#just to confirm that this was a choice i made

[magmethius]

for today's @theemperorweek prompts: intimacy & promise (above art is a commission i bought from nopu <3)

A chunk of prose for this one. Promises made during intimacy. (emps/illithid tav, tav's second person pov, implied but not described explicit)

---

"An illithid does not claim territory for fulfillment," the Emperor says, "but for power. The gratification is instant, but unsatisfactory."

You stare up at him, trying to read his deeper thoughts, and he lets you. There's a pit of craving inside of him, matching yours, a needy ache that has yet to be sated. The tendril cradling your cheek moves, sensually draping itself around your shoulders instead.

Yes, he wants... connection. Not conquest.

"My sword. My partner. Moss. My bondmate. My stardust."

The Emperor leans forward, digging his claws into the moss by your sides. The tentacle around your neck slips away and slides down your torso, trailing across the ridges on your chest so - provocatively, it makes your heart skitter. It halts just at your belly. "It would be far more satisfying to express one's devotion by choice... Would it not?"

Oh... Your hands twitch beside his. "Perhaps," you say.

He takes a long, shuddering breath, and presses his head to yours. It's comforting, and magnetic, and the rejuvenation you feel is instantaneous, the open flow of psychic energy between you alleviating mental aches that the healing spring couldn't. Your partner's mind is still fiercely heated, still thrumming with leftover vestiges of hormonal possessiveness. It pushes against your own, silently pleading for one last confirmation, a proclamation made consciously, not instinctually, a willing choice -

It's so desperate, his desire to have you claim him - not just in body, but in soul. It tugs at every single one of your aberrant little heartstrings.

He pulls away. "Will you -" promise -

"I am yours," you say, not letting him finish vocalizing the question. "And you are mine."

"Mine," you repeat, confident, and loud, and lucid. You float up, sink your claws into his shoulders, and thread your tentacles around his. "Mine." You barely remember to breathe as you greedily try to shove out every inch of space between your bodies. He attempts to pull back for air, but you chase him, refusing to part until he understands. "Mine." His hands skate up your spine, claws raking electrifying streaks as they go, and when he reaches your neck he nearly drags you both beneath the water's surface. You have to release one of your hands to cup his face and bring him back up and - "Mineminemine!" You bump your forehead against his over and over, kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, projecting short and sweet kisses and long and passionate kisses and desperate kisses and everything in between -

The Emperor purrs his joy into you, the rumbling of it sending more ecstatic vibrations through your tangled tentacles, and returns each of your projections with one of his own. He clings to your devotion, memorizing how differently those same words feel in his mind when thought proudly and wholeheartedly, when laced with love, not with lust. He already knows of your undying loyalty, you've certainly expressed your love for him often enough to have those words permanently etched into both of your beings, but he'll never, ever tire of hearing just how much you want him.

Being needed is nice, but being wanted is wonderful.

"Yes..." he breathes, when you finally part.

"You are mine, and I am yours."

[bicheetopuff]

You ever think about what was going through izuku's head whenever he saw katsuki warming upto the other students in 1-A (particularly Kirishima), respecting their abilities, and accepting them as friends (before his own relationship with katsuki started to develop)

I know obviously he would have been happy that katsuki is making true friends, but a part of him must have felt so insecure about himself and wondered why katsuki didn't want to accept him.

I also feel like the moment during the final exams when katsuki said he'd rather lose than work with deku must have hurt izuku atleast a little because he saw katsuki working with others during the cavalry battle or during the usj incident. He even acknowledges that kirishima has become katsuki's friend.

I’m sure he’s glad that Katsuki is making friends, but at the same time I think a part of him is kind of feeling left out about it, considering how he doesn’t acknowledge it until it’s absolutely dire while still making it clear that he noticed. I feel like it could a similar case as Ochako’s, feeling silently jealous and hating the feeling because he wants to be happy for him. I feel like that’s somewhat confirmed by this interview that he did in 2019 when Heroes Rising was about to come out.

(This translation is different than the one I linked, but are essentially saying the same thing)

And considering the way he was drawn in the panel where he made this choice, I’d say yeah, he definitely feels some sort of insecurity.

