a fan of the idea but with Salem’s arm on his shoulder he agrees, complacent in her more aggressive methodologies out of his love for her as Salem confronts him with emotional manipulation. The two fall more and more into their choices that have defined them as their tale continues.

“The hearts of men are easily swayed*

“And at the head of that kingdom blossomed, a family.”

The two carry out Salem’s idea and procure a rich following that leads to a kingdom and the happy picturesque couple above. Now I specifically want to point out how happy Salem looks here. Not to say that Ozma isn’t also extremely happy and proud of his girls, but I highlight Salem here for the particular reason that some were claiming that she was pure destruction ever since diving into the pools of Grimm.

To that I argue, she settled down. She wanted to preserve humanity and put them on the right track together with Ozma and had a beautiful family and were loved by many people. I think the pool definitely changed her and gave her a larger penchant for destructive tendencies, but that’s just it, they were tendencies. Just like any human has tendencies to kill someone sometimes or wish they were never born or wish cruel and unusual punishment on someone who has wronged them in the heat of the moment. To say she was irredeemable in this scene made little sense to me and this happiness she feels now makes the eventual outcome that much more tragic when it plays out as we know it does.

“Are we sure this is right?”  “You said we had to bring humanity together. In order to do that we have to spread our word. And destroys those that will deny it.”

“It was a miracle. Their children could perform magic.”

These two scenes are pivotal in the tonal shift they create, though it may not be abundantly clear at first glance. Here we see Salem grinning downward with a slight smirk more like we’ve seen her in the present as she explains to Ozma that confronting dissenters is the only way that they can spread the word of their rule as the assumed new gods. Ozma looks away and has a moment of introspection where either his first life or the life he inhabits posits, “what are we doing?” Ozma begins to break from his complacency realizing that this isn’t the path he wants to take as one of his daughter bursts in and displays her magic for her parents. This is extremely important to Salem, now instead of guiding the current humanity she will begin to think differently shown in the following scene.

“Don’t you see? None of that matters anymore? Why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans when we can replace them with what they could never be?”

Ozma finally breaks and comes clean to Salem about everything. Her response is that above. She has now shifted to recreating the paradise they once had with the two of them replacing the old gods as the rulers. At first I didn’t see anything wrong with this at all and thought Ozma was odd for not wanting to rekindle humanity with magic. But then I thought more about it and I realized she meant completely wiping out the current humanity and replacing it with their children, since they are both immortal they essentially could repopulate the planet by themselves (though I’m not going to dissect the finer points of that one...)

Now to Salem’s credit this was a perfect solution for the two of them. Both of them, in her eyes at least, had been cursed by the gods to live forever, they were only so lucky enough to find each other again and make that living bearable once more. Why would see want to spare the creations born from those who cursed her so? Why would she ever allow them to return to this world and judge them when she could recreate the utopia they once had, but better because they would be it’s rulers? To her it makes perfect sense for Ozma to forget his task and focus on the new world they would create together, a world full of magic that every human could perform. A world with gods that cared about them and would do better than what they had done to her, to the both of them. Would this have worked? Who can really say for sure but I don’t blame Salem for thinking the way she was, and I don’t quite find her irredeemable here but Ozma plays a critical role here that he fails spectacularly.

See Ozma had a responsibility to his wife and partner to try and reel in some more of her destructive tendencies,  speaking with her frankly and honestly and the two of them working to some sort of compromise that didn’t involve senseless death and destruction but still reintroduced magic into the world through them. It wouldn’t have been a difficult solution either, all they would have to do is keep living and having children through the ages and then as those kids grew and had children of their own eventually it would resurface over time. And It’s not like they don’t have infinite time to spare. But no, instead Ozma decided to exchange complacency for idiocy and outright betrayal.

“We were finally free.” “I...”

Ozma decided his best course of action was to try and sneak out of the castle under the cover of night with their 4 children in tow. Obviously Salem catches him and her rage consumes her and she initiates magical combat against him. The following shot is of the fallen toy one of the girls was holding and Ozpin bleeding and crawling away as Salem rejuvenates and stands over him, distraught that he would throw away their freedom before cutting him off with a stream of fire to end his life.

This could not have been any deeper of a betrayal to Salem. She had risked and lost literally EVERYTHING for Ozma. Her life, her kind, her world. She thought she was doomed to obscurity of living forever only to find him once again, for them to rekindle the happiness she thought had been cruelly ripped away from her by the gods of old. Everything couldn’t be better as her children just displayed magic and she could bring about the utopia she craved, Ozma by her side. Only for that same man who she sacrificed again and again for to try and leave with their children and leave her behind? Please try and tell me that wouldn’t bring you into a catastrophic level of rage, I’d love to hear how you could keep calm there.

Not to mention that the shot of the toy implies that their fight ended up killing the lives of their daughters which I’m sure sent both of them spiraling even more.

Ozpin eventually makes his way back to the task, after an unknown number of lives of mourning and drinking,sent by the gods and he realizes that the only way he can keep man unites is to rid the world of Salem.

We don’t know what happens to Salem after this point to get where she is today but the image of the crystal implies she made that with her magic and integrated it with a Grimm and perhaps that is how she controls them.

What we do know is that both of them took this experience of their fallout to shape their strategies in the present day.

