#so like yeah the show had a christian character but it also had ones that very clearly were not christians

[gwydionae]

Rewatching through the old X-Men cartoon has reminded me that if Nightcrawler is onscreen for more than 30 seconds and hasn't yet jumped into a sermon, it must be an imposter.

[alpaca-clouds]

Let me talk about Mizrak

Yeah, this with all the entire Nocturne brainrot is going to continue for a couple more days at least. But the show has so many interesting themes and characters and I just love it so much. And after getting all my friends to watch the show, I got surprised by one of them being super angry about Mizrak.

Why? Well, because of the last scene with him and Olrox in the season and his words of: "You are just an animal that lost its soul centuries ago." And the friend considered that "being an asshole" and "cruel".

To which I say: Cruel? Yes. Asshole? No.

Let me explain.

First, let me make one thing clear: No, Mizrak is not a templar. I have seen that one too many times. He is not a templar. He is a monk knight of the order of St. John, so the Knights Hospitaller. Like the templars they were very much tied to the crusades originally, but they are not the same thing. There were a lot of orders and types of knights associated with the crusades. Templars were just one of them. (Do you guys wanna hear more about the templars? I can talk more about them.)

We know from bits and pieces of dialogue that Mizrak originates in Jerusalem (which is also where the order was founded). This is a gentle reminder: Israel as we know it today was not a thing back then. But Jerusalem was always a place of religious conflict as it holds importance in all three Abrahamic religions. Which was, what the crusades were all about after all. Before the time of the French Revolution, though, there was mostly some a conflict between the Ottomans and some Arab forces over Palestine. There were some Christian orders accepted within the city though.

Now, the Knights Hospitaller, who were accepted in Jerusalem, had a strong connection to France. Which... lead to problems, when some of the Arabs and the French got into problems. Which let to the Knights Hospitaller leaving for Malta. This too is referenced in the dialogue. (If you guys cannot tell: I am very happy with the amount of historical research put into this show!)

Mizrak looks to be in his early 30s. So I assume he entered the order in his mid-teens (which was a usual age to enter an order like that) and then probably left for Malta within a couple of years after that when the political situation got more charged. And then from Malta to France.

The Knights Hospitaller back then for all intent and purposes lived as militarized monks. That means they made vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. And this very much shines through with his character in so many scenes.

Of course we see that the entire "chastity" thing does not work out that well for him. But that is also why he clearly is shown to be conflicted about that entire thing. What he tries to uphold, though, is the obedience aspect of his vows. And that is, what his entire conflict is about.

See, what I love about this character is that there is all this delicious conflict.

I will iterate again: I grew up in a very, very conservative, strict, catholic household. Other kids got read fairytales for bedtime. My mother read me the bible. Priests and monks were people we intermingled with a lot. (Heck, the last pope? I met him when he was still a bishop.) And hence I got to make one very clear experience: There are three types of Catholics: Those, who focus on all the horrible things. Those, who focus on the literal stuff written in the bible. And those, who focus on the positive stuff. You know, the stuff with helping people, and being poor, and sharing, and being in general a good person. (Though the three types are not always mutually exclusive.)

And it is pretty clear that Mizrak is of the latter kind. He believes in the good he can do through his faith in God and Christ. But he has also grown up in an Order and a Church that puts a lot of focus on the idea of sin, on the idea of obedience, and the idea of the "natural order".

But there he is, with his Abbot collaborating with demons and vampires to enforce that "natural order", which among other things goes against their own vow of poverty. This is so clearly against Mizrak's believes. Because in his very core, Mizrak is a good fucking man. He is one of the good guys. Who wants to do good through his faith in God. And this conflicts for him.

So by the end of episode 7 he reached the point to go against his vow of obedience, because his faith in doing good was stronger, than his dedication to his vows. He very actively broke his vows in the eyes of his order, standing against his order, to protect those darn kids. Because it was the right thing to do. He is absolutely willing to do the noble sacrifice if that is what it takes to save those kids. And in comes that weird dude and takes this chance from him.

And his entire thing with Olrox... It seems very much that Mizrak is indeed gay. As the series so helpfully points out: Yeah, priests, monks, other clergy, and their vows of chastity were always a thing that rarely worked out. Again, as someone who grew up with close ties to the church: The fact that everyone is secretly fucking is... well known. As well as the fact that yeah, there are a lot of gay clergy. Mostly for the reason that they are shamed for their sexuality and then take the vows to not be tempted into homosexuality. Only to find that a priest school with a lot of other queer supressed men is exactly the place you do not want to be to not be tempted. (And that is all without going into all the non-con, pedophilia and what not. Things that were also already happening back then, I guarantee you.)

So, try to imagine that entire thing from Mizrak's perspective. There he is, already ashamed and suppressed about all of that and in comes this very, very seductive vampire man, who kinda seems to align with some of his values, but not with others. And who is emotionally unavailable as fuck, outright telling him that he does not love our dear Mizrak. Someone, who clearly is not for the vampires and your abbot, but also clearly not willing to take the other side. The side that you in your heart (even though it means standing against your order) know to be right. And this man, who claims to not love you, then comes in and tries to stop you from doing what is right.

Yeah, no fuck, Mizrak is a bit pissed at him. Especially as in that moment Olrox very clearly goes against Mizrak's ideals, that are all about self-sacrificially doing the right thing.

And I do think that Mizrak is right in one regard: Olrox lost his soul. He lost a part of himself. Through the trauma of colonialism, but he lost it never the less.

So, once more: Thanks the team for giving us another interesting, well-rounded religious character! CV already did so well with Isaac and Mizrak is sofar extremely promising in that regard.

[heavenlymorals]

Dutch Van Der Linde: An Outdated Progressive

(Warning: This post contains period typical attitudes such as racism and sexism as well as spoilers for RDR2. This retrospective is also pretty damn long too.)

I love Dutch Van Der Linde. Honestly, he is one of my favorite characters ever and just the whole concept of his character and the philosophy of his character as well is something that just sticks with you.

He is charming, intelligent, cultured, charismatic, a right Messiah, and a right bastard all the same time.

But the thing that I believe people most remember about Dutch Van Der Linde is his romantic image. What I mean by this is the things he stood for and the things he wanted to change.

This makes Dutch have a positive image pretty quickly from the very start. In the first scene with him, he's encouraging people, rallying them up, and giving them hope in such an awful situation. He saves Sadie from a terrible fate and asks Hosea to send someone to bury her husband. Arthur and Charles talk fondly of him. He makes it clear in the train robbery that he despises the systems that keep men rich whilst most people starve.

Whether or not Dutch was always cracked, to the characters in the game, he was a great man because of his beliefs and because of his empathy/sympathy.

But what gets me is that a lot of people in this fandom misconstrue Dutch's character into being what we see today as a progressive. I see people saying things like "Bill shouldn't be racist, he's with Dutch's gang" or "why is Micah in the gang" and other similar things as to where people get confused as to why characters with immoral belief systems are respected and active heavy hitters in the gang.

This isn't saying that Dutch isn't progressive because he IS. For his time period, he was VERY progressive.

However, before I get into that, I want to establish some context in terms of the time period that we are talking about.

Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He once had dinner with African American leader Booker T. Washington. This one singular act of simply eating with one another as a white man and black man was so scandalous that it became an outrage to many politicians that the PRESIDENT, the literal face of America, was having dinner with a black American leader.

Teddy later put out this response: “The only wise and honorable and Christian thing to do is to treat each Black man and each white man strictly on his merits as a man, giving him no more and no less than he shows himself worthy to have."

A lot of people would take this event and try to say that Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive equivalent to our time when that is simply not true. Roosevelt was racist to many groups in his personal writings and he believed in the racial hierarchy, even though he had respect for any self made man.

Was Roosevelt a progressive? Yes. For his time, he was a progressive. He was pro union, anti monopoly, and created many government departments like the FDA. He also believed in the merits of a man. But the thing about historical progressives is that their standard of progression doesn't fit in with our criteria anymore.

Dutch is the same. Is he a progressive? Yeah, of course he is. But is he a true progressive in our standards? No. Not really.

This is why the gang allows racist gang members. That is also why the only repercussion to such racism is if the victim of it is willing to dish something out like Charles slamming Micah on the ground or Javier pulling a knife on Bill. It is also why the gang is pretty traditional and rigid in their gender roles. It's also why queer people (ie. Bill) are casually mocked within the gang too.

Another thing too- Dutch is a romantic. People misconstrue that with being a progressive when that really isn't the case. Romantacism is a philosophy that was a rejection of the realism of the Enlightment. It focused on Idealism. The thing with Romantacism, though, is that it was a super white-washed philosophy. It was made to mould into white cultures and belief systems specifically for white men. Dutch could say all men are equal and he may believe that, but it's clear that he doesn't see equality in the same way that we see equality today.

What I mean by this is that any man is equal but if told otherwise, that man is the one who has to prove them wrong. It's his business and he should be the one to deal with it. That's why other gang members don't back up Charles or Javier if they find themselves in a situation with another gang member who is racist. It's their responsibility to deal with their own beefs. It wouldn't be like today where we all publically shun racism.

Remember when Dutch, Arthur, and Micah come back from Sadie's cabin? Micah says something about not wanting to share a room with Bill and POC, to which Dutch can hear and doesn't say anything and Hosea only says "Get yourself to bed" instead of calling Micah on what he said. Same goes for Arthur too. He may condemn and do something about violent racism, like how when he helps the doctor in Rhodes get his wagon back, but he doesn't really say anything when Micah or Bill say racist things to Charles, Javier, or Lenny. That's their business, so to speak, and they should be the ones handling it.

Also note the poc's characters relationship with Dutch. Javier likes Dutch because of the revolutionary ideals that he believes in. Charles likes Dutch because he treats him fair. Lenny likes Dutch because Dutch is far more progressive than other white men, but he also calls out Dutch's romantic philosophy because it doesn't really include POC or their struggles. Dutch sympathizes with their struggles, but he cannot emphasize, which is the problem with his romantic philosophy. It's a culture that is a house to white people, but POC are only guests in it in terms of its European and American tradition. Yes, Dutch hates what the Europeans did to the natives, but given the context beforehand and the things he says, he hates less the violence and more the upheaval of the lifestyle that he wants, which is one that is connected to nature and earth. I also find it interesting how the only person Dutch kinda defends from racism is Lenny, the same boy who calls him out for reading too much into Miller and not into reality. It could very much be Dutch unconsciously trying to prove Lenny wrong.

And the thing with Dutch is that he isn't squeaky clean when it comes to racism either. He's racist too, but he's racist to groups that we don't see as marginalized anymore and this goes for Hosea as well. The biggest example of this is with Italians, who weren't considered white at the time, same with the Irish.

We have this conversation between him and Hosea:

"Have you ever met an Italian strongman before?"

"Not outside the circus."

I shouldn't have to explain that.

And there is also when Bronte set them up.

"That greasy son of a bitch, he set us up!"

It doesn't sound strange at first but context matters a lot. Though 'greaser' is a slur that we see thrown at Javier for being a Mexican multiple times in the gang, that slur was also used against Italians. So Dutch saying that is him still purposing that slur but in a different way.

