#goth$tar

[honchohonch00]

“nil”

[teenagefeeling]

my old car officially gets taken away to the scrap yard tomorrow. it's still at the mechanic's so i swung by after work and sat inside it and had a little cry ngl.

[fectedfreeroamers]

Raven Rivera x L♡DE$T☆R~ i h8 2 party >:,(

[Official Lyric Video]

[patchwork-crow-writes]

Deltarune's central conflict seems to be coalescing around the tension between being trapped in the amber of the past versus embracing the liquid uncertainty of the future - and how the fear that keeps us trapped in said past can rob us of the potential joys of said future.

Long post under the read more - you've been warned :P

Hometown has been frozen in time for a long time. Its residents cling to the illusion of a glorified past with such vigour that it has completely arrested the town's development. We see it in stages - first, with Asriel's departure to college and everyone waiting for their "golden boy" to come back home so they can bask in his immaculate aura once more. Next, we see Asgore's seeming inability to let go of his former relationship with Toriel, pouring so much of his time and energy into trying to make her return to that idealised family unit with him. Then there is Father Alvin, whose perceived inadequacy compared to his father Gerson literally manifests in him keeping his funerary object in his church desk drawer.

Struggling against that prevailing wind are the young and the restless. Undyne bristles against the stagnation of her surroundings, fuming as she directs traffic and files paperwork with an energy more appropriate for foiling a bank robbery. Rudy Holiday lies dying in hospital yet still wishes for his surviving daughter to be able to live her life to the fullest. Catti wishes to escape the yoke of her family's cloying earnestness and explore her identity through the medium of goth and incantations. And returning to Asriel, you expect that he might have seen in going away to collage a chance to escape the tar pit of his surroundings, to make something of himself other than how his family and peers saw him - an unchanging, static image of a past that no longer exists.

Of course, some people are trapped by a past they would rather eschew but do not know how to. Berdly is forever running from his own perceived inadequacy but can never quite escape it. Susie's experiences growing up cemented a conviction in her that she was fundamentally "bad", a concept that she still struggles with despite her and her newfound friends' efforts to defy it. And Noelle finds herself trapped between the desire to move forward into the future and a reverence to a past that once seemed so sweet.

The dark worlds also exhibit this struggle. The darkners eagerly await the return of their lightner "gods", the beings which gave them a purpose to live by. Queen's stated goal is to trap all lightners in her candied games and glowing screens, an endless present containing only superficial distractions and little in the way of meaning. Tenna recognises himself a relic of a bygone past, but is seduced into believing that he can turn back the clock and make the Dreemurrs adore him like they used to.

The purposes they were imbued with gave their lives direction, but that same purpose threatens to crystalise and ossify the very notion of their future, turning it into something more akin to glass or stone. The prophecy is the ultimate manifestation of this idea - a perfect, immutable record of the future that cannot be averted or defaced. Etched in glass, the future it predicts seems so fragile, but break it and a perfect replica will take its place a little further along. You can defer and delay, but you can never escape its crystalline prison. You are just as trapped by the future as you are by the past.

And so, we come to Carol and December Holiday, and Kris Dreemurr - representative of the past, the future, and the present, respectively.

There was always a sense that December felt constrained by Hometown - her mother's town - and her family - her mother's family. That she was rebellious and impulsive and wanted to make something of herself, be her own person instead of what was expected of her as the elder sister of the Holiday children and daughter to the mayor. She promised Noelle (Elly) that one day she'd take her to the city with its brilliant lights and the promise of a brighter future... or at least, a more interesting one. She wrote her own songs that preached about her desire for freedom and her drive to attain it by any means necessary. December was a shooting star tearing through the world, racing towards uncertainty with a hand eagerly reached out to grasp it.

And then, she disappeared, and that bright future was snatched from her in one fell swoop. Now, she is only the Lost Girl - her bedroom untouched as an eternal shrine which must never be desecrated, her rebelliousness canonised and lionised as an artefact of the past, reduced to a passive rendition of the lost Lenore, frozen in amber as a caricature of who and what she once was, and not who she might yet have become.

However bad Dess's disappearance might have hurt Noelle, it seems to have completely broken Carol. The character we meet in Chapter 4 is cold, rigid, inflexible. Her will in her household, and across hometown itself, is absolute, unflinching, irrefutable. She is compelled to control everything within her considerable dominion, right down to the minutiae. While she is not singlehandedly responsbile for Hometown's paralysis, she is its prime architect. And she is also apparently willing to risk wiping it all off the map for a chance - a chance - to bring December back from wherever she's gone. To this end Carol is ruthless, merciless, will do anything up to and including coercing a vulnerable teenager to assist her in her plans. The future and the present both are irrelevant - all that matters is getting her daughter back.

For the sake of the past where she had both of her daughters, Carol froze the clock and arrested Hometown in an eternal present. Now she seeks to turn that same clock back, to forsake the prospect of the future's myriad possibilities for the cast-iron solidity of what she once had. Everything she does is for the sake of her family, her daughter, her perfect life. And she's willing to do it regardless of what the family in question might actually want or need.

And trapped perfectly between these two forces, like a fly caught in a web who sees the spider approaching them, is Kris. We can infer that they looked up to Dess growing up, and the way she was completely unfettered by the stagnation of her surroundings, didn't care what other people thought of her. She would likely have represented hope for Kris that they, too, could be anything they wanted to be... until suddenly, she was gone. And perhaps that might have been okay, given enough time - perhaps they might have mourned, but kept her example alive in their mind and tried to move forward.

But Carol stopped them. Like she stopped everything else. Saw how much they cared for her. Fed them tales about bringing her back. Made them promise. And held that promise over their head like a sword of Damocles. In this way, she molded them into yet another extension of her will with a control far more adroit and complete than anything the player could possibly muster.

Find her.

You promised.

Don't forget.

But another force exerts its will upon Kris - the Player. When Kris is crushed by the weight of their perceived responsibilities, when they are rendered catatonic by the sheer impossibility of their situation... we are the ones who march them forward. We are the ones who bring them to Ralsei and Susie, new friends who represent hope for a brighter future despite the darkness. We are the ones who FORCE them to make choices again, FORCE them to assume the mantle of a hero, in defiance of the villain they may well believe themself to be. We show them another way, however forceful and inelegant our methods, however much they may fight us along that way.

Are we any better than Carol in this regard? No, I wouldn't presume that we are - our intrusion into their life is every bit a violation as her transgressions. Unlike Carol, however, we are broadly invested in Deltarune's future, rather than its past. There may only be one path, one ending... and yet still we are invested in seeing that future take shape, whatever it may be. We reflect on a past that isn't ours, but unlike Carol we take that past and use it to inform what happens in the future, instead of trying to control it. For us, the future is not set in stone, or written in glass... the future teems with uncertainty, and we cannot help but reach for it, enthralled by the possibilities it contains.

It's possible that December Holiday may yet be saved from whatever fate might have befallen her... but the damage done to Kris, and the danger to the world that has resulted from that desire begs the question: even if we COULD save December... should we? More poignantly - if December could see the chaos and the hurt that was wrought in the service of bringing her back... would she want to be brought back in the first place?

At this juncture we cannot say, we cannot know. All we can do now is wait for the promised new future.

[daremna]

"Hot goth gf" until she walks around eyebrowless looking like she crawled out of a pool of tar

[angel-of-the-moons]

I need me some venom angst…

Can you do some Venom/Eddie x reader angst? Whatever you want idm! Also the reader is goth. No specific reason. I just like goth girls…:P(sorry if that last part was weird idk how to say it…)

*cracks knuckles* Hoooo I'm boutta make y'all cry up in this bitch (I know I said I only had requests open for 2 days but I only got two requests during that time frame so you get this as a lil treat 😘)

Chocolate Friends

Venom x Fem!Reader

TW/CW: Angst angst angstttt! But don't worry , it gets fluffy!!! Depression, mentions of domestic violence/abuse, self-harm, suicide attempt, Reader has long hair and piercings (I love me some goth girls, too, especially the classic onesss)

Dividers by @/saradika-graphics

It was a typical night in the city--the nasty, dirty, smelly city that was crawling with vermin once the lights went out.

But during October, it was different. Especially because of Halloween. Children frolicking in the streets, asking for goodies and playing games... well, people of all ages, really.

They needed someone to look out for them.

And that's what they did. That's what he did.

Venom. The one many consider to be a "bad guy". It's not his fault he needed to eat people's brains to survive. And besides, he promised Eddie he'd only eat "bad guys".

Which is what he did. A you g family with their two innocent little children were on their way back from a candy carnival when they were jumped by three men with masks and blunt weapons.

They weren't expecting Venom to be prowling the streets tonight--to be right above their filthy, filthy heads. They certainly didn't expect to have their heads bitten off, either. (Venom of course ensured the children didn't see anything of course, neither he nor Eddie would ever traumatize such tiny people!).

The police showed up not long after, but before that, one of the children rushed up to Venom and placed in his massive hand a little plastic baggy full of chocolates!

Venom patted the little boy--dressed like some green video game character--and left before the police barley rounded the corner.

"Tonight was amazing!" Venom growled as he popped another piece of chocolate into his maw. "Ate some bad guys and got some chocolate!"

'Yeah,good job, Vee.' Eddie chuckled softly from within.

He practically skipped from rooftop to rooftop across the city, humming and singing to himself as he did.

However, something gave him a pause.

Atop some sort of warehouse building was a figure dressed in all black. His first instinct was maybe it was some idiot trying to be some kinda super villain. They were all over the place, these days.

However that changed as he silently crept closer. He strained he and Eddie's combined senses to the highest level to examine the person.

You.

You were crying. Your long, wispy black hair blew in the breeze from the dank city. Your face was an almost ghostly white with thick black streaks cutting through like tar on snow. Your dark lips trembled, your snakebite piercings (At least that's what Eddie said they were) poking through the delicate skin, shining off of the dim city lights.

Your eyes were shrouded in thick, heavy eyeliner and eyeshadow, your wispy lashes brushing your cheeks as fresh tears fell.

Your feet teetered on the edge as you looked down, your hands grasping one another as if having second thoughts.

"Oh, shit!" Venom cursed to himself.

You were going to jump.

He thought quickly, rushing and leaping onto the rooftop with you. You either didn't notice or didn't care, your entire body shaking in the chilly air.

Your clothes had holes shredded into them in multiple places. Fishnets poked out from beneath your baggy pants, the chains tinkling as you shifted your weight around; an equally baggy shirt for some grunge band or another fluttered a bit as the breeze caught it.

Your nails were a nice, lacquered black, almost like his own inky body.

Apparently Venom and Eddie both blue-screened and their body merely acted on its own accord.

He plopped his butt down on the edge of the roof next to you, hanging his massive legs over the side.

