#especially without the bigger context

[phantomtwitch]

So You Have Wished It

I should be editing my current fic since I ended up with some time I didn’t expect to have today, but I am oh so stuck on a part of the current chapter so I wrote a thing instead. 

Fair warning, though, it’s angsty as hell. Some Danny/Sam. It’s part of a whole AU thing I’m writing that I don’t have a name for yet but I’ll figure it out eventually.

Anyway, uh, enjoy? 

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44790605

CW: suicide mention

The first sign that something was wrong was so small that it was easy for Sam to dismiss it.

She kicked a rock down the street, staring at the bizarre email on her phone and barely listening as Tucker and Danny argued about one of the new levels in Doomed! The new expansion came out yesterday, but so far it looked like it hadn’t been tested enough, and there were odd little glitches that kept piling up. “At least we finally got new content,” argued Danny. “It’s been ages.”

“But it’s awful,” groaned Tucker. “I had so much more respect for the developers before they put out this garbage. I’m not going to keep playing if my character can be randomly deleted because I picked up the wrong item!”

“That’s just a rumor, Tuck, I doubt anyone actually lost their character,” said Danny. “And even if they did you know they’d fix it.”

“That’s not the point! It should’ve gone through way more beta testing and–Sam, come on, back me up here, will you?” implored Tucker, and Sam gave a half-hearted shrug, shaking her head. She saw the two of them exchange a worried look. 

“Are you feeling okay?” asked Danny.

“I’m fine. Just confused,” she said as she handed over her phone to Danny.

“‘Need to knows for your trip to Connecticut next week’?” read Danny as he stared at her. “You’re going to Connecticut? Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

“Because I’m not going to Connecticut,” she insisted as she took the phone back and continued to stare at the email, feeling a weird sense of betrayal even though her phone did nothing wrong. “Why on earth would I go to Connecticut?!”

“Doesn’t your Dad work out there sometimes?” asked Tucker.

“Yeah, but that’s got nothing to do with me. I hate it there, it’s just full of a bunch of rich snobs,” she said as she finally put the phone away. “The only thing I can think of is that my Mom booked a flight for something and didn’t tell me. She’s been trying to get me to go to charity galas again for ages.”

“I’m sure you can get out of it,” said Danny reassuringly, and then his breath fogged in front of him and he groaned,  slumping over. “Ugh, come on. Does there have to be a ghost right now? The movie starts in like ten minutes.”

“It’s okay, Danny. Even if we’re late, we’ll just miss the previews,” said Sam when suddenly a massive, glowing dinosaur with a cheering, six-year-old kid riding on its back ran past them. The three of them paused, blinking at it for a minute in disbelief as it thundered down the street.

“A dinosaur ghost? Seriously?!” said Danny as he threw his arms up, and with a sigh he ducked into the nearby alley to transform into Phantom. “Thermos?”

“Got it,” said Sam, handing it over to him as he flew after the ghost, and she and Tucker followed on foot while she silently wished she had her speeder. They ran down the street quickly, not really managing to keep pace with Danny and the dinosaur ghost as it led them past a half-dozen stores, the library, and eventually past the cemetery. For a brief moment, her eyes lingered on a spot beneath an old elm tree, an odd mix of guilt and pain flitting through her, but the feeling was gone seconds later as Danny finally caught up and pulled the kid off the dinosaur despite the boy flailing wildly, kicking and screaming.

“This isn’t fair! She’s a nice Brachiosaurus! She’s my best friend!” insisted the kid as he punched Danny in the chest over and over again. “Let me go!”

“Sorry, kid, but I’ve seen too many Jurassic Park movies to think this is going to end well,” he said as he put him down and shot an ecto blast at the dinosaur. It let out a massive roar, sending a wave of power that knocked over a couple of signs and sent Danny sprawling backward, and Danny’s eyes flashed a brilliant green as he charged up another blast and sent it hurtling at the Brachiosaurus. It tumbled over with a loud crash, smashing cars and street lights as it fell. Danny winced, clearly not thrilled about the collateral damage, but he moved forward quickly to suck the dinosaur ghost up into the thermos.

“Hey, uh, where are your parents?” Tucker asked the kid as he finally caught up, holding his side and panting heavily. She listened to Tucker and the kid go back and forth for a minute as the boy continued to argue about Phantom stealing his dinosaur, but little by little she found herself unable to focus, her thoughts drifting as she stared off in the direction of the cemetery. 

“Earth to Sam? Hello?” said Danny, waving a hand in front of her face, and she blinked, having missed when he transformed back and walked over to her. 

“Sorry. I kind of spaced out for a minute,” she said.

“And you say I’m a space case,” he teased. Sam rolled her eyes, not even commenting on the awful joke as Danny tilted his head to the side, frowning at her. “Are you feeling okay? Maybe we should skip the movie.”

“No, no, I want to go,” she insisted. “I’ll be fine. I think I’m just a little tired.”

They managed to make it to the movie and get through it without interruption, sharing popcorn and drinks while Tucker made fun of the special effects, and halfway through she felt Danny’s hand surreptitiously reach over and grab hers, squeezing it gently. His touch was always so cold since his accident, but she found it strangely comforting, and he gave her a small smile, his cheeks flushing red before he looked back at the screen.

She felt her face burning as she turned away, trying to focus her attention back on the movie. She knew he had feelings for her, that she had feelings for him, but she found herself too scared to voice it, to tell him the truth even as he took this small, brave step. 

“Lovebirds,” said Tucker with an eyeroll, and she felt Danny’s hand immediately move out of hers as he objected, babbling about how he didn’t mean to grab her hand, it was an accident and he wasn’t thinking, and she smiled sadly as she listened to him rambling nervously on and on. It felt so normal, and she forgot about the weird email until the next day.

It was a Friday night and she was sitting in the stands, stuck at a football game despite promising herself she would never go within a mile of the high school on a game night. Danny had gotten roped into being the mascot for the game–Paulina offered to invite him to one of her parties if he covered for Mikey since he was out sick–and so Sam and Tucker came along to support him. They cheered him on from the stands, Sam snapping a few pictures despite knowing how horribly embarrassed the whole thing made him, and halfway through the last quarter, when the Casper High Ravens were down seven points, her phone buzzed in her pocket. Pulling it out, she saw a text message from her Dad.

>>I scheduled an appointment for you with Dr. Daughtery for Monday after you come back. Good luck next Sunday. I know it’s a hard day for you. I’m here if you need to talk.

She stared at the text, frowning as Tucker yelled something about a call next to her, his attention focused on the game. Who the hell was Dr. Daughtery? What was Sunday? Going back to her email, she saw that her flight was supposed to be next Sunday night, too. Maybe that’s what he meant? But that didn’t seem quite right as she read the text again. Sam shivered, beginning to type out a response when she suddenly heard the crowd break out into terrified screams, her phone getting knocked out of her hands and into the stands as someone shoved her from behind as they tried to flee.

She managed to grab her phone before it fell between the bleachers, barely avoiding getting stomped as the crowd pushed and shoved their way out. Tucker helped her back to her feet and as she looked out at the field, she saw a strange monster in what looked like a Casper High Ravens uniform charging at the football players, making them scatter. 

“What the hell is that?” she whispered.

“Dash. He was hit with some weird green light and transformed into that thing,” said Tucker as Danny hurried over in costume once the crowd had mostly cleared out. 

“Can you cover for me?” he asked, taking off the raven head and handing it over to Tucker.

“Oh, come on, I am not putting that on!”

“I’m not asking you to wear it, I’m just asking you to hold onto it for a minute. I’m pretty sure I’ll be dead if I wreck the costume. Well, deader,” he said, and Tucker sighed as he took the raven head from Danny while he pulled off the rest of the costume. Internally Sam winced. She hated it when Danny joked about his accident and becoming half-ghost even though she knew it was a coping mechanism for him. It shouldn’t bother her–she liked dark and creepy and supported and accepted Danny–but it still made her uneasy every time, as if the joke always took things a little too far to a reality that so easily could have been.

“Fine,” said Tucker as Danny took a quick look around the stands, making sure the coast was clear before transforming into Phantom.

“Thanks.” Sam handed him a thermos, his fingers lingering on hers for a minute, and she felt herself blush.

“Be careful,” she said, her voice an octave too high, and she could feel the way Tucker stared at her and smirked. 

“I’ll be okay. Promise.” She watched as he flew off and struggled with the strange, monstrous version of Dash for a minute before he finally turned his hands intangible and ripped out the ghost possessing him. Dash slumped to the ground as Danny wrestled with the massive ghost, throwing it off him as he rolled onto his back, and then he fired another ectoblast at it. The creature collapsed to the ground and he sucked it into the thermos before moving to help Dash get back on his feet. She watched as they talked for a minute, Danny putting his head in his hands in frustration before flying back over to them.

“Any idea what happened?”

“It’s Desiree,” he said. “I haven’t seen her around, but Dash said he made a wish about becoming the best player ever to win the game or something and then he ended up possessed by that thing. She’s probably behind the dinosaur from last night, too.”

“We need to find her before she does something way worse,” said Sam, something twisting uneasily in her gut. “You caught her at the fountain in the park where people make wishes and stuff last time, right? Maybe she’ll be there again.”

“It’s worth a shot,” said Danny. “You two up for a stakeout tonight?”

“Nobody’s going to be making wishes there tonight,” said Sam. “Let’s meet there tomorrow morning instead. Hopefully Desiree doesn’t cause any more problems tonight.”

They walked most of the way home together in silence, Tucker leaving them to head to his own house once they were about halfway to Danny’s. “Feeling any better?” asked Danny once they were alone, his hands tucked in his pockets as he looked up at the sky. The stars weren’t really visible from the street, the light pollution too intense, but he never stopped trying to look. 

“What do you mean?”

“You just seem a little off, I guess,” he said with a shrug. “Did you ever figure out what was up with your trip next week?”

“No, I completely forgot,” she admitted. “I got a weird text from my Dad, too.”

“Oh?”

“He scheduled an appointment for me with some doctor that I’ve never heard of,” she said as she pulled it out, and this time she took a minute to search for the name online. There were a few hits, but one in particular stuck out for a psychiatrist in Connecticut. “She’s a therapist, I guess.”

“You’re in therapy?”

“It’s news to me, too,” she said. “He said he did it because he knows next Sunday’s supposed to be a hard day for me or something. It makes no sense.” Danny froze, his face pale as he stood eerily still beneath the lights. “What?”

“That’s the anniversary,” he said softly, rubbing one of his arms, and she stared back at him, not sure what he meant. “Y’know. Of my accident.”

Sam’s eyes widened. She’d completely forgotten that it was next weekend. Danny rarely talked about it, not wanting to make them worry or feel worse about what happened. He knew Sam felt guilty about pushing him to go inside it, even if things still turned out okay. 

But why would her Dad think she needed therapy for Danny’s accident now and not a year ago? She never talked to her Dad about what happened, and Sam knew Danny forgave her for pressuring him that day. Was there something else that happened? Something she was forgetting? Or maybe her Dad was paying more attention than she thought last year, and just jumped to conclusions. Or maybe her mom went through her journals. She never specifically wrote about Danny being a half-ghost, but she had talked about his accident there, and she wouldn’t put it past her to snoop.

“What if Desiree already granted more wishes than we realize?” asked Danny softly, breaking her out of her spiraling thoughts. “Like maybe someone made a wish that messed with us somehow, and that’s why you suddenly have to go to Connecticut and that’s why you’re in therapy or something.”

“You think it’s related to your accident somehow?” she said.

“Maybe, maybe not. It might be a coincidence,” he said as he stared at his feet.

 “What would they have even wished for?” wondered Sam. It could be some weird revenge scheme by Paulina or one of the other A-listers, but therapy and a trip to Connecticut hardly seemed like the kind of punishment they would want to inflict on her. And if it wasn't one of them, then who? She and Tucker both knew better than to make a wish, or at least she hoped Tucker did after the last time. Danny’s parents might have made one, but even so, the question about what they wished for and why it was messing with her remained.

“I don’t know,” Danny admitted, but she had the nagging sense that there was something he wasn’t telling her, that he did have a guess even as she personally couldn’t think of anything that would make sense. “But I don’t like it, the thought that our lives might’ve changed somehow, that this . . . I don’t know.”

“I don’t think she’s that powerful, Danny. There’s no way she could change so much without us noticing,” said Sam as they slowly started to walk again. “And the stuff with the therapist and my Dad doesn’t have to be because of a wish. I really might’ve forgotten something. It’s not like I listen to my parents when they talk to me.”

“Maybe,” he said, clearly unconvinced. “I don’t know, Sam. I don’t feel any different, but I’m–I’m kind of scared.” He wrapped his arms around himself, digging his fingers into his arms. “But the person who made the wish would remember, right? Have you made any wishes lately?”

“Nope. You?” she asked, and he shook his head. “We can ask Tucker and Jazz, too.”

“Jazz is still living with Vlad right now. I doubt Desiree went to Wisconsin to mess with her,” said Danny, which was a fair point. Sam was still getting used to Jazz not being around anymore. She went out there for her final year of school, hoping that the ritzy private school near Vlad’s would help give her the edge she needed to get into Harvard or Yale’s psychology program. “But we can ask Tucker. Maybe my parents, too, if I can think of a way to do it that isn’t weird. But if we’re really not sure, then I could just wish for Desiree to undo whatever wishes she’s granted. That would probably fix things.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Sam. 

“Sounds like a plan,” said Danny, and then he laughed. “We actually made a plan for once. Jazz would be so proud of us.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure she’ll throw a parade when she finds out,” said Sam with a grin, and she only realized then that they were already at his house. She grabbed his hand, squeezing it a little bit, and she saw him blush as her own face burned. “I’ll, um, see you tomorrow?” 

“I–sure,” he said , holding her hands in his, and for one second she thought he might kiss her when he suddenly pulled away, clearly embarrassed as she watched him hurry into his house. He paused briefly at the top of the steps to wave goodbye before going inside, and she gave a small wave back before heading home. She pulled out her phone, trying to think of something to say to her Dad, some way to ask him without making it obvious that she hadn’t listened to him when he told her about going to Connecticut and her therapy appointment, but Danny’s words nagged at her. What if something had been changed? What if they were different and didn’t even realize it? What wish could they have possibly made? Maybe in another world she did blame herself more for Danny’s accident and regretted it so much her Dad had her flying out to some specialist in Connecticut to deal with the guilt. 

She still hadn’t figured out a way to text her father and ask, so Sam sent a text to Tucker instead, asking him if he noticed anything weird lately or if he remembered making a wish, but he confirmed he didn’t. She tried to talk to her Mom but she wasn’t home, a note on the fridge about going to some event out of state for the evening. 

Trudging upstairs to her room, she pulled out her journals, staying up late as she skimmed through them and searched for clues. She hoped that if someone did make a wish that messed with her or Danny somehow then she would find the answers there, that it would prove something to her, but nothing seemed amiss, the details on the page lining up perfectly with her memories. She tried digging through her drawers, going through her pictures, and scrolling through social media, but there was just nothing there, nothing that seemed off. She didn’t understand it. 

She finally resolved to call or text her Dad, but it was already past three a.m., and no doubt her Dad would be furious if she called him so late. “Ugh, I shouldn’t have stayed up so late,” she groaned as she went to bed, knowing she needed to get up early tomorrow. She spent most of the night tossing and turning, her sleep full of nightmares about strange wishes and altered realities. 

Her phone chimed on her night stand, and she reached over groggily, nearly knocking it onto the floor as she picked it up. There was a text from Tucker and Danny. They were already at the park doing the stakeout, waiting for her, and she realized she’d slept past noon. She quickly climbed out of bed, throwing on some clean clothes, and then she sent a text to let them know she was on her way.

She was almost at the fountain when her phone buzzed again, but it wasn’t from Tucker or Danny. Instead it was from Jazz, the words on the screen sending a chill down her spine.

>>Are we still on for next Sunday at noon?

“What the hell is Sunday?” she whispered, the whole situation spiraling too much now that Jazz was apparently involved in it, too. She needed to know. There was something she was forgetting, something all of them were forgetting, and she could feel her heart beating a little faster. Sam didn’t really like Jazz enough to make plans to hang out without a good reason. Danny’s older sister was nosy and overbearing and exhausting to deal with, too preppy and cheerful to be in a room with for more than a few minutes. Whatever they planned, whatever they intended to do, it had to be important, and Sam’s hands shook as she sent a text back.

>>What?

Her hands were shaking as she continued to slowly walk towards the fountain, waiting for Jazz to respond, and when Jazz finally did Sam almost screamed in frustration.

>>It’s okay if you don’t want to go. I know it’s hard for you. It’s hard for me, too. 

At this point she was firmly done with this nonsense. Even if Jazz thought she was crazy, even if she didn’t understand it, Sam was desperate to finally get some answers that weren’t vague acknowledgements and half-statements. The phone rang twice before Jazz picked it up.  “Sam, seriously, it’s okay if you don’t–”

“Jazz, that’s not it. I don’t remember what we’re supposed to do Sunday,” interrupted Sam, walking faster now as something uneasy clawed at her, something important and vital that she shouldn’t have forgotten, couldn’t have forgotten.

“What?” Jazz sputtered.

“We think Desiree granted a wish, it’s messed with everything. I know something’s wrong but I don’t–please, Jazz. I know it sounds crazy, but please. What were we supposed to do on Sunday?” said Sam quickly, almost running now, and she felt her phone buzz as a text came from Tucker, the confirmation that Desiree was there, their plan having worked. “Please.”

“It’s the anniversary of Danny’s death,” said Jazz quietly, her voice cracking on the words. “He died last year. You really don’t remember him?”

There was a bitter taste to the air, as if some piece of the world tipped unnaturally on its axle. She heard Jazz on the other end, talking to her still, but Sam wouldn’t answer, because deep down she could feel the inevitability of what was coming, snapping its jaws around her even as she wanted to scream and fight against it, even as she wanted to deny it, because she knew what their plan was, what Danny was going to do. Sam ran as fast as she could, her boots thumping loudly against the pavement as her heart hammered away in her chest. She had to go faster. She couldn’t let undo it, couldn’t let him die again. She could make it. She would stop him. She would–

“I wish to undo every wish you’ve granted!” shouted Danny, grinning at her triumphantly as spotted her, and Sam froze, her hands going up to her mouth in horror as tears began to pour down her cheeks.