Another thing that I noticed is that whenever Dutch wants to speak with someone who isn't white or wasn't deemed white at the time, he would dumb down or slow down his speech first before the person he's speaking to shows that they know English, in which then he talks normally. He doesn't automatically consider that hey, these are people who are intelligent and understand English.

Here are two examples:

This is Dutch to Bronte.

"Why do you take his son?"

"Excuse me?"

"I said why DID you take his son."

He fixes the way he talks as soon as he realizes that Bronte speaks english.

And then to Eagle Flies.

"How do you DO?" (In the game, he slows down his speech and emphasizes the do.)

"Not well, sir."

"I can see that."

This is such a subtle detail but it shows that even subconsciously, Dutch isn't as admirable as we sometimes like to make him out to be in terms of OUR time period and that we shouldn't be surprised when other gang members or Dutch himself do or say things that aren't cool.

And of course, there is the sexism of the gang and that Dutch is shown to be sexist multiple times in the game.

"There are two theories about arguing with women and neither of them work."

"Good Lord, a few more like her and we can take over the whole world." (This was a sarcastic dig at Sadie)

And given the rigidness of the gender roles in camp and that the girls are barely in any missions and are mostly just doing house work, Dutch supports this system because just like how political Romantacism wasn't really for POC, it wasn't really for women either.

He can also be religiously prejudiced as well, though this shows up only once in the game. When you get into Saint Denis, Dutch says this:

"Here we are in this strange land of Papists and rapists."

Papists is another word for Catholic and given how he connects them with rapists, it makes it quite clear that he doesn't like them all that much, which makes sense given that Dutch is some form of Protestant and the general disgust regarding Catholics at the time. There is also the fact that a lot of reasons why Italians, Irish, and Hispanic people dealt with discrimination is because of the Catholic background in many of their cultures.

Again, it's a small detail, but when you look at the time period he says that in, it opens up many doors to many other social issues that were there at the time and how Dutch, despite being better than many, is also still a man of his time and this idea that the gang is this beacon of prosperity and progression is generally overemphasized to something that it is not.

Again, I love Dutch's character and he was a progressive but it isn't surprising to see these negative equalities come out from him and from the gang as an extension. They all have their flaws, even if those flaws are especially jarring at points.

Historical people almost always have historical attitudes, guys. It's just the unfortunate truth.

In any case, this is already way too damn long and I hate proof reading so bye 😃

[ckret2]

I know that making things not only canon-compliant but canon-plausible is basically your hobby, and you tend to enjoy taking every little detail no matter how inane and incorporating it into the greater lore of your work. Have you ever had a moment where you were trying to find a logical explanation for something, realized that it was EXTREMELY STUPID, and now you just avoid writing things that will make it come up?

I think most fan writers have one piece of canon where they're like "Yeah, no, that was a bad decision, I'm just replacing [unbelievable event/racist character portrayal/blatant disregard for how mental health works in reality/etc] with [piece of fanon that makes it work better]."

Usually, even when there's an obvious author mistake, you still have a cool canon-compliant thing to do with it. Curious if there's any exceptions.

yeah, there's a few things.

Evidence implies that Ford fell in the portal in 1983. Evidence implies that the show takes place during 2012, but maaaybe 2013? The show says he fell in the portal "thirty years ago." He was probably intended to fall in the portal in 1982 but that doesn't line up with some of the dates (particularly, song release dates). Also, exactly how long did he know Bill between meeting him and getting portaled? And exactly how long was the paranoia era? My solution: the show takes place in 2012, Ford got portaled in *mumble mumble*, it's been """thirty""" years since he fell in the portal, we're NOT gonna worry about it, and maybe the Eurythmics released their albums a year earlier in the Gravity Falls universe did you ever think of that? Huh?? But at any rate I just try to quietly glide over the little timeline issues without addressing them.

Anything Bill says that would validate a real world conspiracy theory is a lie; but, much more likely, I'm just never gonna talk about it so we can ignore it completely, especially if the conspiracy theory is antisemitic or racist. "A cabal of global elites secretly rules the world and has a really cool break room"? Bill's lying; but also, we're NOT gonna talk about that, just chucking it out the window completely. "Bill helped fake the moon landing"? We can crack jokes about that one but only to establish that Bill was lying. "The Egyptians made the pyramids look like Bill"? We're NOT gonna claim the Egyptians made the PYRAMIDS for Bill, at most they might have redecorated them; but we're probably not gonna talk about them redecorating the pyramids anyway; and we're gonna crack jokes about how stupid Ancient Aliens style idiocy is; and maybe we're just gonna minimize talking about Bill's relationship with Egypt entirely.

(A side note: one thing i REALLY appreciated from TBOB is that it clearly established that they did not build the pyramids for Bill, just temporarily redecorated them; they did not worship Bill, they thought he was a pest; and the book went out of its way to have Bill say anyone who claims aliens helped with the pyramids is a con artist. It didn't have to do that! But it really improved things a LOT.)

Anything not mentioned by Bill that alludes to iffy real world conspiracy theories, we're just not gonna talk about. "America is secretly ruled by someone other than the president and nobody knows," not gonna talk about that, I don't care that it's Santa. "Dapperly-dressed reptilian aliens," not gonna talk about that, I don't care that they were here to go dog sledding. "Mt. Rushmore is secretly a bunch of robots built to defend America from a future threat," NEVER gonna talk about that, Mt. Rushmore is a carving made by a racist on stolen land sacred to several Native American peoples, it does not deserve to be made cool.

and speaking of Santa: I don't care for Jewish characters getting shoved into Christmas stories, especially if they're "wow, it turns out the Christians were right about the existence of this folkloric figure associated with one of their most important holy days" Christmas stories, so there's a high chance I'm just never gonna mention the Krampus plot lmao. If I do, it'll only be because I need to acknowledge the relationship building Ford & Fidds got. (Or to acknowledge Ford's rage at being commanded to conform to holiday expectations, which is REALLY funny and he's completely right.)

Those are the things off the top of my head.

[averytirednerd]

Oh yeah, time for a big rant about Hazbin Hotel!!!

I haven’t really had much of a chance to sit down and write about this since I watched the episodes, so things I say are probably going to reflect what others have said. I’m just writing this to gush about the things I love about some particular songs in HH. 

I didn’t have any big expectations going into the first episode, because I’d mostly heard negative reviews of the show so far. I had heard that the songs, however, were bright spots, so I really looked out for the songs and listened in every time we were graced with one. The characters are truly the best versions of themselves whenever there’s a song going on, even if they aren’t the main focus of the song. It’s amazing to see, especially since my favorite thing about this show is the characters themselves.

My favorites are “Loser, Baby” & “Stayed Gone” and will probably be the main focus of this post because <3333

“Stayed Gone” is sung by Christian Borle (Vox) and Amir Talai (Alastor) and I could not be happier about it. Their voices are amazing here, and my favorite bits of this song are on repeat in my head.

I also love little visuals like the mug Vox has in the talk show format, the scrolling text in the news show format, or Vox’s error message toward the end of their bantering. 

(The scrolling text says: “I’m totally not worried about this guy and neither should you be. I totally wrecked his sh*t last time he tried me.”)

Alastor really gets under Vox’s skin and it makes me kick my feet every time. Their dynamic truly is everything, and I’m so excited we got this song that showcases it perfectly. 

He clearly enjoys it too, what a little jerk.

Speaking of these two, Vox definitely had/has a thing for Al at some point, right? I mean…inviting him to the Vees for a start. Not to mention just the v i b e s. Poor guy though, it’s definitely one-sided.

I love Al’s use of…modern…lingo. Truly a spectacle. That on top of it being a reveal of Al’s rejection to Vox’s offer 💀 I love this man <333

Last thing about this song, promise, but also I love the casual little lore drops and more pieces to the puzzle of the past that we get. Very exciting! Can’t wait to see how everything fits together once we find more pieces.

Okay okay, moving on. “Loser, Baby” is amazing musically as well as visually. 

First things first, I LOVE JAZZ OMG AND IT FITS HUSK’S VIBE AND EVERYTHING SO PERFECTLY???

Keith David’s voice definitely fits Husk in my eyes now, I see it, it works. He’s amazing. Does a fantastic job.

Not to mention Blake Roman’s performance was, of course, incredible as well. 

The big, upbeat, brassy sound in this song is amazing and I’m loving the trumpet in it especially (any fellow trumpet players? no?)

I love everything about this song. The visuals, voices, instrumentals, lyrics, message, all of it!

Husk slowly going from “yeah you kinda suck lmao, but so do I” in order to not make Angel feel like he’s not being genuine, to sneaking in a better message of “we’re not perfect but it’s okay, don’t be so hard on yourself” (and getting Angel to believe/go along with it too!!) is amazing. It’s a perfect example of these characters being the best versions of themselves during musical numbers. 

This song is what solidified Husk as number 2 in my rankings (and I’m sure I’m not the only one). I mean…just look at the way he moves, it’s so silly.

(We’re going to ignore the Videoshop watermarks, okay?)

Overall, I’m loving this show so far despite some obvious issues with pacing n such and an overall rocky start. Especially loving the songs, which I think kinda make the show rn. 

If anyone wants to add anything (because I definitely didn’t cover a whole lot, just surface level stuff because even this took a while to type out) then please feel free to! Also ask me any questions you’ve got for me concerning stuff that has/will happen(ed) in Hazbin Hotel. I love HH discourse!

Thanks to those of you who read all the way through, sorry for such a long post lol <3

[showtoonzfan]

Okay so I saw S1E2 of HH “Video killed the radio Star” so here’s my thoughts on that, ⚠️SPOILERS⚠️

- So once again, the pacing is all over the place. In the span of 2 episodes we have to deal with introducing Adam and Lute, the main characters of the hotel, the three V’s and Sir Pen, and I don’t like how the three V’s are introduced in the second episode of season 1. Like…can we just let the characters we know breathe and get to know them before you introduce new ones?? Told you this was going to be like Helluva lol.

- So hell is freaking out that the extermination got moved to 6 months later, but Charlie of course isn’t the focus of this episode. It’s mainly the three V’s + Angel/Al/Sir Pen. It still bothers me that the reason behind redeeming sinners is not because Charlie is sick of Hell being a damnation but because she doesn’t want them to be exterminated. It’s such a drastic change from the pilot and the character motivation that it still throws me off sorry.

- So, I actually like Vox. I take back bitching about Christian Borle playing him because while his suave voice may not fit the twink design, he does a fantastic job either way as expected, making Vox an intimidating person. I had thought before that Vox was going to just be this dumb henchman, but I actually like how he’s the runner of things. He’d be so cool if he didn’t curse and talk like every other character in the show though.

- Good GOD Valentino. I already shared how I felt about him when the dialogue leaks came out, but I HATE how his character is just this idiot man baby who throws temper tantrums and legit needs to be “calmed down” by Vox because he’s such an idiot. Like…Velvette calls him a piss baby and Vox legit had to talk to him as if he was one, that’s how dumb this guy is. There’s a scene where Vox asks what they should do about the hotel and Val says “just put something inside, that’s how I get the bitches”- like…kill me. The fan interpretations were better. He was actually someone you didn’t want to mess with and had an intimidating voice, here he’s a whiny baby that you have to remind yourself is the same guy who forces himself on Angel. The Addict and comic version of this character is not the same as the one we have now. His voice is too high pitch, it sucks and his accent goes on and off constantly. Viv can’t write abusers for shit, she sees everything as a joke. Again, how are we supposed to take abuse seriously if this is how you portray your abuser. Crimson is more intimidating than this joke of a cockroach.