Salem realizes that she should have played her cards closer to her chest. Openly confrontational choices proved disastrous. Now she operates from the shadows, causing mass panic and chaos while never leaving any threads that can trace back to her. Outside of Ozpin, the world knows not of her existence and she can disrupt Ozpin’s task indefinitely. Moreover she wants the relics. Perhaps so that she can summon them early and show what humanity has become so Ozpin can suffer the ultimate failure by her hands’ and rob him of what he treasures dearly just as he had before as we saw. She has learned form her mistakes and it has made her all the more calculating, cruel, conniving, and threatening. She failed to learn that compromise before confrontation could have led them to living together harmoniously

Meanwhile Ozpin has had a regression. His one act of confrontation led to disaster and so he he has returned to complacency, He chooses to be extremely selective about who he informs about his plight and leaves the general populace in the dark, thinking this is the best way to preserve unity. He used Jinn to locate all the relics and locked them up in the schools while he played the role of the most influential headmaster as a way to try and unify humanity against the Grimm (and unknowingly Salem). He lies and tells half truths because the more darkness and evil of the world he exposes to people, the further from his task he gets. He has not learn that choosing to openly communicate without facades or masks, yes may induce some panic and anxiety, can also lead to compromises and cooperation that isn’t backed by ultimatums (Pyrrha).

Well here’s my little essay on choice and it’s duality of Ozma/pin and Salem. Let me know what you all thought! Also I don’t know why or how this got so long and why I decided to do it so late. Gonna go pass out now X.X

[mittensmorgul]

Has Chuck ever talked about why he brought Cas back? I'm watching The Man Who Would Be King and it's a massive point of contingency. Cas is clearly important to God, has that ever been brought back up?

Hi there... I don’t really get what the second message has to do with the first, but I’m gonna try to reply to both of these things, because these are two fundamentally unrelated issues. At least, I believe this is also a message from you, but please correct me if I’m wrong. Sometimes it’s really hard to tell if two messages are supposed to go together in the inbox when they’re both from anons:

In that same season Let It Bleed shows Dean asking Cas to erase the memories of Lisa and Ben and that's like Cas' ultimate skill as an angel Stripping Memory and he did for Dean Just Like That. My Chuck has anything been addressed for Cas since season 6?

I think this is the only thing that Chuck has canonically said about the fact he kept bringing Cas back, and it was uttered during one of his lil tantrums in 11.20, while Metatron was prodding him into Doing The Right Thing for all of creation:

Chuck: You know I love those guys, but the world would still be spinning with demon Dean in it. But Sam couldn't have that, though, could he? And so how is Amara being out on me?Metatron: It's not. But you helped the Winchesters before.Chuck: Helped them? I've saved them! I've rebuilt Castiel more times than I can remember. Look where that got me.Metatron: So you're just gonna let Amara win?Chuck: Eh, it's her time to shine.

Chuck was still actively deflecting any responsibility for the Darkness. As if this ENTIRE problem didn’t directly spring from his initial act of locking her away in the first place. Granted, we wouldn’t have had Creation at all if he hadn’t, but he’d been willing to just sequester himself off in his little private bar at the end of all things while the rest of the universe crumbled around him rather than confront any of that. It was easier for him to just blame everyone else for... everything else... as if the problem hadn’t been his own refusal to deal with the fact that he was only one side of this Creation Coin, you know? It took the catalyst of Dean Winchester to bring those two sides together eventually in 11.23.

But getting back to your point... No, Chuck has never said directly, “I specifically and factually continued to resurrect Cas for these explicit purposes,” and then given us a bullet-pointed list.

Because your second question (and I think it’s yours, again) refers to something in 6.21 as being in “the same season” that Chuck resurrected Cas... but he first resurrected Cas in 5.01, after Raphael had exploded him in 4.22 (which happened offscreen, but we were TOLD it happened, by Chuck in 5.01.

Given what we know about the Empty, and the fact it’s where angels go when they die, and the fact that we know now that Jimmy died in 4.22 and went to Heaven and has been there ever since despite Cas having been resurrected in a replacement Jimmy Suit in 5.01... I think it’s safe to assume that Chuck (since he’d been literally standing RIGHT THERE when Cas went kablooie) held Cas in some sort of stasis, waiting to see what happened next. Remember, they’d been making it up as they went. NONE of what happened at the end of 4.22 and after that had been part of Chuck’s Grand Plan. It wasn’t in the script. It was something he hadn’t expected, and yet... it happened.

I don’t think he initially had a definite plan to resurrect Cas, but it had been one of the options he’d held open for himself. Cas had done something INTERESTING to him. He was an angel who demonstrated an act of rebellion and free will-- not the way Lucifer had by wanting to destroy and corrupt humanity, but out of love for Humanity and creation itself. Cas wanted to save the world from Chuck’s destined apocalypse. And Chuck being a shrewd creator, he plucked Cas out of the air before he could be zapped off to the Empty, knowing that such an Angel was an anomaly, and that he might just have a bigger part to play in the salvation of Creation.

In 6.20, I believe the scene you’re referring to is this one:

CASTIEL I was...done. I was over. And then the most extraordinary thing happened. I was put back. (Castiel stands behind Dean, beaten bloody by Lucifer) And we had won. We stopped Armageddon. (Castiel heals Dean) But at a terrible cost. (Castiel heals Bobby)(flashback to very end of 'Swan Song')EXT. OUTSIDE OF LISA BRAEDEN'S HOUSE - NIGHT(Sam stands under the streetlight, which flickers and dies, watching Dean inside Lisa's house. Castiel watches Sam.)CASTIEL And so I knew what I had to do next. Once again, I went to Harrow Hell, to free Sam from Lucifer's cage. It was nearly impossible, but I was so full of confidence, of mission. I see now that was arrogance...Hubris...Because, of course, I hadn't truly raised Sam -- not all of him.(flashback to 'Unforgiven': Sam is beating a cop unconscious; flashback to 'Live Free or Twi-Hard': Sam watches Dean being turned; flashback to 'Appointment in Samarra': Sam raises his dagger to stab Bobby) Sometimes we're lucky enough to be given a warning. (back in front of Lisa's house, Sam turns and walks away- directly past Castiel) This should have been mine.