“So you have wished it, so shall it be!” intoned Desiree, and she saw the horror on his face at her expression, his hand reaching out to her for a moment before he suddenly disappeared and the world came crashing down around her as her reality was restored, as her dreams were shattered, her wish undone. 

“I wish we never lost you, Danny.” The words from her wish a week ago echoed in her mind as her memories came rushing back, of the moment when Danny stepped into the portal and was brutally torn apart in the activation, his scream echoing until everything fell suddenly, dreadfully silent. Of the year that followed, of the moment she almost killed herself in her grief and her guilt, of Jazz moving away not because of school but because she could not bear to look at her parents who built the portal that killed her brother.

And she fell to her knees sobbing, hugging herself as she lost her friend yet again because of her mistakes.

[qsmpheadcannons]

I will never get over how much more mature Philza is in his lore than everyone else. He doesn’t have to be, he can choose his own lore, but he chooses instead for his character to always be the bigger person.

And this just goes to show how good of a storyteller he is; he knows the story requires his character to fill a supporting role and he does it without erasing his character’s complexity.

It’s not like his character is never immature, but when he is immature or lashes out, it doesn’t just affect the atmosphere, it completely changes it.

He yells at Wilbur, telling him to leave and find the eggs himself if he’s so upset about it- very much in the way an angry parent scolds a child- and for a brief moment you can feel how scared his character is, and Wilbur who was previously just confused and upset immediately becomes defensive (which benefits Wilbur’s story).

But more importantly Phil apologizes immediately after he’s calmed down, something which we don’t really see from other characters that are described as calm, cool and mature the same way he is. (being more mature isn’t a source of pride for him) It speaks volumes about who his character is, and just how long he’s been around compared to everyone else.

It shows that his character is also choosing to be the bigger person. It shows that he knows better than to wait to apologize to someone he cares about; which taken in the context of his lore can imply that he may have experience with loosing friends or allies in that way.

There’s more I could say abt this, especially with what this can imply about Wilbur and Phil’s father/son relationship, but I think that deserves its own post.

[tflaw]

PLAYING FAVORITE.

꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱ . . . 3.2k — f!reader. reader calls diluc and kaeya ‘master’ since it is the term used by npcs working in dawn winery to address the two. in this context, it is not meant to be demeaning. diluc and kaeya take turns. pure filth + self-indulgent. kaeya & lots of dirty talking + fingering + exhibition teasing. diluc & his raging breeding kink <3. creampies. diluc cleaning his cum off of you with his mouth. doggy + prone bonez. slight mindbreak. drool + tears + overstimming. oral (m & f!receiving). use of the word pussy, like a lot.

In which, Diluc and Kaeya make sporadic visits to the Dawn Winery just to fuck their favorite maid: you.

“Master Kaeya… I don’t think we should… do this here.” Cheeks hot like coals, you squirmed, eyes darting here and there as your heart hoofed like crazy in your chest.

The Cavalry Captain only sighed, puffing an almost frustrated sound. “You just have to bend over and let me fuck this cock into you. That isn’t hard, is it?”

“Adelinde… might see us… the others might wake up…” You shuddered, pushing your back into his chest, afraid of the scant light emitted by the candles on tabletops surrounding you. Kaeya utilized the moment by reaching for the hem of your maid dress, and tugging the fabric up until your skin was exposed to the night air. You shot up a hand to cover your mouth, holding down his wrist timidly.

Because Kaeya had a penchant for fucking you in open spaces around the Winery: the living room, the kitchen, and outside with the vast stretch of grapevines witnessing your wits getting fucked out of your brains by the Captain.

“Hm?” Kaeya hummed while kissing your ear with his wet mouth. “You whine so much, but you took your underwear off before coming down here.” The length of his middle finger rubbed along your exposed slit, with Kaeya coating said finger with your slick before raising it to your face. “See? Your pussy’s thrilled that I’m going to fuck you here, where anyone could walk in on you taking my cock like a good girl.”

Rolling your lip between your teeth, shame burned in your stomach while watching his skin glint with your arousal. “That’s not true… I don’t want anyone to see us…”

At your weak response, Kaeya cackled throatily behind you.

“You’re adorable when in denial,” said he, big hand crawling inside your dress up to your breast, therefore displaying more of your skin and cunt. “Even your nipple’s hard. And you’re drooling here—” He stroked your slit again, teasing to fill your hole with his finger while pinching your nipple.

You wished he’d be done right with it. You wished that he would shove his fingers in, fill you, and make your head dizzy of your climax as soon as possible before anyone in the Winery decides to wake up for a glass of water. But Kaeya had never been one to rush things— especially not the fucking part.

“Master Kaeya—”

“Only Kaeya,” he gruffly whispered, biting your ear while rubbing your clit, his other hand still massaging the soft muscle of your breast and occasionally twiddling his fingers around the tight bud.

The way he played with your body sent forth an amount of clear slick to bubble out of your hole. He echoed a pleased hum, reveling at the quick way your body responded even after all those weeks since the last he fucked you dumb.

Tonight, Elzer’s desk inside the mansion had poked Kaeya’s fancy. He pulled you to the sturdy desk to sit, and sit you did with one last worried glance behind you.

“Kaeya…” you and your heart stuttered with anxiety.

Kaeya’s mouth trailed down your jaw, a hot and breathless chuckle fanning your skin, while he busied his fingers undoing the first buttons of your dress. “C’mon, don’t rush. You rarely visit me in the Headquarters. I get so lonely without you around,” said his mouth. My cock gets so lonely without you around, said his eye when he pulled back to stroke your cheek.

At your exposed chest, light crosses Kaeya’s uncovered eye. “Look at these tits. They’ve gotten bigger since the last time. Diluc likes to fondle them, I suppose?” he teased, pinching both your nipples and tugging lightly.

Your toes curled at his unhurried touches. More so when he took your nipple inside his mouth, languidly licking and taking his time sucking. As if your skin had been laced with something honeyed.

His mouth was warm, and the soft muscle of his tongue circling the bud felt too good. You almost didn’t notice the wet patch on his pants— right to where his cock was restrained— because of the feeling. He was rock-hard for you. Such an enticing sight that made your clit beat sporadically, therefore soiling the desk with your clear arousal.

There was nothing more left to deny that you wanted Kaeya’s cock ramming into you, too. You wanted him to completely obliterate your senses with it, give you something new to feel. A new memory to touch yourself to in the quiet confines of your bedroom once he’s gone.

With the look you gave him, every drop of pent-up desire took over Kaeya’s mind. It happened so fast that you barely had time to react, let alone breathe properly when he bent you over the table and popped his already wet and leaking cock into your trembling cunt.

“K… kaeya!” you gasped, palms sliding over the wooden desk as you struggled to find a niche to brace yourself with.

In a minute of pure silence, Kaeya hunched over your back, feeling his cock throb against the warmth of your walls with a familiarity that made his cocktip ache. “Archons,” he whispered, tipping his head close to your ear, “I’ve missed your pussy I could cry.”

Everything became a blur after that statement. And you didn’t think you’d ever been fucked that hard by him before, to the point where the desk kept being pushed forward because of the ferocity. Certainly, Kaeya had it in him to leave your legs trembling for a couple more minutes after pulling out, but this time was different. He would ruin you and you’d love every second of it.

Because after so many nights of emptying his balls, desperate hands pumping his cock up and down, Kaeya knew he wouldn’t stop even if he saw Adelinde from a distance.

“Don’t squeeze too hard,” Kaeya hissed, milking himself dry and grunting at the sound of creamy squelching. “I don’t want to come yet.”

But he’d come soon, you believed. He’d come by the way he was practically mounting you, propping his one leg up to the nearest chair so he could fuck his cock to your velvet spot until his slit becomes raw and you turn a mess of drool underneath him.

The smacking sounds were loud. Heavy slam after heavy slam, your butt and his pelvis met.

Losing a bit of himself after each thrust, Kaeya perspired like he’d ran a mile, cursing and grunting while watching the angry veins of his cock in and out of your twitchy hole.

What a fucking sight, he thought to himself.

“There’s just something about you and your pussy, huh?” he struggled to say through the tight lock in his chest due to your pussy squeezing his shaft. “Something that could make a madman out of a gentleman, salivating for a piece of it.”

Your slick languidly trickled down the carpeted floor while Kaeya pounded the daylights out of you. His penetration had rendered you with an open mouth, drooling on Elzer’s desk.

“Gonna cum,” Kaeya groaned, movement becoming more erratic. “I’m gonna cum.”

You pushed a hand to your mouth, letting out a helpless squeal when he mounded the soft flesh of your hips and fucked his cock into you to the base. He throbbed inside your walls— too intense that you felt it all over your body.

Kaeya tried to chase his high with jagged breathing and curses, but even he had been left weak by the amount of cum he’d ram inside your womb. A creamy glob slid together with his pulling out, which drove him into a slight panic.

Kaeya cupped your pussy from the back to stop the leakage. “Need to keep it inside, pretty,” he murmured, fingering the thick liquid back into you carefully.

And you, quivering on the table, exerted yourself in picking bits and pieces of your sanity back. His sticky cum was felt all over your pussy lips, making the skin tight with each second that you remained bare. It took Kaeya to gently pull you so you could stand on your own again.

“You never change.” He caressed your cheek softly before buttoning up your dress. “And that’s what I…” whispered he, pushing his face close to yours, “… love about you.”

He’d kiss you, just like he always did before. He’d kiss you and whisper how good you were for him. And again, you’d fall into his trap like a helpless mouse. Because you have yet to learn how to escape Kaeya’s claws.

“What a surprise. I wouldn’t have expected to see you both awake.”

Intense goosebumps bolted up your spine at the voice. You wouldn’t have found the strength to break free from being dumbstruck had panic not coerced you to.

“Master Diluc…” you stammered, smoothing out your dress and stealing a glance at Kaeya, who stood unperturbed by Diluc’s presence.

“Diluc. Adelinde failed to disclose your arrival,” he said, amused.

Diluc’s carmine eyes glinted in the candlelight. He sighed, loosening his gloves as he advanced. “I told her to keep my arrival in strict confidentiality. It is not of import, anyway.”

“Master Diluc… let me help you…” You reached for his coat, offering your help with your eyes cast downwards. There was not any strength left in you to face him. The atmosphere was far too oppressive.

“It’s alright,” Diluc replied. “Will you bring me a glass to my quarters? The journey rendered my throat parched.”

“At once, Master Diluc,” you murmured. You felt two pairs of eyes on your back as you ambled towards the kitchen, leaving them both to share the cumbersome air.

While pouring him a glass did it only strike you: Diluc was back. After so many months of traveling overseas, he was here. Finally. The thought captured your heart with excitement. Excitement that you reined in, lest you risk having Kaeya’s cum trailing down your thighs.

“No…” you began to sob in embarrassment at the feel of his load teasing your hole. He had come too much for your little cunt to handle.

Inhaling, you made haste toward Diluc’s chamber. Kaeya was nowhere in the living room when you knocked on the young master’s door.

“Come in,” echoed his voice from the other side.

Diluc was occupied in sliding out of his coat, giving you a charming view of his back and shoulders flexing at his movement.

You gulped and spoke before you could empty the glass yourself, “Master Diluc, here’s the water you—”

“Kaeya fucked you, didn’t he?” he intervened, flawlessly pulling his hair tie to free his hair from the bind.

Bind that you instead felt around your chest at his question. Now, you knew very well the hostility between Diluc and Kaeya. The young master had been harboring animosity for the latter ever since that night when you witnessed them fight to the death. Or at least, that was what Diluc allowed anyone to believe.

You wished not to create a further rift between the two. And lying was the only right choice.

Shaking your head in denial, you replied, “N… no. Kaeya asked me to bring him something to eat. That’s the sole reason I was with him.”

Diluc proceeded to discard his upper clothes, together with the straps around his chest. He swiveled to face you, saying too much by not saying anything at all.

“Sit down.” He motioned at the edge of his bed with a light tilt of his chin.

After placing the glass on his bedside table, you rubbed your palms together and sat, wincing inwardly at the magnified dampness between your legs.

“Let me see it.” Diluc lilt was low and smoky. When you looked up at him, confused and lost, he took your chin. “Your cunt, let me see it.”

“Master Diluc… I…” You searched for words but found none.

Diluc cambered his head to the side, waiting for the dissent that never came. His eyes darkened when you lifted your skirt. Gasping when the young master parted your legs with his knee, leaned in, and pushed a finger inside. He clicked his tongue but said nothing.

“You’ve been very bad while I was away, have you not?” He unbuckled his pants, freeing his already proud and standing cock. The whiff of all man and desire filled your nose. Scent that he had consumed you with when he guided his shaft to your cheek. “I’m, without a doubt, upset by this display of indecent behavior. What do we do, I wonder?”

“I… I couldn’t say no, Master Diluc. It was Kaeya… and I figured… the young master wouldn’t have minded if—”

Diluc pushed his tip against your lips. “Hm, what do we do with a lying mouth? I think it needs to open up.”

Your eyelids lowered as you widen your mouth, tasting the salty pre-ejaculate smeared across his cocktip.

Diluc sighed, undeniably satisfied as he shoved his length down your throat while your pussy gushed out Kaeya’s fresh and hot cum with each twitch of your hole. He took both of your hands and place them on his hips, locking them with his big ones before thrusting.

Reveling in his virility, you shut your eyes and let him fuck your mouth at a pace he was comfortable. Swirling your tongue, swathing his whole girth with saliva, sighing as Diluc’s scent filled all your senses.

You’d remember the days where you’d kneel, hiding behind his desk while you suck him off, relieving a bit of his stress brought about by work.

He once said that your mouth would’ve been unrivaled if your pussy did not exist. Pussy that he’d think about whenever he was away. Pussy that occupied his imagination while lying on a creaky bed somewhere in a nameless inn. Pussy that he never once forget to convey his deep adoration to in his letters only made for you.

Diluc pulled out when your drool pooled under your chin. “Lay on your stomach in bed,” he whispered. You did as you were told without raising any fuss, heart pulsing in your ears when Diluc crawled behind you. “Higher,” he curtly commanded, spreading the meaty cheeks of your butt to get a better look at your hypnotizing cunt.

Curving your lower body up to give him access, Diluc gritted as he lined himself up to your hole, wiping the slit up and down with his tip a couple of times before shoving his length inside.

You cried in pleasure, insides trembling at the sheer girth rammed inside your already fucked out cunt. There was something different in Diluc’s cock that clouds your mind with nothingness. A tight fit, but a perfect one nonetheless.

He echoed a moan before pushing his fists on both sides of your body, poised to give you a merciless pounding. The bed squeaked together with you when he moved— all trained muscles and vigor, pummeling through your cunt hole hard.

Your brain turned into mush instantly, sight spinning. And you were nothing but a bubble of mess, blabbering how you missed him fucking you like that. Because you did miss this Diluc: the one who fucks hard and without inhibitions.

The Diluc who’d put you in a headlock while deliriously confessing his unfiltered thoughts of you. The one who’d say, “I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll be pregnant once I’m done with you. That way, Kaeya would fuck off, at last.”

Such raw confession unfit for the gentleman persona he cultivated as a façade. Such words had you brimming with tears because no one would ever experience being fucked like that by Diluc but you. So you’d answer him, laying all your feelings, “Make me pregnant, Diluc, please!”

“Ask for it,” he’d teased.

“Give me your cum,” you’d respond.

Four words that would drive him to insanity. Until all his words had turned to curses or helpless cries— as if he was wounded, as if he was gutted— while fucking his leaking cock and his cum back to your cunt. Again and again and again.

And it wouldn’t be enough, because Diluc had to taste you. He had to lick your cunt up, lapping and sucking on it, tasting himself in the process. Never had it bothered him. How could it? When you tremble and twitch as he sucks on your pussy lips, screaming his name and begging him for more until you are gushing on his tongue, mind breaking from the overstimulation.

The after sex, where you lie in his bed with him striving to clean you up before tucking you in, would be the best part. Diluc found nothing more beautiful than your face when you sleep peacefully beside him. It was a sight he always looks forward to seeing whenever it was time to come home. Because after his father’s death, Dawn Winery only felt like home if you were in it.

—

“You’re still here?” was the question raised by Diluc over breakfast when Kaeya descended from his room to eat.

The latter merely flapped his hand to the air. “I’m staying over for a few days just to unwind. Surely, you don’t mind?” asked he, eyes veering off in your direction while you poured Diluc a glass of grape juice.

Diluc did not look up from the stacks of letters placed beside his plate. “The Windblume Festival is fast approaching. Who overlooks the preparation, then?”

The air was stifling, and it didn’t help that you were still in the remnants of last night’s occurrences to function properly. You couldn’t even look at them both, not even when you poured Kaeya his glass of water.

“The Acting Grand Maester and the Sisters, who else?” he retorted before muttering a silent thank you to you, ascertaining that he had raked your body from head to toe.

“And as Cavalry Captain, your presence is not needed.” Diluc’s tone was taunting, laced with an edge of curiosity.

“Diluc, such bitterness is not to be shown over breakfast. I have finished my work before traveling here. Now, am I allowed to stay?” Kaeya repeated.

His intonation had you exchanging glances with Adelinde. It had been a while since Kaeya returned home. All of you were testing the waters and the day hadn’t fully yet begun.

“Suit yourself,” was Diluc’s reply before taking a sip from his glass.

The conversation ended as well as the brief breakfast.

At luncheon, when it was time to summon Kaeya, you found him reading a book on his desk inside his chamber. Nothing changed in its interior, but his closet had been emptied. You’d still clean and dust the shelves now and then for when he decided to visit. Every night, you’d come looking at your window, waiting for him to knock. After all these years, you believed that everyone had given up on waiting. But not you, never you.

“Kaeya, I missed seeing you around here.” Your cheeks burned at once when you heard yourself blurt out. It was full of longing.

If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. He wore his signature smile, one that would always conceal his true emotions. “Lucky you, I’m here to stay until the Festival, at least.”

“May I… may I know why?” you inquired, full of hopes that one day, he would never have to leave again.