- Alastor has been gone for seven years, yeah that “Lilith is Rosie and Al is working for her”- allegation is 100% true like it perfectly lines up together since Lilith has also been gone for seven years. Only for Alastor, it makes no sense. Like…wdym he’s been gone for seven years. The pilot is canon and they state he’s been at the hotel for a week. Alastor was literally walking around town when Charlie was on the news. Do they mean that it’s been years since he’s done his radio show? Viv, when you retcon shit you need to specify. You’re just confusing everyone again.

- They need to explain why exactly it’s dangerous to make a deal with Alastor because all this vagueness isn’t helping the story. The whole reason Vox sends Sir Pen out to be a spy was to make sure Charlie didn’t make a deal with him, yet you literally have Vaggie making a deal with him like it was nothing in the last episode. I also fail to see why exactly Vox cares about Charlie making a deal with Alastor in the first place. Is it because he doesn’t want Al to have more power? Is it because he doesn’t want Charlie to have power? EXPLAIN.

- Yay more retconning and woobifying. So Angel Dust is a whiny wimpy bitch in this episode, he’s very out of character. When Sir Pen comes to the hotel, he’s extra pressed about that, when in the pilot he couldn’t even take Sir Pen seriously and was acting nonchalant towards him. Then when Charlie starts getting all giddy and complimenting Pen, Angel gets sad and jealous??? This is the second fucking episode of season 1. I thought the whole point about Angel and the hotel was that he didn’t trust Charlie nor take the redemption stuff seriously. Now apparently he wants her approval? And then when he finds Pen out, Pen insults him and that causes Angel to just fucking lunge at him and start punching. When did Angel get this goddamn sensitive. Why did the wimpy snake character who’s supposed to be a loser get under his skin THAT much? It’s even more jarring because the last episode Angel was literally saying he loves being exploited and in the pilot he’s presented as someone who could give less of a shit of what other people think, now a simple jab at him being a slut made him go off. Remember when Travis called him a slut in the pilot and Angel just laughed it off? What happened to that Angel lol.

- Vaggie has a line that flat out calls Angel a sexual harasser. And yet we’re supposed to feel bad for him and root for HuskerDust. Makes perfect sense Viv, fuck you. She has no idea what sexual harassment even is because she sees actual harassment as quirky funny jokes and paints it as genuine love. Pick a side. Is Angel an asshole who sexually harasses people or is he an uwu baby who deserves to be with Husk. Clearly Viv chose the second option.

- I liked Vox and Al’s song, tho I wish it was more singing instead of talking. Charlie’s song in the end was boring but at least it was short. I still don’t know how to feel about Pen being at the hotel tho. Like I get he’s a loser and not a big threat but him happily joining the hotel now is way too structurally fast. There’s a lot of things that feel like Viv changed at the last minute compared to the pilot and it shows. Pilot was better.

That’s it, not looking forward to the third one which is HuskerDust focused (female centric show my ass)

[deanbrainrotwritings]

—  when broken is easily fixed

SUMMARY : priestly broke up with tish (yes!) uh, i mean… you watch him be pathetic and sad with his big wet green eyes.

PAIRING : boaz priestly x fem!reader (implied Latina)

CHARACTERS : tish (mentioned)

WARNINGS/TAGS : jealousy, breakups, fluff, tiny angst, innuendos, obliviousness x2

WORD COUNT : 2.7k

A/N : SURPRISE YALL, I’m back, heheheh. title from silverstein’s song. this fills the square “I’m having what you’d call a rough day” on my @jacklesversebingo card. lmao, this was nice to jump back into writing. I secretly like teaching y’all physics. 

You remember the day Priestly showed up at the market in a disappointingly normal state. 

No piercings, no colourful hair, no beard, no eyeliner. Just plain old California clothes, nearly looking Christian with his neat hair, and composed manners.

The only things that reassured you that Priestly was still Priestly after all, were the tattoos that peeked from outside the collar of a white dress shirt and the tiny holes in his skin where his piercings once belonged.

It was confusing at first, but he looked happy. Brighter.

You thought his parents were in town. Or that he became religious after all. Or that he joined a cult. 

You teased him at first. He’d just give you this dreamy look and never said anything to ease your curiosity about his current state. He’d be out the door in a hurry, with a tiny bit of that Priestly swagger that told you he was definitely not brainwashed by a cult.

But the reason for the sudden change in him soon became clear. 

One day, he walked into the store to buy groceries and other necessities with Tish. Hand in hand, the two of them. All giggles and shoves and smiles. The honeymoon phase. She’d kiss him on his cheeks, take his chin in her hand and press herself against him in an unnecessary manner to tell him something, and he’d look stupid, like he couldn’t believe she was there giving him affection. 

Your stomach dropped at the sight of them. 

You’d never felt the way you did before. 

Yeah, there was a cringey-ness and aversion you always had  for PDA and romance that you’d noticed in yourself for years, but it never bothered you like it did now. From watching Priestly and Tish be a couple.

But it also didn’t take you long to realise why it bothered you so much more. Why it was so much harder to ignore than if it were any other couple doing it. Why you felt rejected became clear.

You had feelings for Priestly.

What a dumb way to find that out. 

Excuse the fuck out of yourself if you were too focused on your university courses and your job and your future and your personal life… to realise that you really actually liked him. Romantically.

You weren’t going to lie to yourself and pretend that you didn’t care at all when you were alone. You weren’t  going to lie to yourself about the sting you felt. Or push away the feelings of jealousy and push down how upset you were and the other, million emotions you felt as you watched them go about their lives as a couple for months. 

You never wanted to quit more badly than you did then, just to avoid having to see them get closer, clingier, more affectionate, serious. But it was the only way you could afford living in your dorm, to have enough to pay your classes, and afford your supplies and books... 

You sucked it up and pretended that nothing was wrong. Like you didn’t even care about him. Like you never did. 

It never really got easier, the only thing that became easy was pretending. 

You blamed yourself for waiting too long. That’s what haunted you. If you’d just been braver. If you’d been more honest with yourself and him. If you’d had the courage to say what you felt. If… if…

It was torture.

The high California-in-the-summertime temperatures made you think that you were in Hell, but time passed and you accepted that your chance with him had passed. You told yourself to move on and be happy. For the most part, as long as you ignored them, it was easy to be happy again, to live your life and do whatever your wildest friend was doing to enjoy her summer. 

But that happiness you’d seen in Priestly was gone by the time the fall semester came around. It took six long, horrible months for that happiness in him to fade away. 

It didn’t last. Just like the spring and the summer.

Until one day you didn’t see her with him. And the next day he was alone again. And the next week; alone. And the week after that, too. 

No Tish. 

Just mopey, wet-eyed Priestley. 

His stubble grew, his eyeliner returned—slightly smeared from tears. 

No more Banana Republic, Tommy Hillfigure, or Calvin Klein. Just those ridiculous shirts that always made you smile.

He entered the store today again after a week. 

The shop's bell rang and you looked up out of habit, and watched him with his gorgeous green eyes cast downward to the slightly dusty floor you were trying to sweep. God, you’d guess it was more of a depressing, someone’s-dead type of chime than a merry one—from the state of him.

His hair was a mess and slightly longer, it was not brushed or styled neatly. Like he woke up from a nap after breakfast and decided to go to the store because he remembered something he forgot before his nap. 

You felt bad… at first. 

His cheeks were pink and his eyes were red-rimmed and glassy from tears. He had darkened bags under his eyes. But as he moped around and you avoided being noticed by him out of awkwardness, you caught a glimpse of his shirt, which amused you: Hang in there, it gets worse, with a little thumbs up, too. 

He came completely in black, too. 

It was unavoidably funny. But you stifled your snort as you continued to sweep quietly, until eventually, you got lost in thought again. Your head filled with your to-do list before entering your final semester. 

But you eventually found yourself in the same aisle as him. You swept the trash up into the dustpan as you watched him try to hold bread, bananas, napkins, and toilet paper in one arm while trying to take out a gallon of milk from the fridge.

You saw what would happen from a mile away and quickly released the broom and left the dustpan where it was to help him. Before you could actually get to him, the napkins toppled out of his hold and he mistakenly released the milk to grab it which caused the gallon to burst open when it fell to the floor like a ripe melon in the sun. 

You gasped when the milk splattered on you, but you didn’t actually mind at all. Priestly, on the other hand, sighed heavily again, completely giving up. 

He finally looked at you when you reached for the napkins he dropped and you smiled warily at him, hoping it appeared more reassuring than pitiful. You handed him the napkins and he murmured an apology, taking them from you. 

“They say when you drop your food, it's because someone craved it,” you tried to make light of the situation but he didn’t even notice. He gently placed everything down on top of the shelf behind him with a deep sigh.

“I’m so sorry,” he frowned at the large white puddle, “I’m having what you’d call a rough day.” You huffed a soft laugh which made him raise a brow at you. 

“Day? You’ve been mopey and pathetic for weeks,” you teased playfully, but he remained quiet. You figured you’d offended him or hurt his feelings because he sniffled and looked down at his hands. 

Your face softened.

“I’ll pay for that.” He pointed to the spilt milk and broken gallon.

“It’s fine,” you reassured him. “Let me clean this up. I’ll help you when I finish.” You turned around to pick up some napkins you kept behind the counter and he made a sound of protest. 

He followed you, you heard him walking behind you quickly. “I made this mess. I should clean it. Besides, it’s almost your lunch break,” he tried to stop you. You laughed softly and shook your head as you laid yourself over the counter to grab the napkins from underneath the counter, your feet dangled embarrassingly above the floor.

“Hey, it’s no trouble,” you dismissed, smiling triumphantly to yourself when you got up with the napkins. “Go be a customer and bring your stuff… take two trips this time. There’s no one else here.” You snatched the napkins away from him when he tried to take them from you. 

He smiled a little. 

It made you smile more earnestly. 

“Okay… Fine…” he gave in hesitantly and followed you as you walked towards the mess he made. He picked up the stuff he left on the shelf and watched you squat down and lay some napkins over the puddle. The paper soaked the milk up and he slowly walked to the counter then returned as you finished up. 

He stood there awkwardly at first. Still just watching you clean up and then you got up and smiled at him sweetly. He smiled back at you gently and your heart sped up the way it always did when he looked at you. Your stomach clenched happily, but you frowned and quickly stepped away from him to throw the wet paper towels away along with the gallon that had contained the milk. 

“I’m really sorry,” he apologised again when you returned. 

“Priestly, it’s fine, accidents happen,” you chuckled to convince him and eyed the new gallon of milk. “You ready?” You wiped your hands on your jeans despite still feeling icky. 

“Yeah,” he answered quietly, then looked around at the unusually empty store. “You want me to finish sweeping for you? Or maybe… Do you wanna wash your hands? You look uncomfortable. I can wait,” he rambled.