"A little close to the edge, right?" Venom tried to say lightly. He could just barely make out the scent of blood on you, and he didn't like it. Neither did Eddie. They were both worried for you, and they didn't even know who you were.

"Wh-what do you care?" You asked, your voice trembling as you side-stepped by an inch, your eyes hesitantly dragging to the dirty street below.

"Just a little close, is all." Venom grumbled out with a shrug, kicking his feet a little.

"One wrong step and--" He made a descending whistle and then a "boom", gesture with his fingers. "Splat! Wind up decorating someone's car for Halloween in a real gross way."

Despite yourself, you huffed out a laugh, followed by a sniff, "Well it w-won't be a problem I have to worry about then, would it?"

Venom snorted, "True. But think about the poor guy that's gotta scrape the bits off the sidewalk! Traumatizing!"

You shook your head, swallowing deeply.

A tense silence falls between you as you continue to contemplate your fate--trying to make that one decision whether to end it all or back away like you have so many times before.

Venom broke the silence as subtly as a bulldozer trying to drive over a frozen lake.

"So. Why are you up here?"

"Because I want to die, wh-what does it look like?" You sniffled, trying to fight back the fresh sobs that tried to claw their way out of your chest.

"Well, yeah. That's obvious," He replied, tilting his head to the side to look at you. "But why?"

"I... I just..."

You weren't prepared for that. Nobody just asked you things. Nobody cared. Nobody just asks someone why they want to die. Right?

Your shoulders slump as you collapse into a squat, burying your face in your arms as you cried.

"I'm so tired... I can't take it all anymore."

"Can't take... what?" Venom pressed gently, his body relaxing slightly, hoping your new posture indicated you weren't just gonna swan dive over the rooftop.

"I... I try so hard, y'know?" You whispered, barely audible from how you had your face buried. "I try to take care of him, to help him get better, but... but he turns around and says it's all my fault. That it's all me. That he only does it because of me."

Venom looks at you, his fingers twitching. Ah. So that was it. He let you continue;

"I know he doesn't mean it. He just--he gets so angry when he drinks. Tonight I tried to h-hide the b-bottles and he... he just--"

Venom feels something nasty twist in his gut as you choke off into another crying fit.

"But he's my dad. If I don't s-stay... he's all alone. And he's gonna drink himself to death!"

"If he needs you, why are you up here?"

You snapped your head to look up at him, your makeup smeared down your face as your brows pinched.

"I mean, obviously your dad needs some serious help, but by your logic, he won't get it if you're not around..." He looked out into the city streets for a moment, "Don't understand it."

"I..." You swallowed, your mouth going dry. You sighed deeply, letting your body sag. "I don't know. I'm so tired. I'm sick of people treating me like shit just because of how I dress--I-I had an old lady hit me in the back of my head with her cane because she said I'm some kind of--of Satan worshipper!"

Venom growled lowly, making you jump a little as the sound vibrates off your bones, "Stupid." He spat.

"Y-yeah!" You say, letting your feet dangle over the edge, like his.

"It... It's just that I like being like this! But nobody has ever understood it!" You say, exasperated. "They just... They just..."

You couldn't find the words to continue, and was shocked when Venom held out his hand, offering tiny wrapped pieces of... candy. Chocolate?

"My other half says chocolate is good when you are sad. It makes your brain feel better." He said rather plainly. He could have gone into details of the effects it had on the human brain, but you didn't seem like you were in the mental state to have a scientific conversation right now.

Your shaky fingers take the morsel, unwrapping it before popping it into your mouth.

"So people treat you bad because you like to dress in all black?" He scoffed.

"People always equate goths to bad things in general." You replied sadly, your eyes downcast around the chocolate as it coated your tongue, "I'm not even really into the subculture itself, I just... sometimes the fashion is pretty and the makeup is crazy intense y'know?"

Venom grinned, happy that you've stopped crying, offering you another piece of his previous chocolate loot and letting you vent to him.

"What's wrong with dressing in all black?" Venom said, puffing up his chest a little dramatically, even striking a bit of a pose, "I think the look goes quite well with everything."

The sound of your laugh made him relax a little bit more, the tenseness in the air fading as he shared his snacks. He listened to you talk about the kinds of clothes you liked, makeup, music, how you DIY'd some of your own fashion yourself; and most of all, how people treated you because of it.

But the only person to really accept that was your dad. He just had his own problems, and didn't have the strength to drag himself out of the pit he was drowning himself in after he got laid off from the job he'd had since you were a baby. Since before your mom...

Little by little, your exterior chipped away and the sight of the real person you were came bubbling to the surface. Despite your dark aesthetic, you were a very bubbly and sweet person. Perhaps caring a bit too much about others rather than focusing on yourself, yes, but it showed how big your heart really was.

Eventually, the candy ran out. And you apologized. And before you knew it, it was well past midnight.

You don't want to jump anymore.

"Do you want some help?" Venom asked.

You nodded, whispering; "Please."

He took one of your tiny hands into his, as if you were made of the most delicate porcelain and lifted--pulling you onto the rooftop with him.

You rubbed your elbow, feeling guilty for everything, despite what was going on that wasn't your fault.

Venom could tell you were still feeling upset... and he didn't like he could still smell blood on you.

"... you're hurt." He finally pointed out, noticing how you flinched.

"It--it's not that bad." You muttered, your heart pounding as Venom crossed his arms and stared you down. Not in a malicious way, but in a way that said "I'm not falling for your bullshit".

And, of course, you break. You tell him about how sometimes, when the pain gets so bad, you... hurt yourself. You take a razor, or a knife or a pair of scissors and just... cut. The injuries are always to your legs so nobody can see, so they are easily covered by pants, but... obviously Venom could smell they were there.

"How about this." He held up a finger, "Meet us here again tomorrow night. My better half will get us more chocolate--"

His head snapped to the side and he growled, "You promised!"

Venom turned back to you after apparently having an argument with... himself, and said, "--and then we can sit down and talk some more. It can be our little chocolate spot any time you get the feeling like you want to hurt yourself. We can give you our number!"

"But..."

"No buts!" He said, wagging his large finger at you in reprimand.

You can't help the laugh that slips out of you, wiping at your face, uncaring if any more of your makeup got ruined. Despite yourself, you nod.

"Yessss!" Venom hisses, holding out his fist for a bump. "Chocolate friends!"

"Ch-Chocolate friends." You hiccup, giving him the bump.

You never came back to that rooftop with the intention of throwing yourself off of it, after that. It only became associated with your new and unlikely friend, the sweet treats you shared, and the knowledge that out there--there was somebody even weirder that you who was treated as much as an alien that you were.

And he/they had one hell of a sweet tooth.

[tulipsforyourlips]

✧˖°. i found you ✧˖°. (3)

|| the sandman x dead boy detectives ||

SUMMARY: You run the dead boys detective agency along with your two best friends. And somehow two ghosts and a living girl make it work. Until you dream one night, of dream himself.

PAIRING: dream of the endless x fem!reader

WC: 3K+

WARNINGS: none i can think of

PART 3✧˖°.

"What the fuck." Your heart beat thunderously in your ribcage. "Are you stalking me?"

The goth guy paid no heed to your question. "I am Dream."

You just stared at him. "Oh okay and I am a nightmare?"

He only became more stern if that was even possible. He took a step forward.

"Don't. I'll call the police," you threatened.

He continued on without paying any heed to your threat. Who the fuck does he think he is?

"I am King of Dreams-"

"Dude-I told you not working."

"Stop talking.” His voice was low but the words were sharp.

But you weren't going to turn down your sass because of a man? Cmon.

"I am Dream-"

"I think I got that bit.”

An imperceptible flare of his nostrils made you zip your mouth. Wow you really got under his skin.

"I am Dream of the Endless and you mortal, have been chosen for a destiny greater than your cause.”

You gawked at him and broke into a chuckle, "o-okay Dream, Wait." You straightened. "Did you say the Endless? Like Death?"

You didn't know much about the Endless but you for sure knew Death was one. He did not answer your question but he did not deny your claim, so you assumed it an affirmative from him.

"How do I know?"

"Know what?"

"That you are infact one of the Endless and not a serial killer concocting stories to trap his victim."

He stepped closer and this time you let him. "Oh I do concoct stories.” He brought his hand to his mouth and blew...sand particles?

However you had no time to asses that for certain because the next second you were suspended in the cosmos, your body pulling in all directions, vivid images clashed in your mind, touring you through the entire world and all in a blip of a second. You grabbed the rim of your bedstand as your mind spiraled, reeling itself back to reality. 

"Woah," you breathed out.

Had you just disrespected an Endless? And called him a stalker? You cringed.

"We will meet again," Dream said as he swooped his cloak over his head.

"Wait." He halted his actions.

"Why me?"

A flicker of emotion fired in his eyes, so brief you labeled it as your imagination.

"Goodnight mortal.”

You woke up with a start. And clutched your head in your hands, stupid dream. You glanced at your alarm clock and then realized it was broken, that you broke it and instead looked at the digits glowing on your phone screen, 5:00 am. Sleep would not come to you now, you knew that much so you put on your slippers and made your way to the kitchen, padding softly so as to not make any sound. You put on the stove and boiled the milk for some coffee, allowing your thoughts till now kept at bay to flood your mind. Okay so that was a dream, explains some stuff. But then those blurs in your dream, and you were sure you had seen him at the corridor yesterday. Unless you had watched a movie starring him and now you saw the actor everywhere. Nah that wasn’t true. But what about your dream? Ever since you were seventeen, you had dreamed only of that place with the mountains and the river. Or maybe before, it wasn't like you remembered anything before that, before your life here, with Edwin and Charles. Is something burning? Oh no. The milk was overflowing, dripping down the slab onto the floor.

"Fuck," you cursed.

How the heck did this even happen? You were staring right into the pot. You grabbed for a cloth, dabbing the milk away. The vessel was tarred black with the burnt milk inside. You couldn't do one bloody job properly.

"Turn around!"

You did, hands up in the air, heart beating exponentially fast yet again. Edwin was in his pajamas, a quizzical look adorning his face. The ghosts didn’t really need sleep but they still liked to bide the time away by resting when there were no immediate cases in need of solving. 

"Hazel?" he furrowed his brows and then examined the mess you were standing in. "What are you doing? I thought you were a thief or a ghost hunter or something.”

"Ghost hunters exist?" You were genuinely surprised.

"Dunno," he shrugged. "It's 5 in the morning, how are you up?"

"A dream.”

"A nightmare?"

"Not exactly.”

"A different one?"

You nodded. Edwin was taken aback at that. He knew about your dream, and that it was the only thing you ever dreamed about. Hell he knew everything about you. Both of them did. They were your only family.