But this was actually his SECOND resurrection. He was also speaking from a place of desperation, at his lowest point to date, knowing he was about to make A Huge Choice and desperately looking for ANY sort of guidance. It’s like he KNEW he’d already made a mistake, and couldn’t see any way out of this dire, horrific circumstance other than to just... keep pushing through and hope everything worked out in the end. He was trying to save the universe, again, single-handedly. And EVERYTHING was failing. He’d failed to protect Dean, he’d failed to resurrect Sam properly, he’d failed and failed and failed.

Like he said in 12.19, he NEEDED a win, he needed to return to Dean already having secured a win, to prove his own worth. He’s been dealing with this issue, this personal struggle, since he first discovered those Doorways To Doubt way back in s4.

In 7.23, also at a place of Lowest Depression, he had this to say about his continued resurrections:

CASTIEL: If we attack Dick and fail, then you and Sam die heroically, correct?DEAN: I don't know. I guess.CASTIEL: And at best, I die trying to fix my own stupid mistake. Or... I don't die – I'm brought back again. I see now. It's a punishment resurrection. It's worse every time.DEAN: I'm sorry. Uh, we're talking about God crap, right?CASTIEL: I'm not good luck, Dean.DEAN: Yeah, but you know what? Bottom of the ninth, and you're the only guy left on the bench... Sorry, but I'd rather have you, cursed or not. And anyway, nut up, all right? We're all cursed. I seem like good luck to you? [CASTIEL stares at DEAN.] What?CASTIEL: Well, I don't want to make you uncomfortable, but I detect a note of forgiveness.DEAN: Yeah, well, I'm probably gonna die tomorrow, so...CASTIEL: Well, I'll go with you. And I'll do my best.

He was in such a low place that he sincerely believed he’d been repeatedly resurrected as a “punishment,” because he couldn’t see past his own guilt and trauma. But again, Dean held out a hand and offered him a different viewpoint. It was the first step toward Cas being able to forgive himself and move forward. He could finally begin “redeeming himself” in Dean’s eyes, which he’d promised back in 7.01. And that’s sort of the journey he’s been on ever since.

He’s been through a number of rough patches along the way, leading him to say Yes to Lucifer in 11.10, leading him to try to spare Sam and Dean from having to kill Kelly in 12.15-12.19, ultimately leading to his death (again! but the first death that Chuck hadn’t been standing by to catch him from and stop him from ever reaching the Empty) in 12.23.

For the first time, it was Cas HIMSELF that fought for his own resurrection, in which his own agency is what brought him back. He fought for HIMSELF.

*scrolls back up because I can’t even remember the question at this point...*

Aah, right... “Has anything been addressed for Cas since s6?” Um.. yes? Loads and loads? Which is why I have no idea how the second half of your question relates to the first...

I’ve barely scraped the tip of the iceberg here on that ONE issue, so short of writing a thesis on the narrative evolution of Castiel as a character that could probably span at least a trilogy of scholarly tomes, I don’t really know what else to say here... I’m honestly baffled that anyone could suggest that they’ve just not addressed Cas’s issues since s6, and wondering if we’re watching the same show.

[pagesofkenna]

Direct Mayhem: Dragon Heist, Chapter 18

Finale

That’s right we did it y’all! The Dragons have been Heisted!!

This chapter starts with the crew in the famed Vault of Dragons, the hiding place of the stolen horde of gold which our main players - Carlin, the gnome rogue, Sadi, the tabai monk, and Tariq, the facechanging humanoid warlock - have been tasked with finding.

With them are Sadi’s old childhood friend Esvele Rosznar, who has insisted on joining in this search so she can claim part of the gold reward for herself, and Renaer Neverember, the son of the previous Open Lord who stole this money from the city treasurey in the first place, and who is working with the party to help return it.

Carlin, while investigating the mural on the wall, accidentally unleashes a Black Pudding, which partially dissolves their weapons as they fight it. They manage to kill it with a few ranged weapons and spells, then turn to investigate the only other objects in this room: three long crumbling bridges which pass 60 over the floor below, and lead to three closed doorways.

The first two doors are locked, and the third just leads to a room with a statue of a dwarf warrior and a fake trap door. Sadi, who can climb across the stone walls with ease, manages to rig up a rope ladder after one of the bridges turns out to be too far for most of the party to jump, and Carlin unlocks to second door. This is a similarly empty room, but there are dwarvish runes on the back wall, and Tariq senses magic.

Carlin uses Comprehend Languages to decipher the runes, which mention the Dwarf god of secrets. The party realizes a secret must be told in order to unlock the way further.

During this discussion, Carlin mentions Tariq’s name - which is news to both Esvele and Renaer, who’ve known him as Devin this whole time. The trio swear their companions to secrecy.

Sadi climbs over to the third room, with the statue and false trapdoor, and says a secret of hers’ aloud - that she knows the father and mother who raised her are not her real parents. When nothing happens, Esvele shoos everyone out of the room with the runes and whispers a secret no one hears, which causes a stone on the floor to move out of the way, revealing a winding staircase heading down.

Everyone heads down, and down, and down, for several long minutes before they eventually find themselves in the real vault. Sunlight is trickling in through holes in the ceiling, and a massive pile of gold pieces are tucked into an alcove - and a single old dwarf walking with a staff decorated with dragons greets them.

