#if he's dead forever that's weird

[roomba-mangga]

thoughts on thistle and yaad's dynamic that i vomited in the tags of another post but will now try to articulate here: they're not actually family, or at least they shouldn't be. not in a conventional sense anyway. framing them as uncle and nephew (even in a non-literal, silly fantasy world way) rides more on technicality than anything concrete.

what i mean by this is yaad calls thistle by name and says he and delgal were raised "like" brothers. he talks about thistle like he's an outsider imposing himself into the melinis' space, and it's clear that thistle was never legitimized as a member of the family. for thistle's part, though we don't know how he would treat yaad pre-demon brainrot, it's safe to assume based on the way he punishes him—turning him into a doll—and how little is shown in the way of any sort of relationship between them that thistle only cares* about yaad as an extension of delgal (otherwise i'd expect something like kabru and milsiril, because it's not like another complicated interspecies family dynamic would be out of place, yet there's next to nothing on them even in bonus content, just their scant interactions in the main story).

in essence, they're strangers to one another. thistle's desperation to preserve the illusion of a family, a model where he doesn't even fit, was the snare they were caught in for the past thousand years of stasis. yaad-as-nephew is a prop to uphold that illusion, and thistle is playing a role he's unfit to play. in the context of post-canon interactions, attempting to reconstruct that facade would only be a reenactment of trauma for them both (in a deeply compelling way i'd love to watch unfold, tbh), as that "uncle and nephew" framing places thistle in an implicit position of power over someone he's already traumatized through misuse of authority in the past, a role which also perpetuates his adultification and yaad's infantilization in turn. it'd mostly be an obstacle to any real connection.

best to burn the melini family bridge, i think, and if there's still anything salvageable left in the rubble, let something different supplant it.

[kit-teung]

some dff girlies really said. I can excuse filming a video of your classmate getting SA-ed, a video that then ends up shared on social media for thousands of people to see, but I draw line at cheating 😤

[kamomie]

Hot take:

No egg is the most misunderstood egg.

All the eggs have sides to their personality and trauma that are only seen by their closest family and friends.

I get grey hairs every time I see Leo and Tallulah being described as the most misunderstood eggs.

Let me ask, how many on the island truly know Ramon? Chayanne? Dapper? Pomme? Richarlyson?

Answer: Their parents and ~2-3 of their aunts/uncles. Exactly like Leo and Tallulah.

A note specifically on Leo:

If your proof of Leo being misunderstood is q!aypierre and q!bad saying she would enjoy being away from q!foolish, I have news for you; they weren't being serious. Q!bad knows perfectly well how close Leo and q!foosh are, and seeing people constantly downplaying q!bad's relationship with Leo in specific is honestly sad. Yes, Leo now prefers to be taken care of by q!roier because that's her brother, and he speaks Spanish. But way before he was there? Q!bad was her babysitter. Q!max babysat her twice, I think? But other than that? For months, if Leo needed a babysitter, it was q!bad. He knows her. She knows him. She used to help q!bad troll q!foolish. When q!forever came clean about what he did to Leo, q!bad drew his weapon, getting ready to kill. She used to wake up for him as well. And she still occasionally does. Q!bad sang his most precious lullaby to her, "You are my sunshine," with personalised lyrics:

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You’ll never know dear how much I love you, please don’t take my sunshine away. The other night dear, when that whale hurt you, I was very, very upset. But thankfully dear, you are still here, so i’m not as upset as I was. Oh don't worry Leonarda, your papa Foolish and I will keep you safe. So will Vegetta and everyone else, we won’t let anything happen to you.”

Don't sit there and tell me q!bad doesn't know Leo.

[hayloft-hell]

role swap rody and vincent would still have vince being obsessed with rody btw. like yeah rody's planning to kill the guy but vincent's just. so weird about it.

he figured out rody's plan to kill him early on and asked for more shifts. he's the one that suggests rody should eat him. he started researching cannibalism to learn the best cooking techniques to show rody. he's literally picking out garnishes that might go with his own flesh. and rody is super unnerved because sure it's personal but not that personal what the fuck??