The sun was slowly starting to emerge from underneath the cover of the dark. Edwin approached you at your place on the couch, two coffee mugs in his hand, steam ascending from them. He handed you your mug and took his place beside you.

You took a sip of your coffee. "Mmm.”

"Passable eh?" He teased.

"Yeah." You threw your head backwards.

A comfortable silence enveloped you both, your shoulders touching and knees budging each other.

"You want to talk about it?"

It took you a second to realize the context, "No." You shook your head. "It's nothing.”

"Okay." He didn't probe further and you were thankful for that.

You felt someone watching you and you glanced at the window, only to find a crow? a raven? looking back.

"Bastards.”

You both turned your head to the source where a jealous Charles stood. "Are you having coffee without me?" He was acting like you both were cheating on him.

"Oi calm your horses, its not like your body requires coffee."

"And I care why? Everything is not about survival loser." He flicked your forehead.

"Ouch.” You sent him a glare.

"Okay I don't have the energy nor the patience to sit through this." Edwin got up. "You two, be ready in fifteen. Cases await us."

The moon was beginning to appear in the sky and the wind blew some mischievous strands of your hair across your face as you stapled the posters in your hands on the poles around you. A boy was missing, and your client was sure it had to do with some supernatural activity. It paid well so the agency didn't question it further. While the both of them were searching the location of his disappearance for clues, you were seeking more information about him. The wind knocked some papers out of your hand, and you bent down to pick them up. Your body jerked back when you straightened up.

Hand on your heart, you exclaimed, "Jeez!"

The goth guy from your dream stood before you.

"You seriously need to stop doing that," you gritted out.

And then suddenly your mind clicked and the words left you before you could stop them. "Wait you are real?"

Ever so slightly, Dream's face morphed into a question mark.

Okay so that definitely wasn't a dream, it was real. Very real apparently you realized as you assessed the man, no Endless standing before you.

"You need to come with me," he said oblivious to the raging commotion happening inside your mind.

You didn't reply, instead widened your eyes for an elaboration.

"To the Dreaming, my realm.”

"I can't, I am on a case.”

"Your friends can manage without you," he stated as a matter of fact.

You scoffed, "first of all that's rude, secondly-"

But before you could finish, sand, yeah sand for sure, began to swirl around you, gaining more motion until it enwrapped your entire body and when you next opened your eyes, you were in the Dreaming.

"Holy mother of god," you breathed as your eyes took in the throne room, the magnificence of it all, the colours shimmering in the glass pane, the cosmos swirling above you, the vastness of where you stood. You felt trivial, a bug in the path of a jogger.

"Lucienne I would like you to meet somebody," Dream's voice rasped and you revolved your head to face the woman his words were directed to.

A woman with skin like chocolate, sporting fashionable coattails and wearing spectacles that made her look infinitely wise or perhaps the glasses were just an addition to her preexistent wisdom met your eyes.

She bowed her head. “Greetings your lady."

You returned her gesture. "Hello Lucienne."

"Lucienne is my most trusted advisor and the sole librarian of this realm," the Endless spoke.

"Wow, I wonder what the library of the dreaming would look like.”

She peered at you in bafflement for a moment before quickly collecting herself.

"It would be my honour to show you sometime.”

"The honour would be all mine, Lucienne,” you smiled.

"Lord Morpheus," she called to the Endless.

Morpheus? Who the heck is Morpheus?

"Um who is Morpheus?" You decided to voice your curiosity.

A knowing glance passed between the two.

"It's another name I am called by.”

Oh.

"Lucienne go on,”

"There were further abruptions reported earlier around the house of mystery and..."

You were no longer paying attention to Lucienne's speech as your gaze travelled along the enormous cracks dividing the ground.

"Sorry to interrupt but is this part of the decor?" You asked the both of them.

"No," Morpheus sighed, "and that precisely is why you are here.”

"You don't have construction crew around here?"

Morpheus clenched his jaw, "We have Mervin, however this problem does not concern him. It runs deeper than you can comprehend.”

"Then help me comprehend," you said.

Morpheus eyes' pierced into yours, "All in time mortal."

Your legs dangled below you from where you sat in the library. As promised, Lucienne had shown you around and to say you were mesmerized beyond your wits would be a brutal understatement. You were in the dreaming, an entirely different realm, sitting in its library that towered even after you stretched your neck to its capacity, and were going through books that no mortal would have ever had the luxury of touching or even knowing that such pieces exist. Not to mention, having spoken with an Endless. An Endless? The king of Dreams himself. For a second you feared if you were dreaming again. But the old pinch sufficed to make you believe the opposite. But why? How? Your mind was a muddling mess. Guaranteed you had your fair share of weirdness working with the dead boy detectives but this was something entirely else. The librarian had introduced you to Mervin, who to your astonishment was actually a pumpkin head. You were after all in the realm of the dreams, if anything was possible, it was here. A sudden caw pulled you from your spiraling. A crow perched on your shoulders. No a raven? Was this…the raven from before? The one you had glanced in the living room's window?

"Hi kid, I am Matthew."

You weren't as taken aback as you thought you would be at the talking raven. You were slowly getting used to all the craziness.

"Hi Matthew, I am Hazel.”

"Pretty name.”

"Flattery doesn't work on me, just for your information," you stated, your gaze fixed on the words in the book propped open on your lap. "It might serve the goth guy you work for stalker.” You narrowed your eyes at the raven.

"Ooh, a feisty mortal, nice you and I would get along very well.”

And you both did. It would have been just minutes chatting away with Mathew but as your laughs erupted in the silence around you, you felt you had known the guy forever, the raven, oh the raven that had been a guy once.

"Matthew," Dream's cold tone quieted you both. “Leave us alone.”

"Yes boss," the raven obeyed.

"Accompany me,” Dream said as he turned away expecting you to follow behind.

Arrogant.

You fell in with him, a question on your lips when the gates to the palace opened. The question forgotten, your mouth parted in amazement as you stared at the vast expanse of gardens before you. You exited the palace steps, incredulity lingering on your face as you inhaled the sheer exquisiteness of the place you were in.

Dream ushered his head in a direction. "Come," and continued that way.

You jogged to match up his pace.

"What do you know about the Endless?" He asked.

"Very little," you admitted, "I mean I know there are seven of them, Death being one and now you apparently, but I'm afraid that's about all the knowledge I have."

"It is still more than what humans generally know about us."

"Well it's the courtesy of my friends.”

"Ah, your ghost friends," he disclosed.

You stopped in your tracks. "You know?"

"That they are ghosts?" He walked on.

"Yeah I just wondered- I figured you didn't know and that's why you didn't tell Death.”

"Oh Death knows," he revealed the information with a glint in his eye, as if he was enjoying your reaction.

"What?" You cried. Gathering yourself, you said, "Then why doesn't she..go after them? Bring them to the sunless lands and whatever?" You joined him.

"Death has her reasons. She is far kinder than you know.”

"I, I don't know what to say."

Morpheus did not try to continue the conversation. You both walked in silence for some time. Questions ran rampant inside your head, but never left your lips.

"Ask," he said not tearing his eyes away from the path.

You didn't even realize he had sensed your hesitation. Questions grappled with each other to be released first and in that brawl you muttered the stupidest of them all. "How many names do you have?"

If Morpheus was surprised at the choice of your question, he didn't show it. "Many.”

Wow okay that was one elaborate answer if you heard any. Did it pain him to speak?

Just as you had accepted that's all you would get from him, he spoke, "Dream, Morpheus, Oneiros and Sandman to name a few.”

"The Sandman? As in the fable Sandman?"

"Tell me mortal, do I look like a fable to you?"

"Fair point," you mused.

Taking the opportunity of his answering mood, you exploited your luck further. "Can the mortals visit the dreaming anytime? I mean how does this even work?"

"Yes, whenever a mortal sleeps, he enters my realm where I contain the unconscious of the entire world.”

"That sounds…tough.”

"Does this mean I am sleeping right now?" You queried further.

"Exceptionally, no. I brought you here. Your soul and your body are both intact at the present and there is no trace of you in the waking world."

Your mouth opened once more to ask him another question, when his raspy voice cut through the air. “You get one more.”

The ego of this man, fine you insolent arse.

"Do you ever get lonely?"

If you were paying rapt attention you would have noticed the falter in his steps but your eyes were trained on his face.

"No," he answered.

"Seriously? Not ever?"

"You have run out of your questions and your friends must be waiting for you." He turned his body towards you. 

But before he could procure his pouch of sand from his cloak, the ground gave a sudden croak beneath you. Followed by a deafening cracking as the very ground you stood upon began parting into two.

"What the-," you started.

Dream grabbed your elbow and pulled his cloak over you both. The universe itself seemed to wrap around you and in the next moment you were in the waking world. He released his hold on your elbow as if your touch had burned him. He would probably need to wash his hands after touching a mortal.

"Stay here," he ordered.

Before you could object, he had vanished. You waited in the clearing, the stack of posters on the ground and the moon bathing you in its light. You were gone for more than half a day but only a few hours had passed back here. Times moves differently here, Lucienne's words entered your mind. After waiting another 10 minutes, you got up from your position on the ground, collected the posters in your hand, and began to make your way back to the apartment. He wasn't coming back.

Just as you were out the woods, Morpheus' voice reached your ears. "I told you to stay there.”

You turned back. Moonlight filtering through the trees illuminated his pale skin to ghastly pale. He looked beautiful. What? Shut up brain.

"I thought you weren't coming back."

Morpheus didn't say anything to that. This guy really needed to work on his communication skills.

"What was back there?"

"The realm is collapsing, at the rate of the damage we have very little time."

"For what?"

"To prevent it from happening.”

"But-"

"Rest tonight mortal. We begin tomorrow." And with those obscure words he was gone in a blur.

You opened the door to the apartment and were immediately met with yelling. "Where the fuck were you?"

"You just totally vanished!"

"We searched for you everywhere!"

"Why weren't you answering your phone?"

"We were worried!"

Charles and Edwin's frenzied voices overlapped each other.

"Guys guys stop!"

They both fell silent.

"I am sorry I-I had to be somewhere on an urgent business and my phone died down."

"Next time the very least you can do is inform us beforehand," Edwin chided you.

"I swear the situation was out of my control, I promise it won't happen again."

Edwin's features softened and he asked, "Are you alright?"

You exhaled, "Yep I am aces."

"Get your own catchphrases," Charles muttered behind you and draped his arms around your neck from the back. "We are just glad you are back safe and in one piece.”

You leaned against his frame. "You can't even lie properly.”

"Hey sod off.” He broke apart the embrace.

You laughed at his tantrums.

"Anyways you wouldn't believe the adventure we had today. It was brills. Turns out the missing boy was actually..."