His name is Barok, and he politely asks them to come back later when he’s had time to tidy up a bit. There’s really nothing to tidy except the mass of cobwebs in the corner of this room, so Sadi starts to explain the situation - how they were asked to find this gold, and return it to the city treasury before the villains in the city could get it, and they didn’t expect to find anyone down here.

Barok, in turns, explains that he was tasked with guarding this gold “by the Open Lord” and he plans to keep doing so until the Open Lord says otherwise. Eventually, they realize he’s been down here since Renaer’s father was Open Lord, with no news from the city. Sadi pushes Renaer forward and the dwarf recognizes him. He eventually agrees to let them take the gold, as long as they don’t touch anything else down here in the vault.

‘Anything else’ turns out to be a second, less-enormous pile of precious gemstones. While the party investigates, Tariq tries to detect magic again, and discovers there’s a magical aura all over this dwarf.

Finally the party agrees, and Sadi and Esvele decide to stay downstairs with the dwarf while Tariq, Carlin, and Renaer head up and out into the city to find the Blackstaff, so she can give them some way of transporting the literal hundreds of pound of gold coins out and safely to the city treasury.

They get to the front room of this vault before Tariq realizes someone is standing outside, waiting. A group of someones, actually - some Zhentarim agents they recognize, as well as a cloaked man with a metal arm. Tariq casts Invisibility on himself and Renaer, and Carlin uses the magic word to close the vault doors, but not before the metal-armed man and one of his allies make it into the vault.

Carlin uses Message to call Sadi, who comes up into the front room with Esvele, and Barok, who agrees to fight to protect the gold as well. Sadi accidentally falls of the wall while trying to find a good vantage point, and the battle starts. The metal-armed man turns out to be a mage of some kind and almost kills Carlin...

But then Barok turns out to be a huge Golden Dragon. He transforms back into his dragon form and swoops down on the mage, killing him and his ally in only a couple rounds (with help from his small allies).  Barok tells the others his real name is Aurinax.

Meanwhile, Tariq and Renaer manage to leave the vault, which was hidden under a crypt in the City of the Dead, only to find it surrounded by at least twenty Zhentarim agents. Still invisible, the manage to sneak away and split up - Renaer to find the Harpers and ask for backup, and Tariq to find the Force Grey and do the same.

The way to the Blackstaff Tower is fraught with conflict, which Tariq only just manages to avoid. As they were told yesterday, a large-scale attack has taken place on Blackstaff Tower, which has spilled out into the rest of the city. Looting and rioting is taking place, with members of Xanathar’s Guild using the chaos to rob shops and assault civillians. The City Guard is spread thin.

When he finally finds Vajra, she is holding up a barrier protecting the students in her tower from the fighting. She tells him, through gritted teeth, that she can’t really come help just yet, and that perhaps the gold should stay in the vault until this has been taken care of, them she lends a few of her Force Grey agents to help Tariq.

He takes them back to the City of the Dead where he finds Renaer and a few more Harpers standing around, among a litter of dead Zhentarim bodies. They’re joined by an old human man with bloody knuckles, who Tariq just manages to recognize as the old hermit he and the others were tasked to find by Vajra way back when all this started. It seems he’s come down from the mountain to act on the information he was holding.

With that, Aurinax agrees to stay and guard the vault until tomorrow, and everyone else returns to the city and splits up: Sadi to assist her allies in the fighting in the Dock Ward, Carlin to check in on his family, Renaer to help the Harpers, and Tariq and Esvele to guard their house in the North Ward.

The fighting manages to die down by the end of the day, and in the following days the gold is taken from out of the vault and returned to the city treasury. The Open Lord herself thanks the party for their part in everything, and rewards them with ten percent of the findings to be distributed amongst themselves - namely, 12,500 gold apiece.

Sadi uses her portion of the money to pay off the magical staff she bought (already at a steep discount) the other day, while Tariq donates some of his to an orphanage in the South Ward. The rest they all agree to invest in a bank.

Several things happen within the next week. The party chats with their neighbor Vincent, who hands them a newspaper that covers some of the things that’ve happened recently (some of which they knew, some of which they didn’t).

Floon, who they saved all those days ago, comes to ask them for some money to pay of a gambling debt. He promises to pay it back within a year, and the party instead gives the money to Renaer, if he will make sure Floon goes to therapy to get help for his gambling addiction and alcoholism (they also make sure Floon will give them unlimited favors until the debt is paid back, including getting Tariq tickets to fantasy Hamilton).

Everyone also has a dream one night. Sadi dreams of herself is Nessus, the lowest of the Nine Hells, talking to the Prince of Evil, Asmodeus. He calls her his child and tells her the hells are her birthright, if she promises to do his will on the Mortal Plane. In the dream, Asmodeus tells her that her parents had made a deal with him, but they were weak-minded and he rejected them. He confirms that they were her real parents, but that they expected her to be a tiefling, not a tabaxi, and their rejection of her lead to him rejecting them.

Tariq dreams he is in a strange, heavenly orchard filled with trees he doesn’t recognize. He speaks to a mysterious figure whose features he can’t make out, and who seems to shift genders during the conversation. They ask him about the world he has found himself in, what’s happened since was a child, and how he likes it. Eventually Tariq realizes this is some sort of god, who won’t tell him their name or even title, and they’ve been watching him for a long time for some reason.

Carlin dreams of the Astral Sea, the place outside the mortal plane where the outer planes lie, being scryed upon by a bronze dragon. She addressed Carlin as a ‘Marked one’ and expresses surprise about where he’s ended up, saying all the other marked ones are at a place called “Khorvaire”. She asks Carlin about the history of his Mark, where his family comes from, and eventually realizes that he’s not in the same world she is. She tells him she lives on a planet called Eberron, and has never heard of a world called Waterdeep. Apparently Carlin’s ‘Mark’ is part of a prophecy, and the dragon - whose name is Qidhante - asks about all the details of Carlin’s life, before leaving to say she must report her findings to the others.