[guzhufuren]

Barcode kissing not one, but two boc hotties on my screen? it's what he deserves

[azumasoroshi]

i think an incredibly funny part of the aiichi dynamic is that at least one of them has to be traumatized and/or possess incredible worldly exhaustion in order to even consider the other as a romantic love interest

like they need to go through decades and time loops of war and hopelessness and death and destruction in order to be like huh maybe this guy isn't so bad

of course this doesnt go for every fic (academy blues my beloved) but. a lot of them do and it's SO funny

[kraviolis]

god. philip is such a little shit in my little lamb au. "no greater responsibility than being an older brother" caleb is rolling around on the fucking table he's on right now. the table YOU keep him on. you little fucker.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

the higher-ups (and Yaga) immediately trying to leverage Gojo & Ieri's absence to put Yuuta on the roster??? God that's such a stark moment. Thank god Nanami and Gojo saw through that one immediately, because Yuuta wants to justify his own survival so badly he would've fallen straight into it.

That whole scene, with Yuuta immediately jumping on the opportunity to help people even though something is Extremely Wrong with him and he's on the brink of physical collapse--this boy is selfless to the point of self destruction and I am chewing the drywall about it. I love him so much.

If only he was able to summon his newly found homicidal rage in defense of himself, the higher-ups would no longer be a problem. Alas, this boy is Extremely Unwell.

(Sea Glass Gardens is absolutely incredible and i am obsessed with it in a way that is totally and 100% normal. I'm so normal about it, trust me <3 )

The thing about Yuuta is that he really is prime to be taken advantage of right now and the higher ups know it. They had him try to kill himself for them--they know that there's a window of opportunity that they can use to get him under their thumb and avoid The Problem of Gojo, which is, namely, having a human weapon who you cannot fully control. Gojo nailed it from the beginning: they want a magic gatling gun with no personality or free will. They learned their lesson with Gojo and are trying to rob Yuuta of his agency before he learns how to protect himself.

And Yaga's part in that scene really was meant to kind of emphasize how, even with the best intention's, he just doesn't work to protect the kids. Like. everything he said was technically true, and he meant it with the best of intentions. He's the guy who has to think of everyone's needs. he has to manage this crisis. he's got a lot of people hurt badly who just came out of a war, and a lot of people going into fights with some very aggravated curses spawning without sufficient manpower to address the danger and no healer to save them if they cut it a little too close. He didn't have the intention of manipulating or sacrificing Yuuta, but he was aware that it would come to his detriment and risk.

The issue is the higher ups. They don't give a shit about the people in their workforce. They should be the ones doing whatever it takes to solve this crisis and save their people--and if that means giving up on their machinations? They should have already done it. It's their responsibility.

They just don't care. They want Okkotsu Yuuta under their thumb, and their society hemorrhaging is treated like an opportunity, not a dire problem to be solved. They don't care if half a dozen of their own people need to die to do it. Hell, it's better if they do die--they can put it straight on Okkotsu for not being willing to sacrifice himself, when they should have been making whatever promises they had to in order to make this work.

Gojo's done this before, is the thing. He was Yuuta, a long time ago. Nanami was right there watching it happen. They both know what the higher ups do: They let society get to a crisis level and put all the responsibility on you to save it. they let you maneuver yourself into a vulnerable position as a result, and then they use it as leverage to put their goddamn boot on your neck.

The thing is that Gojo adopting megumi all those years ago really did put them into a crisis state. the zenin pitched the mother of all bitch fits trying to secure his unconditional return, and they were a huge percentage of jujutsu society's labor force and resource pools. instead of the higher ups managing the problem at all, they took advantage of the situation and shoved more and more of its weight and responsibility onto gojo, until he was dropping off his own kid at his abusers' compound thinking it was the only compromise that could resolve things. megumi paid the price for gojo not calling bullshit, and right now, with him in a hospital bed? gojo's less willing to repeat mistakes than ever.

he knows that they're going to use the safety and suffering of everyone else as the leverage against him, and he knows that as terrible as it is, he cannot blink first. He's played this game before, and he knows that the only way to get the higher ups to back off on something like this is to dig in your heels.