He takes both Katsuki and Uraraka’s words as “he doesn’t want to be rescued by *me* specifically” which is sad because I feel like it’s clear that that isn’t what Katsuki intended when he said what he said. Like, yes he probably wouldn’t have liked to have been Izuku to reach out to him again, but I doubt he’d let his petty grudge let him stay in All Mights way in a situation like that. I think he wanted him to not follow him because Deku was already in a fucked up state and would’ve been made a liability fairly quickly, especially considering how Deku had already been targeted by the league of villains specifically before this. Katsuki is brash, but he’s not dumb.

In the case of their final exam, I actually don’t think Izuku was hurt because Katsuki would rather work with other people, I think he was more hurt that Katsuki was willing to lose at all, under any circumstance, because that’s just not the Katsuki he knows.

(Some of these panels are edited together, so if they don’t feel like they’re in order, that’s why)

Deku has always had this unfaltering faith in Katsuki. Faith that ran so deep, that Katsuki saying something otherwise, legitimately pissed him off enough to punch him in the face and lecture him. He doesn’t want to hear it because he doesn’t want to believe it. It has nothing to do with how Katsuki feels about him but more how Katsuki maintains his own values, so that he can continue to look up to him without regret. You know why?

All Might is the worlds Symbol of Peace, but…

Katsuki is Izuku’s Symbol of Victory.

And I think Katsuki started to treat his urge to win differently, especially after his and Izuku’s final exam. It seemed like he was more willing to act like Izuku when he needed to, just like Izuku acted like him when he knew it’d benefit him. Willing to work as a team with people and sacrifice himself a little more. Because he literally can’t let Izuku one up him in anything. Hence why he died for no other reason than to prove a point. That he’s willing to do anything to win even if that means breaking himself.

(There’s like three panels I want to put here but I can’t cuz I’m running out of space and want to keep space for the last point I wanna make.

Basically, just reread the end of DvK2, Class A v Class b joint training arc, and the PLW arc. If you care that much lmao.)

It almost seemed like that even though he wanted to keep winning to Deku, he didn’t really want Deku to lose him at the same time. Which is why we never saw them fight again. Neither of them wanted to win or lose, which was why their training was always basically just Deku letting Katsuki get the best of him, because let’s be real… Izuku could’ve beaten Katsuki physically, easily. But he can’t stand seeing Katsuki lose, so he never let him. And I’m pretty sure Katsuki was aware of that, considering how his internal monologue in the PLW arc was saying.

Anyways…

Katsuki has to win, but also, Deku can’t lose. That’s basically the conclusion they came to terms with silently.

Literally the definition of “Person A fell first, but Person B fell harder,” but y’know… they’re just being silly. What they want for themselves are contradictory from what they want for each other, and it makes it so that they simultaneously want both of them to be the best version of themselves.

It also kind of mind fucks you when you think about how Katsuki strived to be the hero that Deku already saw him as, while Deku did the same thing, but both were kind of in the opposite direction/a direction neither of them really wanted the other to take… Katsuki believed that Deku’s urge to save was his biggest strength while simultaneously being the reason for his lack in success because he stopped taking himself into account if it meant saving someone, which is true, while Deku believed Katsuki’s biggest strength was his urge to win while also simultaneously believing that it was the reason for Katsuki’s downfall in some cases because it inflated his ego too much and he’d be willing to do anything to win just to protect that ego… which is also true… ugh they hurt my brain

This post ended up being a lot longer than I intended, oops

[maxthesillyy]

This is gonna sound pessimistic, but I always found Chloe not reacting at all to Joyce dying...pretty weird tbh. I haven't read the comics so I don't know what happened, but it's something that really bothers me. Cause after Lis2/Bae the only family she has left is David and it's a little crazy that Chloe and had to lose borh William and Joyce in order to grow as a person. Idk if this makes sense at all, but it's something I think about at all the time Thoughts?

well, first off, please dont take the comics as a “Canon” continuation of the sacrifice arcadia bay ending. it has the same level of canon as any old fanfiction does, the only difference is that the comics are officially licensed. it’s a HUGE common misconception i see almost anytime i see someone talk about them.

and secondly, i would say chloe very much does react at the idea of joyce’s death.

but i guess you could’ve meant when after max makes the decision to sacrifice arcadia bay. and in that case i would say the answer to that then is simply that chloe was respecting and supporting max and her decision.

i mean, i feel like even someone as emotional as chloe could tell that it wasnt the right time to fall to the ground crying about how her mom was going to die. she knew max needed her support in that moment, and chloe was ready to momentarily push away her own emotional turmoil to give that support to max.