Neglecting the book in his hand, he held his chin. “Hm, let’s see. I guess I’m on a mission.”

“On a mission? What mission that may be?”

“To get you full and pregnant before Diluc could.”

[ofswordsandpens]

Finale Thoughts

The show stuck the ending far better than I thought it would and when compared to the preceding episodes it knocks it out of the park. That being said, I think because the bar was so low going in, that it makes this episode feel spectacular when really every episode should have done this well, at minimum.

Solo Lessons and Ares Battle

I'm so happy they included the one-on-one training sessions with Luke since its so essential to foreshadowing. I also liked the setting in the woods but why was it like autumn/fall in the flashback lol? However, I think that did unintentionally add a dreamlike quality to the scene which I did really like so whatever I'm here for it.

That being said I do wish these scenes were in episode 2/3 alongside the other chb stuff instead of being a flashback in the finale because it makes it just so on the nose that Luke's the traitor. However, the shot panning from Luke's extended sword to Percy's on the beach ate I can't lie.

Honestly it may have been interesting if they had established some of the solo lessons early on in episode 3 and then done periodic flashbacks to expand on them throughout the series. That way, its not so obvious that Luke's the traitor in the final hour and we also get cool transition shots and establishing that Percy is thinking about what he's learned from his lessons with Luke.

#Relieved that the Ares and Percy fight was not a single sword strike and then cut to black. Glad we had some action. Still think we should've pushed the limits much harder tho.

Oh but Percy's wave did go hard. They actually made the wave much bigger than what happened in the book and now I'm just sitting here wondering why we couldn't see some more of this instead of 10,000 cut to black scenes every time Percy uses his powers.

I wish we had gotten this Ares's reaction from the book when he lost: "The roar that followed made Hades’s earthquake look like a minor event. The very sea was blasted back from Ares, leaving a wet circle of sand fifty feet wide." Show Ares's reaction seemed so anticlimactic in comparison.

And no curse???? huh??

I know Ares was like "we're enemies 4 life now" but the curse and dialogue from the book goes so unbelievably hard: “You have made an enemy, godling. You have sealed your fate. Every time you raise your blade in battle, every time you hope for success, you will feel my curse. Beware, Perseus Jackson. Beware.”

Why couldn't show Ares say that??

Olympus, Zeus, & Poseidon

[Insert aw, she's ugly John Mulaney Meme]

sorry Olympus could've should've been prettier.

Like Olympus in the book felt a lot more wondrous and lush and colorful. But in the show it seemed so dull. Idk if its cause the "war's happening" or whatever it was just bland. a wash of dull-looking cgi and then an instant cut to the Big Palace.

Lance Reddick's Zeus was amazing tho. He had that godly presence I've been waiting for.

And Toby Stephens's Poseidon? oh I loved it.

I especially loved their conversation in greek.

I still wish however they would have done effects on the gods' eyes. Like glowing with energy or something when they get emotional. I felt like I was waiting to see electricity burst from Zeus when he was yelling at Percy.

And so it turns out that the reason why they changed it to Percy missing the deadline in the show was to create a situation in which Poseidon surrenders a war for his son.

And listen, if this scene existed in a vacuum I'd be so here for it. I guess a part of me can't fathom the solstice being anything other than a hard deadline. I enjoy the scene without context, within context I have mixed feelings about it.

But the "do you dream?" convo between Percy and Poseidon. Oh my god no notes. I loved it.

Some more book dialogue that I wish made it: “You did well, Perseus. Do not misunderstand me. Whatever else you do, know that you are mine. You are a true son of the Sea God.”

Luke's Betrayal

Okay here's where we get some high highs and low lows.

Some things I sincerely liked:

The setting. Fireworks going off in the background. The lantern illuminating the side of Luke's face with the scar. So visually nice.

Luke actively trying to recruit Percy! I've always joked that if Luke was just a little smarter he would have tried to persuade Percy to join his side rather than immediately kill him. And I do like that the show went this direction.

While I do mourn the loss of the scorpion them battling via swords is a great subversion of the sword mentor/mentee dynamic they share. It makes the scene tense and fast pace.

And its all of the above that makes me wonder why we didn't have more of this throughout the show: talking while battling, visually appealing and dynamic settings, unique visuals, etc.

I love how triggered Luke was at Percy's mention of meeting Hermes. I still hate how much Hermes introduction bogged down the show but damn if it didn't lead to one singular funny moment.

Percy getting a hit in on Luke and then immediately apologizing

"I didn't think you'd give the shoes to Grover." Oh that was cold.

Walker and Charlie deserve their flowers and more they were fantastic and carried.

Now things I DIDN'T like:

I don't like how Percy pieced it together with the information he did have... which honestly isn't a lot in the show? If he was going to figure out that Luke was the traitor I would've have had Luke show more of his bitterness like he did in the book. Like the fact the show never even mentioned Luke's failed his quest loses the entire element of Percy succeeding an "impossible" quest and being celebrated while Luke only got a scar and a chip on his shoulder from his failed one.

Luke's scar shoulda been worse idc.

Percy should have been mortally wounded. That's where we run into an issue with there being no scorpion because yeah, a fatal sword injury probably would've been a bit much to depict. I also 10000% think that Luke is enough of a baby to get his daddy issues triggered and then try to off Percy for it even if his original intention was to recruit him.

Also the fact that you see Luke raise his sword for a damning blow and then the very next day you have Percy like "I don't think Luke was trying to kill me." and Chiron agreeing? asdlkfjsdlkf WRONG.

Also, sorry, I don't like that Annabeth was there.

But if you're gonna have Annabeth there, her reaction to Luke betraying her and trying to hurt Percy should've been way more severe than a solemn "I heard everything."

She shoulda been crying, questioning, yelling even if she had suspected him. It's one thing to suspect it, it's another to see the person you consider your family to actually prove it true.

(And this isn't on Leah! It's 100% on the directors cause what was the thought process here? Her brother figure betrays her and she's like :/)

And sure, in the book Annabeth isn't actually all that surprised by Luke's betrayal when Percy tells her about it... but we also never got to see her initial reaction to it. Percy was out for 2 days.

Just, if book Annabeth had been there, she would've been so emotional and that's okay!! let Leah show off her chops!

Sally

I mourn book Sally. I mourn her arc. I mourn the power of Sally unapologetically petrifying Gabe with Medusa's head.

One of the most iconic storylines from the book and it was sanitized in the show to the point that it lost all sense and meaning.

Honestly one of the biggest disappointments of the show for me.

Other

I love the fact that a flower is the searcher's license for satyrs its just so silly and sweet.

I love Annabeth sincerely hugging Percy but also using it for strategizing purposes it feels very on point for her.

Also her braids at the end!! so sweet!

I am very very bitter that Percy didn't see the fates. This + the changes made to Sally's characterization and arc... the show truly doesn't get it.

[demonslayedher]

Nerdy cultural details about the Hashira

Some details can be hard to pick up without context or in translation. Here's a handful for fun:

Breath names:

The "Mushi" (蟲) of "Mushibashira" (蟲柱) does not necessarily mean "insect." It's also not the more commonly used "mushi" kanji (虫). Kanji is often formed with many components compounding together to make new meanings, and 蟲 is a crowd of three 虫. While it might be tempting to simply say that this is a whole bunch of 虫, I've also heard this described as 蟲 being the more abstract idea of the concrete 虫, or that 蟲 went through a resurgence in popularity shortly before the Taisho Period. 虫 is preferred nowadays for its simplicity.

In either case, it's not necessarily "insects." Rather than being limited to six-legged creatures, "mushi" is a catch-all term for many kinds of creepy-crawlies that simply do not fit in other categories of animals, so spiders and centipedes and worms are all part of it. Actually, the term was originally used for snakes!

Next, what are picturing when you hear "Stone Hashira"? Something in your hands that you can throw? A big stone to lay on for warmth after training in a waterfall?

You could think even bigger than that, because the "stone" kanji used is "iwa" 岩. This is usually something at least as big as the boulders Himejima pushes around to train with, but it could just as well be a whole cliff.

So then how about that issue raised about how you can never refer to "Flame Breath" as "Fire Breath"? This might be a review since it gets brought up a lot, but it's worth restating because it makes a lot of sense in context.

First, we have two kanji to work with: 炎 for flames, and 火 for fire. To make a long linguistic history short, Japan adopted written pictographic characters from China, smashed and smooshed them around to fit the spoken Japanese language, and eventually many kanji wound up with multiple pronunciations. Case in point, 炎 is "hono'o" in the context of Flame Breathing (Hono'o no Kokyuu), and "en" in the context of "Flame Hashira" (En-bashira).

火 likewise has multiple pronunciations, but a common one is "hi." Another simple kanji that can be read "hi" is 日, the sun.

Therefore, even if they are written differently, "Sun Breathing" and "Fire Breathing" would sound the same, as "Hi no Kokyuu." This also makes it easy for "Hinokami" to be construed as "Fire God" instead of "Sun God." But why stop there, really? If you want to get into older Japanese, sometimes phonetic "hi" was used in simple reference to the power of gods.

Symbolism:

This is still somewhat linguistic rather than symbolic, but you know how Sound Breath is derived from Thunder Breath?

It's worth pointing out that "Kaminari" (雷) in "Kaminari no Kokyuu" is in reference to the sound, as opposed to something like "Ikazuchi no Kokyuu" for "Lightning Breath" in reference to the sight. We can get really, really nerdy about Japanese words for thunder and lightning and how they relate to Kimetsu no Yaiba, so I already did that here.

What's more interesting to me in regard to Sound Breath is that it takes the "sound" concept of thunder and pushes it--this time with a bit of a firework motif, again in a way that would stress the sound instead of the dazzling light. Both Uzui and Zenitsu have exceptional hearing and are exceptional users of their Breath techniques, so this is either curious that a discerning sense of hearing might help, or ironic that they use such loud styles with their sensitive ears.

Moving on to snakes! There's really no shortage of serpent symbolism, so we'll just focus on a handful of examples. I have already written extensively about the positive associations snakes have with riches, especially white snakes. This is ironic, given Iguro's distasteful paste driven by riches.

Some of the other positive associations with snakes are that they are a water element animal on the geomancy system borrowed from China. Makes sense that this Breath would be derived from Water Breathing! There are many shrines dedicated to snakes and their gifts of rain and clean water, however, water can also be dangerous. A common interpretation of a major legend about an eight-headed giant serpent, the Yamata-no-Orochi, is that it symbolizes the destructive power of a flooded river. But hey, at least snakes are often equated to dragons for having the same water association, so that's pretty cool.

Setting aside the water association, the serpent itself can likewise be considered in negative lights. In the centuries leading up to the Taisho Period, it became commonplace in Buddhist teachings and entertainment to compare jealous women to snakes. This association with woman also adds another layer of cruel irony to Iguro's past.

On a happier note, let's move on to cherry blossoms!

Well, not always happy, seeing as they are known to scatter tragically soon (I am shaking my fist at you, Gotouge). Cherry blossoms are also heavy with all the directions you can go in with symbolism, and I don't have any particular take on why they are part of the overall motif of the Love Hashira (see here for a little commentary on why it is "Koi" 恋 and not "Ai" 愛).

However! I do want to point out something very clever Gotouge did!

You know how Mitsuri's hand guard looks like four hearts that all meet at their pointy ends? This is actually a traditional cherry blossom motif!! Not a very common one, which is why I find it so sly.

Personal Names:

Bear with me, this section will get slightly more speculative, as names are always up to interpretation. I should know, I've done a lot of that for this series.

Remember how kanji can be read in multiple ways? Here's something simple you'd see right away in Japanese but that gets lost in translation to most other languages. Both Sanemi and Genya have 弥 as the second character in their personal name (as "mi" or "ya"). This was not the case for all their siblings, but it's cute that the two of them share it anyway.

So what does it mean? In modern kanji dictionaries, it's pretty bland: "increasingly." However, this kanji has more interesting use and associations that that. It was originally 彌, which carries more of an image of a stretched bow, or how something might go wide and disperse. As a child's name, this might include some hope that they might grow big and tall and go to great places. It is also commonly used in expressing the names of Buddhist deities in Japanese, but it is used only for the "mi" sound instead of the meaning in these cases. (Still, 弥 is one of the "Namu Amida Butsu" characters all over Himejima's haori, which also adds a little cuteness to his associations with Genya.)

So how about someone else with a name that closely matches his brother's? We get a pretty good explanation of Yuichiro (有一郎) and Muichiro (無一郎), with 有 and 無 being opposites (to exist/to not exist). While 有 might be more straightforward in wishing for Yuichiro to have all his needs met, the "mu" in "muichiro" is for "limitless/infinity/etc, etc."

But also!!

It bares distinct resemblance to a common Zen phrase, "Honraimuichimotsu" (本来無一物), with "muichimotsu" meaning "nothing exists" (and therefore, you have nothing to worry about, just be happy).

Speaking of resemblances, "Tomioka Giyuu" has two kanji in common with the name of the mangaka of Hunter x Hunter and I sometimes wonder if he was named in homage. But that is neither here nor there, and I'll just finish today by focusing on "Giyuu" (義勇).

This is pretty basic and straightforward: "loyalty/justice" and "bravery/courage." Pretty lofty. Put them back together and it's basically a set term for "heroism."

However, put it together with other terms for squads or armies, and this is the now the word for "volunteer soldier" or "volunteer army." Historically, it would continue to be used a few decades after Kimetsu no Yaiba takes place, but the decades prior, there were "Giyuutai" organized volunteer troops as well. Perhaps Giyuu had ancestors who fought as volunteer soldiers? Who knows.

[justanotherwriter140]

Kung Fu Panda 4 - The Movie

The last really, really long discussion post (for now).

Major spoilers ahead!

This review is full of spoilers, so please refrain from reading through it until you've watched KFP4. I would highly suggest doing so, as I want everyone to form their own opinions without my influence. The movie has its flaws (some of which admittedly being a bit distracting), but it's a fun film that has things to offer.

Kung Fu Panda 4 is a fun movie (take that as you will) that takes its audience on an action-packed, surprisingly funny, yet relatively contained adventure on which Po doesn't really do much. It's an inconsequential, safe sequel that doesn't really hurt the franchise but adds close to nothing.

I had a good time watching the movie. It was obviously produced with its theater experience in mind and the action scenes especially reflected that priority. The humor was actually funny sometimes and I enjoyed Po and Zhen's dynamic. During the film, I was able to put most (most!) of my grievances aside and take the movie for what it is. I've discovered that the best way to watch KFP4 is with low expectations and an open mind.

I have a lot of things to say about KFP4, both complaints and compliments (though the former might be taking the forefront in this review), and I hope this review can help those of you who have seen the movie organize your thoughts. I've been having a lot of trouble with that specific aspect of things myself. Those who get it get it.

With that said, let's get into my full review of KFP4! I've been waiting for nearly 2 years to write this and I'm so excited to share every single thought.

I'm going to follow the format of my first discussion post and curate a bulleted list of my thoughts, followed by an analysis of each of these points. Keep in mind that everything I say is IMO and this is more of a rant post than anything else.

Here are my main points:

The Furious Five's role is comically minuscule in the context of the film. Their actions are inconsequential and add nothing to the plot (a confirmed last-minute add), and they have 30~ seconds of screen time. Shifu is also largely irrelevant.

Mr. Ping and Li's presence has little to no effect on the movie (though I won't complain too much because they were pretty fun to watch and this movie has bigger problems). In almost any scenario, I am adamantly against having characters present that don't add anything to the narrative; however, Mr. Ping is an exception. I love Mr. Ping. James Hong is a gem.

Zhen's screen time is not utilized well and her character is underdeveloped. She definitely wasn't annoying, but I didn't find her either compelling or funny enough to warrant the screen time she was given, especially considering it wasn't used to establish a backstory/strong motives. This makes me feel bad for the character because the movie kind of screwed her out of any substantial development.

The Chameleon, while complimented greatly by Viola Davis, is an underwhelming villain. Viola Davis is amazing in this film and I would suggest watching it for her performance if for nothing else, but the Chameleon is underwhelming considering the super cool concept behind the character.

The film feels very rushed. Apologies to those who disagree, but I think the pacing is atrocious and the final fight is anticlimactic. The movie felt like a word-vomit with no discernible intermissions that stops abruptly when the film ends.

I felt as though Po didn't change/grow as a person and the audience never had a chance to either bond with or relate to his character. His internal struggle is kept to a minimum and we don't spend a moment alone with him as an audience, which is disorienting and distracting. Watching the film felt like running into an old friend at the store who's too in a rush to have a real conversation.

The action scenes were strong with few exceptions. Creative art direction was utilized and I thought the martial arts choreography was entertaining and dynamic. I love the color palette of the film and many scenes were very impressive visually.

With my main points established, I do believe it's ranting time. Strap in, folks.

Let's start strong with the Furious Five: I'm gutted. Chagrined, despondent, crestfallen, etc.

The lack of the Furious Five negatively affects KFP4 so much, because not only does their absence hurt the atmospheric integrity of KFP as a franchise, it also forces KFP4 to bring in a slew of different characters—all while still noncommittally including the FF at the very end because I believe the marketing team required it—that clog up the cast a bit. It all goes to show how important strong, established side characters are.

The Furious Five are side characters, but the role of "side character" does not equate to being irrelevant, expendable, or exchangeable. I recognize that the Furious Five aren't super developed as characters beyond a handful of lines that allude to traits sprinkled sparingly among the members; however, I believe that the tiny bits of development we have been given have proved impactful in the past. Tigress's development in KFP2 is a prime example of how much narratively conscious changes (however small they may be) can positively affect these movies.

Because of limited runtimes, the Furious Five often operate as more of a singular unit than five individuals. Even so, I don't think discarding them is valid. They're so important to the KFP universe (to Po's universe!) and not having them with him feels so wrong. The Furious Five are fully integral to the heart of Kung Fu Panda, which is why I believe a lot of those who have seen the new movie have expressed something feeling "off" or something being missing.

I agree with this sentiment. To me, KFP4 didn't feel like a KFP movie. I don't need a Furious Five spin-off movie and I can be fully content with a KFP5 centered around Po's journey as an individual as was intended from the beginning, but he can't carry an entire movie on his back. As strong as he is in every sense of the word, he is only one character. He's the centerpiece of the franchise, but a centerpiece can only go so far without the rest of the design, so to speak.