I think what happened to Megumi all those years ago and how bad it got before they put a stop to it is something that haunts all three of them. When they first started raising him, they were very young, and they were very broken, and they loved him very, very much. He was their little boy, and he was never the same after the Zenin. They were supposed to protect him, and they didn't, and not a single one of them has forgiven themselves for that.

Megumi was sort of sacrificed for the greater good when he was a kid. None of them thought that that was what they were doing when it happened, but that's what happened. His happiness, safety, and wellbeing were sacrificed to pacify the Zenin and make it easier on everyone else.

Megumi and Tsumiki had to become their non-negotiables after. They had to become the things they refused to compromise on. The Zenin would take miles and miles if you gave them a millimeter, let alone an inch.

Gojo didn't think he was compromising them when he left them on their own to deal with Geto's war. They were disgustingly self-sufficient kids. They had been alone for longer stretches of time when they were practically toddlers--they should have been fine on their own for a couple of weeks.

But they were still his kids, and he still left them alone for everyone else's sake, and now his kid is blind and half dead in a hospital bed. It's like being punched in the face by old mistakes.

So they're off the roster completely, all of them. And they're not compromising an inch on what their focus is, and they're not letting anything happen to any of the other kids in their care.

It's terrible that their coworkers are suffering, but it wouldn't be happening if the Zenin hadn't fucked with Gojo Satoru's kid, of all the goddamn people. It wouldn't be happening if the higher ups would actually do their job and start managing shit.

And if they use Yuuta as an anxiety riddled bandaid on the bullet hole in their society? Then they'd be sacrificing him the way they sacrificed Megumi all those years ago. And they have never been less willing to do that.

I'm so so glad you like the story! Thank you for talking with me!

[chepib3]

dick enters an episode and tim starts like shaking

[princeofhags]

i just finished reading about iraestra so wand of twilight for her as well!

Wand of Twilight. Iraestra conjures a spirit from the land of the dead to speak to them.

FANTASY PROMPTS | @foxboyclit

Smoke floods the altar in fragrant plumes, the familiar taste of myrrh coating the back of Iraestra's throat uncomfortably. Her steps, purposefully measured and slow, sound monstrous in the cavernous wings of the ceremonial chamber. The peace is further broken by the occasional murmur of an invocation or rustling cloth. There has been no order given for silence, but the trepidation hanging heavy in the air as the incense enforces the command. They all wait in the lurch of a breathless hush, an animal instinct to a known threat. Still, so that the hunter is not enthralled by your fleeing. Anticipation before the blow.

Does their visitor scent the fear he instills in the air, like a hound? Does the chorus of thrumming hearts beckon to him like the call of war drums? Bodies, so many bodies for him to open and bleed.

Itaestra does not doubt that he often relishes it. Bhaalspawn are such curious, depraved half-beasts.

Prince of the Blood. A self-given title, perhaps, but she has heard the reverence Bhaal's faithful pour at his feet like wine libations. Their honored guest is heir to a butcher's legacy. She thinks him little more than a glorified killer draped in the dressings of grandeur.

Iraestra does not cower or draw back from him, but there is still an instinctual unease at the thought of a Bhaalspawn being familiar with her. The Dread Lord’s wicked heirs do not know friends, only warm bodies to bite with steel. The world to them is already dead, merely waiting to be torn asunder to show its truest color: the crimson of fresh spilt blood.

A hedonistic dogma. She holds her tongue due to the respect granted to Bhaal by her own unholy master.