You laughed at him, this was all too much for you so “early” in the morning. He instantly shut up and became flustered. His free hand flew up to the back of his neck and he laughed awkwardly. 

“Well, if it matters so much to you, put the Closed sign on while I throw the stuff in the dustpan away and wash my hands. I’ll meet you at the counter in five.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said automatically. 

You rolled your eyes at the name, but walked away wordlessly to finish up. You actually were pretty hungry.

When you returned, Preistly had his hands in his trouser’s pockets, he was chewing on his lip, and his cheeks were red from embarrassment. 

“What’s that thing you said earlier about dropping food?” He asked, trying to alleviate the thick tension that hung in the air around the two of you. You smiled as you scanned the items he needed. 

“Oh, nothing,” you shrugged, “just a saying.” 

He was quiet for a moment and then you looked up at him. He was already looking at you and your face instantly started to get warm again. You looked away as casually as you could to finish scanning the remaining items and neatly placing them inside a plastic bag. 

“It was funny.”

“Ha, I guess…” you shrugged awkwardly and told him the price of his groceries. 

“Right…” he took out random, balled up dollar bills from his back pocket despite having a wallet with enough space. You smiled curiously and took the money from him. 

God, hurry and leave, you prayed internally as you placed his money in the cash register and took out his change. You dropped three quarters and a nickel into his hand when you began hearing the soft sound of rain hitting the windows and the concrete outside, and the delightful aroma of petrichor sneaking through the vents into the store.

“Fuck,” Priestly muttered, his fingertips grazed your palm and your body lit up like the second the temperature of the universe hit one billion Kelvin after the Big Bang, finally allowing neutrons and protons to form atomic nuclei as they hit and stuck to each other. “The worst day ever.”

You snapped out of your daze, disappointed, but not surprised at his obliviousness. 

“I could give you a ride,” you offered with a shrug, taking your bag from inside the bottom drawer as he took his bag of groceries.

“I keep wasting your time…” he trailed off, but he did not decline your offer. 

“That’s fine. Where do you live?” You made your way around the counter and walked past him to stand at the door and watch the rain slowly come heavier.

“You’re a stranger,” he joked, and you turned to roll your eyes at him. “What? You could secretly be a Mankiller.” You opened the door with a sarcastic laugh and squirmed as rain hit your face.

“Please, look at me,” you scoffed playfully, locking the door to the store once Priestly stepped outside with you. 

“I am,” he said gently. 

You looked up at him with your brows knitted in confusion. “Whatever. My car’s over here,” you brushed him off and quickly led him to your car.

You both sighed once you were safely inside the freshly cleaned car. He laughed to himself as he looked around inquisitively, but you didn't question him. You turned your car on instead to pull out of the driveway and asked him again where he lived as a Britney Spears song played on the radio. This time he finally answered your question seriously.

The conversation was light and you kept asking him about the sandwich shop he worked at and about his friends to avoid talking about yourself or his break up. It was basically small talk, bleh. The conversation was superficial because you didn’t want to get close to him, not now, not when he was freshly broken up and still clearly hurting. 

He ran his hand through his hair once you parked outside his house, somehow he managed to make it look tame. He looked at the time and you waited patiently for him to get out so you could leg it and cry to your friend over the phone about how you were so not over him. 

“Stay,” he proposed suddenly when he unbuckled his seatbelt. “I can make you a sandwich, I’m really good at that.” You shook your head at first and racked your brain for some excuse to get away. “Whatever you want, I’ll make it for you, I’ve even got some soda in the fridge. Please, I feel really bad.” You chuckled softly at him and the pleading eyes he gave you. They looked much wider and greener. 

“Fine,” you gave in, “I’m really hungry, so… I guess I could stay for a bit.” He lit up slightly and started to get out of the car before you managed to turn it off. But you caught up with him as he kicked the welcome mat to the side to retrieve his house’s key. 

“You want a sub?” He asked, you bit your tongue to stop yourself from making a joke out of that and nodded as you entered his messy house. Oh well, he’s been going through a breakup. 

“Oh, God, I forgot it’s a mess,” he apologised when he looked at the star of everything around him. “Close your eyes, pretend you don’t see it,” he pleaded jokingly. 

“As long as I don’t step in something squishy, we’re all good,” you reassured him with a small laugh. You followed him to the kitchen and figured he must be going through the not-eating breakup rather than the eating-my-feelings breakup.

“How big do you want it?” He asked you, setting the bag down on the counter and going to wash his hands.

“How much do you think I can take?” You asked before you could actually filter it out of your mind. He quickly looked at you, amused and intrigued while he dried his hands with a clean towel from inside his cabinet. “Kidding, how big is it?” He laughed loudly at your question which made you get more flustered, but he still gave you a measurement with his hands. “Half of that,” you tried to ignore his face and sat down before your knees gave out from embarrassment. 

“If you can only take half of that, I don’t think you could handle me.” 

Your mouth fell open. You were sure you stopped breathing for a few moments when your heart stuttered and your stomach lurched at the thought.  

This time, you blinked at him in surprise, but your eyes stayed wide, and you felt yourself turn hotter before you both bursted out laughing. 

@spnfamily-j2 @deansbbyx @lanassmarty @candy-coated-misery0731 @jessllianaquilesrolonworld @murdockscumsock @the-achievementhunter @lyarr24 @rominaszh @zepskies @lickmybawls @jackles010378 @winchstrdean @deanwinchestersgirl87 @k-slla @mrlonelycat @taylortotsworld @ohnosy @angelbabyyy99 @impala1967rollingthroughtown @iwishiwasntreal @pasteldecrack @blackcherrywhiskey @dayhsdreaming @xshortputax @imsapphine @il0vebeingdelulu @gravesphillip @illicithallways @saturnsooya

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© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO DEANBRAINROTWRITINGS 

do not steal, plagiarise, translate, or republish my work on another platform

[poggersbathwater]

vivziepop: this show is about criticising Christianity"

proceeds to: woobify sinners and make them overlords as a reward,for some reason all or most sinners (cannibals, rapists,murderers....etc) are queer,villainized Adam the first human (had nothing to do with Christianity at the time he got created and it's not his fault that god made him for a woman and just wanted peaceful life with her) who lost two women because of lucifer,made lucifer the good innocent guy (let's ignore that he is the main reason why humanity is suffering), "7 DEADLY SINS ARE GOOD FOR YOU ACTUALLY! LUST IS ABOUT CONSENT AND GLUTTONY ARE ABOUT SELF CONTROL,EXCEPT FOR GREED CAUSE THERE'S NO SUCH A THING AS A GOOD GREED CAUSE FUCK RICH!....btw please buy my Valentino cups! (I Wonder why 7 sins are deadly in a first place if they're caring and healthy according to viv)" "Wait.....are you telling me that stolas is a wise high ranking demon who give knowledge to those who summon him? Nonsense! Stolas is a horny softie who needs his imp slave to protect him! Screw accuracy! And you know what? I am making the rest of ars goetia and turn them into birds and had nothing to do with their demonology because I just need to use their names to make more characters"

(Yeah sorry about stolas accuracy part,it's just that I am tired of "not everything should be accurate" argument,that's like making thoth a Egyptian god of wisdom into a weak softie hypocrite character who is obsessed with sex and have nothing to do with his wisdom and knowledge,actually there's a lot of interesting things about thoth that makes him respected amongst gods and if viv wrote him he would be nothing but a joke character that have no personality outside of sex and victimhood mentally)

Alright lightning round here

Woobifying (idk what that means but i imagine it means glorification) sinners: I think the overlords are there to run businesses and industries in Hell, not to reward them exactly- but I do see the point you're making. The worse they are, the more power they have, which doesn't look too good for Hell's case.

Having most of the sinners be queer: Yeah I.. also get this one. It's weird how no fascists or.. well, generally bigoted people are there, but all the characters that ARE there happen to be queer. And I'm not saying queer people can't be bad, they can, but when there's more queer people than bigots in a place that's supposed to have the bad people... yeahhhhh no

Villainizing Adam: Yeah I hate how they turn Adam into a righteous douche- though it could make sense, since he did eat the fruit too (it probably changed his behavior a lot), turning him into a righteous douche who's bitter he lost his wife was.. kinda messed up.

The characterization of the sins: YEAH ACTUALLY THIS ONE SUCKS !! The whole point of Gluttony is that you just keep indulging without a care- the whole point of lust is that it's forced and it hurts people- if it wasn't about force, it'd be called love. Because consent is love. Force and betrayal (cheating/infidelity) is lust. The sins being characterized as good people takes away from why they are sins.

Stolas: Okay I don't know much about demon stuff, so I'll leave that alone (the ars goetia isn't talked about in Christianity so that's why I can't answer it), but I will say that stolas being the victim all the time is fucking ass. Yes, stolas has been forced into an arranged marriage. That sucks, it does. But that doesn't excuse any of his actions towards Blitzo, or his emotional unavailability towards Via.

I've never gotten this many asks Holy shit

[ceruleanwhore]

I know it's been a minute since Hazbin dropped and I'm late to the hate train but I have things I want to say, so I shall.

First off, the whole thing makes absolutely no fucking sense, conceptually. There is really no good way to execute this batshit idea of Lucifer having a daughter and that daughter deciding to start a fucking hotel in Hell to redeem sinners so they can go to Heaven. Also, the culling shit with the angels showing up to just kill already dead souls for no reason also makes no sense and there really isn't any way to make it make sense.

Secondly, when making yet another piece of media inspired by Christian canon, even if it is Christianity and you hate the religion, you absolutely have to know the source material before you go fucking with it. That's why, for example, Dogma is such a good movie but this series falls flat even though both are comedic critiques of Christianity - Dogma understands the subject well enough to criticize it intelligently whereas Hazbin feels like it was conceptualized and made by someone who only watched like two episodes of Veggie Tales and otherwise knows jack shit about the religion. Throwing Lilith in there is worse because she isn't even in Christianity and it has the same vibes as when CCD classes host a Passover Seder by and for a bunch of gentiles to 'teach' about what Jesus was up to when he was around. It's just so disrespectful. Actually, that's what it is - the creators learned everything they know about Christianity, Heaven, and Hell from Tumblr posts which is definitely why she's in there.

If they knew more about the thing they're trying to make a whole ass show about, Adam and Eve wouldn't have been angels, there would be no hotel because you could just have the creation of Purgatory instead or, at the very least, some take on the harrowing of Hell and salvation of the virtuous pagans in Limbo. Also, even if you don't want to touch the Bible because it's icky (and I mean yeah), all you had to do was read like Dante's Inferno and peep the Ars Goetia and then actually make a structured Hell with a hierarchy and everything. I think kinda like what Rachel Smythe did with the worldbuilding in Lore Olympus, they wanted to modernize Hell for some reason, so the turf war/mafia type shit was supposed to replace a stronger hierarchy of Hell with princes and dukes and presidents and such, but I fucking hate it and there's no goddamn structure.