For me, the Furious Five's absence is one of this film's biggest faults. It's huge and glaring. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, either, because the friends with whom I saw the film refused to talk about any other aspect of the movie after seeing it. Seeing them at the end was better than nothing, of course, but it was a disappointing culmination after eight years of waiting.

That all is to say I feel robbed. Despite all of this, though, I understand that there were reasons why the Furious Five weren't included in the movie. I don't believe the production team would exclude the Furious Five unless they weren't given a choice.

Shifu and Po's dynamic continues to be thoroughly delightful but their interactions are short and simplified. I would have loved to see more of them in this film, especially considering the extreme relevance of teacher-student relationships in KFP4. I (somewhat) digress, though, because the idea of Shifu having to live at the Jade Palace with only Po for an extended period of time is hilarious enough on its own. Maybe that's what the short film is about!

The comedy is odd but has some jokes that stand out. Po maintains a healthy relationship with his inner sass, which I think makes him more fun to watch and kind of eradicates the man-child verdict. Some jokes don't land, of course, but I genuinely thought KFP4 had some funny moments. Mr. Ping was consistently awesome and Po had some good lines sprinkled throughout the film.

As for Mr. Ping, he and Li Shan are the subjects of the film's B-plot as they follow Po to Juniper City out of shared concern for their son's safety. In my mind, they don't add anything to the story that couldn't have been brought about by other characters, but they had their moments of being entertaining. I enjoyed their silliness and thought they had a cute dynamic if nothing else.

Speaking of other characters, I want to discuss KFP4's deuteragonist and why I genuinely feel bad about the way her character was treated.

I want to let it be known that I'm still not on board with Po passing the Dragon Warrior torch to another character. While I agree that his arc is now calling for him to have a student, I disagree with the notion of him retiring from his DW role.

As I stated in my first discussion post:

Didn’t the initial significance and nuance of the title come from the fact that there is only one person who can be the Dragon Warrior, because the concept of the “Dragon Warrior” isn’t so much a title as it is Po himself? The universe (Oogway) must choose the Dragon Warrior because they are a singular being of legend. It is one person, and that person is Po. Wasn’t the point of the first film that the title ultimately doesn’t really matter because there is no “secret ingredient,” so to speak? The title doesn’t actually give Po anything. “It’s just you,” Po says, and that was the resolution.

When it comes to Zhen as a character, contrary to what I predicted I would think of her, I thought she was okay. While I was still a bit distracted by how out-of-place her design looks, I wasn't truly annoyed by her at any point and she and Po had some cute moments. Even so, I think their relationship could have been a bit more refined and developed.

While it's evident that Po and Zhen are meant to have a teacher-student/mentor-apprentice dynamic, I think their relationship feels half-baked. There were parallels that contradicted one another and ended up being confusing come the film's conclusion, and the nature of their relationship seems to vacillate depending on the scene. Additionally, the strength of their bond goes from zero to one hundred within thirty-ish minutes and left me with a bit of whiplash.

We're shown that Po and Zhen care about one another, but we're never shown why. They have a brief conversation during which they bond over being orphans, and Zhen says at one point, "You're actually a good guy," but that's it. This obvious lack of development is a bit disorienting because we're later led to believe that Zhen and Po care very deeply for one another when there's almost nothing to back it up.

A scene that sticks out to me when discussing this is when Zhen attack-hugs Po in a way that explicitly mirrors Tigress's hug from KFP2. This happens around the beginning of the third act, and while it had the potential to be an endearing moment, I think it fell flat.

The impact of Tigress's hug was brought on by her character's hardcore nature and reputation of being heartless, further strengthened with the knowledge that she was hugging Po (which was obviously way outside her comfort zone) as a show of companionship and fundamental understanding. Tigress hugged Po because he needed someone to recognize his strive for closure.

Zhen's hug had little to no impact because she had no reason to do it and it didn't indicate growth. She hugs Po because she's sorry for betraying him and doesn't want him to be killed by the Chameleon, but neither of these things are newly-established via this hug; we have already gathered by now that Zhen regrets betraying Po and doesn't want him to get hurt.

The hug is far from the movie's weakest point, but I think it's unnecessary given the context. I'm big on hugs in movies (an underutilized form of platonic affection, in my opinion), but it didn't fit here. I don't hate it, and I see it as an honest effort to bring emotionality to Po and Zhen's relationship, but it seems arbitrary.

Zhen and Po's relationship has a lot of potential and I'd be open to seeing more of them in the future, but I think some more thoughtful development needs to occur before I can humor it further. Even so, I can see myself featuring Zhen in some future post-KFP4 one-shots—sparingly, of course, because we have a lot of Furious Five content to compensate for.

Overall, they had a cute dynamic and some sweet moments but I'm not attached. I'm on board with Po having a student but I think their relationship needs a lot more development, something that this film unfortunately didn't give them time to either accomplish or earn.

Now, onto the Chameleon!

The concept of the Chameleon's character is admittedly super interesting. She's the deuteragonist's fastidious mother figure who feels that Zhen owes her a debt and as a result holds her to an impossible standard. That dynamic had the potential to be so interesting but I didn't think it was explored at all. There is no indication of Zhen having any internal conflict about fighting the Chameleon, no emotional complexity between them at all; it's disappointing because I think it would've added a bit of earnestness to the film.

Additionally, the idea of a shape-shifting villain is versatile. A shape-shifting villain gives those telling the story a lot of room to experiment with the protagonist and different ways in which the main character can be challenged and tested. It's yet another good idea utilized poorly. Just one idea: the Chameleon could have disguised herself as one (or several) of Po's family, friends, etc. and brought to fruition a new arc with his character (seeing as he arguably doesn't have one in this film), but she only disguises herself as Zhen very briefly in the movie.

Furthermore, the Chameleon completely relies on the powers of previous villains to pose any sort of threat to the main characters. She summons Po's former nemeses from the Spirit Realm (despite there being little logic in doing so considering Kai's literal evisceration) and takes their kung fu abilities for herself.

An excerpt from my first KFP4 discussion post that I think is relevant to the point I'm trying to make:

I don’t think it would be in the best interest of anyone if the past villains were to come back in any way that’s not a flashback (even then, I’m not sure I’d see the point). In all honesty, I thought that the whole point of the villains was that they died and stayed dead. They were defeated by Po once and for all as a testament to the idea of establishing Po's character growth and journey as a person through the bad things he’s able to overcome. It’d be highly contradictory to the messages of the other films if these villains were to suddenly come back.

While there was an honest effort made to portray the Chameleon as intimidating, I never felt as though any of the characters were endangered by either her or her army of lizard henchman. She's a visually appealing character (aside from her eyes, which I thought more resembled those of a gecko than a chameleon) and I greatly enjoyed Davis's performance, but overall I don't see the Chameleon as a notable villain.

The return of Tai Lung (had he been on his own) had the makings to be an excellent story, especially considering the importance of teacher-student dynamics in KFP4. To see him interacting with Shifu would have been incredible and could have led to further closure on Tai Lung's end (because I think that's kind of what the team was going for anyway), but it didn't happen.

It was nice to see Ian McShane reprise his role, but I wish Tai Lung's characterization had been more reminiscent of the way he was in the first film and more complimentary of his overall character arc. Tai Lung isn't a one-dimensional villain with a singular goal and motivation, and I couldn't help but feel as though the complexity of his character was simplified for the sake of KFP4's narrative.

Tai Lung's presence in KFP4 may be odd, but Shen and Kai's appearances are even more so. Kai, if I remember correctly, was fully obliterated by Po, reduced to literal particles on screen (which is kind of wild now that I think about it). Shen being in the Spirit Realm makes sense all things considered; however, Po and Li had no visible reaction to his presence, which seemed a bit unlikely considering Shen's deeds. This plot hole can likely be attributed to the fact that Shen and Kai's cameos (to my knowledge) were last-minute additions to the movie.

I have to talk about the pacing. I have to. I'm sorry, bear with me.

To me, the film's pacing is erratic and disconcerting. While I can appreciate a quick-moving narrative that doesn't dawdle on storylines that aren't interesting/important, KFP4 kind of flings itself too far in the opposite direction and ends up being frighteningly fast-paced. Once the credits began, I felt like I had been holding my breath for the entire movie.

KFP4 is confusing because while the runtime is standard for a KFP movie, it feels incredibly short. At the same time, the film's story moves at a breakneck speed and leaves little time for heart and development. These things culminate into a barreling boulder of a movie that simply doesn't have time to let its characters, story, or audience take a breath.

A fast pace is not inherently negative, but I don't think it worked in the favor of KFP4. The KFP franchise has always been very emotionally grounded (and just very grounded in general), so to see a film in which emotion/heart takes an aggressive backseat in comparison to action and comedy is jarring. While I think it's unreasonable for fans to expect the same emotional integrity as the original films to be present in the current and upcoming ones, I still think there's room for Po to grow and I felt as though the notion of him developing further was brushed aside in this film.

As for Po's growth, I felt it was nearly nonexistent. The previous trilogy wrapped up his character's journey beautifully and I know that KFP4 was bound to struggle with this particular aspect of making another KFP film; however, just because the strongest pillars of Po's character are established doesn't serve as a valid excuse to reverse his development and repeat what he learned in KFP3.

In KFP3, Po learned firsthand that he is capable of spreading wisdom and teaching kung fu. He also learns that he is constantly growing and that change is inevitable; there is always something more to learn.

"If you only do what you can do, you will never be more than you are now."

"I don't want to be anything more, I like who I am!"

In KFP4, Po pushes against this narrative despite fully accepting it in KFP3, actively reversing crucial parts of his character development achieved in the latter. KFP3 was non-ambiguously about learning to cope with change and responsibility, and I can't help but feel like KFP4 is simply copying this message while not adding anything to it.

Additionally, I felt that KFP4's Po generally felt less personal than he has in the past. In every KFP movie up to the franchise's most recent addition, I felt very connected to Po as an audience member. I felt like I was truly seeing the world of KFP through his eyes. I consider this to be one of the franchise's most impressive feats; it's incredibly difficult to build a universe around a character without making the audience feel limited to one perspective and one part of the world.

With KFP4, I felt both limited and disconnected. The world didn't feel as vast and all-encompassing as it has in the past and Po didn't seem fully like himself. This could be me nitpicking (as I'm prone to do), but I can't recall a single moment in the movie in which Po was alone on screen. Scenes like these are crucial for me because I see them as a meet-cute between the character and the audience, a moment for us to cross the bridge into their world in a way that's silent and intuitive. These little bonding moments are absolutely integral to feeling connected to a character.

Po's dream sequence in the first KFP movie is one of the best examples of this. It presents his aspirations, alludes to his way of life up to the point of the movie, and showcases his personality. During Po's dream sequence, the audience is quite literally inside Po's mind; we're there with him, seeing what he sees, subsequently feeling what he feels. Po is a dreamer at heart and makes the audience feel like dreamers, too.

In KFP4, I felt like I little to no point of reference when it comes to how Po was feeling. I didn't feel immersed in him and his world.

I know I've been very "doom and gloom" throughout this post, which is an exhausting mindset for everyone involved. I want to end my critique with something positive because I think some praise is deserved. Let's just say the movie could have been a lot worse, the details of which I'm sure you're all well aware.

The color palette of the movie is beautiful and somewhat reminiscent of the first film. While the animation style of KFP4 is far more simplistic than its predecessors, I was very impressed with its use of shadow and light. Po's many faces were also hysterical, props to those who helped make him as expressive as he is.

Additionally, the movie's action sequences were clearly thought out and discussed in great detail. The experimentation with camera angles was really fun to watch and I enjoyed the majority of the film's fight scenes. They were fun, bouncy, and entertaining, and quite likely reinstated audiences's love of watching a cuddly panda kick butt.

Congratulations, you've reached the end! Thank you so much to all of you who took the time to read this unnecessarily long and detailed review. As long as I help someone translate their conflicted feelings into coherent thoughts, I'll call it a win.

I want to reiterate that I don't hate Kung Fu Panda 4 and I had fun while watching the film. It has its flaws and there are a lot of aspects that I dislike, but the effort of the crew is obvious and I greatly admire and respect the hard work put into the film by those who worked on it. This does not at all excuse my issues with the movie, but it's worth saying.

As for the future of the series, I only hope that the next installment is more considerate of the franchise's origins and why Po's story is being told in the first place. I fully believe that another sequel could be good given a strong, passionate crew with a great understanding of the characters and world (and I wouldn't be averse to some previous directors returning, just to put it out there).

Thanks again to those who took the time to read this crazy excuse for a movie review. Feel free to either disagree with me or add things in the replies/reblogs, I'm always looking for more thoughts to think.

Until next time!

[let-roman-bite-someone]

it's been a while since i made an analysis here but as anyone else in this fandom, i've been speculating on orange. i know that by now, most people are convinced that orange is anger or something related to that.

however, we need to look at the previous patterns in order to figure out who orange might be. “the dark sides” were all facets of c!thomas that he was unwilling to accept or acknowledge. his anxiety, his ability and capacity for deception and probably the most jarring for him, the violent and/or disgusting thoughts that pop into his head without warning.

despite virgil's arc, anxiety was probably the easiest for thomas to accept. virgil didn't even have to introduce himself; thomas already knew he existed and while he was not happy about that, thomas had already accepted by that point that anxiety was a part of him. janus's existence was a harder pill to swallow and remus's was even harder.

so with all this, orange turning out to be anger (or wrath, rage, whatever you want to call it) would be a little underwhelming. while anger is not an emotion that is always encouraged, it's certainly not that hard to accept. especially compared to having repetitive intrusive thoughts about murdering people.

besides, thomas has already acknowledged his own capacity for anger before.

here, he refers to logan and roman having short tempers. they've shown this multiple times in the series too. if logan and roman are prone to anger, then it follows that thomas is also prone to anger and that he is aware of it. and regarding the nonchalant way he addressed it, i doubt he's troubled about his temper at all.

since there were only two short episodes before the introduction of virgil, we don't have enough context as to whether thomas was aware of his anxiety or how accepting he was of it. for janus and remus however, we have several instances of thomas either being in denial or being completely unaware of their existence.

regarding the concept of lying, thomas chose not to lie to people to the best of his ability. regarding intrusive thoughts, while there's no instances of thomas straight-up refusing to feed into them, he was a lot more "clean" before remus came along. he didn't swear as much and when he did, usually censored the swears (probably a conscious decision from thomas & co. but i think it had a canon reason too) and using more technical terms for sexual activities.

anyway, all of this is just a complicated way to get to the point, so i won't bore you any longer. my point is that orange would have to be something bigger, something more terrifying and that thomas would likely be in denial about.

one thing thomas has constantly been shown to fear is losing his friends and loved ones. this has surprisingly been a consistent theme from the early stages of the series.

a lot of the episodes like Making Some Changes, Can Lying Be Good and the SvS duology were centered around thomas's fear of losing his friends. friendship is very important to thomas and different situations in his life often feeds into the fear of being left behind.

now what is a common theme in all the scenes that orange has been hinted at?

the feeling of being ignored or belittled. logan gets mad at roman because roman mocks his attempts at trying to communicate honestly. SvS Redux has thomas feeling irritated and upset that lee and mary lee barely paid attention to him during the wedding. the intrusive thoughts asides video, of course, has both thomas and logan getting angry over being ignored.

so, with all this, i conclude that orange is desperation (n; a state of despair, typically one which results in rash or extreme behaviour). a need for validation, a need for attention and affection. thomas, at this point, is especially disturbed by a lot of things going on in his life. but a recurring theme throughout the show, especially after the introduction of janus and remus, is thomas's fear of driving away his friends. he is overly judgmental of each of his actions, worried that they may lead to him being lonely and left behind.

and again, in WTIT, thomas is also desperate to be noticed by nico. he fears dying alone but at the same time, he struggles to reach out to people. still, he makes the first move by texting nico but the fact that nico doesn't reply makes thomas more and more fearful of ending up alone. he is desperate for love and support, he is desperate for validation; but he needs to focus on himself and fix his own issues, if he wants to maintain a healthy relationship with other people.

like all the other sides, i think that orange is also only trying to help thomas. he's trying to get thomas to come to terms with the fact that nothing is stagnant. most things in life are temporary and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to let go of any worries weighing you down. thomas just needs to face that fact and focus on living in the moment, instead of worrying about what could be. he also needs to have a little trust in himself and know that he's trying his best to be a good person.

and logan is the right person to target for this. because first off, logan himself is suffering from the desperate need for validation, he is visibly struggling to get to thomas. secondly, a sign of deteriorating mental health is when logic becomes clouded due to emotions and this affects a person's basic functioning, such as decision making, problem solving and if gone too far, even everyday activities. the one time logan temporarily left the group, we saw how much of a chaos the others were. i believe orange thinks that this is the only way to make thomas understand how dire the situation is.

so yeah, that's just my take on this whole orange deal. i could be completely wrong but it's still fun analyzing these things.

[lowkeyrobin]

hiii :з can i request domestic hcs with quackity x reader where they just moved in with each other and basically figuring stuff out about living together

idk what domestic means in this context but I don't think I wanna know

QUACKITY ; living together

summary ; you and alex finally moved in with each other and you're figuring out your new way of life

warnings ; language

genre ; fluff

word count ; 687

masterlist

At last, you and Alex were finally living under the same roof in Los Angeles. You were living in a studio apartment for a while, but finally upgraded to a two story house just outside the main city with your boyfriend.

Money was the first problem that you tackled beforehand, which you got sorted nice and easily. The next was unpacking and buying new furniture.

You'd already took out some loans for new furniture since both of you either didn't have some furniture, or needed to scrap the old stuff you found off eBay for a scarily low price. The trip to the closest furniture store, about three miles away, was horrifying.

You'd never been a stickler with money, but coming up not having much of it sometimes taught you a great amount about fair pricing. However, when you saw a large number, you stood there awkwardly, wondering if you could afford it or if it was even worth it. Alex was the same, but he was more comfortable spending larger amounts of money on bigger things because he understood the expenses a bit better than you did.