(something something. chloe is full of love. something something. parallels. something something. topic for another time.)

especially when they get to the point where theyre driving off from the destroyed town— chloe has accepted it, even when max clearly isn’t as sure of herself as chloe is of her.

(something something. literally their entire dynamic. something something. topic for another time x2.)

she trusts max to have made the right choice, and even if she wasn’t so sure about it, it’s not like she couldve done anything about it.

i mean maybe she couldve yelled, screamed, and begged max to rewind and make a different choice, but whether you think she trusted max in those moments or not— i feel like chloe knew there wasnt any going back on it.

i think that specifically really shows when chloe says max is the only one who can make the decision of who to sacrifice. both in a literal sense and in a “i’ll follow you in either choice you make.” sense.

honestly i think chloe dropping any doubt she couldve had in that moment just to support max is literally the most in-character thing she could’ve ever done in that scene.

[singlethread]

Hen deciding that her place is with the 118 as a paramedic and then the girls calling her a real hero at the Ren Faire is making me so emotional

[sonknuxadow]

potential sonic 3 spoilers incoming if anyone cares. anyway . apparently there was an official survey about the knuckles show/scu in general and one of the questions was about what name you would use for an eggman/shadow/gerald teamup. which is a weirdly specific question. and also one of the name options was team dark …….. ?? even though rouge isnt mentioned in the question and theres no sign of her being in the next movie in general ? i was willing to accept amy being introduced a little after knuckles and tails but between there still being no sign of her being in the next movie and now this if they actually have gerald time travel or something and have him be the third member of the dark story trio instead of rouge then i will be fully convinced that theyre going out of their way to exclude as many already existing girl characters as possible. like i get cgi is expensive which could be part of the reason rouge might not have made the cut. but damn . assuming this is real anyway it could just be another fake leak but idk

[raspberryjellybrains]

yknow I've been thinking about what dream looks for in friends and lovers and I've noticed that it's not necessarily people that are mean to him, but people that are direct. dream himself deals in metaphor and manipulation, it's simply what he is, so just about everything within his realm that he's encountering consistently will be such that as well. considering both his own tendencies, the environment it breeds, and his whole Thing about guilt and choice, it makes sense he would choose people who are clear and honest with him. he wants someone who will tell him how it is, but not what to do with that—even when it's not really what he wants, dream knows it's what he can need. I think that's why figures like lucienne, matthew, death, and yes, mervyn can be important! on some level, dream knows he's convoluted and shifty by nature, and he's tried to combat that with concise words and mind-melting beauracracy, but it can't fix everything. he likes people to keep him in check and I think that is the most self-awareness he has ever been capable of. so... clap? no? idk. nod acknowledgingly.

[darabeatha]

/ If I offered chibi blorbos (ur pick) for 12$ dollars, would anyone be interested

[cluescorner]

Some people: Kaeya’s bio father is an abusive monster who abandoned his son in order to achieve his own selfish goals. He is an evil man who deserves everything awful that might happen to him. 

Other people: Kaeya’s bio father did the right thing and leaving Kaeya in Mondstadt was the only way to give him a halfway-decent life. He is a better father than he is given credit for and should not be as hated as he is. 

Me: Kaeya’s bio father is integral to the general ‘war is hell and bad choices can reverberate across time’ thing that Genshin seems to be going for. He made unethical choices, but mostly because the ONLY OPTIONS HE HAD WERE UNETHICAL. If our understanding of the Alberich’s role in Khaenri’ah is accurate, General Alberich (my name for him until stated otherwise) was suddenly in charge of a hopeless and dead kingdom which begged to be saved. Assuming that there was a reason Kaeya specifically was chosen for this mission, General Alberich was forced into a position where he needed to choose between the lives/future of every Khaenri’an vs the life and future of his young son. Abandoning either is an awful thing to do and a horrible decision, but the bad decisions of Celestia and Rhinedottir have led to a scenario where General Alberich can only make bad decisions. In the end, he chose to prioritize his people and made his young son into a spy. We do not know the process for this, but knowing how much Hoyoverse loves to torment people (especially Khaenri’ans) we can assume that this process was horrific for Kaeya and could definitely be considered abuse. General Alberich is effectively making his son into a child soldier for a war that the majority of people never wanted or asked for, and one Kaeya was likely far too young to understand. At least, until he was forced to grow up far too quickly in order to fulfill his duty. General Alberich likely loathed everything about what was happening and even in his last moments with his son he asks for forgiveness. He knows that what he is doing is wrong, but to turn back now is to both abandon his subjects and make everything that happened to Kaeya in order to turn him into a child spy be for nothing. So yeah, General Alberich is a terrible person who made horrible choices. But war and the bad actions of others have created a situation where he has nothing BUT horrible choices and where being a terrible person is the only thing he can be. And that’s without considering how the curse/abyssal corruption could impact the scenario. 