More importantly, the worldbuilding of Hell itself completely misses the fucking point of Hell as a thing. Hell is there both to contain Satan and the fallen angels who joined him in that uprising thing that one time and also to serve as a place where sinners go when they die and are punished for their sins. We never see even once any sort of actual system for sorting all these souls and punishing them for their sins. On the contrary, characters like Angel Dust appear to get to do drugs for the rest of their immortal lives and, since they're dead, it's not like those are going to kill them so it really doesn't read like a punishment. The closest we get to actual punishments are when the sinners/demons have gone and made deals that give other residents of Hell control over them, like how Husk is under Alastor's control and then Alastor apparently also has some kind of deal screwing him over, and Angel's situation with shitty boa dude is pretty similar too. It feels like they did the extermination shit to replace punishment in Hell along with these deals we see here and there, which is utterly fucking ridiculous and makes absolutely no sense.

The other thing I'd add kind of going off that is that Heaven in this series also makes literally no fucking sense. It's actually also the biggest issue I have with Good Omens that it makes NO SENSE for the angels to have no clue what God's plan is or, in this case, how souls even get into Heaven. The whole fucking point is that there's an entire, nicely structured hierarchy for exactly this. Seraphim, cherubim, and thrones are all closest to God, so they can get the info from Them and pass it to the lower ranks. Hell, this could even be how you get problems, like you make it a bit of a gimmick that Heaven runs on a massive game of telephone. It also could've been a way to have some really cool variety in character design, so maybe some of the higher ranking angels look like the weird biblical shit with all the eyes and fire and they get progressively more normal as you go down the hierarchy. Instead, they picked like three recognizable names, made them into pretty people with wings and potentially also stupid Homestuck looking masks, and threw them in our face while just refusing to actually bother with worldbuilding or character design.

That brings me to the third thing which is that, when doing a series like this based on something like Christianity, you really have to sit down and figure out what kind of God your Christian God in your series is going to be, even if They never show up on screen. Is this God distant and neglectful and that's how all this shit is happening? Or do we have the wrathful God of the Israelites who regularly exterminates Hell out of pure sadistic rage? Or do we have a weak God on the verge of death who is barely present out of necessity while the angels take advantage of that absence and run amok? And it's not even just that determining what kind of God is supposed to be the God of this series would inform why stuff happens like it does, it would also help the writers to have a sense of direction and motive for what happens.

The writing in the show is all over the fucking place and figuring out what kind of God this God is meant to be is the very first question they should've asked themselves and it would've prevented most of the problems that currently exist in the show. If we had that, then maybe we wouldn't have weird shit with Lucifer where he very much does not feel like he's the devil at all and also Charlie is supposed to have daddy issues but then he shows up and is just a really adoring and supportive dad so that doesn't make sense. If we had that, then maybe Hell would have a fucking structure because we would actually have the motive behind Hell itself and why it exists. If we had that, then maybe we could get into the nitty gritty of the ethical/theological complexities of Hell and how, no matter how you slice it, it's really God's will at the end of the day so we could get a whole debate over if Lucifer is even evil or if God is just controlling and sadistic and all that. If we had that then maybe we could even have some reveal about how sin isn't even a concrete thing and the true nature of Hell is that it's a place people choose to go when they die because they don't feel worthy of salvation and they feel in their soul that they need to be punished. Anything, really.

Fourth is that it really, really shouldn't be a musical series. The pacing fucking sucks and they overexplain everything and I just feel like if you took all the time spent on shitty musical numbers and instead put it into showing, not telling, and also developing characters and relationships, it could be a lot better. If there was more time for shit, then maybe Charlie could not be a Mary Sue and Vaggie could have a personality and Angel could be an actual fucking character that isn't just an animated twink with trauma who gets off on violating people's boundaries. Also, I just really didn't like most of the songs in the series (outside the series they're fine) and I skipped a lot of those scenes.

Fifth and final is that it really just wasn't funny. A lot of the stuff that was supposed to be funny was just excessive swearing that felt completely unnatural, like that tiktok going around of that girl saying the n word. If you're bothering to do a whole series set in Hell that's ostensibly about Christianity, then why tf aren't you leaning more into biting criticism of Christianity for your humor? If they'd just gone full Dogma with this, it would've been so much better but no.

So yeah, it fucking sucked and so did the character design.

[anonymouscheeses]

Exorcist gang! (I'm so sorry it took forever to get to your ask. I kind of dropped the au for a long time and just now got the motivation to pick it up again.)

Right on the money! I just narrowed it down to three because I can't do anymore(lazy ahh). But they can't actually drive motorcycles because none of them have a drivers license so they just try to seem badass by saying they are a biker gang. All christian but they have no idea how it works and do things looked down upon by the christian community. Left Victoria. Middle Stephanie. Right Kamaria. Kamaria got a tattoo of the upside down cross to seem cool but she knows it's St. Peter's cross so it's kind of a double meaning for her. I also gave Kamaria three toned lips because I jst found out that exists and I had to include that in some character. Atleast one.

Maybe one day I'll draw them as angels just to do it.

For context, they are exes 😫

Are there still feelings? Kind of, they just aren't over eachother yet. Right now tho they are mainly enemies. Valerie(Vaggie) is kind of like Blitzø(relationships wise), but less of an asshole. It was mostly her fault they broke up though. She was uninterested and embarrassed by Kamaria almost all the time so ofc Kamaria doesn't stand for shit and ended it before it got worse. Valerie is like that with Charlie in some ways, but of course that's for growth purposes.

Oh also Valerie dated Lute too before she dated Kamaria so it's just this entire problem within the group bro.. Like, Lute is not over Valerie and not in a "I am in love with u still." Way, but in a "I hate the way you walk, the way you talk, I hate the way dress-" ahh way(and in an i am still in luv wit u way but shh). Lute has no idea why Valerie broke up wit her ass and takes it out on Kamaria. Kama takes no shit and bounced out that place quickly. Good for her ig. She still an asshole too, anger issues ahh, everyone except Charlie(until the vee accident 😏)deserves a kick in the ass.

Pretend Charlie is in her human form. I'm still workshopping it right now! 😔 so yeah nobody else except Valerie knows she's a demon jst so you know!

Chaggie aren't dating yet! But they will one day 😈

For now it's kind of just pining. On both sides ofc.

"So it mine el" we say in unison.

PLEASE TELL ME SOMEONE GETS THE REFERENCE?? THIS IS SO AWKWARD NOW...

Helmets and glasses off! I think they look pretty nice but im not great at making my own character designs from ground up. Which is why I havent shown my actual own OC's. Victoria is trans because I said so. Kamaria is probably Lesbian but she doesn't know yet, it's kind of a label she uses until she knows for sure (so me). And Stephanie is Stephanie (she don care. She don kno 💀). I FORGOT THE FLAME ON KAMARIA'S JACKET RAAAA.

They also all have a picture on the back of their jackets that's jst wings and a halo. So do with that what you will.... if u wanna make fanart that is..... pls..... I'm begging..... jk but it would still be cool lmao.

They used to be in a gang with Adam and Lute but after Valerie was beat up real bad by Lute they all decided to just part ways. Not on good terms... So it's just Adam and Lute now who jst act like they are all that when they cant pack a punch at all 😒. I'll show Adam and Lute's designs in the next update (or somewhere) but that's all I have right now. I can't wait to draw the duo ughhhh‼️‼️‼️

(I have also changed a few things from my original idea, so if your a hxd au og from the first like... 3 posts I made abt it then ya... there's major changes. I'll go through them deeper in my next updates on this au!)

[dumbistsmartass]

Every Hatchetfield song explained badly in ten words or less

spoilers and also this is only the main trilogy not nightmare time.

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Yeah, he didn't like musicals

La Dee Dah Dah Day - "the dogs are my meal"

What Do You Want, Paul? - "please god have an I want song"

Cup of Roasted Coffee - If I had to sing working retail I'd kill someone

Cup of Poisoned Coffee - oh hey, they killed someone

Show Me Your Hands - this is what cops think 24/7

You Tied up My Heart - gaslight, gatekeep, girl bossing your way to mariticide

Join Us (And Die) - Guts Magee and Brainiac explain why you should KYS

Not Your Seed - "it's your fault your daughter is dead bitch"

Show Stoppin Number - He had a point but like no

America Is Great Again - you know what it's a joke about

Let Him Come - they know he's the main character

Let It Out - Is it an identify crisis or possession

Inevitable - a beautifully haunting ending

Tickle-Me Wiggly Jingle - what the actual fuck is this?

What Tim Wants - what can I say, it's sad

Califor.M.I.A. - they really want you to bond with these characters

What Do You Say? - everyone is too invested in these twos relationship

Our Doors Are Open - "shopping will fill the hole in your heart"

Feast Or Famine - this is real footage when the new iPhone comes out

Monsters and Men - He's fucking back!

Deck The Halls - we got a full working boys, we could get this

Take Me Back - I'll be real I skipped this one on rewatch

Adore Me - haunting when you don't say the shit part

Do You Want To Play? - a reversal of who you're told to trust

Made In America - we let him in via consumerism, amazing capitalism critique

Black Friday - me singing a musical as I'm being choked out

Monsters and Men (Reprise) - This guy is so cool

If I Fail You - "are we the baddies?"

Wiggle - Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle

What If Tomorrow Comes? - So she is seeing the other Hatchetfields right?

High School Is Killing Me - they really spoil the people who die first song huh?

Literal Monster - shove yourself in your locker

Cool As I Think I Am - you think you're cooler then you think you are

Dirty Girl - makes me genuinely uncomfortable, skip it

Bully The Bully - interesting plan, let's see how It plays out

Bury The Bully - oh... that got dark fast

Go Go Nighthawks! - everyone is happier now that this bitch is gone

Nerdy Prudes Must Die - to be fair, you did kill him

Hatchet Town - mass panic is so hip

Just For Once - we all though the light was gonna fall on her

If I Loved You - they are in so much denial

The Summoning - Wiggly want you to kill your crush

Cool As I Think I Am (Reprise) - really tragic, trying to convince the other to sacrifice them

The Best Of You - I'm so glad it didn't end with everyone dead again

Dirty Dudes Must Die - When you give a Christian a little dark magic

[tunnelsnacks]

Deacon head canons from my old blog be upon ye!