All in all, you probably spent about two thousand dollars at that place. You'd ended up finding some good furniture off of eBay that you could go pick up that afternoon, and found a nice and free dresser set out by the road from someone who didn't want it anymore.

The house, now a month later, was finally furnished and you were in charge of decorations while he organized the kitchen and set up the PC's and other electronics. You two hadn't been doing much other than get used to sharing a room and a bed 24/7. You ended up deciding it'd be better to save that room for something else and have your bedrooms and office combined into one. If anyone wanted to snuggle in the night, they'd go to the other person's room.

It was mostly for privacy, and so you wouldn't end up fighting or beating the shit out of each other. You both needed downtime away from each other, a perfectly normal and healthy aspect of a relationship.

The next part, after setting your desktops up and decorating your rooms and whatnot, was getting into the routine of living together and not doing everything independently. Both of you were independent and didn't need to rely on each other, a good thing, but when it came to getting groceries or going out or streaming, talking about it and making decisions together would be the next step in moving forward.

Tiger was a whole conversation in herself. Alex decided he'd take care of her litter box and you decided you'd take care of her food and water. He felt bad making you take care of his cat, but you found no problem with it considering Tiger was like your child already.

The final steps were just getting used to living with each other and boundaries that came with it.

But, over time, everything would go great.

༘⋆₊ ⊹★🔭๋࣭ ⭑⋆｡˚༘⋆₊ ⊹★🔭๋࣭ ⭑⋆｡˚༘⋆₊ ⊹★🔭๋࣭ ⭑⋆｡˚

Quackity appreciated you bringing him food, water, or a hoodie on stream, and you did as well

Tiger walking into your streams >>>

even streaming side by side was a reoccurring thing

often times you'd play uno and have the handcam on in the corner

you'd give each other advice when editing videos and writing scripts

making dinner together with music in the background >>>

especially when he sings along/to you, good lord

you can't go a single day without cackling at each other

fighting and arguments are healthy for a relationship, but with you guys it's never serious, it's either over dumb shit you couldn't care about or you play fight with each other for laughs

sometimes he'll shout at you in Spanish to mess around and you'll stare at him like "tf are you saying"

if you do understand Spanish though, it's war

arts and crafts together go crazy

you start a little vlog channel together as well

it's run by you and he's only there sometimes but still

insta pictures of you two doing dumb shit 24/7

[makingspiritualityreal]

Why Sun and Saturn are enemies

Something beneficial to take away from Vedic classics, and one of the reasons why I won't ever accept Vedic being just a different "version" of Astrology is how accurate Vedic descriptions of the Sun being a malefic are.

You can find more information in my podcast on my YouTube channel, but I will give you a brief description here.

The Sun is the king, and our kingdom. The king is the authority. He only has his designated piece of land to govern, but within his piece of land his authority is absolute. The king, just like the Sun burns anyone that contests his authority because he needs to maintain the integrity of his kingdom. Without this fierceness, the kingdom wouldn't survive or exist.

The same applies to our lives. We exist in this human body and we need to have boundaries and have a reasonable amount of authority and governance related to the self, or we wouldn't function and we wouldn't be able to exist in our individuality. That's why Sun is the natural Karaka for the first house of self. We do what we want with our selves and bodies, because ultimately this is our life, and we get to choose how we live it. So we are ready to "burn away" those who contest our individuality.

The problem in society is that when many suns clash together, there will always be some debate to overcome differences so that people could be themselves. That's why the Sun is a malefic. Maintaing one's kingdom is not something that people give to us on a silver platter, it's not about growth or abundance, it's about survival and basic existence and self expression.

The Sun's nature also explains its eternal war with Saturn. While the Sun is a monarch, Saturn is a socialist. Saturn rules justice, fairness to all and equality. When we express ourselves we do what is good for us, not for everyone else. Saturn doesn't allow that, because it always thinks of the world in the context of a bigger picture, leaving no space for individuality.

In reality, both energies are needed in this world. We need social order to avoid total mayhem, but we also need space to be ourselves without limitations so we can feel alive. In a healthy functioning chart, there is space for both. But when Saturn starves the Sun, which is especially bad when they're conjunct, the person feels like they need some sort of objective permission to exist and be themselves. As a result, they fall into depression as natural, spontaneous joy of life eludes them. They can end up frustrated, choosing to express themselves in toxic ways.

A healthy Sun won't let anyone step on their toes, but is unattached and doesn't interfere in anyone's business. Think of a person that has a healthy ego. They are sure of themselves, but they are calm in their confidence. They don't need to shout it from the mountaintops, because they feel secure on the inside and as a result they don't really bother anyone or seek anyone's approval.

A person with an afflicted Sun, especially starved by Saturn will feel like they have something to prove. They feel inferior, internally, and they project it on everybody else even if people don't really care to criticise them. They berate themselves internally, so they end up thinking they're inferior to others and resent others for it. But in fact, it's an internal problem that needs to be healed.

Over time, Saturn becomes our friend, even to our Sun, as these two planets ultimately need each other, something that is reflected in sister signs of Aries - Libra and Leo - Aquarius.

We need healthy egos to build a healthy society. A healthy society is built of healthy individuals. And vice versa, a healthy society fosters healthy egos. A good Saturn only seeks to eradicate what is out of balance.

To a Sun - Saturn person, that is a relief, because as they grow up they realise it is fine for them to be themselves and be confident in their uniqueness, as long as they are aware of the implications of their actions on another. They realise they have a natural born right to grow, be and contribute to society through their natural self expression, and they flourish within the universal limits of just limitations.

A strong Saturn realises, that perspective leads to survival, because it allows us to endure injustice, knowing the scales will eventually become balanced, as it is in everyone's best interest.

[perfectprettypisces]

I try to stay out of tabloids and gossip sites and I'm probably end up deleting this, but something really irked me and I felt like I wanted to share...

⚠️ WARNING: LONG POST INCOMING (BUT IT'S IMPORTANT, I PROMISE) ⚠️

To be completely transparent, I am a big fan of both Glen and Adria as actors and I, admittedly, have not seen Hit Man yet. I also don't know personally (obviously) or as people. But I'm writing this post not as a fan, but as someone hoping to work in the industry one day as a writer. Something that bothered me about Entertainment Tonight taking this quote from Glen and Adria's InStyle interview is that it's almost trying to make cheap gossip out of what was actually a very important conversation that they had with the interviewer about filming the sex scenes in Hit Man.

This is the quote with context. The interviewer asks them: This movie is such a tonal mix: action, noir, comedy. How did you find the right balance? Were there other movies you used as touchstones?

In an industry that notoriously undervalues, mistreats, and silences women's voices, ESPECIALLY women of color, I think it reflects well on this film (as well as on Richard Linklater and Glen) that Adria felt safe enough that she was able to provide her input on these intimate scenes and how they can do it in a way that they're both comfortable.

This has NOT always been the case and unfortunately, still isn't the case for many women in film. Entertainment Tonight taking that quote out of context to make a graphic out of it cheapens the entire conversation because unfortunately, not everyone cares to read the rest of the article and will take that quote and run with it. Some people might not even read the caption. However, their caption wasn't that much better either.

This movie doesn't work without Adria and I know that even without watching. Both Glen and Richard Linklater have stated multiple times that they needed Adria to make this film work. By what they say about each other, it seems like there's a lot of trust there.

I hope my obvious fangirling on Tumblr about Glen and Adria (mostly Glen) doesn't discredit this entire post. Still, as I said in the beginning, even if I wasn't a fan of Glen and Adria, I would still side-eye this post after reading the entire InStyle article. Hollywood has always needed to do better when it comes to the treatment of women on film sets and seeing this important conversation boiled down to an out-of-context graphic is just not sitting right with me.

I highly recommend reading the entire InStyle article. With the way they talk about the film, it's obvious they both worked really hard on it and are proud of the outcome.

This could be me overreacting, but as someone who wants to work in a (hopefully but doubtfully) changed industry, I truly despise narratives like these blocking out bigger issues that deserved to be addressed.

[thesharktanksdriver]

People are strange (platonic)

Basically the vamp boys had a kid they just now learned about.

This is entirely platonic and there’s a section for each of them individually as the father in this situation. beginning Half is just kinda context takes place two years before the film

Your mother always warned you of monsters when you were younger

Ones that would hide within the shadows

Glowing red eyes

Gnashing pointed teeth that shine in moonlight

Hissing and growling like wild animals

Ones that looked like you and I

Who seemed impossibly beautiful, like carved statues of cherubs and angels Who were really the devil himself in disguise

She taught you to be wary of the world

To trust your gut and never brush off the chill that goes down your spine when you feel something was wrong

Many called your mama a paranoid woman

One who was skittish and afraid of the slightest bump in the dark

But you knew there was always something more to her fear

A reason as to why she’s deathly afraid of the clock chiming midnight

You trusted her for she was your mother

You never complained from her working long hours to make ends meet or about not getting the latest toy

Her getting home late and locking the door, shaking hands and uneven breaths was enough to always keep you from making a pep

Especially as it all melted away at the sight of you waiting patiently to greet her despite how late it was

She was tough as nails despite how people gave her looks for raising you on her own

Yet another reason you respected her more than just being your mom

So despite how you had to move yet again you didn’t complain

Especially as she said that in this place the two of you would be staying in a bigger home

So she packs up yet again

And the two of you load up into her car, putting the limited amount of items into the trunk before making the trip to Santa Carla

The so called “murder capital of the world” via the back of a billboard advertising the place

The sun is up and as she drives through the town you see all kinds of people

People from different backgrounds and subgroups

It was all fascinating to your 12 year old mind

Especially since you’d only see leather clad and studded jackets on tv

Never up front and in person

You peered out in wonder at a few of the leather wearing people, even getting a few small waves or smiles from them

It made you wave back as your mom drove past a boardwalk

One that piqued your interest without much effort

Perhaps it was the sight of carnival games that were likely rigged

Stuffed Prizes as big as you were

Sugary sweets and greasy delicacies

Flashing lights from stomach churning rides

The sound and smell of the salty water of the sea crashing into the shore

But something drew you there

It was like a call in your mind

Beckoning you to go

Like Alice following the white rabbit into wonderland

Your mother sees your stare and chuckles a little

Hands gripping the steering wheel as she turns it

“Did you know that I used to live here?”

“Really?!”

“Yep. The house we’re gonna live in is where I used to live when I was a teenager”

“But…I thought grandpa and grandma didn’t like you because of me?”

“Grandma and grandpa…are in a retirement home. We got the house in return”

At that you nod

It sounded like it made sense

“Mommy actually used to go the board walk quite a bit. Maybe you’ll have fun there”

“I’m allowed to go there?”

“Yeah but…remember what I said about following your gut. Alright?”

“Ok!”

Moving in is relatively quick

The place is old and furnished in antique furniture

It’s better that what the two of you had before except for the old person smell

But that would go away with time…and fabreeze

You traverse through the place finding what you assumed to be your mom’s old room

It’s untouched

Remnants of the 60’s turning into what you think to be the 70’s

Posters hang on the walls, Janet Joplin and Jim Morrison are two you can clearly recognize

Their music played on the way to this very house

The covers of the bed are soft as you flop down onto the duvet spread of swirls and sunflowers

Your bag following suit as it spills open to let your stuff tumble out onto the bed

By the time night hits your surging with energy as your mom gets ready to go to her new work

It was weird but for some reason you always felt more energetic at night

Your mom always said you got that from your dad which made you giggle

You never knew him

Only heard bits and pieces about him from your mother who guarded it to her heart

Naturally you were curious about the man since he WAS your father

But by how hesitant she seemed you eventually brushed that curiosity away for her sake

Your mom gives you twenty dollars and a kiss on the cheek after handing you a sweater just in case

The rule was to be back by 10 which you’d definitely abide by lest you have this privilege taken away

So your off

Into the boardwalk you go as the last bits of sunlight die

The sun slowly going down in the horizon signalling night to take reign

Your a bit overwhelmed since this is the first time having such a big sense of freedom

Plus there are so many people here

For awhile you end up laying a few games, winning cheaply stuffed prizes before ending up getting some ice cream

You end up sitting by the steps going down into the beach

It was quieter there and less busy making it relaxing as you listened to the waves

And then you heard the sound of moter cycles roaring

Your eyes turn to see 4 boys, all teenagers around 18 or 19 coming to a stop

Their all laughing to themselves

Two blonds seemingly play fighting as another watches with a tall dark haired man

You get up from your spot, whipping of stray bits of sand sticking to you and approach the group who’d yet to notice you

“I like your jackets”

Their eyes search around for a moment before trailing down to you

Staring up at them with interest

You notice how whatever they were gonna respond with dies in their throats

You miss how momentarily their eyes flash to an cat-like yellow hue from being distracted from the detailing of their leather coats

Specifically the one with all the patches and dangly bits

The one in the centre responds first, thanking you before kneeling down a bit to be at a better height

Up till then you had to crane your neck up to look at the 4 of them

He introduces himself and then the others

There’s a noticeable intrigue in them that doesn’t go unnoticed by you

The one named Paul chimes in asking if your here with some friends

You respond with the truth that your here alone, your first night in your new home

“Must be pretty brave coming here all alone” the one named Marko comments with a wild smile

“Mom says the same thing. She also always says trust your gut”

“What does your gut say about us?”

“That your cool”

That gets a good laugh out of them

The rest of the night you spend it with the rowdy group of bikers

Paul and Marko showing you the best hacks for winning the carney games

David buying you a burger that you snack on as the night progresses

Dwayne placing you on his shoulders when you mention your feet starting to hurt

It’s fun

Possible the most fun you had in a long while

At a lot of your old schools you never really made friends

Partially due to the fact you knew you’d move but also cause you could never really click with other kids your age

But it seems that within minutes of meeting these delinquent bikers you’d made the friends you had so longed for

But eventually the night comes to an end the minutes to 10 are ticking down and you have to head home

You notice how distinctly upset one of them are compared to the rest

And how in your own way you feel the same

Almost as if you were about to leave a part of your soul if you left

“I’ll be back tomorrow night. We can meet by the same spot if you’d all like”

Immediately the mood is lightened

David nodding as the others smile and wave you off as you take the path home

Despite how dark the streets were and how afraid you probably should be when walking home in a new town

Let alone one named the murder capital of the world

You feel at ease

Safe beneath the starlit skies as the moon lead your way home

At some points you could’ve sworn you felt eyes on you but there was no feeling of danger

You could even dare say you felt protected as the wind howled last you

When you get home your mom is there to greet you with a smile

One that seemed less stressed than normal

“How was it?”

“It was fun!. I made some friends I think”

“You think?”

“Yeah…well this older than me but super cool”

She nods with a smile, sending you to bed with a spark of familiarity in her eyes as she stares out a window

The next night you keep your word, going to the same spot you met them when the light died

Letting night take it’s place

They arrive like they did last time but instead of laughing amongst themselves they immediately head to greet you

It repeats like this for your night times

Their always filled with fun and laughter as the group quickly welcomes you to its metaphorical ranks

There is an unknown sentiment shared between them

One that it takes awhile for your young child brain to catch onto

Eyes sending silent sentences as they ruffled your hair

The way how there’s an unspoken rule between them that at least one is with you at all times

How out of the bunch one specifically seems to linger near you more than the others

An unknown emotion filling their eyes as they have to say goodbye once the clock chimes 10

And then joy when they see you the next night at the boardwalk

How that one of the group is always the first to find you and greet you

It’s odd

But perhaps not in a bad way

It makes you feel happy and comfortable

Almost as if you greeting your dad after a long day of work or saying goodbye to him

It’s a feeling you enjoy especially as the nights are filled with joy

But with that also comes the odd feeling you have with them

A sense of kinship beyond just regular friendship

Something more alike to being part of a family

Along with that is also the odd smell your sometimes find lingering near them

It’s faint but there, an irony twang that isn’t from the studded boots or moter cycles

It hangs from them in an essence that only you seem to notice

For some reason you imagine the smell as an almost red mist

Something that also lingers around the video store that they avoid as best they can

Not like you can blame them though

Something in you tells you that danger lies there so you never go near it

There a noticeable change in you as you spend time with them

A sense of energy when the sun sets that leaves you somewhat confused since it wasn’t to this extent before

Now you felt as if you were more alive at night

Sometimes taking hours to even try to force yourself to sleep when your supposed to

And despite that you feel energetic as usual during the day but especially at night

It becomes an ongoing cycle you endure

Because if it meant being able to spend time with the boys you’d befriended then you’d bare it

David like the others can instantly tell that your his kid

They all can

It’s safe to say your now his number one priority

For a long while David feels clueless as to how he should handle this

Cause on one hand he wants to just take that step into fatherhood

To be there for you as best he could without up and saying he’s your dad

But at the same time he doesn’t know if that’s what you want or need

And that leaves him more scared than he’d like to admit

He doesn’t want to be like Max, someone who’d come into your life uninvited and decide that he’s now your dad

It’s fucked up and they know all about it from now being his “sons”

So for awhile he’d keep the relationship as being a big brother figure until he gets hints that he’d think it would be ok to take a more fatherly role

It’s odd for him to feel so…soft

He’s normally composed and at times gruff

The complete opposite of how he is when your tugging him to booth to win a prize

For the first in a long time David allows himself to let his guard down

To let the walls guarding his heart topple down and be vulnerable

It’s something he doesn’t do often even with the others

So it means a lot to him that he can do so without worry

He takes to hovering around you a lot

he’s not really affectionate like Paul or Marko but likes to just silently be near your presence

Watching you smile at a dumb joke

It comforts him that your not afraid of them, of him

That despite the looks and the scared glances from other people on the boardwalk you always come back

That also leads to him worrying for you

Especially since there are monsters in Santa Clara that may not be vampires but in his opinion much worse than they are

It’s cause of that he ends up personally watching and making sure your ok

That you get home safe to your mother

Speaking of which he may or may not be a bit bitter she kept you a secret from him

He partially understands her reasoning but it still hurts

What matters though is that he can be there for you now

Your a smart kid and it makes him proud especially as you begin taking after him in small ways

Sometimes it’s with how you walk as if you owned the place

Or how you went about a situation

He can’t help but chuckle a bit when thinking about it especially when he gifts you a coat similar to his own

The sight of which makes his crack a smile as you add it to your daily attire

It makes him feel a stroke of pride as you parade around like a mini him

Everyone knows that he’s something akin to a paternal figure to you and with that comes no one on the boardwalk messing with you

Unless they want him and the boys on their asses with a potential of ending up on a missing poster

But once again with that comes Max

Shit grinning Max who just had to stick his head into what didn’t involve him

David won’t admit it but he’s always on pins and needles when around the older vampire

For someone who is normally in control and the most powerful in a room he feels weak when the other vampire is around

All grip on the situation slipping out his fingers like sand in an hour glass

An sturdy object now cracked and moments away from breaking under the pressure of a fake smile and yellow eyes

Unsurprisingly Max is happy with this development

David dare even say ecstatic which leaves him uneasy

It’s better than him being mad but he can see the gears turning in his sire’s head

The prospect of his fucked up family dream coming one more step into fruition

Max makes one demand that David hesitantly agrees to which is bribing you in to meet him

So despite his clear hesitation David begrudgingly does so after exposing his…dad wanted to meet you

None of the boys are happy either but they put up some practices smiles and are able to convince you to help them pick out a video to watch

During this encounter you stick by David who is more than eager to shield you away from Max’s view as subtly he can

The older vampire peering down at you with intrigue

Despite nothing being amiss with the man behind the counter you feel uncomfortable

Something about him was wrong

The kind smile feeling almost Artificial as it hides something malicious behind it

You put up with that feeling though

Instead giving a shy but cordial greeting as Paul picks a film with Marko

Dwayne watching not too far away as David grasps your hand

The sight of which makes Max grin

After that the group takes you to their small hangout after you had gotten permission from your mom to stay longer

It’s something akin to a dream-like cave

Sea glass and beer bottle strung up to create blobs of coloured light

A large poster of Jim Morrison hanging on the wall just like your mom’s room that became your own

This places feels magical

“You like it?”