Yeah you wouldn't believe the adventure I had today either.  We begin tomorrow, the words scraped against the walls of your mind.

A/N: phew the stage is set. so lmk ur thoughts<3 i would love to hear em!! 

SERIES MASTERLIST ✧˖°.

[phoenixcatch7]

In your possessed doll au, do magic users like Constantine perceive the bats? Is there magic involved in the puppets? Or is it because of their own magic that they can tell something is off about the bats even if it’s no magic they’re used to?

Ooh, good question! I haven't brushed up on the lore for a hot second, but the 'energy' that specifically powers the dolls isn't exactly magic - it extracts a much deeper price than that - the bats will never be able to cast spells no matter how much of it they have and magic cannot interfere with or affect the dolls to cause a shutdown (kick them back to their flesh bodies).

That being said, they are still affected by magic a little (lightning still fries unprotected tech, aging spells cause their joints to rust, colour changing still gets them even if it's not permanent) and that is enough for a sensitive magic user to pick up on.

I'd say it's like hearing a faint noise you haven't heard before - weird and confusing af, but it's not going to drive you spare with stress or fear. Just... Deeply weird and you don't really want to find out what's making it.

As the name suggests (lol) the dolls are possessive (and a little vain). The material that makes them up, their puppeteers, their designs, their appearances, however altered and updated they might be, all of these things they are fiercely stubborn about. They do not stand for changes from non-puppeteers, which erodes any spell placed on them over time. In more extreme cases they might even punish the user for not stopping the changes, if for example a trickster repeatedly smacks them with prank spells. Normal, non magic 'alterations' (like tar and feathers) actually get a lot more leeway because the doll isn't the one cleaning that up lol. And of course, if a doll is severely damaged (which is HARD), they're angry TOGETHER WITH the user, not at them. United in seething XD.

So yeah, generally, they might look a bit spooky on the magic plane, especially to magic users like Constantine or Zatanna - this is vaguely a goth/horror au lol - it's not clear enough to give them answers. Just enough to encourage them to stay away.

[honchohonch00]

“forbidden fruit”

[gorimbaudandgojohnnygo]

They fucked all the time. Jack had the libido of a teenage boy. They went to the bar, shoved greasy food down their gullets at the diner, and hung out under the bridge. Milly took off her shoes and walked barefoot across the gravel and the shards from broken beer bottles. Jack gasped - "What the hell are you doing?" "It doesn't hurt," Milly said. She sat down next to him and lifted her feet to show him she didn't have any cuts. "I don't know, man," Jack said. Milly could tell he was impressed. She had the overwhelming, giddy desire to impress him as often as possible. Which was ridiculous - she wasn't eighteen anymore, didn't need to prove her coolness to anyone, especially not a boy seven years her junior. The desire was so strong, though, that she found herself name-checking bands she'd interviewed, scaling the sides of buildings, and drinking way more than she should, just to prove she could out-drink him, despite being a girl who was nearly a head shorter than he. He encouraged her behavior; he laughed, gasped, sighed "You're so cool." And she turned to him and said "I know," with a wink.

Sometimes he fucked her there, right under the bridge, in the silver circle of streetlamp light which gave them both a corpse-like pallor. As the nights grew colder, that stopped being an option. It was October, and Halloween was creeping up, treading across the wet leaves, blowing in on frigid, damp air. The moon was immense and blood-colored nearly every night. "It's the color of your hair," Jack said. He took her back to his apartment. They never went to her house. It would have been too strange, all those photographs of her and Hugh staring down. Jack's place was closer to the bar, anyway. His apartment was cramped and dusty. The circulation was poor, making the air stuffy and hot. The kitchen spilled over with crusty dishes and crushed beer cans.

"It's my roommates that drink the cheap beer," he said. "I'd never touch Milwaukee's Beast."

She never met his roommates, but late at night, when she tried unsuccessfully to fall asleep next to him, she heard the bleeps and explosions and stilted, digital music of their video games through the thin walls. It made her wonder how much they heard when she and Jack fucked, and made her glad she'd never met them.

Jack's room was always too warm. It smelled like dirty socks and cum, and the occasional waft of nacho cheese. The walls were bare and yellow. He had an extensive collection of comic books. Most of them were ones Milly had not heard of. After browsing through his CDs, Milly decided to make him some mixes. Other than his interest in old-timey country tunes, and a few punk bands everyone liked, his taste in music was crap. He owned a lot of nü-metal, and whiny goth stuff.

Jack wouldn't let her smoke in his room.

"My roommates don't smoke," he said, "and the circulation sucks, even if the window is open."

She crawled out his window and stood precariously, on the small patch of roof over the front porch. She smoked two cigarettes in a row, and dropped them, still smoldering, into the dew-soaked grass.

On a late October night, as Milly crawled in the window, the bottoms of her feet black and sticky from the tarred roof, Jack said: "I love you." He spat the words at her, angry. She knew what was coming next. As soon as they love you, they want to own you.

"You have to make the choice," Jack said. "I only want you. I want you to be with only me."

"Jack, honey," she reached toward him, to touch the back of his neck, but he jerked away. "I told you what was up, from the beginning. I can't give you any more than what I'm already giving. Either take it for what it is, or end it now."

"I don't want to end it. But I want -"

"You can't always get what you want. So just fucking take what you can get."

—from an unfinished novel titled “You Can Never Leave,” c. somewhere between 2005-2006

[terramythos]

TOP 5 GPOSES FROM FFXIVTOBER 2024

I had basically zero knowledge of how to use gpose in ffxiv when i started this challenge, so I used a ffxivtober prompt list to force myself to learn. I completed all 31 days and think I improved a LOT!

I super want to do more of these because it was a lot of fun. If you see any similar prompt lists in the wild send them my way ^^

Anyway, here are my Top 5 of the 31 days!

HONORABLE MENTION -- Day 6 - "Crossover"

This is the earliest day I really felt "proud" of the shot, so while it isn't top 5 I want to include it. I'm actually quite familiar with Nier, and since it's an official crossover I had a lot of material to work with. Ultimately I picked Puppet's Bunker since it has a lot of cinematic areas. I got to feel like a real smartass using a spear with a red dragon on it. And the ray of sunlight across the shot adds something extra, imo.

#5 -- Day 27 - "Murky"

I really, really love how the colors turned out here. Amaurot seemed like an ideal setting for this prompt, but I had forgotten about the eerie rays of light shining down on it in the overworld. I love how the helices in the architecture are obscured enough by fog/light so they almost look like tentacles of a sea creature... I liked both of these color filters a lot as well.

#4 -- Day 18 - "Masquerade"

This one was so fun coming up with a dynamic pose. I decided to do some scouting in The Grand Cosmos, as it's the most "masquerade ball" place in the game. I saw the dragon statue that turns into an enemy when you run by it and had the brainwave to frame it in the picture like they were Kezona's wings. Combined with the skull mask and fire horns I think the effect looks great. WOULD take his hand, 10/10.

#3 -- Day 22 - "Color Palette (Swap)"

I went for a light/sin-eater version of a Reaper for this prompt, since they're usually dark/voidsent aligned. Thanks again to @flame-of-tar-valon for inspiring the idea. I LOVE the outfit I came up with here; even went the extra mile and crafted golden jewelry purely for the glam. Since sin-eaters are basically zombies in canon, I did want to maintain some feral aspects with the appearance, so I also incorporated talons and claws to contrast the angelic imagery a bit.

I'm keeping the glam in rotation, & I might actually revisit this shot with a better background, like the Innocence/Mt. Gulg areas or even the Endwalker Alliance Raids.

#2 -- Day 29 - "Horror/Gore"

This one turned out SO cool looking, and it was the one I struggled with the most conceptually! Thanks again to @ofdarklands and @ferrocyan, whose combined help resulted in this shot. Overall I love how the colors pop out, and ESPECIALY the effect of a dark halo in the background framed by the Diabolos wings. Thrilled to have such a neat shot in the final post of the challenge!

#1 -- Day 11 - "Goth"

This is one that just turned out perfect to me. I was messing with the manual lighting adjustment, which created the second silhouette shot and totally floored me. I love how something as simple as the lighting slider can make such a great visual contrast. Add on the cool factor of the scythe and raven feathers... ough. I liked these shots so much I made them my lock screen and desktop backgrounds.

[cannoli-reader]

Watching the Wheel of Time show, Season 2, episode 6

Originally posted on readandfindout.com on 9/23/2023

1:16 I burst out laughing. Not because it’s happening to Egwene. Slavery, and especially via the violation of one’s personal agency by something as invasive as the a’dam, transcends personal dislike. I am Team Egwene when it comes to her coping with Seanchan captivity. But what the heck were they thinking?

First of all, dragging people is not easy. I am the eldest child of seven. I have experience in this regard. And yet, this is an Empire of experienced slavers, whose most important characteristic ITB is not slavery, but organization and institutional adaptation. The Seanchan learn and adapt and do so on a large scale, surprisingly quickly. They would have figured out a long time ago that the best way to transport a reluctant captive is not by dragging them. Also, a damane is very valuable. You don’t want to damage it.

And, of course, they can compel pain and do so with new damane in order to make them understand the need for compliance. They would be brain-tazing her to make her walk.

1:22 How did they make her flip over, by tugging on a chain to her neck? That’s not how you physics or anatomy.

1:27 That is a solid collar, not a noose. It would not have been choking her, especially with all the vocalizing she has been doing until now. The rule of thumb is that if you can complain about being choked, you are not being choked seriously.

1:43 Between Lanfear in the dream sequence and Darth Bangs in Ahsoka, I have to ask, are raccoon eyes the new symbol of preternatural power? Did anyone tell the show runners that unlike Lanfear or Darth Bangs, or Mads Mikkelson & buddies, sul’dam are not tapping into an objectively evil energy source?

2:41 No Seanchan believes in cultivating a friendship between sul’dam and damane, because damane are not people. What’s more, the power imbalance and compulsory aspects of the relationship make friendship a hypocrisy. Renna was many things, but not a hypocrite. She did believe in being indulgent with her damane, but as to an obedient pet.

I think the show is more about demonizing the Seanchan and sul’dam, than developing real characters or telling a coherent story. Because they are stunning and brave in their defiant opposition to an institution that no white people anywhere, or primary speakers of the a decent language actually support, and no non-shithole countries actually practice.

3:35 Why are all rooms on this show so huge? Why is the kennel of a single damane so big? Back in the Tower, it took me a couple of episodes to realize that Liandrin was not keeping Mat locked up in her own bedroom, but a prison cell, because the size made me think the former. The hotel room a couple of indigent farmboys could afford in Tar Valon, after a month of travel depleting their purses (and no entertainment skills to replenish them) was cavernous (and had a balcony!). The novices’ quarters in the Tower look to have room to practice gymnastics.