[salmonandsoup]

Can you tell us more about your Persona 4/5 AU? It sounds super interesting!

OH!!!!!!!

oh absolutely

the official name of this thing is “an unorthodox absolution” btw, just so y’all can check the tag for things when i eventually post em.  or not bc i forget but IT’S THERE!!!!  you can also check “the spectral redeemers au” or “spectral redeemers au”

but OK so this shit’s goin under a readmore cuz it might get Long and involves TONS of late-game spoilers for both p4 and p5

aight so.  i love villains.  a lot.  they’re bastards and bitches and they’re MY bastards and bitches.  it’s probably because i’ve always tried to be kind and helpful and i want to “save” them even though i know it’d never happen and they’d either laugh at me or kill me bUT A WOMAN CAN DREAM OF MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE

so i decided to make a villain redemption arc kind of au that would involve my favorite villains from persona 4 and 5 to be able to turn a new leaf and get personas and be a really cool antihero/antivillain kinda squad (grant it, some of the members aren’t bad guys at all, but due to interacting with the former bad guy squad and getting personas thanks to the former bad guy squad they join the former bad guy squad)

important things to note:

p4 takes place in 2011-2012, and p5 takes place in 2016-2017

p4 “ended” with the accomplice ending, and narukami was close enough to marie to get her to realize who she was and what she needed to do, so she killed herself to contain some of the fog.  inaba isn’t devoured by fog, and it actually left––well, more like it did something very interesting

there are a lot of holes surrounding a few characters cuz this is a wip au (for example: while i respect her and think she’d make a great pseudo-phantom thief, i don’t really love sae, so i haven’t done a lot of her stuff even though she’s the 4th member)

the palaces the PT go through are condensed, so okumura’s palace is actually some time in early august –– while i won’t go into it, you can imagine they’d fill the void that crunch time brings with other palaces while the spectral redeemers catch up

it all starts with okumura’s shadow fighting back against the black mask, figuring out his identity, and devising a plan to destroy the conspiracy from the inside out.  okumura fakes his death after starting to repair his relationship with haru (she knows he’s not actually dead so he can continue trying to mend the relationship) and lives under a false identity as he tries to accomplish this mission with akechi, and meets a few interesting people along the way, who end up becoming members of the squad in due time.  

he looks like this and i die because i have Things I Like and i poured them All into “ichirou matsuoka’s” design

the first he meets is one tohru adachi, living it up and hating himself five years after inaba.  the two of them enter a dance of a relationship after a drunken tryst and keeping intrigue because they both know the other’s hiding SOMETHING from them.  eventually akechi and okumura figure out what adachi did, and decide to change his heart.

now, when haru goes missing is when things get fun for this story, and shit kicks into gear.

okumura knows his daughter’s a phantom thief––who else would be able to get close enough to him to change his heart?  fuckin nobody, babey; he kept that shit guarded as hell!  so he has an idea that this disappearance is phantom thief related.  and he panics a bit, cuz he was a horrible father but he’s not gonna be any longer so he decides to sneak behind akechi and into the metaverse when he finally pesters the kid enough to at least CHECK on them in whatever they’re doing (by this time, akechi is working alongside the phantom thieves and while they know he’s the traitor, something feels strange and they’re gonna Investigate this new air akechi’s got about him).  okumura steps into sugimura’s palace, because the bastard did NOT take the rescinding of the marriage contract well AT ALL.  shadow!sugimura isn’t tough, but he gets the drop on the PT and ambushes them

now, they could easily get out on their own, and were in the process of doing so as they got shadow!sugimura monologuing––but wouldn’t a distraction be perfect?  they get one with okumura staggering in and trying to tackle and beat shadow!sugimura into the fucking ground even though he’s literally bleeding out because he rushed in pellmell with akechi begrudgingly keeping the shadows at bay.  shadow!sugimura throws him off…

but then okumura hears a voice.  feels a cape manifest as he vows to never let anyone become a monster like him.  tears it off…

and behind him stands gilgamesh, his very own persona.

after defeating shadow!sugimura, taking his treasure, and escaping the palace, okumura and akechi decide to form a persona-user team of their own, and they call themselves the spectral redeemers––ghosts of villains past trying to make amends for their transgressions.

back to adachi.  you think the bitch don’t have a palace by now, after five years of this shit?  then you don’t know the bitch; he absolutely does.  and he’s the redeemers’ first target.  

now, unfortunately, okumura doesn’t really.  know how to send a calling card.  it turns into him backing adachi into a corner and screaming at him to tell him what he thinks of this goddamn world because they know the who, the where, and they just need the what

so uh.  okumura and akechi go into adachi’s palace blind and at 99% security with about four reapers in the damn palace, which is magatsu tokyo instead of magatsu inaba––shit tonna mazes and dead ends.  thank god there’s a flu going around in the police station so it’s flu season in adachi’s palace.

but you also don’t know the bitch if you don’t think tohru adachi wouldn’t do everything in his power to try and stop them, so he follows them in, too––watches them get the shit kicked out of them and still keep trudging, even making it to his shadow, which berates them and taunts them as they’re fighting.  and they’re making a dent!  they’re hitting it!  but when it starts getting bloodied is when it goes BERSERK.  and all they can do is heal each other.  then all they can do is revive.  and then adachi’s shadow gets an unfortunate critical hit––

and adachi steps between them, takes the hit for okumura.  and if you thought his shadow ripped into people before, adachi’s shadow tears his human self a new asshole.  every little insecurity, everything he hates, everything that pisses him off is thrown right in his face.  adachi goes from angry to despairing to grimly accepting as his shadow raises its weapon––

but okumura, barely conscious, reaches out with the last of his strength and takes adachi’s hand, gives him a warm smile.  he regrets nothing––he fell in love with this man and he’s wanted to die for years now.  if he’s a martyr, so be it.