“Yeah!. Mom has a poster of Jim as well”

“Really?, well she must have good taste”

There’s a hidden amusement in his voice as he brings forth a wheelchair that he offers you to sit down in

It’s reminiscent of a throne as you sit down

David wheeling it closer to where the others sit as you giggle in delight

His eyes drift over to the bejewelled bottle every once in awhile as everyone watches the film

A part of him wants to offer it

That sweet golden ticket of immortality

But he holds back knowing it would be cruel

Though they may be sadistic he can’t bring himself to tricking you into turning

Can’t rip away your humanity and tear you away from your mother

He can’t find himself going to betray your trust

Perhaps later on in your life he’d offer it but for now he’ll lock those thoughts away

Despite how some part of his wishes to keep you forever young

Forever his child

His eyes trail back down to you dozing off

The others can’t help but laugh as the big bad David gentle picks you up with a certain soft look in his eyes

He glares but it only makes Paul and Marko’s giggles louder

Dwayne just smirks and nods

Getting the silent message of making sure the other two bozo’s didn’t burn down the cave as he left

And so he takes off into the sky with you in hand

Your smaller form fast asleep amongst the stars of the midnight sky

He can’t help but think about how fragile you are compared to him

A monster of the night

When he knocks on the door to your home he’s met by your mother whom stares with nostalgia

He asks if he can enter and she lets him

His jacket seems to flutter from a breeze coming in behind him

The next morning you wake up tucked into bed with the strangest dream of soaring the night skies

Your new friends Edgar and Allen say that you’d been reading too many superman comics

Dwayne feels his now unbeating heart stop as he stares down at you looking up towards them

Round innocent eyes that almost make him crumble and lose his usual stoic shield

He had always had a soft spot for children

And with you he absolutely melts like butter left in the Californian sun

The giant of a man accompanying you as you held onto his hand or the edge of his jacket

Out of them all he definitely takes to the role of dad the fastest

The quiet giant becoming the epitome of a gentle giant for you exclusively

It’s funny to the others how Dwayne will go from stoic badass to holding your hand when there’s a crowd so you don’t get lost

Honestly their all especially happy for him considering they all knew he once had a desire to have a family

It was initially what Max played on into initiating the brunette

Only for him to realize that those dreams were manipulated and played on

It’s due to that he is especially protective when he realizes you can be used as tool by Max

Like David he looms nearby but secretly loves giving you any affection that your comfortable with

Whether that be holding his hand or being placed on his shoulder is up to you but he never complains

In fact he only gently smiles, the edges of his eyes crinkling as a look of calm appears in his eyes

Dwayne (unlike the others) loves talking about historical events they had lived through

Of course he framed the stories as from relatives or now dead family members but there’s a certain look in his eyes that tells he’s talking of personal experience

Dwayne is a pro at the carnival games since he often times had to win them for Marko or Paul

He uses this to his advantage by winning you any and every prize you’d ever want

Whether that be the big ones or small your getting it

Thing is as well is that you don’t even need to ask him, he already seems to know which one you want and the next night or hour he returns with it in hand for you

The others now laugh cause now he stocks up on the cheaply stuffed toys and trinkets at the cave

Their in a neat pile away from the mud and grime

Plus Marko’s nabby hands for when he needs supplies for a new art project

Speaking of which he basically looms over Marko’s shoulder as he’s making you your own coat to match his

Jaguar and all

Marko knows he’s just excited but he has to shoo him off since having a giant looking over your shoulder while you work is kinda distracting

In the quiet moments where he sits with you and have ice cream by the beach he tells you of tales

How each constellation has a story

How flowers have certain meaning in Victorian and various cultures

Along with that he reads to you books of old

Ones with flowery language long forgotten to the modern world yet he holds an appreciation for

During when he reads he lets your read aloud with him, taking turns voice characters as he helps you sound out harder words

It makes him more happy than you can imagine that has someone (let alone his own child) to read along with

He likes Shakespeare and stuff considered to be classics but he has a soft spot for fantasy novels like Tolkien

Once considered reading to you Dracula but held back thinking that it maybe too on the nose and give you suspicions

It’s at this point he would also explain to you in detail his heritage of indigenous origin

Stories passed on from his people that he now shares to you

When he does so theirs a certain gentleness and vulnerability he has in his tone

It had been once again something he had dreamed of doing, passing down stories just as his parents and grandparents before him

One that was yet again something he didn’t think he’d get to do

But here he is, beneath the starry night sky retelling stories generations old as you look to him with pure amazement and interest

Something that makes him a bit more teary eyed than he’d like to admit

He often worries about your sleep schedule and about your health in general partially due to the fact none of them know what a half-vampire entails

Nor do they want to ask Max out of fear of sounding too suspicious

So he kinda has to wing it

Through the night he constantly makes sure to get you snacks and drinks to keep you hydrated

The other joke that he’s a mother hen but he takes that in pride

Pride that he can care for his own flesh and blood

But of course nothing can last forever and Max catches on when you accidentally stumble into his shop on night with Dwayne behind you

Safe to say it’s a bit of an awkward talk that has implications you don’t catch onto as the two “talk”

Well it’s more like Max is talking as Dwayne gave short answers and silent messages through his glare

Meanwhile your peaking out from behind the movie selection as the man behind the counter stares at you with interest

When the two of you leave after that you notice how for a long while he gets more protective

His hand gripping yours a bit tighter than usual or how his eyes scour through the crowds when your on his shoulder

When he brings you to the cave (after your moms permission to stay out later than usual) you ride with him on his bike

Unlike the others (cough Marko and Paul cough) he drives safely

He also makes sure that your comfortable enough

Once there he carefully guides you down into their base

Being sure so that you don’t trip over any stray jutting stones or debris laying around

It comes to no surprise that he talks of the history of this place

From how it sunk to how stalactites now begin to form

You sit down with him at the old fountain and he pulls out an old copy of Hamlet

He reads as the others do their own thing nearby, casually listening or throwing in a quip from time to time

It’s fun especially as Paul makes a remark that their all to dramatic

That gets a rock thrown at him by David

When your getting tired though he takes you home on his own

The hum of the motor cycle making it really easy to fall asleep as the very early hours of the morning

Your mother can only smile at the sight of him walking you to the door hand in hand

The next while that becomes a tradition

One in which that has you always happy at the end of the night from the fun memories and how easy it was to fall asleep

Dwayne’s new favourite activity though is teaching you to dance since you randomly asked one day

The tune of a song from the smiths or echo and the bunny people filling the cavern

Bouncing off it’s old walls as you stand on his feet following his lead

He fells at peace, purely content and happy in a way he hadn’t experienced yet in his undead life

“Am I doing this right?”

“You are, just follow my lead”

Edgar and Allen say he’s unfortunately not allowed in their shop cause he refuses to still wear a shirt so you can’t introduce them yet

No shirt no service as they say

Paul is freaking the fuck out internally cause out of all of them he was a dad

Him

The smooth talking ladies man who was as high a kite almost every night

Is he upset by this revelation? Fuck no

Is up surprised and unprepared? Hell yeah

Unsurprisingly the others tease him about this quite a bit but he doesn’t bite back since he’s too distracted wrapping his head around how he should act around you

Like the others he’s had a particular bad home life back when he was alive so he doesn’t really know how to be a good dad

Part of him fears that he’ll end up like his father

Controlling and often times would hurt him for acting out

It leaves him fearful that he could become him for he is already a monster of the night

There’s no telling if he’d fall as far as his dad

The others remind him he would never but a part of him still worries

During his time with you he is always cracking jokes and quips to hear you laugh

It’s perhaps his new favourite thing to hear as a smirk spreads across your face

A sight in which he does his best to be a constant expression on your face

The so called “twisted sister look alike” likes indulging in games with you

Along with spinning you around in the air or running with you sitting on his shoulders

Marko helps him with a lot of the these endeavours

The other golden hair vampire helping in the schemes he makes to make your nights all that more enjoyable

Several of which are stopped by Dwayne of David cause their apparently “dangerous” and “could blow our cover you dumb blonds”

The dumbass duo now becomes a trio cause your dragged along with them

The only braincell on the group as David and Dwayne desperately hope you don’t lose said braincell with hanging out with the two

Paul is very affectionate and shows this both verbally and physically

He’s constantly telling you how cool you look and patting your head

It’s his way of making sure you know your always loved

You can definitely bet he sneaks you into concerts that you maybe shouldn’t be at

And then at said concert he parades you on his shoulders so you get a good view

Wild hair flying everywhere as he bops to the tune with you doing the same

With you now taking up most of his attention he focuses less on woman since he’d rather spend time with someone who he knows won’t leave

Even when he does talk to woman though it isn’t like it was before

What started off as flirting derails when he starts talking about how proud he is of you and-

And the woman has now left and he hadn’t noticed

David jokes that he’s lost his skills but he doesn’t really mind as much as he initially thought

He just laughs it off with a “whatever you say man” before taking you to yet another booth where he wins you something

And steals a few extra prizes

He steals you quite a bit of stuff

Like you were looking at something for a millisecond?, he’s mentally notes that down to yoink later

Bit of a kleptomaniac so he has a shit ton of old concert merch and collectibles that he gifts to you

David been complaining that it’s piling up in the cave anyways so he’s happy it’s going to a good home

Still a bit sad cause he’s emotionally attached to those items but feels a sense of happiness when he sees you wear the old band shirts he’s collected

Speaking of which he had a ton of unused patches Marko has been unable to touch that he has added to your coat

All the way from Jimi Hendrix and the doors to Motley crew and black sabbath

He tries to hold back smoking near you but there are the times where he ends up high and is around you

You actually find Paul to be really funny when he’s high

The others disapprove cause it’s not exactly a respoible thing to do in front of a kid and cause he gets chatty and on several occasions almost blew their cover

He does try to tone it down for your sake though

Which is more than David could ever convince him to do

It probably doesn’t take long for Max to catch on that’s something going on that he hasn’t been let on to

Doesn’t fucking except Paul of people to have a kid

Well…maybe that’s a lie, he does know that he is quite good with women but still

Like the others Paul doesn’t really like Max but he at least tries to hide his discomfort with a lazy smile

Don’t be fooled though cause his foot is bouncing anxiously

Max is of course all smiles as you place a movie you’d like onto the counter

Paul holding your hand as you feel sweat begin to form on his

Max greets and talks with him but you can sense something is odd

The encounter ends fast and leads with Paul putting you on his shoulders and running off into the crowds

You still feel the other man’s eyes watching the two of you disappear into the sea of people

Eventually your able to get permission to go with them to their cave on the condition they drop you off back home

In an instant Paul is showing you his area of the cave

His figurative treasure trove that your allowed to touch without the worry of having a rabid Paul set loose for touching his stuff

You sit on a pile of old shirts as he shows off some trinkets that he thought were particularly cool

It’s there he also plays some of his favourite albums from the mixtapes Marko made

At some point he begins singing along with you following suit

Laughter and giggles every few verses as you mess up words and only remember the chorus

It’s the most fun thing he’s done

It’s so mundane yet it seems to ingrain itself into his memory

Something he’d hold close when he felt particularly lonely

When he takes you home he decides to park his motorcycle at the board walk and take you the rest of the way by foot

You laugh and joke with him and it warms his undead heart

You talk of your dreams and he makes you promise to never doubt your ability to accomplish them

Something his dad never did

Your mother already awaits at the door when he drops you off

He smiles and shoots her a flirty remark she giggles at as she shoo’s you to bed

As he’s about to leave she says he and the others always welcome to stay if the sun is too close

He nods and disappears into the night

Edgar and Allen say Paul isn’t allowed in the store after once catching him stealing several comics

Along with the fact their concerned his dumbassery will end up with the shop in flames

Marko is dumbfounded but also jumping with fucking joy

HE HAS A KID!!!

Oh my god- ow

Yeah definitely excited but then realizes that means he has a tiny human he’s now responsible for

A tiny human who is more fragile than regular humans

In an area infested with creepo’s and surf nazi’s

He’s now internally screaming and Dwayne is doing his best to help cause they all can hear it through their mind link

Definitely anxious about now having a kid who doesn’t know he’s their dad but simultaneously he knows their his kid

David is so close to sometimes snack him on the head

Marko is personally good with affection and dishes it out quite often but his favourite is gifts

Me makes (and steals) you sooo much stuff

Like if Paul was bad for snatching shit then Marko is going to a new level for you

Out of the bunch he’s the most artistic

And he’s very passionate about it

Me makes you bracelets, handmade pins out of bottle caps, patches and doodles

All of which end up being kept safe in your room or added to your clothes

He’d absolutely love to take you “shopping” around the boardwalk for supplies before starting an art project with you

Hunched near the beach as the two of you paint some random shit with patterns and drawings

It’s due to this the fights in the boardwalk has gone down 50%

David has almost staked himself several times for the countless times Marko and Paul end up in stupid situations as they dragged you along

It’s nothing too bad, just some light mischief that leaves you giggling as he runs with you clinging to him

He only wins at the carnival games cause he cheats via vampire powers

Like he could’ve learned to do it properly over the years

But using an ability is sooo much easier

Plus somehow miraculously winning every time to watch the hope drain from a vendors eyes is satisfying to him

As is reaping the rewards of giving you a giant plush and getting a bright smile

One time you surprised him with something you won him and he still cherishes it

He even gave the plush a name and refuses to let anyone but him touch it

That goes along with any drawings or small artwork you give him

It could be something as small as a post it note with a smiley face and he’d be asking David to frame it on a wall

He decides to make a scrapbook to keep it all in

Certain drawings he really likes end up becoming custom patches that he adds to his coat

Unlike the others who want to give you a jacket that relatively matches their own

Marko goes off the wall in creating something similar to his but at the same time different

He’s an artist, he ain’t making the same thing again

Do you know how that hurts his soul?…if he still had one!

…plus Dwayne would probably strangle him if your jacket had a half naked woman like his own

Your jacket becomes his main project he works on

Yours is customized to your liking with patches of bands you like

To Italian tapestries much like his own

He adds charms and beads and-

David has to stop him before it becomes too heavy for your small form to carry

They once had to stop Marko from committing a art heist cause you offhandedly mentioned you like one of the paintings a local museum had

He verbally torn apart by Dwayne but it was so worth it in his eyes since he was able to raid the gift shop for prints instead

(Still sucks he couldn’t get the original)

Sometimes when he’d feeling nostalgic he takes you around the area and shows you works of art he may or may not have made

Their all anonymous works so he can just tell you his “interpretation” of what it’s supposed to mean

He loves hearing your input though

Hearing your own version of how you view the message of a piece as he looks on

Marko has been breeding and training pigeons for generations so he definitely introduces you to his feathered friends

He shows you how to tell if their happily coo’ing and where to pet them

His favourite of the bunch is one he named “Legosi” after the actor

Legosi now ends up being a messenger pigeon that he uses during the daytime to send you little motivational messages or small charms

Like Paul it doesn’t take long for Max to catch onto something being amuck

And Marko is fucking terrified as he attempts to act like his normal self as the man behind the counter of the video store looks down at you with a smile

It feels almost like a predator smiling down at prey

When he takes you to the cave he shows you all his projects and artwork that is found around

The fountain and the pigeons

It’s fun especially since he shows you all the random supplies he’s collected over the years

Including weird ass paints that aren’t in production due to them using dangerous materials like arsenic

The others watch on as the usually chaotic blond becomes calm as the two of you finger paint

Or he teaches you to sew

It’s probably the most content they’ve seen him in a long while

He won’t tell you it but he has a habit of accidentally just divulging in Italian as he talks about amazing you are to the others without even noticing he’s switched languages

Yet again not allowed into the comic shop for stealing plus Edgar and Allen swear he’s cut out panels when their not looking

You can confirm after seeing his collage’s with comic strips that he probably cut out from the pages

For someone often considered paranoid many people find it odd how your mother moved back to her hometown of Santa Clara

Even with the inheritance of her parents home it still felt like a departure from how she normally was

The woman who’s jump at the slightest of sounds

Or insisted on having at heart 3 locks on a door

But perhaps what’s more strange is her response as to why she lets you, a 12 year old, out at night

Something that normally would seem like a decision only made by negligent parents in this town polluted by missing posters

“Their probably the person with the most safety in this town. Cause I’m this case their the metaphorical princess with a group of dragons there to protect them”

Most would write off this statement

But it’s more true than anyone would initially think

For the monsters who lurk the night don’t hurt one of their own

[loud-sound]

(part 1 of part 2!!)

for shits n giggles, i tried my hand at redesigning dr stone characters (read: three)

i have too many emotions when it comes to this show's character design lmao. a vicious hate-love of the century

a couple of my process notes if anyone's interested: (vague spoilers up to season 3 of the anime)

there's a criminal lack of skin tones that i immediately wanted to take advantage of; and before Certain People start saying race-swapping; none is happening here, it's all just taking account of tanning and sunburns. sunscreen is a thing of the past here and a lot of time is spent outdoors in order to gather food

dramatic shifts in skin tones from what's given at birth happen pretty frequently in real life even with A/C and sunscreen; a huge missed opportunity to play with this in the color department methinks, but here we are (don't even get me started on the massive range of skin tones in east asian genetics alone)

so i played around a bit with contrast, nothing outlandish aside from giving Kohaku noticeable sunburns and freckles from (1) having caucasian blood in her to begin with and (2) not having access to any of the skin products our moderners would have

that being said, realism in the clothing color department was just about entirely thrown out the window. the blue dyes we know about are nowhere (naturally) near Japan, and here Ishigami village is in canon with deep navy on every villager; Inagaki and Boichi decided realism specifically here wasn't as important as color symbolism (which i personally think was a good creative decision), so cut me some slack-

so for colors it was just my personal taste on streamlining the palettes-

Gen in particular i thought would benefit from exposed shoulders without taking away how he needs bigger sleeves to hide shit up there. a lot of the guys have plain shirts and sleeves or just go shirtless entirely and i felt like it'd be fun to have him wear something in between to really push the magician/entertainer vibe

hairstyles were changed mostly to be easier to draw and to make their silhouettes just a bit easier to distinguish from each other. (hair colors were untouched except for Kohaku, purely because i have a personal preference for the more natural blonde color than any actual design significance lmao)

partial exception for Kohaku, cuz it annoyed me that the other characters say she has super thick, unruly hair...but then her hair is drawn no differently from everyone else's 💀

didn't wanna play into the stereotype of naturally curly hair being seen as something to be fixed (especially within the context of a makeover-), so i tried to imply chronically unbrushed hairdsjfsdf

can you tell from how many bullets are here about Kohaku how i feel about her design? last thing: body types.