[poliodeuces]

mask off i do not like the theory that ramuda's cloned from rei's wife.............

[hephaestuscrew]

I wonder when Minkowski decided to send Eiffel back to Earth on the Sol in the finale.

Was the possibility already running through her mind when she told the crew she was going to try to stop Cutter's plan, when she told them "No one has to do this with me" (perhaps with a part of her hoping that the others - and maybe Eiffel in particular - would decide to leave without her, even as she knew that they never would)?

Or did the idea come to her later, when she heard him record that message for Anne, as she listened to how much he loved his daughter and how he'd accepted that he would probably never see her again? Was that the moment when Minkowski decided she had to make sure he'd survive? Was that why she sent Lovelace on ahead while she waited for Eiffel to finish recording his message? Was it when he said "I wish I could be there to see it" that Minkowski decided she had to ensure he would be? (When she did send him back, she seemed to be thinking of his message to Anne; she told him "Go home, Eiffel. Hug your daughter".)

She was clearly preoccupied after hearing him record that message. When he asked her "Commander? You hanging in there?", was she thinking about whether to send him back, or simply how? Or had she already fully settled on the plan, and was just steeling herself to execute it? If she hadn't decided yet, was it him trying to boost her morale ("chin up soldier") that made up her mind? Or was it that moment of laughter they shared about finally having a reference in common?

When was it that she knew she couldn't risk him not making it back to Earth, even though she knew he'd chosen to take that risk?

[constantvariations]

Yknow, sometimes I wonder if the anti rwde crowd knows what Doylist Analysis even is

You have so many takes about how Adam was always an abuser because of this scene, or Ironwood was always evil because of that foreshadowing, or etc etc etc, but these people fail to consider what these things mean in the broader scope of narrative and authorial intent

What does Adam being an abusive partner bring to the themes of racism and methods of resistance, if any at all? Does Ironwood’s fall from grace challenge our protagonists in any meaningful way or is it a cheap scapegoat for the writers who still have no idea what to do with Salem?

Once you start dissecting the show, it's very easy to see the methods and ideology behind its creation. That's the beauty of badly written media - its tracks are much easier to follow and trace back to the roots

And the roots of this show just happen to be ill conceived at best and downright malicious at worst. It's not personal towards the writers or characters or whatever to notice these things, it's just... how it is

[karmaphone]

Percy Jackson fans when the show takes away Sally's explicit choice to kill her explicitly physically abusive husband

[fiapple]

other early buffy bi-coding includes: both her heart & spirit being initially coded as gay/bisexual (the writers weren’t sure which till tara came into the picture, & according to a semi-recent article, of which label pretty much until willow came out) & were intended as such, as the writers always knew one of them was going to come out.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

One of the reasons I'm confident my dad will be okay (okay-ish at worst) with conversion is how he's grown in his own religion. He talks very openly about his own views, but he also explains how they are nuanced, how he doesn't ultimately know that his religion is the "one and only" but that his is meaningful and fulfills him, which is what religion ought to do at least. It's nice to know that he is his own person, and knows that I am my own.

I think conversion can be a beautiful thing if your family is interreligious. It can be so beautiful to see how we all can come together. I know this is all mushy, but it's really comforting to me when I'm feeling like conversion will separate me from the few family I have.

[guinevereslancelot]

feeling like my friends secretly hate me at it's not even 9pm

[avi17]

Deeply unpopular take that I am not tagging bc I'll get bitched at but good god I am tired of bdsm top Eddie/whiny babygirl Steve as the default for steddie fics

The bandanna is literally just a bandanna and I am begging ppl to base their characterization on the actual characters rather than on a piece of fabric and the "fanon" characterizations that have basically morphed as the result of months of fanfic telephone