but that little show of love makes both adachi and his shadow pause.  and then adachi gets up, even while bleeding––tells his shadow it’s right.  

it is him, and he is it.  and he doesn’t want to be that any longer.  he hates it.  he wants to change.  he’s done.  and he gains magatsu-izanagi, takes his own damn treasure, and heals both okumura and akechi and helps them out of the palace as it crumbles.

and thus begins the story.  i’m still working on sae’s stuff, but she’s the next member, and it most likely involves her figuring out what was going on with akechi and shido and deciding “y’know what?  actually, fuck this” and demanding a contract from her shadow.

if you’d like to see some more information, click here for a spreadsheet!  there’s a lot more to this au, especially involving a certain kohaku ueno (he’s an OC that @solivagantis and i created, and he lets the redemeers know of the prison of regression early––so they get to make a choice that could twist the tides of fate.)

[novantinuum]

Embers

Read on AO3! :)

Fandom: Trollhunters

Rating: T

Words: 1800~

Warnings: Major character death, kinda

Summary:  “There is no going back. Part of you will remain Jim, but the other part will never be the same.” Jim perched himself on the edge of the toilet’s lid, poised with the burden of making the most terrible choice. A take on the end scene from "A House Divided," from Jim's internal POV.

Hi, this is how I cope- by plunging myself right into characters’ angsty experiences. Enjoy the pain. Excitingly, this is the first piece I’ve written for Trollhunters exclusively, and not just a crossover- I hope to write a lot more for this world! 

Tick, tick, tick, tick…

Jim perched himself on the edge of the toilet’s lid, poised with the burden of making the most terrible choice.

His phone buzzed, rattling on the rim of the sink. He willfully ignored the interruption. It wasn’t even difficult, when he could drown it out with the constant, luling tick of the amulet.

He hunched over the magical object in question, tracing its trollish lettering with his eyes, glaring at it, cursing it, pleading it, absolutely anything in the vain hope of receiving even a shred of counsel from the souls it housed within. Hell, at this point he’d even take Unkar. After all, faced with this burden he felt pretty unfortunate himself.

What kind of an unfair choice was this? Sacrifice their victory, or his humanity? Potentially doom both worlds to Morgana’s devastation, or leave everything he’d ever known behind?

Tick, tick, tick...

Irreversible, Merlin said. If he chose to step into that tub, there was no going back. This wasn’t a game. It wasn’t temporary, like the potion that turned Blinky human for a week. It didn’t offer a single chance for reconsideration. No, no, no. The choice Jim toiled with was literally a matter of life or death. Step out the bathroom door and he’s human, but submerge himself in the elixir and his human life would be snuffed away, like the wavering flame clinging to a candle’s wick.

He rubbed his thumb against the dial. Merlin’s words echoed in his mind.

“You will need to become both troll… and hunter.”

He gripped the amulet ever tighter, standing up with a dawning resolve. The mirror behind the sink was slick with condensation.

“A choice not whether to fight, but how to fight. If you really want to save your mother, your friends, I am asking you to change.”

Tick, tick...

Jim pressed his palm to the mirror’s surface, and wiped some of the beads of water away. His mouth pressed into a tight line as he drank in every last detail of his appearance as he existed now, each human imperfection and blemish. The impression his fingers left in the fog gave the illusion of a horn curving from the side of his head.

“There is no going back. Part of you will remain Jim, but the other part will never be the same.”

The most terrifying aspect of this choice was by far its uncertainty. How could he guess to know what he’d become? Would he still hold the same memories? The same desires? Or would the magic of transformation render even the whispers of his soul anew? Would any part of him remain recognizable to his family, his friends?

Tick.

Refuse the choice, however, and it may cost those he loved more than merely Jim Lake Jr.- it may cost them their lives. Whether he wanted it or not, ever since the amulet called to him that crisp spring morning, he’d become linked to a destiny so much greater than himself. After mere months he wielded the sword with the finesse of a warrior who’d been training in the forge their whole life. He’d been chosen, conscripted by some unknown power. For the longest time he assumed that power was chance, a matter of being in the right place at the right time. But if destiny hadn’t directed his path, why else would his likeness be carved into the walls of Merlin’s tomb, hundreds of years before he existed?

“For the glory of Merlin, daylight…”

“Is mine to command,” he whispered. His brow furrowed, a certain sort of finality locking into place deep in his core.

Tick.

At his vocal decree, the amulet activated. His feet lifted off the ground, and he watched in the mirror as the armor phased from light into solid. Hundreds upon hundreds of times he’d equipped the armor, hundreds of times he’d felt this unnatural weightlessness as the amulet’s pull carried him skyward. On few occasions however, had he watched himself mid-transformation in a mirror. Magic spilled from the heart of the amulet in waves. Even after all this time, he had to admit the sight was unspeakably beautiful. But beauty couldn’t win this war. He was not enough. His humanity alone was not enough. The bathroom lights flickered and blew out, leaving Jim in nought but the glow of sunset.

The armor snapped into place and the magic released him, feet meeting the ground as solidly as his resolve. The sight of the inky black liquid left his heart beating double time- what exactly would he find beyond its surface? How did this magic even work?- but at this period of desperation, did those questions even matter? His mother, his best friends, Claire… what was his life truly worth if he couldn’t save the people he loved?