Gen is supposed to be significantly tall, Kohaku is one of the strongest characters while being one of the shortest; it is very hard to tell that from their designs alone. it's mostly just the limitations of Boichi's art style,,,proportions that's i'm aware is nitpicky, but i wanted to show it here anyway 💀💀💀

smth smth disclaimer about subjectivitydsfsdfsd-

uhhhh, congrats for reading all that, have some silhouettes!

[dailyrothko]

Thoughts on Barnett Newman? Since his "Stations of the Cross" series is right next to a room of Rothko paintings in the national gallery I was curious about what you think of him, personally I prefer Rothko's work but Stations of the Cross is nice imo :)

I do like the Stations of the Cross, and it's really nice the way the NGA has them all together much more effective as a group I think. They are my favorites of his paintings.

Newman was a writer and become a painter later than Rothko or Gottlieb or Still. I think there was tension about him as he was seen to be getting on the bandwagon. They say Gottlieb was enraged called him "Bullshit Barney" (i think that's right, something like that). But depending on who you ask, Rothko was less wound up about it, I think he didn't feel as threatened. However, Clement Greenberg, the most influential critic of the time, embraced Newman and didn't like Rothko. To me it's all politics but I think it may have hurt Rothko's feelings, he was sensitive.

Newman appealed to Rothko's intellectual side but they were very different. Newman affected a pose, wore a monocle, posed in a suit with a cigarette holder. Everyone seems to say he was a very smart person but some of his peers I think were less impressed with his actual painting. One annoyance was that he apparently changed the dates on some paintings to make it appear as if he had done them earlier than he had.

I hesitate to say anything is 100% true, I only know what I read.

Jack Tworkov said, "I think that Rothko's struggle was an intense one. And now that I know his work much better, his earlier work that I've seen a great deal more of, I can now see what he started from, what he worked through in order to get where he did. Whereas Newman began painting I think in 1947 with that stripe and that was it."

Without being even more digressive, I do think as a society we place too much emphasis on the single artist and whole genius idea. People are parts of groups and their groups are part of a society that has different functions depending on when they exist (Tworkov has good things to say about that). Ginsberg had the Beat poets, for instance, it's part of a bigger tapestry, if you will. I think Americans love this genius myth, (everyone is a goddamn genius, apparently)and that obsession fuels the art world too. There are plenty of painters who do great paintings as good as anyone, but if they are not anointed, they don't sell the same, so i think it invites the idea that one artist is the best and the others must be lesser. If you're an Orson Welles type, you are great but also great at fueling your myth to get work, other people just don't have it in them. Newman could play the whole game a lot better than Rothko.

For me, I do like his paintings and especially Stations of the Cross, but I would say I find his painting less deep than Rothko's. He kind of stuck to a simpler thing than some of the artists of the period. It's not about these personalities really, it's about the art. But I thought I would give some Rothko context to your question.

[streets-in-paradise]

Nightfall Enchantress - Dastan x (Fem)Servant!Reader

Requested by Anon

" hi hi, loved loved loved the Dastan fic btw. Was wondering if u could write another Dastan fic but with a maid who has a fake scar on her face that she puts on in the morning to prevent ppl taking advantage of her and Dastan sees her without it. tytyty and ty especially for writing for Dastan 😭 "

Hi! Thank you so much again for your sweet message and I hope you will enjoy this one too 😊

Warnings: AU were Tamina married Tus, the reader is her handmaid. ( Since Alamut has excellent make up artists, i thought introducing her like this would be great for the specific plot of the request) Fear of sexual assault experienced as a woman in the defeated side of war, reader is particularly sensitive about it because of her backstory.

Summary: After the persian invasion, your princess finds herself circunstantially forced to accept the marriage proposal of the eldest prince. Following her as loyal servant means you would be working for a different family and you are unsure of the protection they can grant you. By choice and chance, your kind encounters with the youngest prince start to modify your perception as he would try to show you that you have nothing to fear.

Note: This partially ignores the bigger conflict of the film. i'm borrowing the context it introduces as framework to develop a different thing.

Tags: @thorssweetheart

Orders were very clear and in any other situation, you would have fullfilled those with dedicated rigurosity. Tamina was sumitting the enemy to a proof of character, even during sujugation her wisedown exceeded.

Persians were threatening her life and that was an exception you couldn't tolerate, so you screamed against the sentence demmanding your princess' blood for the negatory to a political marriage to their future king. The loyal display of desperated concern deviated the attention to you for an instant.

" Eager to share her fate, girl? " Prince Tus mocked you, condemning the interruption. " The princess has choosen pride to be her demise."

Surprisingly for him, the extention of the threats managed to break her haughty resistance.

" STOP!!" She screamed, her tone yet sounding slightly softer. " ... She is like a sister to me."

Confussion awakened his curiosity, desire and greed probably mixing to the unexpected fact being revealed to him.

" Sister, you say? Well, that changes everything!" He sarcastically proclaimed, obtaining laughter from his crowd of soldiers. " If she is as fine as you, more than one arrangement can be made. "

In a matter of instants you were dragged closer so the Princes of Persia could inspect you, Tus presenting you to his brother as if you were a stolen item possibly about to be offered.

" Check her out, Garsiv. "

Excitement overcame the hot headed persian, lascivious smile on his face as he felt so close to possessing a smiliar beauty to take as wife. The claims of the princess made them mistake you for a noble and the richness of Alamut was such that you weren't distinguishable from one to the persian eye. Despite your looks were humbler than Tamina's, you were in all white and cloaked as most of the people from the temple.

A wiser observator could have realized that your clothing style matched with the princess' because you were her handmaid, her company servant, but there wasn't a single well oriented mind there other than hers.

Details were in his way to get a full visual. The hood had the covering support of your long, voluminous hair at the sides of your face. It was clear that Prince Garsiv wasn't precisely a patient man, but he paid the price of his arrogant approach. Once the hood fell back, abruptly and by his own hand, he stumbled with some unexpected imperfections.

A huge scar on the left side of your face going from your forehead to your chin, deforming what otherwise could have been a beautifull face. Your hair acted as curtain trying to cover most of it, but in his avid examination the prince made it fall back for full exposure.

The result wasn't of his liking,

" … Maybe Dastan would rather have her. "

More persian laughter followed his despective comment, but that didn't hurt you in the slightlest. In fact, you looked proud of humilliating the enemy by subverting his expectations.

Checking on the reactions you got with a satisfaction that was beyond their understanding, you noticed at least one man in the crowd not joining the mockery. Your glance collided with Tamina's in his direction for completely different reasons.

You were staring at him while she saw the dagger and wherever the sacred object would go, she would follow.

" Prince Tus … " Tamina called, her tone making him suspect a reconsideration. " Promise that the people of Alamut will be treated with mercy. "

The eldest prince seiled the agreement kissing the back of her hand with agressive passion, gesture that you found repulsive. While Garsiv was quite amused with your disgusted reaction, you barely cared because your eyes were following the sad confussion of the man keeping the dagger.

Most handsome man you have ever seen.

For a brief instant, his eyes found you and you smiled instinctively.

" I guess we still have to figure out what are we going to do with you. " The voice of Garsiv brought you back from the distraction. " I'm not sure you are Dastan's type."

He referenced the scene you both witnessed, the shade of dissapointment on the prince's face when comfronted with the beauty of the princess at the same moment it was clear that she would never be his.

The sad man was his youngest brother, the one to blame for the fall of the city.

" Actually, i'm her handmaid. We grew up together so i'm also like the sister she never had. " You clarified, pridefully. " One fact doesn't exclude the other, my blood doesn't matter when it comes to our affection. "

" Tamina must have had a solitary life here, i bet Tus will fix that. " He concluded, then proceeded to comment regarding the strange family bond " And I understand that better than what you imagine, girl. My little brother doesn't share my blood. "

Even if he wouldn't want you for himself, he was sure you could get along well with his adoptive brother. Despite it was most likely you were going to remain as handmaid of the bride after the wedding, your company could provide him comfort through the situation. While Garsiv just wanted to cheer up his brother, Tamina had her own private interests involved to consent your kind approach to him. His trust could grant her access to the dagger and you knew she wasn't going to toss aside her pride to win it.

Aside from all the interests involved, the first close encounter happened spontaneously. The melancholy in Dastan's heart was evident to anyone with a sensitive perception and despite all the destruction he caused, it sadden you.

The very first thing you did as soon as you were left alone with him was gifting him a small white flower you kept hidden in your outfit.

" For your heartbreak. " You explained while posing it on his hand. " If it works as consolation, I know Tamina well enough to grant you that she doesn't want him. Prince Tus is still unaware that he will have to prove his worth to her through the marriage if he really wants to get something out of it, and she is very demmanding. "

You managed to make him chuckle.

" I appreciate this, but my brother's marriage shouldn't be of my concern. " He pointlessly denied. " … And your princess is insufferable. "

The efforts for hidding his true opinion of the matter were slightly cute.

" Peraphs, to you, but she is beautifull. That's really all men need to loose reason. " You called him out. " Beauty turns men into beasts, brothers into enemies. It's a curse in disguise, they go blind of desire. "

He quickly noticed how your phrasing posicionated you as self perceived outside the concept.

" … And I suppose you think yourself beyond that. "

" Less gracefull girls don't have to worry about that. " You inmediately explained. " As a royal maid, it's a blessing. "

Unlike his brother, he understood exactly what you meant.

Wisedown of the streets, far away from the narrowed vision on a noble warlord's mindset.

" Less men inclined to annoy you and possibly hurt you. " Dastan continued, proving that understandment." … Or attention coming only from the ríght man. "

You weren't expecting that, too wise for a persian prince.

" I'm hideous and, for so, safer than my own princess. There are no arrogant warriors seeking to take advantage of me."

"Allow me to return the kindness you had with me, you aren't as repelling as you pride yourself in being. " He purred, sweetly approaching to caress your face. " I don't think this is a problem."

You shunned his touch with despair, terrified of it.

" I grant you that I'm nothing like those men. " He clarified, then smiled before proceeding to do what he considered was comforting you. " I could never hurt you ... and why would I do that? After you have been nothing but kind with me for no reason. I invaded your city and you gifted me a flower, it makes no sense in the sweetest way."

"Even enemies can show respect." You concluded. " And I firmly believe that simple acts of kindness can twist fates for good. "

For some reason you couldn't yet understand, your words seemed to had hit him deep.

" Me too." Dastan replied right away. " I'm pretty much the living proof of your philosophy, believe it or not."

You smiled and looked down for an instant.

" Your methods go against the persian warfare style, that's for sure. Sneaking inside the city instead of going for a direct clash? You fight like a greek."

He laughed, full loud chuckles that time.

" You can consider that kindness. " He explained later. " The attack that my brothers planned was going to be a massacre, so what I did was stopping it the only way I could."

Dastan sounded sincere and you knew he was, because he had no reason to seek impressing you. As far as you knew, his imposibility to marry Tamina darkened the triumph in his heart.

" I see you are not like them." You admitted out loud. " That's why I feel the treasure may be safe with you for now, as long as you don't let it fall in the wrong hands."

" You mean in Tus's hands?" He wondered out loud. " Are you trying to turn us against each other for your princess? "

You laid your hand in his, the one that still held your flower.

" You have good hands, strong enough to take a life but guided with the wiseness to spare it ... No hunger for unecesary slaughter."

He was enjoying the attention, you could tell he was flatered. When he noticed your glance descending, checking his frame, then stopping right at his hips he was full of himself thinking you were enjoying of the sight.

" The dagger in your belt is an ancient relique, keep it safe. "

Dastan didn't catch the full dimension of your warning, but the brief time you shared did manage to make him feel better. His best friend catched him smelling the flower and twirling it on his fingers a while after you circunstantially parted ways.

He did tease him over it, but believing it was a token of Tamina.

All what was left to secure the political marriage Tus seeked with her for not so political reasons was waiting for the arrival of King Sharaman. According to the estimations of Lord Nizam, the father of the groom was close and any matters of that sort had to be arranged by him. His blessing would determinate which one of his sons would marry the princess, not that she seemed convinced by any of them.

As a protective friend, you would advice the youngest was the best option. Not only he was keeping the dagger, you were rooting for him already. However, the fact that you started to like him made things difficult. It could be said you had trapped yourself in the very same situation Dastan was going through, only your case was considerably more hopeless.

Two persian princes trying desperately to avoid fighting for the princess of Alamut was one thing, but her handmaid laying eyes on one was simply unforgivable. The transgression it meant didn't matter to you as much as the breaking of your pacted scheme with Tamina to survive the fall.

It was too risky, you were safer the way you planned it. Even if you could make Dastan want you, it could only be for the only thing somewhat allowed between masters and servants. Once his fun with you would be over, every other man in the persian court would want to try you. Being a royal handmaid in Alamut implied being submitted to high standards, your purity was as unquestioned as the princess you served.

Before their invasion got to happen, you ratified her that you preferred death to persian hands and you intended to stick to that promise. Continuing your life of maiden away from the temple, watching her become a wife and remain by her side was what you had to do. If she had to marry Tus, then you were going to serve a persian family following the code of conduct established by the noble traditions of your city.

If she had to marry Dastan, your heart will break just a bit, but your goal of remaining intact would be stronger than ever. Invisible, undesirable to persian eyes, you were not only safer but way more usefull to the interests of your people and their sacred mission that couldn't be interrumpted.

The main supply for your facade was still inside the temple, left behind accidentally in the confussion. Nightfall had made you aware of that, when your dear friend helped you to clean up your face for a proper rest that was circunstantially delayed. Sneaking in hopes of recovering the valuable loss was the only solution, since it was most likely that persians already pillaged all the storages. The place was under their control, so reaching the temple unseen was nearly impossible.

Not to you, or at least you thought so.

In the middle of the road you wanted to move forward, but someone made it impossible. Dastan, pretending to just be going for a walk, was clearly awaiting for the end of your day serving the princess. You weren't scared anymore, but that didn't mean you wanted him to see your clean face.

Twice he begged you to stop and you acelerated the pace, but there wasn't going to be a third one. His strong arms trapped you and stopped your every movement for an instant before you began to struggle.

" Calm down!" He exclaimed prior to defending himself. " I'm not going to hurt you, i just want to talk. "

You believed him, but that didn't make you stop.

" Not a good time, let me go. "

Dastan held you tíght, making you perfectly able to feel his body against yours even if he didn't seek so.

You were like a precious load, not a prisoner. The struggle turned out in his favor on the worst possible end: your hood fell back. Exposed once more, you could only look at him with a wondering expression.

Inmediate mesmerizement was what he felt looking at your real image for the first time, he simply couldn't believe his eyes. His lips parted with pure amazement, to what you were only smiling innocently as if you tried to excuse yourself from the scheme.

What kind of miracle was he witnessing? Not only your scar was gone, your face looked completely different. The sweet woman he had already considered quite pretty regardless of her specifical flaw was in fact a divine beauty, her natural grace had nothing to envy in Tamina's.

" I hope you won't believe now that i'm a desperate slave girl. " You recalled, aware of the princess comments on who she imagined were the girls that Dastan preferred. " I didn't meant to be seen like this, even less by you."

Dastan wasn't thinking clearly, bitting his bottom lip furiously as if he intended to keep his mouth shut before he could try to kiss you.

" You are … breathtaking. " Was what he finally managed to say. " The most beautifull woman I have ever seen. "

It made you smile, then look down ignoring that the shying gesture would make your eyes land on his chest giving the compromising position.

" It's a secret, one more i'm asking you to keep. " You started to explain. " Only the priests and my lady have seen me like this. "

The revelation was a bit frustrating to him.

"How? Why?" He wondered out loud. " That's so unfair … you are so beautifull I could cry! "

Although you tried to keep serious, you couldn't help chuckling.

" It's a long story … "

He wasn't going to leave you untill his curiosity would be satisfied.

" I have all the time in the world. "

" Remember what I told you, about the dagger? " You attempted to approach the topic from an already established point. " There is real magic in Alamut, that we can sometimes combine with other great skills we have developed. Among other things, the city has excellent artists of the appearance. Tamina's looks are a reflect of that, the religious symbols on her skin are painted every single day and removed by nightfall ... and so do my scars. Experts of all sort downgrade my looks into what you have meet."