She observes the preparations for the ritual with only half an eye, attention commanded by the ophidian silhouette haunting the edge of the room. What a disquieting picture he paints. His height causes him to loom terribly, heads and shoulders above the flock of mortal meat. He need not even draw his weapon to kill half the room should he wish it. Each finger is tipped with a talon that catches the candlelight with each of his clenching hand. When he had spoken, his teeth had stood out vividly against the stone-black gleam of his scales. The dried gore on his scales embrace him as intimately as any lover.

The wicked length of a barbed tail flickers in what may be a sign of agitation in his people, or merely a quirk of the extra limb. His attention is riveted on the altar. She half expects it to catch aflame.

She attempts not to concern herself with his growing impatience. Any fool can cast a spell to converse with the departed; a Myrkulite only does so at the behest of another and the blessings of the Bone Lord. She will not disregard the tenants of her faith even for this Prince.

"You're eager," she observes. The dragonborn has not left the corpse's side since it was brought to her. Curious. He must be thoroughly invested in the secrets it would spill. "It was good that you preserved the jaw. A wasted trip had you not," she stops by the head, only the breadth of a few steps between her and the Prince.

At that, he finally regards her. Even in his initial instructions he had been short with her. "What of a tongue?

"Is this a theoretical or practical query?" Short of the patience to wait for an answer, Iraestra snaps at one of the attendants. "Bone Talker, check the mouth."

Questing fingers find only half of the appendage still intact. If removed before death, exsanguination is as likely a cause as any.

"It will do," she decides. "I am ready to begin." Her attendants step back as one.

The body has been prepared as best they can given its mangled state. This man, who can be no older than twenty, bares the marks of a slow death. The skull, partially caved, rests unevenly on the cloth. He does not even look peaceful now, as the victims of violence rarely do.

She steps forward, hands rising from her sides. Iraestra readies herself to speak the ancient words.

"Alone," the Prince's clipped voice rings out clearly. Not a request. Demand.

Iraestra hisses her frustration. Better vexation, than dread. She knows the vestments of anger well, slips into them like a second skin. Her mouth twists, her shoulders draw tight. Her hands are half-formed claws in the air. She hears the pound of her own heart in her ears.

What is so important that it cannot be witnessed by the others? What is to be done with her, who will attend to the questioning herself?

"Mistress?" Every cowled head in the room turns to look at her. They hear the call for her death as vividly as she. One of the fools is brave enough to step towards her, as if they could truly do anything to intervene. She admires them for their stupidity.

The Prince watches her, well aware of what he asks for. Trust or faith or maybe both. Clearly, he is looking for a reaction. Will she falter, will she balk? Could he make a bouquet of the stench of her unease? He regards her with a snake's stare, eyes cold licks of fire. He does not blink.

If he thinks he can subdue her so easily, then he is sorely mistaken. She is drow. She is Oblodra. Her own mother's hands were the first to ever try to take her life. He will find no easy marks here today. Let him slake his thirsts elsewhere. There are other, weaker creatures for him to gorge himself on.

"Leave us," Iraestra does not take her eyes from the Prince. She does not speak or move again until the door clicks shut behind the last attendant. How awfully similar it sounds to the closing stone of a tomb.

She rounds on him, irritation clear. "Why did you ask for me?"

The Prince is the first to look away, back to her hands and then the body. Iraestra does not feel like she has won anything of merit. It is impossible to tell if he is pleased. "The Banite confides in you. I thought to do the same."

He does not give a name, nor does she ask for it. She wonders at what the Prince knows of her talks with the other Chosen.

"And what if his confidence is misplaced?" A theoretical. Her loyalty is not often brought into question. It is rare that she pledges it at all.

"Then I will kill you," the Prince simply states.

She laughs. That intention is only the natural conclusion of the dance. There is no greater aim for those of his depraved bent. "So you say. Did you not plan to do so already?"

His head tilts in a particularly reptilian gesture. His glittering eyes have found the pulse in her throat, her bare wrists. She cares not for his study. It feels too much like a physical caress, high beneath dress and robe. One hunger is not too different from another, and she supposes they may be frighteningly the same for him. Both indulgences of the flesh, in the end. "Do not tempt me. Your blood would spill sweetly on this floor."