The UP Deathclaws were never real...the L&L gang is though

“He’s sharp as a whip, feisty in the field and extraordinarily cautious with his actions and even more careful with his words”

Deacon’s favorite color is green, hazel green

If he had a character theme it would be Deacon Waltz by Christian Sedelmyer and Jerry Douglas (The name’s just a coincidence)

A very very light sleeper, before Wanderer he would only sleep for around 3 hours peppered throughout the day

It always takes him an hour to fall asleep, even after he & Wanderer start ‘their you sleep and I’ll watch over you’ deal

He’s not religious, but he still prays

Before Wanderer he’d have, what my old therapist calls, micro-bursts of stage three sleep without realizing it (REM sleep) people can do this while looking and cting completely awake, which is why Carrington doesn’t take him serious in meetings... he looked like he’s not paying attention but nada, the man’s brain was just shutting down a little bit

Because of the lack of sleep he got for so long, Deacon disassociates between himself & his body constantly. At times careless with himself...cracking jokes & laughing in dangerous situations... his brain was teetering the line between being asleep and awake so often he couldn’t tell the difference. (sleep deprivation makes you feel unstoppable...cocky even)

Another thing he lost as a result of Wanderer was being able to sleep standing up, because his body doesn’t need to take over for his mind anymore

Smells faintly of cigarette smoke (mainly because of Dez) and basil and something else that can’t really be placed

He fell in love with a school teacher once, she was the one that taught him how to read

Can write/read French but oh god pronounces every letter like how they sound in English... so he sticks to writing messages to himself that most people think are ramblings of a child when/if found

October is his favorite month... June makes him ache

If he’s not at Wanderer’s side or on his own op, he’ll be at the Church... but after Tea Party? He settles on the couch in Wanderer and Shaun’s home until she convinces him to just move in, they’ve slept in the same room for so long at this point but he can’t fathom having a home again. It’s a hard adjustment

If you look of the definition of a ginger you’d find a picture of him at age 14, the freckles keep coming back no matter how many times he gets them removed

You know how you can catch him spying on you in the settlements? Yeah, he wanted you to see him... but not near 111 or a few other places

He’s the person in the Third Rail that points Wanderer to MacCready before they meet, he can’t have her traveling alone like that when she still so green to the world

In codes, D is for Desdemona and d is for Deacon

If not written, agents that are high enough to know their names say Big D and Little D (Dez hates it but he thinks it’s cute, if not clever)

He tenses ever so slightly when he hears the name John/Johnathan

Holds tension in his jaw like no one else, it’s a wonder his teeth haven’t shattered

Hates the taste of coffee but constantly drinks it

Was a hell of a swing dancer in his youth, now he likes slow dancing though that wasn’t discovered until Wanderer showed up

He’s 37 at the youngest and 45 at the oldest

When he left the gang at 19, they shattered every bone in his left hand & wrist, it aches when it rains

Hides his eyes because they were her favorite part of him, the one thing he can’t change ironically, also the sleep thing. He can’t let people know how tired he is all the time

He was born in Rivet City and his mother was a hairdresser, father a drunkard of a city security officer

His ma taught him how to French braid hair

His last name is Deacon. Baby Shaun is the only one who knows that though... Shaun said “Hey Mr. Deacon” & he said “Hey Mr. Hale” (Wanderer’s last name) & Shaun being the clever kiddo he is, cocked his head to the side connecting some dots cause if his first name was Deacon why would he respond with Shaun’s last one?)

Absolutely fascinated with the old world, collects information and fun facts about that time forgotten which Wanderer feeds into

His favorite thing Wanderer tells him about/teaches him is the proper pronunciation of some words and how to spell others

The man has always had a temper, got it from his dad, he works very hard to keep it under control (I can think of a few pieces of dialogue where he’s talking through gritted teeth, anger threatening to boil over)

At first, he was only by Wanderer’s side so nobody could pull her away from the Railroad - he knows what a game changer she is... but they work so well together and she plays along with his tall tales so often that after a while he forgot about the first part

A terrifyingly good shot, better than MacCready and he’s doing it with sunglasses on

He 100% is John D, the terminal entry where Pinky(?) says a runner was the sole survivor and then immediately tried to get people to go back for documents?? A classic Deacon move

Only smokes in HQ (I’ve actually only seen his idle animation of that in the church and at Mercer) unless he’s in a role or somewhere where Wanderer is comfortable... or is extremely stressed out

He hates Hancock, well not hate- but he’s not on the Christmas card list

Deacon knew Shaun was taken 60 years before Wanderer woke up. He knew and he didn’t tell her and it is the secret he hopes she never finds out

Dee’s gotta special soft spot for Tinker Tom, loves him like a crazy brother

His sniper rifle is named Church Bell, lovingly crafted by Tinker

Not sure how he feels about gen 1’s and 2’s, especially after knowing Nicky V but... if he’s gotta do it

Exclusively refers to Nick Valentine as Nicky V

He knows Preston Garvey has a fat ass crush on Wanderer but has neglected to tell her this little fun fact

Tries to shave his head nearly every morning, when he’s with Wanderer he does so when it’s his turn on watch and she’s asleep

The Railroad is his family, they mean so much but of course he’s always kept everyone distant after what happened with Agamemnon

Deacon has been with the railroad between 14 and 20 years

He genuinely doesn’t like Carrington but he’s not going to avoid going to him if he’s hurt of course

His hands are always warm, which is great cause Wand’s are always cold (being frozen for 210 years will do that to a gal)

Do I need to go into the heights thing??? He hates tagging along to set up MILAs but he’ll be damned if he lets his best friend fall off a roof again

He picked the name; Wanderer (don’t get me started on Project Wanderer and Dez’s “it seems fitting” I’ll rant for so long guys)

Doesn’t like sweet foods but fancy lads is a whole other topic

Open spaces stress him out, too much he can’t see

Non-binary but uses he/him pronouns

Doesn’t drink more than a beer or two, but has an unsettling high tolerance

He won’t ever instigate a relationship beyond what he and Wanderer have, as his va Ryan Alosio put it in an interview, his heart’s been absolutely shattered and he can’t stand the thought of being the cause of someone he loves getting hurt because of him again. He loves her but he can’t

Before he got surgery for the first time, he looked like Ryan (the devs actually tweaked his design to resemble him) his original face looks close to what he has now, not that he remembers what that face looked like

[maniacwatchestheworld]

What if only the afterlives that take place in a different space exist within the Ghost Zone? But that all the death gods & reincarnation gods are equally important there?

Perhaps imagine it as being a reflection of the polytheism of the living DC realm? All the death gods

Somehow, I doubt that Pariah Dark was truly the literal king of the Infinite Realms. The very name implies that they are infinite. If he had, why would he be referred to simply as king & not emperor or god-emperor? He was certainly a big enough jackass.

It's possible that he was simply a conqueror &, thus, the right of rulership of the lands of the dead that'd conquered would obviously have changed due to this. However, the likelihood that he managed to conquer literally the entirety of a place that is infinite is nil. Because it is an impossibility in the grand scheme of things.

As such, it's more likely that Danny would've only become ruler over those select areas & not the literal entirety of the afterlife. If anything, I see if being more so that he'll have to cooperate with the vast number of death deities within the IR that constitutes Earth.

I admit, I do have a bias in terms of religion & am obviously going to prefer my own over all others & will believe that it is the right one no matter what & this likely shows in my own theories & worldbuilding.

At the same time, I try to be respectful of the cultures of others. Though, perhaps I can sometimes come across as a bit tone deaf.

And I can definitely understand not liking the white-washing of cultures. I hate it when Hades & Loki are portrayed as evil in a ridiculous attempt to draw parallels to Christianity. Because they aren't Christianity & that isn't how they are in their actual stories. Same with Zeus being portrayed as good, because... woof... He uh... he was messed up. Like, holy cow messed up...

I mean, I can understand a degree of creative liberty. Like, I could understand if the myths were portrayed as being his dark past that he's trying to move on from, but the fact that they aren't even addressed sometimes is... I don't like it.

Nods nods. And hey, no worries. You don't feel particularly tone deaf here. The fact that you're giving this some thought at all is enough for me! And hey. I get the having bias towards your own religion. I'm the same way too obviously. :p

But yeah. I'm alright with this way of going about the Infinite Realms and Ghost Zone in relation to other afterlives. It probably wouldn't be how I would personally want to go about this, but I wouldn't mind seeing works using this particular reading of the Infinite Realms.

And I ABSOLUTELY feel you about the Christianization and flattening of mythological figures. Always a very >:T time for me when I see people portraying Hades as evil. Because like... He's not. Also I can't help but to love Loki. He's such a freaking doofus and I love the he. But yeah... I also get frustrated by the flattening of DC characters within this fandom too... Obviously it's not the same, but the ideas are related so thinking about that just reminded me of that... Just... Siiiiiiigh...

[creatingblackcharacters]

One of my favorite new little guys is Arin from Ninjago Dragons Rising!! The show is a sequel series to the previous Ninjago shows, where an event merges all the realms into one and many people end up missing or separated from loved ones. Arin was a little boy when the Merge happened and has no idea if his parents are safe or still around and his biggest motivator is to try and find them.

He loves the ninja and with them initially missing after the Merge he was inspired by them to be heroic and kind like them. He learned Spinjitzu (the main form of martial arts the ninja use lol) all by himself, which the ninja were all impressed by when they re-emerge because it’s a hard skill to learn.

He’s so kind and silly!! Arin always tries to see the best in people :) but he will try to kick ass if he has to. His favorite thing to do is bake pies, it’s so cute. He specifically got his hair cut as the Zane (after one of the original ninja).

Arin’s season 2 arc involves him feeling frustrated over his stagnant growth as a ninja since he has no powers, his Spinjitzu isn’t getting any better even with guidance, and he’s no closer to finding his parents and feels he’s letting them down by not getting better quickly 😢 which is just like nooo it’s okay you’ll get there it takes time 😢

I will say a lot of the (straight, white) male demographic who watch Ninjago suck. They’re so homophobic (one of the original ninjas seems to be getting a male love interest in DR) and racist. They deny that Arin is Black, when his design seems to indicate he is AND he has a Black VA (Christian Heywood).

Anyways, I really love Arin he’s just so adorable and sweet and fun :) he’s a representation of Ninjago fans with his love of the ninja and I can’t wait to see where his character goes when part 2 of season 2 is released!! Wait omg also his little ninja suit has horns!!! It’s the best!!

Spinjutzu

Fandom is always gone fandom, unfortunately. I do think they could have had skin colored blocks to alleviate this issue, but yeah the coding would be kind of obvious between his hair and his voice. His hair is definitely afro textured (if the Lego blocks can do it, you all can do it too!) That's so cute though!

Hot Chocolate: I LOVED Ninjago when it first came out! It had ninjas, that was all I needed honestly. I fell off because I stopped watching TV as much but I'm happy to hear about our little Black boy Arin! He's my son now. So anyone who's got something to say can meet me outside, and that's on chawls.

[otaku553]

kk wow you went so much more in depth than i thought but that was awesome. sending another but pls take all the time you need to answer this one.

i don't think i realized you had a colored version of two of them til today because i was going off of the sketches you posted at the start of the month. the one that caught my eye in that and who i have a different perspective of now that i've seen full color is the shortest hero. you mentioned that the clothing didn't come from any one culture, but if you have an answer it would be cool to hear: what's the long cloth hanging off of the waist belt of this hero called? or, if it's part of the belt, what's the name of the full thing?

[ also a more in-universe follow-up: am very curious about the symbols all four have on their clothing and what your thought process was behind each. i'll settle for the shortest hero's butterfly-esque symbol if you just wanna do one (: ]

Thanks for sending another ask!! This is probably going to get quite long again!

So first, to answer the question, there’s actually not a very easy answer for what that long cloth is called! It shows up quite often in fantasy outfits and armor of knights, and you might sometimes find it being called a tabard or a surcoat online. Really though, it’s closer to something called a monastic scapular, which is a western Christian garment that hangs over the shoulders and goes down to the knees.

The tabard is usually some form of light tunic or jacket worn over chainmail and underneath armor, and I think in fantasy armor the stylization of it as longer and thinner towards the bottom eventually turned it into a pretty common thing? But the point is that it’s usually attached to something hanging from the shoulders and not just from the belt. But having something hanging in front of the crotch from the belt does have some precedence in the Roman pteruges, so this might be where that kind of belt fabric came from.