5:18 Are we supposed to take her even a little bit seriously? I, personally, do not have any sort of bondage fetish, corsets and collars and leather and whatnot don’t do anything for me (also the whole goth thing, which to me seems to generally be a personal statement rejecting objective conventional standards of beauty, because the people in question cannot meet them), so maybe I am missing something here? That light, I should also add, does nothing for her looks, seriously calling into question her casting as impossibly beautiful.

Also the cut of her … dress … for lack of a better word, makes it look like she, in WoT parlance, does not have lot to fold her arms over?

5:34 Because no one trusts clowns, Lanfear.

For the record, Lanfear is ITB, objectively, a clown and an idiot. The other Forsaken do not take her seriously, except perhaps the equally pathetic Semirhage, and everyone she tries to manipulate in the books blows her off and runs their own game, generally to her detriment. I have yet to see any evidence that the writers of this show are aware of that, since the first time her name was spoken, it was in close proximity to a description of her as the most dangerous of the Forsaken. Which she sort of is, only in the sense of her generally unhinged mentality, not because of any level of competence.

5:54 Stop giving us wind sounds in the background, while she is wearing something that looks like she should be about to take off flying like Sally Field as a nun.

6:07 Lews Therin was pushing people away to protect those he loved in his last life? Why? How? And since the only thing we know about his relationships with the people in his life was that he killed every single one of them … wouldn’t that statement be the most credibility-damaging thing she could say for both the audience and a person in the Third Age? Like, the guy’s name is Kinslayer. There is a mountain range named after him. Everyone should automatically know that he killed family members, suggesting either that he was right to push them away, or that Lanfear is talking out of her ass. Which for all I know, she has a special part of the dress for that purpose.

6:42 ITB, Moiraine has basically done nothing but try to deceive or control Rand since they met. Show!Moiraine, not so much. Or at least to the point that her methods of control are not tremendously obvious, as they were to Rand in EotW. Moiraine told him he was the Dragon Reborn and rubbed his nose in it, and did it in such a way as to catch him off guard. On the show, Rand went to her with the news that he was the Dragon Reborn and could channel, and she acceded to his request to let everyone believe he was dead. She Healed Tam unasked and told the gang straight out that she was looking for the Dragon Reborn and it could be one of the kids in town. She told him, honestly, as the viewers know and Rand has no reason to doubt (recall his brilliant line “nothing an Aes Sedai says is optional” ) about all the ramifications and the potential danger of the plan to go to the Eye of the World. She was not the one to lead the gang into Shadar Logoth, nor did she give them roofie trackers. She saved Rand from a sexual partner who was deceiving him as to her identity and nature.

7:27 He does not actually want to work with you, Lanfear! He just presented a condition for you to earn his trust! This is just more of the show’s typical characters talking past one another, instead of having a conversation. Now, it is not out of character for book!Lanfear to ignore what he is saying and only hear what she wants and have the conversation that matches her view of reality, but even if the writers are aware of it, they have botched so many other conversations that this one is a case of a stopped clock being right twice a day, rather than actual characterization.

7:58 Why is he acceding her condition? First of all, trying to isolate someone and make them dependent on you is the mark of an untrustworthy person who likely does not have your best interests at heart (of course, in the books, that was much more Moiraine’s MO than Lanfear’s). Secondly, it’s just sending a message that he can be manipulated. Rand ITB did not let Lanfear know that he cared about anyone, specifically to prevent her targeting them. He would cite their utility or feign indifference. He did NOT respond to threats toward them. Also, it is supporting her claim that he always tries to push people away to protect them. Third, the best way to handle two persons of dubious trustworthiness, and competing agendas, is to play them off each other. Bounce what Lanfear says off Moiraine and vice versa, which is something Rand understood long before he even realized he could channel (so many people discussing the first season of the show made a big deal about aging the characters up and also their having sex lives as evidence of that maturity, but they are so much less mature or sophisticated in so many ways than the book versions, that I don’t see the point) Finally, the only way to protect Moiraine at all for certain is to stick close to her.

8:13 Setting aside Moiraine’s motives, I would have serious questions about how she moved Logain. See, in the books, Rand knew she was in cahoots with Siuan. He’s never even seen the Amyrlin on the show.

8:46 I can barely see anything in this episode not set in a dream desert. I can barely see that Mat is reacting to stuff and not what he is reacting to.

9:01 Min looks like Prax Meng from The Expanse. Which is kind of ironic, because he was a male character, whose parents didn’t know that Praxidice was a female name.

What should her new name be, Prax Min, or Meng Farshaw?

10:06 We are 14 episodes and a 1.75 seasons into the show before we learn that A. Two Rivers Wisdoms have a raiment of office, B. Nynaeve has been wearing it this whole time and C. the White Tower let her keep the belt during her training? This is not how you indoctrinate people and the books made a point, for the stupid among us, in the case of Nynaeve in particular, of showing the Aes Sedai denigrating her skills and other artefacts of her experience as a Wisdom, to drive home that none of that matters next to her studies in the Tower. Part of Nynaeve’s identity conflict was holding onto her own identity in the face of the Tower’s efforts to fit her into their own mold.

10:45 Really, Elayne? Liandrin broke “every single one” of the Three Oaths? Tell us please what weapon she made for one man to kill another? What word did we ever hear her speak that is not true, for that matter? I am legit asking that latter one, because Book!Liandrin was very careful to adhere to the letter of the Oath until her allegiance was exposed. She did so with Amalisa, and when inducing the girls to leave with her, and I don’t feel like going back to check all her show!dialogue to see if it was technically true. Also, we don’t know of her even breaking the Oath against using the Power as a weapon, because she did the same thing to Nynaeve in the kitchen as a lesson, which is more or less transposing what Siuan did to her ITB. So either they have weird ideas about what constitutes a weapon, or Nynaeve is an idiot for not catching it the first time.

11:53 So Aes Sedai don’t ward their dreams. They are probably going to have to explain at some point why the Shadow doesn’t take advantage of that …

12:04 “You hate men” says Lanfear to a woman in a room whose only other occupant is the only known person that woman loves. And is a man. The question is why Liandrin serves a man, when she hates men … which makes no sense, because serving is not loving, and Darkfriends serve the Dark One, with Ishamael as a mere intermediary. And they do it for power or immortality and like most people, don’t really give a shit where the power or immortality comes from if they can actually get it. Also, the Shadow is not big on free consent or willing service, so it’s not like quitting at the sight of the boss’ facial hair is an option.

12:18 Aludran might be a legit Taraboner name, since one of the most important Taraboner characters is Aludra.

13:18 What kind of a world IS this?! Wheel of Time is a world where the only women forced to marry anyone are those the Tower wants to use for some purpose. The most visibly patriarchal Borderland culture considers an 18-year-old woman too young to marry without her mother’s permission. There is not the slightest evidence of prepubescent girls being forced into marriage! This is a world where ruthless Darkfriend war criminals legitimately deplore rape, where teenage males consider practical skills to be of comparable importance to physical beauty among the appeal of a woman, there is no such thing as prostitution, and marriage as an institution is entirely under the control of women wherever the subject comes up.

What is the point of taking a feminist approach to WoT if they are going to undermine the ways the setting is under female influence at every turn?

13:27 “You swore your oaths to the Dark, not to Ishamael” says the woman who questioned why Liandrin served Ishamael. First of all, until very recently, Ishamael was the only path to serving “the Dark.” Which sounds utterly stupid, for the record. It’s the Shadow or the Dark One, not “the Dark”.

Secondly, the notion that service to their side encompasses something higher than obedience to the Forsaken, is not a point any one of them has an interest in making.

Also, let’s take a look at Lanfear’s recruitment pitch. “You don’t just serve Ishamael, you serve the Shadow as a whole, and there are many paths to walk through the night. You can choose whether to serve the guy who preserved your son’s life or me, who killed him.” I thought she was going to heal Aludran to alleviate his pain to reinforce her point about men sucking and showing how she is a more beneficial mistress. Because I have a functioning brain and a modicum of human empathy. Lanfear was so solipsistic ITB that she had difficulty persuading or manipulating people, but she was miles ahead of this moron.

14:50 Why is this the first demonstration of Loial’s abilities? I thought they had forgotten it. The Seanchan are bringing out the best in their slaves! Was this written by a Florida textbook author?

15:16 Suroth is also being very egalitarian with her slaves, now that we established in a prior episode the significance of speaking to people directly. Also, ITB she was a competent villain. This one we have only seen getting humiliated by Turak and now acting like a twit. Are we really supposed to be afraid of her or her capacity to oppose the heroes?

15:45 How does Loial always find Two Rivers women? How on earth would they have any idea she was a captive? Why would Ingtar, if he is remotely the same person as ITB, give the slightest shit about Egwene, much less follow through on Loial’s request to find her? “Sorry, no luck there, let’s concentrate on our universe’s equivalent of the Holy Grail for the time being,” is what he would and should be saying, after having made only the most desultory, if that, attempt at locating her. Also, when you are enslaved and trying to escape with the Holy Grail equivalent prize, every little thing you do to break cover, or draw attention to yourself, like poking your nose into damane matters, has to be weighed against your chances of succeeding at the important thing. This is not like Rand’s and Ingtar’s argument ITB, where they were free, armed and mobile.

It's also worth noting that the Seanchan honor was about status among the aristocracy. Their lack of conventional security methods spoke to the extreme level of control they had, and the power at their disposal to rectify breeches. They could let civilians come and go in their conquered lands, because it upheld their image and because people posed no threat. They have the most elaborate intelligence and police apparatus, and a draconian system of punishment to deter transgressions, which is why certain things appear lightly guarded to the eyes of wetlanders. They can catch lawbreakers more effectively and efficiently than preventing crime in the first place. They don't skimp on guards because of their honor. Of course, on TV, honor is dumb and makes you vulnerable to smart people.

16:14 The debate about Egwene could have been much better handled by including the point that a channeler could be very useful in effecting their escape with the Horn. If you are too dumb to think of that, you could read the books, where Nynaeve uses that as incentive to get Bayle Domon to take them out of Falme. Loial has to be aware that Egwene was part of the force that left a lot of Trolloc carcasses outside Fal Dara, as he was the one who let her and Nynaeve know about the call to arms issued to channelers in the city.

16:19 I thought Ingtar said “they call it the kennels” to humanize him, to show that even though he prioritized the Horn over and above her plight, he was appalled at how the damane are treated, but Loial is responding as if he is arguing that there is no point in trying to rescue her, because if they call the barracks a kennel, it must mean the residents are broken to the leash.