Iraestra sneers. "Cast your fetid gaze elsewhere, brute. You will not find easy prey in me."

He chuckles darkly. "Of that I am sure. I would savor the challenge as much as anything else."

"I was under the impression that there were more pressing matters at hand, given your early insistence on haste."

"Time can always be afforded for pleasure, sorceress. Consider the feel of silk on the skin. The burst of fruit between teeth and the rush of the juice down your chin, the clench of a lover tight around you as they sob your name. That final, shuddering breath that flutters out of the throat at death. Do you not feel the drum of the heart in your own chest? Do you not wish to dance to it? If you are so indifferent to it, I could show you how to listen to it once more. To feel it." How reverently he speaks, as if he is at the shrine of his own father-god. His lids have nearly closed in rapture.

There's smoke in the dragonborn's mouth and anticipation in his words, thick enough to choke on. He whispers with the tongue of a snake, words dripping from the depravities he utters.

As mad as his sister, the shape-changer, Iraestra decides with disdain. The seed of Bhaal is truly cursed with madness, complete and true. It was preferable when he was barely acknowledging her presence despite demanding it in the first place.

"You have nothing that I desire." Were she younger, still a fool turned by a pretty face, she may have once allowed herself to be seduced by the offer. She ignores the answering hook of arousal low in her gut, focusing once more on the misshapen head on the pillow. Reminds herself of whose hands exactly have crushed it. There is much to do before she is ready for the grave. "Now, if you will allow me to get on with this, we may be each rid of the other before long."

“A pity that you deny yourself,” but he nods. “Perform your rites. Regretfully, I cannot linger for long.” 

Iraestra does not regret that. She is exhausted and enthralled by him in equal measure. Let this be the first and last time she suffers his company. 

She begins her prayer to the dead. 

[priapussdick]

how about a new clown theory????

yk how keng was trying to expose the mob?? don't really know who he was working with but my point is that the mob, brining it down is one of the crucial parts of the whole story, right??? there's no way they'll just abandon the whole thing.

so

what if white is actually working with the police??? that's why he got together with tee🤡🤡🤡

[sskk-manifesto]

♡

[rowanisawriter]

i am writing but the Characters have decided to do something a little fucked up

[dovesick]

sky is over

[quietwingsinthesky]

im thinking about clara’s ending, though. like, on a very self-indulgent level, i do enjoy that she gets to live (kind of) and time travel and get an immortal girlfriend to do it with. but on another level, i’m kind of curious… why? given how much emphasis this episode and the last put on how clara herself made her choice and didn’t want the doctor to go through all of this to bring her back, i mean she’s horrified by it, both for his sake but also for the sake of her own memory that was used to bring him to this point. and then, of course, the exchange at the end with Me and the Doctor, “summer can’t last forever” “it can if you have a time machine”, that is so obviously meant to be this desperate, denying plea from the doctor to a universe that can’t care about the time he wants because it doesn’t even have enough for itself to keep living, and an immortal who has all the time in the world and can’t even remember all of it, even remember herself most of the time.

which. it’s just odd, then. that the episode ends with clara getting to have that forever summer. you’d think it goes both ways, not just that the doctor can’t run forever but neither can clara. she says they’ll be going back to gallifrey eventually, but words are a bit cheap against her literally running away with the last second of her life in a time machine. (and uh. given what eventually happens to gallifrey. lol. lmao. girl no one is putting u back there ever.)

i don’t think i’d call this a criticism exactly. just a strange choice to make, that the ending there seems completely at odds with everything else Heaven Sent/Hell Bent have been about. that this grief and denial are so destructive, and to no one more than themselves. but then clara escapes through a loophole anyway.

[demolitionistic]

we get white's backstory next week!!! fuck yeah!!! this is going to most likely hurt!!!!