" Under your princess orders, surely. " He wrongfully accused. " I bet that arrogant spoiled girl can't handle having a servant as beautifull as her. In my humble perception, peraphs even more. "

You couldn't let him trash the reputation of your beloved princess.

" It's not what you think, Tamina has been wonderfull to me all my life. There has never been any sort of envy between us, she is my protector. "

" She forces you into a disguise because her beauty reflects her nobility and yours can't question it. " He insisted. " Not being born a noble doesn't erase the fact that you have the face of a princess and the heart of one. "

" You don't know what you are saying, I submit myself to it willingly and I have valid reasons to do it." You cutted him off. " I don't expect you to understand it, even when you seem more open than your brothers."

He lifted your chin so your eyes won't escape his.

" Then explain me, because without it, this seems an act of cruelty from the princess and i believe it needs to end. "

You tried to escape from his touch once more, out of shame regardless of your enjoyment.

" Alamut thrives to stay pure, away from any sort of corruption, but years ago an execrable act was commited on its holy ground and i'm its product … My mother commited suicide after giving birth, she couldn't stand the shame, and I became an orphan. Kindness stopped the regent from abandoning me to the fate of orphan girls outside the citadel, of ending up just like my mother."

Dastan knew what you were talking about, girls living in the streets would sooner or later get sold to brothels. You were born from rape and feared that as a mark of fate chasing you.

" The priests consulted the omens and they were amazed. They recommended I should be given to the princess to flourish with her because they knew that I would become an exceptionally fair girl. My innocence was proven in that prophecy, believing beauty was a sign of blessing showing the gods weren't blaming me for what happened. "

" I could totally believe you were blessed by your gods." He sweetly praised you. " I still don't understand how you weren't made a princess."

" The royalty of Alamut is strictly dynastical because it's the sacred keeper of a mystical secret. " You simply explained. " They didn't need to make me one of them in order to protect me."

" I'm an orphan made prince, the king gave me a family after watching me save my friend." He pridefully confessed you. " He could have made me Garsiv's servant, but he didn't. I'm a prince, his son, and his birth sons are my brothers."

" I'm a handmaid loved as a sister of the princess and that's enough for me. " You concluded. " When we realized we weren't little girls anymore and the eyes of men started to turn on us, Tamina promised me she wasn't going to let me suffer desecration. Together we elaborated this scheme. I have been wearing the fake scar since then, but I have asked to be made uglier on purpose when your army arrived to our gates because I knew your savages would end up fighting over who should steal my purity. Even without her artists, Tamina can still help me to create the disguise, but I need the supplies that were abandoned on that temple or otherwise all the persians will see me like this tomorrow morning"

There was real desperation in your voice tone at the end of your tale and it broke his heart.

" No more hidding. You won't need that anymore, because now I'm promising you that the bastard trying to lay a hand on you will fall by my blade "

He took your hand and kindly kissed your knuckles: a deal of prince.

" Would you protect me from your brothers? Or your friends? "

The mere implications were incredibly misguided.

" They are all good men, you just have to give them time and a little bit of trust. I know the enforced marriage on your princess doesn't make Tus look good, but he isn't like that. Neither are Garsiv, or Bis. If you trust me, you can totally trust them."

" I didn't trust you this willingly." You reminded him. " It was an accident."

"For much you struggled, I could tell you feel safe in my arms." Dastan commented, sensation that you shared. " And that is alright, the tragedy of your family is not a birth curse forcing you to hide from the world. We make our own destiny, my fair friend. "

The persian prince craved to kiss your lips, but he self restrained and kissed your forehead instead. Chaste display of his growing, intense affection on tone with the conversation. He liked you and could tell you felt the same, but rushing steps was counterproductive.

If he wanted to do things right, he had to start by making you feel safe beyond the promise of physical protection. He had to show you there was nothing to fear because, once living among them, the fierce persians weren't precisely the rouge barbarians in your nightmares.

On the next morning, you were cassualy re-introduced to everyone. Dastan asked you to accompany him on a walking tour arround the place in your role of local that knew the new territory better than him. During the occasion you told him bits of the local legends, and the saftest part to share of what you knew about the dagger hoping the fading of his skepticism would make him able to understand he had to give it back to Tamina.

She would get it as a wedding gift, he assured you, implying his intentions with her were over.

Your return granted a good oportunity to put his idea on practice, since Bis was already desperatedly looking for him under orders of the princes. When they looked at you, the three men were wondering if the thirst of battle had severely modified their perceptions the day before.

" Garsiv! So nice to see you, my brother! " Dastan saluted him, about to friendly mock him. " I accept your offering, the royal handmaid of Alamut is the finest company arround."

" What kind of sorcery is this? " Tus asked for him. " Her face is flawless."

" Cosmetic art, only applied in reverse. During daylight I show myself in disguise and the secrecy of night reveals my true face. " You defended yourself, ignoring the magical aspects in the questioning. " I turned myself undesirable to escape your men, but your clever brother discovered the scheme and this is how I really look like."

The regret on Garsiv's face was a perfect parallel of his initial dissapointment.

" You beautifull deceiver, i'm bafled. " He replicated in a slightly huskier tone." Is it too late to correct my mistakes? "

You answered with a cordial smile.

" The humilliation didn't hurt me in the slightlest, it was exactly what i wanted. Your disdain convinced your soldiers of staying away from me, I played you … Why should I be upset? "

The answer pleased him.

" If you put it in those terms, i guess you do believe in second chances. "

He was trying to keep it up with some uneffective flirting, but he wouldn't be the only one.

" My lord, with all the deserved respect, it's still important to remember she is beneath a man of your rank and prestige " Bis interrupted, then approached you. " Wouldn't you rather pick a humble man that would give you everything he has? Which isn't much, by the way, but for beauty like yours I would give it all. "

The surprise made you chuckle.

" Dastan should keep her, he discovered the secret. " Tus commented, amused by the situation. " Surprisingly, he is the only one she couldn't deceive. "

" Stop, all of you, before you start scaring her for real. " The youngest prince complained, then redirected his attention to you once more. " Still afraid, my nightfall enchantress? "

The threatening aspects had faded, at least two persians had humilliated themselves for you.

" Not so much, I believe peraphs we had mutually misjudged. "

Dastan had the last word, and his reason was the most convincing of all.

" I never did, I thought you were beautifull from the beggining. "

[goldenspecter]

Once again, I am wishing Rise fans can praise the movie without insulting/demeaning other iterations of TMNT. It's absolutely frustrating, as a fan of all the iterations plus Rise, constantly seeing people go "Rise did the Raph/Leo fight better than other where it's not just "Who's a better Leader/Leader" fights!" when not that's not the case. Rise didn't do it 'better' than the others, they just made it much more explicit, without using leadership as the framing of the fight, but the other iterations are not actually fighting about Leadership. (Hell, I would even argue I'll argue the others were very clear about it too, fans just didn't care to pay attention to the text of canon and just walked away from it as "Raph and Leo fighting about Leadership, again”) Let me explain what I mean, Raph and Leo in other iterations do fight quite a bit, yeah sure, but they are not fighting about “who should be leader” but the thing they are arguing about is painted with the framing of 'leadership/I'm the better leader.' Hell, Raph and Leo argue often because they are both the same people, but who have different approaches to the world, and the fact that one of Raph's roles in the franchise itself is to balance the team, especially Leo and call him out on his bullshit/hypocrisy.  Ignoring the contexts of these fights and just trying to frame these fights as just being about “who the better leader” heavily negates the fact the importance of Raph's role and make it sounds like Raph is being an asshole and arguing just for the sake of it and ignoring the very valid points they made. Not to mention, it also negates that TMNT, as a franchise, has attempted to tackle bigger ideas for a long time and makes other versions sound juvenile and childish with these fights being incorrectly boiled down to "Who's the better leader." 2003 TMNT has a great, the best example of this, with the City at War. The context for those who don't remember/haven't watched it: because of the Turtles defeating Shredder earlier in the season, there is now a power vacuum with the Shredder being absent and various gangs/mobs are trying to fill that vacuum. Leo and Raph are split on what should be done. Leo believes they are responsible for innocent people being hurt in the crossfire of gangs vying for power since this was a consequence of them defeating the Shredder and that they should do something about it. Raph on the other hand, does not agree with this take, believing that they had done their part and they don't need to be involved any further.

Raphael: Are you out of your green gourd? We did the city a favor.

Leonardo: Did we? Did we really? [The other two turtles arrive.] Raph, don’t you see what’s going on up there? This city’s at war. Don’t you feel just a little bit responsible?

Raphael: No. It’s not our deal.

Leonardo: It is! Even if we didn’t mean to make things worse, we did. [Donatello and Michelangelo look at each other.] Don’t ask me to explain how, but it feels like our fault.

-City At War, Part One This facet of their fight continues for the rest of the 3 episode arc, with Raph constantly protesting that this situation they are now in was something they should never have gotten involved in, and Leo constantly upholding that this was the right thing to do. The idea of Leadership or who would be the better leader had never come up once during that arc. 2003 Raph just never cared for leadership. He had no reason to fight for it, however, the few times he does fight with Leo, it is not about leadership or who would be the better leader. It is their morality that is being put up for conflict and their ideologies/worldviews clashing. Regarding 2007, I am very certain many people forget that at this point in time, EVERYONE thought that Leo abandoned Raph, Donnie, and Mike. Like point blank period. Leo had no intention of returning; his brothers were seen to be lost without him and had no way to move forward without him. Especially Raph, who gets frustrated that Leo refuses to get to know the three boys who have CHANGED and GREW during the time he was gone and expected them to fall back in line as they did as younger teenagers. It became even more unfair and frustrating on Raph and the others’ end that Leo, who abandoned them, comes back and tries to upend something that no one else was doing, without refusing to understand WHY it was going on and refusing to share empathy. During the year that Leo was gone, they were all FORCED to grow up without a big brother by their side, in ways that drove them apart and it wasn't healthy for them, but they were still growing. Leo doesn't put in the WORK to get them back together so they can all work to grow together as a team, in a more healthy manner so I think Raph has every right to be frustrated with Leo at that point, who unironically expected them to regress to a version of themselves that he knew before HE left so he can lead them without being empathetic.

Raph: You are so smug, you know that? You think the world revolves around you, don't you? We couldn't survive without the mighty and powerful Leonardo to guide us through our problems. Well, I got a news flash for you: We got along just fine without you.

Leo: Oh, and this qualifies as "just fine"? Dressing up like it's Halloween every night? Risking the safety of our family? I mean, come on, what were you thinking?

Raph: Don't push it, Leo. You can't leave and come back....expecting us to fall in line like your little soldiers.

Leo: Hey, I was training. Training to be a better leader, for you. Why do you hate me for that?

Raph: And whoever said I wanted to be led? I'm better off calling my own shots now. Get used to it.

Leo: You aren't ready. You're impatient and hot-tempered. And more importantly, I'm better than you.

Yeah, Raph also makes mistakes(him being reckless, and possibly putting himself/the family in danger with the Nightwatcher persona), but Leo's are just as egregious. Yes, leadership is used as a way to frame this fight, but ultimately, that is NOT what the original fight was about. For the IDW Turtles: Raph has gotten onto Leo's case multiple times for things that could possibly endanger their family as well as Leo's hypocritical nature that Leo has. There are too many examples to pinpoint just one. For the Bayverse films, Raph and Leo don't even argue/have major arguments in the first one. Hell, Raphael is the one who encourages his two younger brothers to follow after Leo when Donnie is about to question Leo's orders.

Leo:Yeah. Let's play Buck-Buck.

Donnie: But why would we...

Raph No. We do what Leo says. Lead the way.

I'll focus on the second one. The fight here was not about "who would be the better leader," it was NEVER about that. This fight here, was about Leo's awful actions as both a leader *and* older brother, the MAIN thing being his deception to Raphael and Mikey about the purple ooze and how it could turn them human, how he forced Donnie to take part in said deception and not allowing them to have a say in the matter. Leo revoked both Raphael's and Michelangelo's autonomy to make such an important decision that affected all of them, as well as the fact he considered his own vote to be superior of them all.

Raph: Pop quiz. What are the three most important traits of the ninja?

Leo: Speed. Stealth.

Raph: And honor. Where's the honor in keeping secrets from your brothers? Leo: I don't know what you're talking about.

Raph: So now you're adding lying to the list.

Leo: If you're referring to what Donnie told me about the purple ooze, it's called "compartmentalization of information."

Raph: If there's even a chance that ooze can make us human...

Leo: We're turtles, whether you like it or not.

Raph: It's not about what I like, it's about what people up there are willing to accept.

Leo: True acceptance only comes from within.

Raph: Don't give me that fortune cookie muck! You should consult with us before you decide to do something like that!

Leo: I consulted Donnie. And we decided...

Raph: And what about Mikey? He don't get a vote?

Leo: There's only one vote that counts in this family! Mine!

This superiority and arrogance that Leonardo feels about himself has been called out not only by Raphael but also by Splinter and his other brothers, and had constantly proved itself to be detrimental to Leo at multiple times in the film. But again, this fight was not about ''who could be the better leader." The only time Raph really fought with Leo over leadership was 2012, and the fight itself wasn't even initially about leadership but rather the execution of a plan, but then actually BECAME about leadership/who would be the better Leader.

Leo: We'll take Snakeweed from above. Tie him up in the clotheslines. Come on.

Raph: That'll take forever, and we have to stop Snakeweed now! I mean, he's kidnapping people.

Mikey: Not just people, people who bring pizza.

L.eo: We take him from above. Let's move!

Raph: And the award for worst leader goes to-

Leo: How am I the worst leader?

Raph: If we did this my way, Snakeweed would be toast by now.

Mikey: Ugh. That'd be some nasty toast.

Leo: This way would've worked if you hadn't wasted time second-guessing my orders.

Raph: Don't give bad orders, and I won't second-guess 'em.

Leo: You know what, Raph? If you think you could do better, why don't you lead?

Raph: First good idea you've had all day.

There’s also the the S4 episode “Riddle of The Ancient Aeons,” where the fight is about leadership/has the framing of leadership, but was in truth about something much deeper, see here:

Leo:Bummer? Look what happened to their world. You have about as much sensitivity as a rabid dog.

Raph:Look, just because you're leader doesn't mean you have to get into everyone's face.

Leo:Don't start on that leader thing again, Raph. You've always been jealous of me.

Raph:Jealous?! [April and Casey hold him back.]Maybe that's because you were always Splinter's favorite!

[He lunged toward, sais in his hands. Leo urged him a deep hug which suddenly calm Raph down.]

Leo:Raph, I love you, bro.

Raph:Leo, I-I'm sorry. I don't understand what's going on.

Rise didn't do anything "Better" they just made the argument much more explicit without the "who would be a better Leader" thing as a cover, the frame, or the crutch for it. To constantly paint each an every fight that Leo and Raph have as "Who should be Leader/I'm the better leader" is disingenuous at best and downright deceptive at worst to the other iterations, especially when many have neither: a. seen the previous iterations, b. don't understand the actual context that was presented, or c. both.

Before anyone comes into my notifications and tries to argue with me that I'm saying ''you can't make comparisons to other iterations" when no, I'm not. You absolutely can make comparisons, but making comparisons and framing them to make it as though Rise was the first to do something is not fair to neither Rise nor the other iterations that laid down the stepping stones that built up to Rise.

[snawbeanart]

a small tribute to those 2010's character tribute videos (some context under the Read More)

(Copied from the YT description)

Tribute video for Fawfuigi, a "what-if" scenario if Fawful had fawfulized Luigi early on during Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. Also a tribute to those really old Mario tribute videos from the late 2000's - early 2010's (especially the Luigi and Mr. L ones that'd use this same song). Set quality to 144p for the optimal viewing experience. Song used is Animal I Have Become by Three Days Grace, and I drew all the artwork (though some are edited Nintendo renders / artwork. also some backgrounds are from Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story).

If you're not familiar with the Mario & Luigi series and are wondering what's gone wrong with Luigi, he's been turned into a goofy prankster bean man by a genius evil bean scientist / engineer named Fawful. Fawful sparked chaos throughout the Mushroom Kingdom by starting an epidemic of bloated Toads, hijacking Bowser's Castle, stealing a forbidden object of great dark power, with the kingdom's authorities trapped in Bowser's stomach all the while.

Fawful does something called fawfulization throughout the kingdom during his conquest- this usually means he stamped his face and/or likeness onto something. He fawfulized statues, carpets, castles, animals, and even clouds. So what would be a bigger middle finger to Mario than fawfulizing his own brother?

The story of this scenario / AU (note this is an unfinished and pretty condensed retelling, I didn't want to write out all the elements of BIS that'd still happen but weren't really plot-relevant):

The morning that Mario and Luigi were supposed to appear at the Blorbs epidemic conference held at Peach's Castle, Luigi was strangely absent. Luigi is assumed to be late and the meeting continues until Bowser barges in and, under the influence of Fawful's Vacuum Mushroom, inhales all of the participants.

Meanwhile, the now-fawfulized Fawfuigi is running amuck, further adding insult to injury to the befuddled kingdom. He doesn't mean much harm most of the time, but his sense of humor can be very mean-spirited. His objective is to stall Mario from getting anywhere near Fawful, but can't seem to find the red plumber for a while.

Mario has been struggling without his brother. When he finally leaves Bowser's body, he's too late. The Dark Star the princess had warned him of was stolen. Things were only going to get worse.

When Mario leaves the town's caves and hobbles home to take a breather, he finds that his door has been slathered with rotten eggs. His shelves have been unconventionally reorganized. Someone had drawn over his family portrait with marker. Mario was infuriated but also baffled. Who and why?

He finds out soon enough. When he sees Fawfuigi, he knows that must be Luigi, but he doesn't want to believe it. He found him at Bumpsy Plains, setting up banana peels on the pathway to Bowser Path. When Fawfuigi spots him, he hurls a ball of electricity at Mario intending to start a fight, but Mario doesn't want to hurt him. Starlow urges Mario to do something to stop him, but after Mario fails to reason with Fawfuigi, he flees.