And of course, he has to praise her to the skies, because Egwene. First, why would Loial call her sweet, when most of what he witnessed were arguments where she was putting down her fellow villagers or complaining that they don't cook for her? Second, ITB, her very close friends, who had spent far more time in her company than Loial, were extremely worried about the effect her captivity would have on her, and saw a need to get her out ASAP. Every female character (aside from Nynaeve) on the show is so awesome, so badass, so indestructible that there cannot be any real stakes in threats like this, because she is just too awesome to be beaten, so there is no real urgency.

16:44 This better be a dream, or the whole thing is bullshit. Either the a’dam is pathetic or Egwene’s strength of will has been taken up to Mary Sue levels.

16:51 It kind of says something about the show that the better of two options to expect is extreme predictability, rather than outright stupid impossibility.

17:00 The best way forward is for the prior sequence to be what Egwene wanted to do, and now we see the canonical result.

17:09 Okay, apologies, and so forth. But I still stand my ground on the basis of their shitty writing lowering my expectations.

17:50 And the last punch was just stupidity. But I don’t think the writers know that, I think they believe she is being admirable.

19:27 That’s mostly book dialogue, but first Renna talked about Egwene’s strength, then cited her strength in the Power, and then said that the strongest damane are the hardest to break. She makes no distinction between strength in the Power and strength of will or character and thus gives the impression that to whatever degree Egwene manages to hold out from being broken to the leash, it will not be because of any sort of fortitude or moral fiber or sense of will, but by the fortuitous circumstance of being born with a degree of power.

20:28 Even in the closest thing to good light she has been in all episode, I could barely see Egwene’s nosewart, even looking for it. Are they using makeup to minimize it this season? Did Madden have a procedure done?

Come on, Maddy, that was our thing!

20:36 Why did we need to end the scene on such a long exterior shot of the kennels? Why not zoom in through the window to Egwene, after transitioning from Loial & Ingtar discussing where she was, if we need to be able to recognize the kennels from the outside for the rescue attempt?

21:27 So Min is a Darkfriend because she wanted to get rid of her viewings. That’s it. There is no going on with her. She has to die or be an enemy or at least stuck with the status akin to that of Asmodean, always on the periphery, never to be trusted, having to prove her use and value to buy her life anew every day. I don’t care what they call it. She admits to, in her words, making a deal with the Shadow. That’s being a Darkfriend. Period, full stop.

21:46 What makes this a good place to stop? And why phrase it like that, when it gives the impression that Alanna DGAF about anything other than her desire for tea? Which is entirely in keeping with her self-indulgent behavior to date, and in the absence of any knowledge about this random spot in yet another scene in the dark, the only possible interpretation. Edit from the future: Okay, there was a ruined building there, not that you could tell in all the darkness.

21:51 WHY?!?!? Why do they have temples to the Forsaken? What the hell is a Forsaken, anyway? According to a bunch of irrelevant novels, they are Aes Sedai who went over to the Dark One and were his most powerful servants in the War of the Shadow. On the show, the name has only been referenced in respect to their being reverenced by the people of the world, including a Warder, openly in the White Tower, along with the tidbit that they are apparently impossible to kill. There is nothing on the screen to date suggesting they are human beings, instead of spirits or divinities.

22:10 Lan can’t return to the Tower, because the Amyrlin’s banishment applies to him, until his bond with Moiraine is formally removed from the Tower records.

Just

What

I

Fuck it.

This show.

22:48 “Generals in the Dark One’s army” does not clarify the matter of my previous question one bit. And, as is typical for the show, Lan speculates about their repertoire of powers and Ihvon responds by citing their moral threshold or lack thereof, and Alanna, in turn, seems to be excusing them or suggesting that Aes Sedai could stoop as low.

Making a case for moral relativism is a teensy bit problematic in an episode focusing so heavily on the evils the Seanchan inflict on their captives. But it’s also the episode that reveals Min is a Darkfriend, clarifies the terms of Liandrin’s service to the Shadow, and in the barely-covered conflict between arguably the two main characters of the show, calls into question Moiraine’s tactics in handling Rand, and their contribution to the possible rift Lanfear is creating between them.

So Alanna’s line touches on the closest thing to a theme or through-line in this episode. Is her dialogue there to justify Min’s turning to the Shadow to be relieved of her viewings, Liandrin to help her son and Moiraine’s transgressions in dealing with Rand? If an argument can be made for all those things, then too, the same moral principle must be extended to the concerns of the Seanchan in dealing with the Power that Broke the World, and has largely been wielded for evil on the show thus far. Can we blame the Seanchan for preferring to lock the perps up rather than put their faith in something like the White Tower, which teaches girls the so-important skills of filtering water and pervert sex while letting people like Liandrin run around wielding authority and abusing it for the Shadow’s agenda? Whose sole contribution on the show so far to the eternal fight against the Shadow was to ignore the threat to the Blightborder defenses while tossing potential Dragons Reborn into the Eye of the World and hoping that will make the Last Battle go away?

I don’t agree with the Seanchan solution, because I am an unapologetic moral absolutist. But Alanna has been portrayed as a voice of reason here, and she's being all relativist.

22:58 The one canonical instance of Green sisters camping in a tent, in the whole book series, included Alanna, and made a note of them sitting up late outside the tent chatting with their warders every night.

23:25 WTF is this? Lan is not bonded to Alanna, so far as we know. He has sworn no oaths to her, and has just now stated that legally, he is still Moiraine’s warder. So why are they being all menacing about him leaving? Because the way this group has been depicted so far on the show, the strong subtext here is “We might not have got to rape Steppin, but by the Light, you sure as shit are not getting away.”

Actually, I want to restore Lan’s established proficiency by watching him open a can of whoop ass on these tiresome freaks.

23:36 Sigh. Nightmare. Warders’ dreams are also apparently no longer protected. Not that Sanderson remembered this either…

24:41 Wait, is this actually really happening?

25:08 Fuck this shit. Lan would die before admitting that. And a big huge chunk of this is on Moiraine, for all her shenanigans pushing him away for no discernable reason.

26:27 Why would Rand believe for a moment that Lanfear did anything more than dispel an illusion of her own making?

28:45 “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s not polite to talk to one woman about another” – a line spoken by the far and away most accommodating of all the women to legitimately love Rand, who usually encourages his relationships with other women. Because anyone with common sense knows you don’t do this. Rand slipped up and drew that comment, because, as he says, he was not thinking of Min as a woman, much less romantic competition for Elayne or Aviendha. For someone who has actually slept with Rand and is openly asserting her romantic interest in him, this is an utterly moronic request or demand. Book!Rand would view this level of desperation as a fatal weakness that could get a woman he cared about killed. He’d pursue the inquiry with affected skepticism, questioning what she just showed him and fishing for more information. Because that’s what we see him do when Lanfear reveals Elayne’s mother’s situation.

I think the writers are so bound and determined to show the male characters as emotional and not 'toxically' masculine that they are going to do so, whether or not it makes the slightest bit of sense.

30:42 Egwene seems to think, on absolutely no basis whatsoever, that the words she is hearing are a damane repeating what her sul’dam as told her, instead of a sul’dam instructing a damane. If she is actually hearing the latter, she could end up in a lot of trouble for trying to encourage the subject of her teaching.

31:39 Why can an Accepted and a novice say this stuff to Aes Sedai? Do the writers think (No) this makes their characters look smarter or more capable to just repeatedly refuse orders like petulant children and the supposed authority figures give way? Book!Nynaeve would “Yes, Aes Sedai/Mother” her to her heart’s content and then figure out a way to do what she needed to anyway.

Also, why would you send a novice and Accepted, who would automatically be suspected as runaways making up wild stories to excuse their transgression, with the news of Liandrin, instead of an Oath-bound sister reporting it herself? And it’s not my book analysis predicting they would be seen as runaways, that is the conclusion that Ryma leapt to on finding them! If she thought they were runaways, why would anyone in Tar Valon think differently?

Also, also, pursuant to my first point, having Ryma believe the truth simply because Our Heroines told her so robs them of development by squandering an opportunity to demonstrate or discover powers of persuasion. Most importantly, it utterly violates the most important themes of the series!

But at least the writers don’t have to work so hard. Not that they had to in the first place, since keeping close to what Jordan already worked out for them would take even less effort.

32:13 How many accomplishments are they going to take from Nynaeve?! Instead of figuring out on her own, with no help, in incredibly adverse circumstances, at great risk to herself and her companion, how to open an a’dam, and then obtaining one to use to infiltrate the kennels, an Aes Sedai Ex Machina just hands her an a’dam in a safehouse she has already prepared and brought them to, after finding them on her own. And not for nothing, but in lab conditions like this, Elayne is the more natural one to figure it out, making Nynaeve’s primary contribution to this part of the story being “I’m not pacing, I’m investigating!”

32:27 If they can speak English, why can’t the write with the actual alphabet? Or just have Moiraine do a voice-over instead of making us read?

32:57 Moiraine has been stilled, she is not shielded, she is not stuck with her bond to Lan on mask. So what does stilling even mean in the arbitrary congruence of show rules for the Power to those of the books? In the books, it means Moiraine is freed of the Three Oaths, and her bond to Lan has been broken with traumatic effects not much less than her death would inflict. Actually, in the books, there are at least two cases of Warders dropping dead when their bonded sister is stilled, and not nearly as many instances of them doing so at her death. For instance, none of the five warders of the sisters who die in the house on Full Moon Street died from the bonds breaking, nor Kairen’s at her murder, but Irgain’s and Martine’s warders died when they were stilled by Rand and burned out, respectively.

So what does being stilled mean for Moriaine? How is this going to be fixed, to wrench her plot closer to the real story? (especially since it seems that they are ignoring what actually happened in Season One, and basing this season’s scripts on the events of Eye of the World instead, on more than one occasion) Because Nynaeve only figured out how to Heal severing after a lot of essential build up, ITB, and not until well after Moiraine had become irrelevant to the plot.

33:11 Buttering both sides of the bread just makes a mess! How are you supposed to pick up a sandwich where you do that? And for the record, the sandwich was named after a man who was born in 1719. Well, after any equivalent time period in this world. Why did we think it would be cute to have this overgrown child bringing Moiraine a sandwich and referencing his old habit of doing so? What does this do for anything other than forcing their Moiraine slice-of-life backstory fan-fic down our throats? It’s not going make the reveal of him being a Darkfriend more shocking, if that’s the way they go, nor make us regret his death in the Cairhien civil war that may or may not break out (the same political pressures would seem to be in place). The show hasn’t exactly made me invested in seeing what sort of role he plays in the politics of the series going forward, either.

We had interminable and numerous scenes of Moiraine being cold and dismissive toward Lan earlier in the season. And if we were going to give a damn about her relationship to anyone, it would be him. This weenie with a 1920s women’s haircut doesn’t come close.