So in the hero of yore designs, the pieces of fabric hanging from the belts aren’t actually very historically accurate, and follow more the trends of fantasy outfit design. But mostly they act as a sort of conisistent point between all the heroes that shows each hero’s insignia. This sort of hanging centerpiece of fabric has been a pretty consistent part of my designs for a really long time, though in my previous Kirby designs this mostly took the form of some part of a double breasted coat, like so:

But yeah! On another note, while the hero of dark’s outfit isn’t based on any specific culture, the hero of soul’s (the butterfly hero) outfit definitely is based on Japanese clothing! The very long sleeves are based on furisode, but there are some liberties I took with the whole design as a whole, I.e. the pants are based on hakama in construction and shape but don’t actually have all the pleats a hakama should, and have added slits for style. You generally also wouldn’t wear hakama with fancy long kimono I think, nor would you use a tasuki with it. Tasuki are generally used to keep the sleeves out of the way while doing activities, while long sleeves are more ceremonial and decorative. I did intentionally keep the sleeves very long on the design, however, for character reasons that I might go more in depth in if I ever make an individual outfit breakdown post.

I’m sorry I didn’t get around to answering about the symbols! I also have a lot of thoughts about them, so I might also make a separate post about that haha

[unluckywisher]

Rafayel's

"The Little Mermaid"

Content: The original tale by Hans Christian Andersen, modified to have Rafayel as the protagonist. Other characters have also been genderbent. I've tried to keep the story as close to the original as possible, while also incorporating some new elements as well as modifying others to fit Rafayel.

Warning: This is not like Disney's version of the story. The original fairytale is less sweet, and doesn't have a happy ending. Expect angst.

Word count: 6.1k (+ Author's Note and Bonus at the end)

Tagging the people who commented on my initial post about this fic: @fancyhawk45 @anxiousgoddest @exactlycleverpirate @solinmoirav @his-ocean-emissary @aneverydaysimp Thank you for waiting <3

“Oh, it’s wonderful,” Rafayel’s brother muses, “humans are so lively and interesting… It’s just like our brother said last year. No, even better! Rafayel, you’re gonna love it once it’s your turn.”

Rafayel listens to his brother’s tale starry eyed. He just returned from the surface, like their brothers before him on their coming-of-age birthday. Next year, it will be his turn.

Unfair, he thinks, that he’s the youngest, yet the one most interested in humans. Every year for the past 5 years, his brothers have had the pleasure of seeing the human world for themselves, while he has to wait and be content with the stories they tell once they come back.

He has tried to protest to his parents, the Sea King and Queen, as well as his grandmother, but they’ve just told him to be patient. His mother, at least, gave him something to help him pass the time: A statue of a human girl that she found once while swimming near the coast.

He cherishes it dearly, visiting it every day and asking it questions, imagining what the responses would be like.

“Do you like painting too?” he asks, showing it the drawing he just finished.

A pause.

“Yeah, I painted it myself. You must use different things to create the pigments, you don’t have algae up there, do you?”

He looks around the Royal garden the statue has been placed in.

“No, you have…” he tries recalling the stories, “Flowers! That’s the word. They’re supposed to be as colorful as nudibranchs and shaped sorta like anemones, right?”

The statue remains silent.

“Oh, how I wish you could speak, so I could ask you a million questions…”

Rafayel spends his days talking to the statue, painting how he thinks the surface world looks, daydreaming about seeing it all for himself. With each passing day, the fondness he feels grows. It doesn’t help that his brothers like to tease him about how he’s the only one that hasn’t been above water yet.

Luckily, the year seems to fly by. Well, except for the week before his birthday, in which he can’t sleep nor eat. He swims nervously from place to place, barely able to contain his excitement.

“It’s today, it’s today, it’s today!” He chants, waking up his whole family.

They can’t help but feel happy too, he’s been waiting for this day a long time and it’s hard to be angry at him for waking them up so early.

He can’t claim victory yet, though, because the coming-of-age ceremony can’t be skipped, and he won’t be able to see the surface until nighttime.

To him, the day seems to stretch infinitely, his goal becoming more unreachable with each passing moment. He opens his presents in a rush, not even stopping to see what they are once they’re out of the wrapper. He says his sea vows as fast as the words can form in his mouth. He visits the rest of the sea creatures with a speed that would rival a sailfish. He lets his grandmother adorn his hair with a wreath made of pearls. But alas, his family won’t let him go that easily. He must spend the day with them, even if the rest of the tasks have been completed.

There’s a stillness as the sun goes down and its rays stop reaching the waters.

Rafayel turns to his family expectantly, his heart fluttering.

His grandmother nods with a smile.

He’s gone from view in an instant, only bubbles left in his wake.

He notices the water change as he goes up, the temperature, the saltiness, the pressure. There’s so much to process that he wants to scream with joy. And then- He stops.

The surface.

He can see the barrier. Where water ends and air starts. Suddenly, he finds himself feeling anxious, even scared. What if it’s not like he imagined?

Slowly, he lifts an arm and grazes the edge. His fingers retract at the odd sensation. He tries again.

He waves his hand, now strangely… Dry. That’s a first.

Taking a leap of faith, he lunges his head out. The water splashes around him and his hair sticks to his forehead. Weird.

But he’s too enthralled by what he’s seeing to be preoccupied with that. The night sky. The moon. The stars. The lack of sound. He always thought the surface was a very noisy place. Sure, his ears ring a bit, but it fades away as he gets used to the environment.

He snaps out of it, looking around. If what his brothers told him was correct, he needs to swim eastward for an hour to reach land and see the humans. He doesn’t waste a second, his tail forming waves as he swims near the surface.

Half an hour later, he sees something that completely derails his plans.

A ship. Not only a ship, but one from which fireworks are being set off.

At first he has to dive underwater and cover his ears, overwhelmed by the abundance of noise, but his desire to see the magnificent colors on display is bigger, and he peeks his head out once more. 

“What are those?” He says to no one in particular, then grabs his throat. He didn’t expect to be able to speak so clearly.

His focus goes back to the ship, curious about the source of these strange lights.

Even if his family told him not to interact with the humans, they didn’t say anything about swimming close to them, so this is fine, right?

He nears the vessel, hearing cheery voices and what sounds like music.

Using his upper body strength, honed by his constant swimming, he grabs one of the dangling ropes and pulls himself up until he can just barely see the deck.

He almost slips and lets go as he takes in the view. So many humans, dancing and laughing, right before his eyes. White-knuckling the rope, he tries to understand what’s happening.

Ah, they must be having a party. …what’s the reason for celebration?

“Princess, did your birthday party really have to be at sea? You know I get terribly nauseous!” Two women walk near the railing where Rafayel is perched.

A birthday? For a Princess? What a coincidence! He’s also a Prince celebrating his birthday! He looks up at the women.

“I know, but I wanted to make it special somehow, since I’m officially an adult!” She laughs.

The rope slips from his grasp and he falls into the water with a splash, covered by the sound of the fireworks.

What was that? That… Feeling. Why are his cheeks red? That girl…

He pops out of the water, searching for her face again.

“Come on, let’s dance, you’ll forget you’re out in the sea in no time!” She grabs the other woman’s arm and leads her to the center of the deck with the rest of the humans.

Thoughts form in his head about him dancing with her. If he had legs… No, that’s a wild thought.

Wait, why is he having these thoughts in the first place?

He climbs the rope again. She’s twirling, and skipping, and clapping along with the guests. The music is coming from a band playing near the mast.

Rafayel watches and watches, not noticing the smile forming in his face, or the fact that the fireworks eventually stop, or the dark clouds rolling in. 

It’s not until a lightning cracks and the wind picks up that he looks away from her and up to the skies. The humans get startled too, the music and cheer stopping.

Orders are immediately shouted to pack everything and sail back to land. Rafayel is a bit disappointed that the fun got cut short, but he jumps back in the water, intending to follow the ship back to the continent.

A wave pulls him under, and he realizes that the sea isn’t as calm as when he first emerged. The humans are lucky to have their vessel, they probably wouldn’t make it in these waters, he thinks, recalling one of his brothers telling him about a human that drowned during a storm. To him, however, this seems like a fun time.

As he resurfaces, the raindrops start hitting his face. So that’s what rain feels like. And the thing from before, that was lightning and thunder.

Sometimes, when the storm had been violent enough, he had heard the booms even while at the bottom of the sea. Of course, it was entirely different to experience it firsthand. Much scarier. 

The ship starts moving, waves crashing on its sides. The wind tousles his hair back and forth, the flashes of light becoming more frequent. He hears the humans start to panic as the ship is rocked harshly. He instinctively looks for her.

She is shouting orders and trying to calm everyone while she helps the crew, her hands slipping as she pulls on ropes due to the rain that has already soaked her.

Why aren’t they protecting her? Isn’t she the Princess? Get her out of-

There’s no time to be protective. A huge wave, double the size of the hull, crashes into the ship. It tilts to the side and capsizes, all of its passengers falling into the relentless sea.

Rafayel dives, maneuvering through debris and drowning figures.

It might be selfish of him, considering he’s about to go against his family’s orders, but he has to save her. Rational thoughts are not in the picture in a situation like this.

“Come on, come on, where are you…”

Finally, he spots her. She’s sinking, unconscious.

He tackles her as he grabs her by the waist, pulling her up and away from the chaos.

“Don’t die on me now,” he scolds her.

He manages to bring her up to the surface, but the waves are too frequent and big to let her breathe. 

His arms stay around her protectively, his grip so determined it might leave bruises, but he keeps swimming towards land without faltering, always trying to keep her as raised as possible, and by the time they reach the shore, the sun is showing its first rays.

He pants as he lays her on the beach. She’s still unconscious, though her heart hasn’t stopped.

“Good job, Rafayel, you brought her here and you don’t even know what to do now,” he  complains to himself.

With gentle hands, he moves the hair out of her face. She looks so beautiful even now. He can’t help it, he needs to kiss her.

Closing his eyes, he presses his lips to her forehead. A silent prayer for her to live.

Suddenly, the nearby forest rustles, followed by footsteps. He perks up and dives back into the water.

“Yes! They will be able to help her!” He hides behind a rock and watches.

A young man in strange robes appears. A religious figure of some kind, Rafayel thinks, comparing him to the underwater priestesses running the temple to the God of the Sea.

The young man kneels next to the Princess, then calls for help. He starts massaging her chest in a way that looks foreign to Rafayel, and soon other men appear to help him.

The Princess coughs water, leaning forward as she regains consciousness. She gasps and clutches her neck, looking around her. Her eyes fall on the young man.

“You… You saved me…” She whispers.

Rafayel dives just to scream “WHAT?”, resurfacing to watch the rest of the scene.

“Please, your Majesty, I simply found you here and did what any common person would have done. Now, let’s get you back to the castle. What happened?”

He helps her up and leads her into the forest, the other men following them.

Rafayel lets his head lean on the rock, frustrated.

“But… I was the one that saved you… That’s not fair…”

For some strange reason, this hurts him deeply. He doesn’t understand why this stranger is having such an effect on him.

Tired and upset, he decides to head back home, even if his trip to see the surface world didn’t get him far. After all, now that he’s an adult, he can visit whenever he pleases. Right now he just wants to get as far away from this place as possible.