Trying not to dwell upon the greater ramifications of his decision, he lifted his foot to the edge of the porcelain. There was no other way, he consoled himself. No other way.

“Jim?”

Tick.

Fists pounded at the door.

“Are you in there?!”

And with the force of a thousand blows, his once solid resolve crumbled into dissonant fragments.

Mom. His mom. Mom was safe, standing just beyond that door. The distance between them was negligible- compared to his weeks locked in the Darklands, he’d never been closer- and yet with the sense of futile longing burning in his chest he’d never felt further apart. His mind screamed for him to reach out, to run to that door. To throw himself into her arms and weep, to see her face again if only for a moment. To say anything, so she’d know he was okay. But just as Merlin bound him to a chair with nothing but mental illusion, something unknowable held him back. Words unsaid died on his tongue.

The doorknob rattled, fighting against the lock. The slender pick Mom normally kept above the door for emergencies lay at the edge of the sink.

Tick.

“Jim, what’s happening? Please let us in!” She pounded on the door again, far more urgency in her knock. “Are you okay?”

“Jimbo? Jim!”

Toby.

His best friend since, well, forever. Jim refused to imagine his life without him, without his wit and perspective and fiery confidence.     When it came to loyalty, Toby was as unwavering as they came, the true definition of ride or die. He'd stuck with him through thick and thin, from the horrors of gym class to the very Darklands. Without him, so many of their victories simply wouldn’t have happened. And yet- though it struck a blow as piercing as Daylight- the truth was that he couldn’t claim the same loyalty himself. He’d already abandoned him once before, when he entered the Darklands... alone. The same nauseating fear of the unknown that directed his actions then, as he gazed through the nexus of Killahead’s portal, it was exactly what he felt now, too.

Could he really leave him behind again?

“Jim!”

Tick.

Claire.

Wonderful, stubborn, powerful, dazzling Claire. His once-crush turned cherished friend- his girlfriend. What of all the cheesy movie dates and motorbike rides they’d never get to experience together? The summer months he looked forward to spending at her side, getting to know her, the true her? His eyes burned with unshed tears, chest aching at the wodds he’d never said, at the thought of losing her… either to this war, or to the consequences of his choice.

His jaw clenched, barricading the tumultuous waves of emotion that threatened to spill through his silent facade.

“My amulet does not make mistakes…”

The amulet fastened in his breastplate flared blue.

“Out of all creatures in our world, I chose you.”

Somewhere in the recesses of memory, a far more naive Jim Lake Jr. heard a low, commanding voice calling his name.

His choice.

Jim overturned a rough, sun bleached stone, revealing a strange, ornamented amulet.

Merlin said it was his choice. His choice. The amulet may have called to him, but he chose to answer that call. And despite every fear he wasn’t truly alone; his family and friends would fight alongside him just as they had in every battle. And weren’t they always stronger together? There was still a chance they could win, a chance they could stop this war before it even began, that they-

“Jim! They freed Morgana!”

Tick...

And yet…

And yet.

Perhaps the amulet covered a trollhunter’s heart for a reason. No matter the consequences- either to himself or his relationships- he simply couldn’t live with himself if he let anymore of his friends suffer in the crossfire. His breath wavered as he suppressed the painful memories of what happened in Merlin’s tomb. No more loss. And after today, no more deaths. He gripped the curtain, lifting his foot to the edge of the porcelain.

Trepidation flooding his soul, Jim stepped into the tub. He couldn’t help but grimace as the blackened water seeped between the edges of his armor. With Merlin’s concoction mixed in the water was surprisingly viscous, like a broth he’d thickened with cornstarch.

He glanced down, sensing a sudden… absence. The realization was slow but heavy. For the first time since he picked it up that idyllic morning in the canal, the amulet’s ticking had ceased. It was then he knew- precisely as Merlin warned- there was no returning from this precipice he stood at. The thought tugged painfully at everything in his sixteen years he took for granted, at all he’d be leaving behind. Merlin claimed the choice was completely his, yet in the shadows of his heart he knew it’d been chosen for him. Morgana was free, her threat bridging entire civilizations. As difficult it was to admit, the world couldn’t be saved by humanity alone this time. The world needed this, needed him. It needed a truetrollhunter.

“Young Atlas, you are not alone! Don’t do this!” Strickler called, pounding his fists against the wood. “Open the door!”

He sat slowly and began to submerge himself. The water, frigid against the delicate human skin beneath, lapped against his breastplate, and soon his neck. His cheeks. In a sense, the bitter cold was a good distraction from what he was about to do. He slid his eyes shut as the liquid covered his face, rushing up his nose.

“JIM!”

Suddenly it was as if the floor of the tub dropped from underneath him, plunging him straight into the unknown. Jim’s mouth parted in a silent ‘o.’ His fingers twitched. However, even if he tried, he knew couldn’t reach for the impressions of daylight scattered on the water's surface. His body felt heavy, his conscious awareness disjointed and frayed. His family and friends’ voices grew murkier the deeper he sank, replaced by nothing but the dull echo of his heartbeat and the creeping sense that he’d made a terrible mistake. But there was no turning back now.

With a flash the amulet’s magic enveloped his soul, snuffing the last embers of the human boy known as Jim Lake.

[projectsoleil]

Red Giant || Cella|| MM Trial 6.4||Re: Nate, Tsuki ,Roger

The irritation was speaking again.

"It's a generalization you fool.  Of course I'm trying to save people." 

Why did she think that Nate of all people would understand this? 