34:16 Moiraine was busy! Also, sending word to the White Tower does not mean she got it! Remember, show, because I do, that you said she was never in the White Tower! Home was her saddle and the brooding man by her side! We know and Moiraine knows, that she was trying to stop the apocalypse and she has shown not one iota of sentimental attachment to Anvaere or the rest of her family. Since we know that she was really fucking preoccupied with the apocalypse, how are we supposed to take Anvaere’s whinging seriously? Why are we supposed to think Moiraine does?

34:35 I saw Lindsey Duncan on two other TV shows. In one, she waged a covert war of attempted assassinations against a rival woman, tried to cast magic curses on her, seduced her rival's daughter and persuaded the girl to seduce her own brother, and eventually committed suicide, on her rival's doorstep, just because this person spread gossip about her affair with a married politician who dumped Duncan as a result. Among the results of her machinations were the assassination of the head of the nation, which was thrown into civil war and her only son killed in battle. On the other show I saw, she advised her boss, the Prime Minister of the UK, to commit porcine bestiality live on national TV. Both of these women seemed more reasonable than Anvaere.

Anvaere professes to know and emphatically asserts, that Moiraine loved their father. And yet she keeps demanding “What was so important” that Moiraine was not there for his death. By her own admission, by the facts as she cites them, it would have to be something incredibly important or Moiraine would have come! Why does it matter? You ask this sort of question because you don't believe there was anything important, you ask it rhetorically to accuse the subject of not caring, except she is vehement that Moiraine did care! Either she’s wrong that Moriaine cared a great deal about Dalresin, or it was something so epically important that Moiraine prioritized it over her beloved father! And if it’s that important, why on earth does she think Moiraine will reveal it to someone for whom she has never cared?

Because the writers want to justify Moiraine stupidly blurting out the truth, or want us to feel weally weally bad for her.

35:10 We don’t care what you think about Moiraine, because we know she is trying to save the world and has suffered an unimaginable loss, that, if we are to go by the show’s intermittent bothering to mention it, will also permanently estrange her from the love of her life. Just shut up and get out of the room, Anvaere. Sorry, but the writers dealt you a really shit hand. I was hoping to see you playing Daes Daemar with all the aristocratic cunning Duncan is capable of portraying, but we’re just getting low stakes family drama distracting us from the prophesied champion of the apocalypse and a group of characters suffering, or in danger of, enslavement.

35:22 Among the numerous female characters assassinated by this adaptation is Moiraine and Anvaere’s mother, a scholarly woman Moiraine loved enough that Dalresin begging her to come to her was a challenge in her test for the shawl. To the extent that Moiraine and her sisters were better or more decent people than Dalresin’s other child, Tarangail, the implied factor is their mother, as Tarangail was born of a political marriage and got the full share of Damodred qualities. But according to Anvaere, their Damodred father was the nice one and the greatest insult, her final parting shot at Moiraine, is that she is just like their mother.

Progressive feminism FTW! If you don’t like the show, you must be racist!

36:44 Are we to take from the letter with the broken seal next to the one Moiraine was trying to compose, that Siuan is publicly sending letters to a woman she exiled from the Tower? Only thing I can think is a repeal of her banishment, which would explain why she is trying to write a letter revealing what happened.

I am also curious how Lan’s confession to Alanna got him Siuan’s itinerary and permission to go to her. Where was she, where was he and the Pervert Trio? What are timelines again?

37:45 You know, maybe I should take back what I said about making the characters actually compose a persuasive argument. I don’t think the writers are capable of it. And in spite of this, they put the characters in situations where they need to, and fail, but get what they want anyway. All they had to do was have Logain reluctantly acquiesce to Rand’s demand, because we know Moiraine has already made that bargain with him. Fine, Logain is trying see if he can weasel something else out of Rand. He’s a dick, that’s canon. But now you have Rand making this nonsensical appeal to his legacy, and an intelligent steelmanning of this scene has Logain mentally rolling his eyes, and going along with this idiot bumpkin, because he really doesn’t have any other choice and has already made his deal with Moiraine.

The end result of this whole exchange is Our Hero looks like a chump.

Again.

I know there are theories that this denigration is deliberate in the case of the men, but the writers are clearly doing it by accident to the women, so who can even tell which they are trying to do and which are they doing by incompetence?

38:18 Are they going to have the women surrendering to the Power as in canon, now that they have established that a male channeler must seize the Source and take control?

And how can Logain tell Rand is taking too much? He also claimed to have sensed Rand’s ability to channel, a month after Logain himself had been gentled.

Remind me again what it means that Moiraine has been stilled?

39:03 So now Rand, determined to avoid all his friends for their own protection, turns around and walks down the street to where he hears Mat’s voice.

Since we’re being all consistent and stuff, Mat was not formally told of Rand’s death, because he was imprisoned in Tar Valon, but also Liandrin was reading the letters from Perrin to the girls which IIRC implied as much. But we know Liandrin was editing them, and we know Mat’s supposed to be at least a little clever in his approach to breaking out, even if Liandrin was on top of it, so how much does he trust what she read him? He showed no real interest in saying goodbye to the girls when he left.

I have no idea what it means that Rand and Mat are about to reunite. They spent most of their travel time belittling, and arguing with, one another, but then Rand took his part in the arguments about him in Fal Dara.

39:14 Who or what is this “God” one of the gamblers just invoked (and the captions confirm he said)?

39:46 Who or what is this “Light” you are each invoking? Might a potential “God” be annoyed at your apostasy?

39:58 I guess Mat didn’t believe anything Liandrin read, since he seems to think everyone would be hanging around with Rand, instead of training in the White Tower or writing letters to friends in the Tower that imply Perrin believes Rand is dead.

40:16 Genitalia are invoked pejoratively. Because sex is icky in our progressive new setting.

40:26 +Sigh+ Okay, now why can only “some” of their damane sense when a woman is channeling, and not all of them, as every woman who can channel can? Hell, every person who can channel can sense when a woman is channeling! Or did they mean sul’dam instead of damane ?

41:44 How did Ryma get the ring off the Blue Sitter who was collared? And what exactly were the logistics of getting their hands on an a’dam, with two sisters getting killed and another collared, while Ryma managed to escape with a collar she does not know how to open? Just how well can an Aes Sedai fight when they are aware the Seanchan are not interested in killing them, and thus, combat against the Seanchan does not remotely count as “the last extreme in defense of my life”? Plus they would have had to dismember the damane wearing that collar. The answer is, they almost certainly forgot.

45:18 How do the writers of this show not understand the properties of water? First Alanna has trouble believing that ice was once water, and now Renna tells Egwene to turn steam into fire. Steam is water. It is not fire. They are the exact opposite, from a classical elements, or Five Powers, perspective.

47:00 Overall, that was a pretty decent scene. Up until the end, when Renna started whaling on Egwene for no reason. Again, the deal with the Seanchan is that they are very competent, and have established procedures and protocols that they follow, because these are proven methods. Having Renna just lose her shit and beat her damane physically, rather than use the a’dam to give her pain, not to mention visibly getting agitated, is incompetent training.

But there are a lot of elements in the fandom for whom any depiction of the Seanchan as competent grinds their gears, even if it's being done to build them up as antagonists to the heroes.

47:21 “Why are you risking everything for someone you barely know?” “Well, you see, Nynaeve, there just aren’t that many women out there who will take my retarded brother off my hands…”

49:06 This is almost book!Mat. Except he wouldn’t put it like that, he’d be complaining about Rand making him go.

49:23 Up and at ‘em Prax Min! You’ve got some traveling to do. This is such a better story than her doing her best to comfort a friend in captivity and facilitating her friend’s escape plan by bringing various people she knew together.

What is our investment in a Darkfriend again?

51:25 Okay, Mat is clever, but how did he get all that from Prax Min saying she saw him kill Rand in a viewing?

51:50 Are us readers supposed to infer “If you love him stay away” is why Prax Min isn’t joining them? Or does her viewing last season of “three beautiful women” exclude her by definition?

52:43 By marrying an established, ruling queen, Barthanes, whose family was so recently in such ruin that his mom had to beg for leftovers, takes over the country as jure uxoris king. This setting just gets more and more feminist every day.

There is the outside chance that king merely means a consort instead of ruler, as queen does in real life, but they have done none of the work to establish that, or make us think so for any but metatextual reasons.

53:08 :headdesk: :headdesk: :headdesk: Powerful people do not ask, request, or demand audiences with social inferiors, much less their professional subordinates. This is not WoT lore, it's human interactions and the English language.

53:21 Did we just drag every Aes Sedai with lines out of the Tower for this scene? How much time has elapsed while Moiraine finished that letter, that the Amyrlin would make a detour to Tar Valon, pick up all these sisters last seen there, and then travel overland to Cairhien? Because we cut from Moiraine addressing her latest draft, to Lan intercepting Siuan on the road. Seriously. What are timelines?

And what is the purpose of this? Is it all about Twue Wuv?

53:36 Okay, so they came from the Tower to meet Siuan in Cairhien. I guess she was equidistant to the city from them, or far enough away to get to a point equidistant from the city by the time word got from her to Tar Valon. Just very impressive coordination without any form of telecommunications. Not sure if it’s better or worse then a detour.

Also, does Liandrin have a loose hinge in her neck, swiveling it around like that? It’s like she’s a cat following a laser pointer while trying to talk to Siuan.

54:12 Why does Mat have such blind faith in Min’s viewings? No one except maybe Rand or Elayne would react this way to Min seeing their own actions, however counterintuitive. And they’d ignore the warning, because both of them trust her viewings and don’t believe they can evade them, so why avoid their friend or loved one when it won’t make any difference?

57:03 So the dismemberment of Rand’s leadership arc from tGH is that Perrin gets the setup with Ingtar, but exercises no leadership over anyone at all, and Nynaeve gets the “it’s up to you, now” parting scene, but with Ryma, and with no setup that gave Rand & Ingtar’s moment such weight.

57:08 Got nothin’ to say to that cracka bitch.

58:10 Just a suggestion, have the Warder lie low, so that he can lead the rescue party to her location once she’s taken, hmmm? ITB Egwene encounters Ryma in captivity, so it might actually help them find her, too.

58:07 Maybe it’s seeing Prax Min, but in that last shot, Basan looked like Chad "Fred Johnson" Coleman.

58:45 Nope, Basan’s just going to die pointlessly. Which undermines the otherwise nice characterization going on here with Ryma.

59:04 Was that a trick or just bad direction? Basan takes a near-miss from a fireball the damane shot, then suddenly he is behind Ryma, walks around in front of her and they make One Power eye contact. Is this an illusion or something to keep him alive? Based on what comes next, incompetent fight direction.

59:30 How is this at all productive? How does hanging Egwene get her to obey or break her of her hostility?

59:41 Dying on your feet instead of living on your knees for a few days, knowing that a rescue op is in the offing, and there are other victims your survival could help save, is not remotely cool, badass or principled, Ryma.

1:00:19 Wow, she’s even worse. She got Basan killed, futilely, rather than suffer to help someone else.

1:00:41 Ryma, allegedly bound by the Three Oaths, is killing a woman she knows to be a victim, to prevent herself from being taken alive. This. Should. Not. Happen.

And her shrieking emotional outburst does not make her look cool or pitiable, just contemptible, for killing someone so brutally, for something that’s more or less all her fault.

1:03:19 Hey, remember last season, when they totally destroyed Nynaeve’s backstory anecdote, all to repurpose it in order to demonstrate that Egwene is “indestructible”? How’d that work out? Looks kind of destructible right here…

I know in the conventions of recent genre adaptations and sequels, women start out awesome and stay that way, and the story is a progression of people realizing and accepting this as she gains accolades, titles and accomplishments, without ever learning anything other than how powerful she always was, but there is a reason that it has traditionally been preferable to build a character up to their ultimate state, rather than simply asserting it exists when they have barely heard the Call to Adventure.

1:03:57 See! We can’t even go a whole minute without someone reaffirming how awesome Egwene is.

I mean, based on what we see of them in the books, I would not take bettering a Sitter for the Blue Ajah as much of an accomplishment. Rank does not equate to character, either.

1:04:09 Liars!

Two episodes to go. What's the story of this season? Besides Egwene, what the arcs of the actual main characters from the series? Perrin gets to wolfbrother, but what about all the other episodes? Mat ... exists. Rand had a channeling lesson. He hooked up with Lanfear and now it looks like he has a makeup date for his audience with the Amyrlin that never happened. And what mechanic are they going to use to get Mat back into the plot? Is he going to help Rand get away from the Aes Sedai or something? Are we going to get another month-long time jump for the two of them to get to Falme? What are Nynaeve and Elayne going to do for all that time if they do?

It's not like there is any point really in speculating. They generally don't feel constrained by such arbitrary standards as logical character progression, coherent story development, the books, or making sense.

[fictionkinfessions]

Genuinely can't tell if you're serious in the tags about watching a playthrough of tCoAaL, MPC, but if you are... I recommend the 5 hour walkthrough of all endings as they get all the special/secret dialogue.

Also, absolutely screaming and crying because if I accidentally turn you or anyone else on this blog into sourcemates, I'll know I just have the power to infect people with splitting off into fictives or even kinning. Because I've kinda already accidentally did that. 😅

Anyway, good luck, and I hope you have fun and enjoy the psychological horror visual novel with puzzle solving and RPG elements.

-your favorite goth cannibal who is only a little messed up in the head. #🩷🖤

Your timing is hilarious because I just finished a let's play, went to bed, and saw this while checking the inbox one last time.

I did just finish a no commentary let's play, but it's only 4 hours so I'll have to go back and find a proper walkthrough with all the secrets. 'full game playthrough' my ass!! I do wish I got into this sooner. It's a very cool and basically up my alley as a horror fan.

[also your choker is so cute? the lil bell? precious goth!!!]

Anyways, I can see why tumblr, et al likes you and Andy/drew so much. You're very sympathetic. Like yeah you're an asshole but there's definitely some nature vs nuture thing going on. You absolutely needed therapy as a kid / young adult and well. That didn't happen for various reasons. Capitalism, general neglect, life experience, etc. Two neglected kids / teens, lots of drama, much fodder for speculating what coulda woulda happened? That's some good 'hindsight is 20/20' that a lot can related to.

And I can see there's a decent amount of incestuous undertones. Very gothic genre, very Flower in the Attic albeit way less confinement and overt child abuse. Again, therapy might've helped but that meant more proactive parenting and less capitalism interference. [bc a person might care more about their kids if they're not burned out by working 80 hours a week] Also for you [canon you, not you necessarily] to realize your behavior was kinda unacceptable. Which imo therapy might've done, who knows.

Also for Andrew who kinda got stuck in that situation in his own shitty way. Anyone else grow up in an apartment building with no other kids, and the park was too far to walk to on your own, and there's just nothing to do but school, come home to homework, and that's it? Like really, the Graves kids have their ProblemsTM but the real villain? Capitalism.

Though I don't think I can blame children for learning from their parents. The parent Graves are very similar in dynamic, albeit without the incest [I'd assume???]. Yeah there's mental illness but that doesn't come out of nowhere. Again, nature vs nuture themes here. Also that your parents fucked him over by forcing him out of college and preventing him from even getting employment? He's legally dead. How does he even get a new identity at that point? Yeah he does some messed up things but what choices does he have? Prison? Getting sent back to the fucked up medical torture corporation? Andrew, buddy, you have all my sympathy.

Absolutely wild ride. Still trying to figure out the apartment thing, but I think I got it. Your parents sold you to a corporation who were doing medical experimentation on all of you. I think. I wonder if there really is parasites in you--from that one nurse scene-- and that's why you survived that long in the apartment? Kinda like some Resident Evil shit. Except you did not turn into a flesh monster [Birkin!?] or start monologing while being a super human [Wesker…!]. Unless those were tracking tags the nurse injected…. I guess it'll be answered in the next chapter(s?). You're both very badass to survive that shit. I think I would've simply laid down and died. [gasp what if you go to the corporation next, and it becomes a Psycho Yuppie crossover….? /jk]

Also TAR SOUL?? Slurs? Girl slurs?? I guess that's a Demon of Misogyny in addition to Flea Market Trinkets. I'm going to beat that dollar store spongebob text strain talking knock off's ass. [that the demon has no commentary on Andrew is kinda funny. 'oh it's the bro. mm. well bai.']

ok also disclaimer. Yes incest is bad and I don't support that in this life. [what happened in canons / past lives I don't judge either. You can't change the past imo.] I can appreciate that in this game it, at least, has some credence to be present within the material. It's a unhealthy situation that leads to unhealthy behavior. I didn't get the feeling it was, you know, intentionally eroticized media like some things found on a3o. Tumblr, et al, saying it's incest bait is really weird. Like, it's a visual medium, yes it's going to portray it visually? The curtains are a [color] for a reason, and this time it's not erotica. I don't think tumblr is good at shades of grey morality or subtlety.

wow this got long. Well good bye, I'm going to find the 5 hour playthrough now!

wait PS there's someone on the queue mentioning they're questioning Ashley Graves because of you…! So! Britney spears voice, oops, you did it again? LOLLERSKATES

[elfmoon3]

The Eyeless Assistance(Creepypasta story)

Pairing: Eyeless Jack x Oc

Summary: Meagan has returned to the Underrealm to start her research on supernatural anatomy. So what better assistant than the Heir of Chernabog.

Location: Slender Mansion in the Underrealm

Ticci Toby was on the couch with Jeff as they were watching Underrealm News about a special person returning to the distorted realm for some type of research. "This person must be very important." Toby said, Jeff sighed, "Whatever, as long as it's not another Slender or Zalgo relative." He said as a knock on the door was heard. Jeff got up and answered the door to see a girl in pastel goth clothes, she has pink emo hair with a black beanie and wearing a face mask that said psycho. Her pale blue eyes gave a calm but creepy feel. Despite her appearance, Jeff recognizes this person. "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me." He sighed. "I'm not as thrilled to see you either, Woods." The pastel goth girl said as this was Meagan the Psycho, the one who defeated Lord Zalgo many years ago.

Later

Slenderman and the other residents looked at Meagan as most of them were surprised to see that Meagan had returned. "So, what brings you back, sweetheart?" Offenderman asked, "I'm here to do research on the anatomy of supernatural beings. The Unknown Agency allowed me to do it here since the energy here is more supernatural than the energy on the overworld." She explained. "But I'm going to need some help, so if anyone is willing to be my assistant, meet me in the basement." She added as she headed down to the basement where her new laboratory was. The others avoided the basement as soon as she said that, except Eyeless Jack, who seemed fascinated with Meagan since she defeated Zalgo when she was sixteen. Jeff looked at him and smiled with mischief. "So, thinking about her again now that she's back in our lives?" He asked as he gestured an inappropriate gesture towards the kidney eating demon. Jack glared at Jeff in a way that got the killer to stop the gesture. "Has much as I like Meagan, I don't know if she'd be open to a relationship after her break up with that Irish doppelganger that she's been dating since after high school." Eyeless explained. However, it's been a while since he saw her. Most of the time, he was going after people for their organs, more specifically kidneys. But capturing a woman's heart is a whole different ballgame. "I think you can be Meagan's assistant, EJ!!" Toby said encouragingly. The cannibal gave it some thought and decided to go down to the basement.

Later in the basement, Meagan was uploading the files that the Unknown Agency gave her to help with the research on her computer, unaware of Eyeless Jack's presence as he descended down the stairs. He'll admit that Meagan looked different since the last time he saw her, but she even looked cute too. Meagan then noticed him by scent as she could smell blood and the tar that drips from his eyes. "You could've said something, Jack." She said. He calmly sighed as he walked towards her. "I see you still have those vampire traits." He said as she turned around to look at him. Meagan felt nervous around Eyeless Jack. She remembered those times he teased her about the many ways he could taste her. "It helps me know when an individual comes in close. For instance, that tar and blood combination that you have is very recognizable." She said as the upload was finished. She looked at her computer and looked through each file. One of them was about the anatomy of Slenderman's species, which is still inconclusive to the Unknown Agency. "Slendy's species is still undiscovered, huh?" Eyeless Jack asked. Meagan sighs, "Unfortunately. Even the Unknown Agency's best scientists still have no clue." She explained, "Which is why I'm here." She added, then Jack smirked, "Is that the only reason why you're back in the underrealm?" He asked as Meagan blushed. Does he have to go back to the teasing? Meagan turned around to look at him. "Well, I will admit that I miss you guys, except Jeff, that bastard needs to learn more manners. But, I'm going to be professional about my research and not get involved in any shenanigans. Though if I am needed for assisting Slenderman and his proxies with body clean-up, I will probably bring one down here to experiment on." She explained, as she seemed to be blushing about something. Eyeless got closer to her face, knowing that she was thinking about something else that she missed. "Being a tsundere won't help you with the teasing that I know you miss the most about me." He said darkly, making Meagan shudder. "So what if I do miss the teasing? You're my assistant now, and I expect you to be mature around me." She said as she crossed her arms. She looked annoyed, but Eyeless Jack knew what buttons to push. "Alright, but don't say I won't continue to mess with you. I'm far worse than Jeff when it comes to teasing you." He said as he walked out of the basement, waiting for his first task from Meagan. Meagan sighed as this research mission is going to be a pain in the ass.

The End!