"You think that I'm doing this to save just some floating rock in space with water and trees?  Do you think that just because I'd let a microscopic amount of people die to help the greater good that I don't care?  That I don't want to help?  That I believe the entirety of the human race must be purged from the planet?"

She laughs, though it's mixed with anger as she listens more and more to Nate.  She never got along with him, could never understand his methods, or his means, or his simpleminded philosophy.  

"Do you think that I had some horrific trauma?  Some bad run in with a hero or villain like the rest of you?  I do this because I think it's the right and proper solution.  The only means of making sure things work out.  I'm sound of mind, spirit, and body.  I have the conviction and determination to do what needs to be done, unlike the rest of the cowardice world that would rather fester in this sinking society.  I care, and I don't need your approval to prove it."

She might not need their approval, but she sure does hate hearing some of the words coming out of their mouths. 

"Tch...!"  

That comment about her being nothing sure does trike a nerve though.

"What's worse then?  You think you all know better and what have you all attempted to do to remedy anything?  Go on, I want to hear it.  Is it property damage?  Beating up villains to near death?  Or maybe just enough so that they throw in the towel on villainy.  Better education?  Preventive services?  Surveillance?  Truly, I want to hear your soltuion, any solution reasonable long term solution.  I bet you can't though.  I bet that your simpleminded solutions are always what ends up getting someone hurt.  Please, tell me what you would do to stop the world from sinking further?  To stop villain's from destroying cities and killing innocents en masse.  I'll tell it to you straight.  What the fate is of people like you."

"You. Will. Be. NOTHING.  Another battered and ruined bulwark trying to hold off the endless tide of 'people' that you so generously care about that won't care for you.  You and every hero on this planet will either break, die, or turn sides to survive in our crumbling world.  A spent torch that once it's fire has been engulfed in blackness will be tossed away into the pile of refuse."

Now that she got that anger out of her system she's gone back to being sarcastic.

"Oh you're right Nate, when I think catastrophic world ending events I think of a small group of people being forced to kill one another on an island.  Truly, some upstart villian will learn from me and apply this across the entire world one day and I'll have no one to blame but myself.  Get real, the world won't end because someone looked to me and this project, in reality it will be something much simpler.  Someone will want power and they'll do anything to get it, they'll have the means, and then they'll tear the world apart to do it, and they won't have remorse."

"I'm not saying I'll stop crime in total, no one can do that short of literally killing every human on earth.  But I can at least minimize the type of damage done.  That should at least make sense to you don't you think?"

Why is she even asking?  She knows that they won't care, that they won't understand.  So few of them are choosing to understand and yet she still attempts time and time again.  Why bother at this point, these fools just want something to bash their fists and head against.

"Another horrific symptom of this society is the inflated sense of self importance.  Every person suddenly thinks they can take on the world.  For good or for evil.  But everyone meets their match someday, to someone, it's happened here enough times for you to know that as fact don't you think?  But fine, I'll oblige,  you know I've never really been the sadistic type.  But I think I'm going to take great pleasure in watching your futile struggle for awhile, if only so that I can watch you realize how little you matter in the grand scheme of things.  "  

She was already heated, but Tsuki's comments just give her a flashback to those inflammatory comments made by Artemis.

  "..."

She really hates these damn bots.  But she can't let herself lose her cool, even if she really wants to just vent.

"I'm starting to see a correlation between intelligence and how vocal some of you are choosing to be about my supposed failure.  You must think that you're funny, that's fine.  I'm no stranger to fools misunderstanding and mocking me."

"I've told you once, I'll tell you again.  Creating a first of it's kind self sustain space station meant for interstellar travel isn't something that you can just hash out on the first draft, or the first hundred drafts.  You learn how to fix, alter, and improve, as you do with any project as large as this one.  The money doesn't make me smarter, but it does expand the possibilities I can explore and speed up that process.  I'm certain that MHEC will also be helpful in that regard as well."

As for whether the aliens would see them as a threat or not...

"Maybe it was an experiment, maybe it was an accident, but I doubt that if they can give powers like these that they'd be afraid of us.  Chances are they can wield such powers themselves and have had ages to improve and perfect them, longer than we have.  They can't see us as threats, in the same way that you can't see a gnat as anything more than perhaps a small annoyance." 

At least she hopes, it'll be real awkward if her sudden introduction to the aliens leads to them wanting to burn their planet down.

For once he does make a decent point.

  "Well... there's always risk, but one can imagine that their reaction won't be one of fire and fury.  Not at first, and not if we don't give them a reason.  I'm willing to take that risk, after all no one else seems to be willing."

"There are many smart people in the world, and it's true that many of them probably could attempt what I'm doing with less money, more time, and less killing games and if they're truly wise they'll know that seldom can complex creations be made in such few attempts.  You try to shame me for my failures and revisions, but that's the tactic of someone who hasn't labored themselves on such things."

She got mad before, she's not going to get upset again.  She was the person in control here after all.

"You're right, many of the fools here are orbiting around me in cages of electricity.  Truly, there must be many vocal idiots here that must think they know better simply because they can shout rather loudly."

Now that... was the most unexpected question that she's gotten all day.  

"...Hmm, speaking from experience of having immense pressure on you  Well, I'll be honest.  I've never thought once about what the ULF might be feeling as a... 'person' if I dared to even call it that.  It's a tool to me, and a living organism second. I suppose you have a point, if it doesn't want to fight or follow my orders I certainly can't make it.  But I sure as hell can... 'convince' it to do so.  Even the most basic of creatures have a self preservation instincts after all."

"Still, color me impressed that you're more worried for the ULF while some others of you seem intent on fighting it.  Maybe you should try talking it out with it, I'd love to see what the results of that will look like."