As he swims back, his family welcomes him with a smile that soon turns to a frown as he goes past them and into his room. They look at each other, confused.

His brothers decide to ask him what happened, softly knocking on his door. There’s no answer. They open the door and find him lying face down on the bed, with his head propped on his crossed arms.

“Is everything okay, Rafayel?”

“Yes. Leave me alone.”

His brothers respect his wishes and leave him, but they still discuss what could have put him in such a mood when he was so excited to go to the surface.

The days pass, and Rafayel refuses to talk about it still. His family worries for him, because now he spends even more time in the garden with the statue, lost in thought and barely painting.

A statue that now seems akin to that Princess, no matter how different they might actually be. When he looks at it, he sees her.

In secret, he swims every morning to the surface, to that shore where he left her, but he never sees the Princess come by. This only makes his deteriorating state worse.

One day, fed up with her absence, he can’t take it any longer and he tells his brothers what happened on that day.

It turns out that one of his brothers knows who he’s talking about, because he swam by her castle once and saw her. That same day, with renewed hope, they make their way to the coast where the castle resides.

He’s ecstatic. The Princess is right there, sitting by the stone steps that lead to the beach, gazing calmly at the horizon.

For better or for worse, Rafayel now spends as much time as possible near the castle, looking at her, painting her. If she’s not there, he hides near the pier and listens to the fishermen talk about her, all the good deeds she’s doing and how lucky they are to have her as a Princess.

This fills him with joy. To have saved such a wonderful person… 

And yet, she doesn’t know of his existence.

Each day that Rafayel spends near the coast, his love for humans grows, and he always returns home with a million questions for his family, to the point that even they cannot satisfy his curiosity.

He decides to turn to his grandmother, the wisest in all of the sea when it comes to human matters.

“Can humans live for as long as us?” He asks, bright eyed.

“No, they cannot. They have shorter lives, and instead of turning into seafoam once they die, they are buried by their loved ones.”

“So I’ll watch them die?” His smile turns to a grimace.

“Yes, that is how the world works. But why are you sad about this? You get to live and enjoy the wonders of the world for longer. Humans have nothing to do with us, in any case. They find us strange, an ill omen at times. You shouldn’t worry about them so much.”

His grandmother’s words bring him back to the reality of the situation. He can’t be by her side, and will be doomed to watch her die. And she will never learn of her true savior.

No, he thinks, I cannot let this come to pass. I have to do something.

Rafayel remembers a tale told by his parents, of a dreadful Sea Witch that lives in the deepest cave of the ocean’s floor. Dreadful, but also powerful.

Determined, he sneaks out in the middle of the night to visit her.

The carcasses of several animals and fish are strewn around the jagged rocks leading to her cave, which is adorned with the remains of sunk ships. He has to dodge a few whirlpools that threaten to plunge him down into the abyss, but once he clears them, he finds himself at the cave’s entrance, only a black void to welcome him. Tentatively, he leans his head past the threshold, only to be hit by a shiver down his tail.

Gathering his courage, he swims in with determination.

At first, nothing. Darkness. A cold current his only companion.

He sighs with relief as a faintly illuminated clearing comes into view.

“I know why you’re here,” says the Witch, hearing his sigh.

Rafayel freezes, assessing the scene before him. The witch sits atop a rock, eels and water-snakes circling her playfully. Her tail sways to and fro, the bones decorating it rattling as it moves.

“How?” He swims closer, still keeping his distance.

“I know everything that goes on under and above water. You came here asking for a solution to your ails, a way to be with the one you love; the Princess,” she cackles, tapping a finger to her chin.

He feels the tip of his ears turn red. Is that what he is feeling? Love? Before he can ponder it, the witch speaks again.

“It’s an awfully stupid idea, but I can make it happen…”

“You can? What’s the catch?”

“You have to give me,” she pauses, looming closer, “your tongue.”

“What?” He retreats, putting his hand over his mouth.

“It’s no easy potion to make. To turn a creature into a different one… I’d say the price is more than fair.”

“Wait, wait, wait. First, tell me how the potion will work.”

“Your appearance will turn into that of a human. You will lose your tail, but gain a pair of legs. Of course, you will never be able to turn back, or see your family ever again. Your lifespan will also be reduced to that of a human’s. But then again, I guess that last part works in your favor, doesn’t it?” She smirks.

Rafayel stops to think about it. His mind, however, is too clouded with thoughts of the Princess and how it must be to live on the surface.

“Will it hurt?”

“Oh, greatly so. When you turn, it will feel as if your tail is being cut in half. And when you use your legs, every step will feel like knives jabbing into your feet. However, you will also be the best dancer on the surface, and every human you encounter will see you as the most handsome man they’ve ever laid eyes on.”

“This doesn’t seem like the greatest trade-off…” He crosses his arms, frowning.

“I heard the King and Queen are looking for candidates to marry their daughter. It would be a shame to visit her like you always do, and find her with a man by her side, wouldn’t it?”

The Witch’s taunts work.

“Fine. Any other annoying rules I should know about?” He rolls his eyes.

“Once you’re a human, you will have to win the Princess’s heart. Just to remind you, since I’m taking your tongue, you won’t be able to talk.”

“Then, how…”

“You’re an artist, aren’t you? I’m sure you have enough creativity to think of a way to charm her,” she dismisses the thought with her hand. “As I was saying, she has to fall in love with you, and marry you. If she, by any chance, marries another, you will become seafoam as soon as the next morning’s sun rays start to shine.”

“That won’t happen. I can do this easily. She will love me in no time,” he smirks, shaking his head.

“Then, shall we begin?”

She moves to the center of the clearing, where a cauldron stands. She pricks her finger and lets a drop fall into the swirling liquid.

“Well? Come closer and stick your tongue out.”

Rafayel, a bit hesitant, leans over the cauldron and looks inside. The blood-dyed solution reflects his face, and as he opens his mouth and sticks his tongue out, he closes his eyes so he won’t have to see the damage being done.

A sharp sting rips the muscle out. He recoils, closing his mouth and using his hands to cover it. Blood fills the cavity and slips out through his lips, rising in plumes as it dissolves in the water. The Witch laughs.

He opens his eyes in time to see her pocketing his tongue and starting to throw more ingredients in, the liquid bubbling and smoking.

Then, it subsides. What’s left is a strangely transparent concoction that she scoops up into a vial. She extends it towards him.

Still nauseous due to the injury, he takes it with shaky hands.

“Now go. Quickly. Swim up to the shore and drink every last drop,” she ushers him.

Ignoring his pain-induced blurry vision, he does as she says, clutching the vial to his chest.

He doesn’t let himself think about his family, or everything that he’s leaving behind, as he swims eastward to the Princess’s castle.

A pleasant ache rises in his stomach with each moment that he gets closer, he can’t believe he’s finally going to meet the Princess. The one he loves. Yes, love. He’s certain about that now.

The castle comes into view as the sun starts to rise. He crawls out of the water and lays in the sand, opening the vial and swallowing its contents. For a moment, he’s grateful he doesn’t have a tongue so he doesn’t have to taste it, its smell already pungent enough.

As the last drop goes down his throat, he feels a pain worse than having his tongue cut. His tail being sliced in two, no, butchered in two. He can’t help the scream that comes out of his lungs.

The pain is so unbearable that ultimately he faints.

When he wakes, a figure is kneeling by his side, gently sweeping his hair out of his eyes. The Princess.

He turns red, looking around. He wants to say so many things, do so many things.

The first thing he notices is the fabric that now rests on top of him. Him. His legs. That’s the second thing he notices. He has legs! And he’s… Naked. The Princess must have covered him while he was unconscious.

“Who are you?” The Princess asks, tilting her head in curiosity.

Rafayel opens his mouth only to close it. He can’t speak. He points to himself, then to the Princess. Not looking her in the eyes, of course, he’s too embarrassed for that.

“You… Are me?” She giggles. “Let me guess… You can’t speak?”

He nods, clutching the fabric, which he now realizes is a long coat, and brings it closer around him.

“Do you have a family? Anyone that can help you?”

He looks to the sea for a moment, then shakes his head.

“Hmm… Okay, come to the palace with me. We’ll sort things out there. Can you walk?” She stands up, offering her hand to help him up.

Taking her hand, he manages to prop himself on his two legs. They wobble a bit, but that’s the least of his concerns, needles, pricks and knives digging into the soles of his feet.

The sudden pain, which he forgot would happen, makes him stumble and crash against the Princess. She catches him by the shoulders, which only manages to embarrass him further, his face now so close to the Princess’s.

“You just woke up after being unconscious, your legs are probably not fully recovered yet. Here, lean on me while we walk.” She extends her arm.

He takes it, his attention fully focused on the places his hand touches hers.

They walk into the castle, and the King and Queen welcome him warmly, feeling sorry for his situation.

He gets dressed in the finest clothes while a room is arranged for him. Every person he encounters is instantly charmed by his good looks and silent grace, just like the Sea Witch said.

He spends his time alongside the Royal family, his gaze never straying far from the Princess.

The first day he wakes up in the castle, he’s invited to an event that will take place that afternoon: A suitor from a far land is visiting, intending to win the Princess’s heart and marry her. Hearing the news, he dresses in the best clothing at his disposal and marches with his head high into the throne room. The Royal family lets him stand next to the Princess, who’s sitting expectantly with her hands on her lap. She gives him a smile before looking forward.

The doors open and the Prince and his servants march forward. Rafayel rolls his eyes.

After the formal introductions by both Royals, Rafayel learns that it is custom of this kingdom for the Princess to dance with any suitors she might have, to his horror. 

He watches as the Princess dances with the Prince, a fond smile on her face as she glides effortlessly in his arms.

If only she knew how much I’ve given up just to be with her, he thinks.

Once the Prince is gone, the Princess speaks quite highly of him and his dancing skills, since she loves to dance.

Rafayel remembers that the witch told him he’d be the best dancer on the surface, and instantly steps towards the Princess, extending his hand.

“Oh? You like to dance as well? Well, now I’m curious!” She takes it.

The pain is unmatched, but so is his grace, the emotion that fills his eyes as he leads her across the ballroom. She is so impressed that she asks him to be his dance partner from now on, to dance with her everyday.

Rafayel chooses to ignore the blinding pain coursing through his legs and agrees, nodding and smiling.

The second day, just as the Princess said, she dances with him.

“I’ve been thinking,” she says as they dance, “that since you have nowhere to go, and you seem to have settled just fine to life in the castle, I could appoint you as my personal servant. I quite enjoy your company.”

His eyes light up at the idea, and he nods enthusiastically.

Cut, burn, tear, scream his feet at the one - two - three waltz rhythm.

He is given a chamber next to the Princess, so he may be near her at all times, as well as clothes that show his new status.

Rafayel can’t believe his luck, he’s sure they’ll get married soon if things continue like this.

That evening, he finds some painting supplies and asks for permission to use them, which is granted as soon as they see his prowess. He insists on making a portrait of the Princess. She is delighted, praising him left and right.

But at night, he paints the sea. He opens his window and captures the waves, the moon reflecting off its surface.

The third day, after dancing, the Princess takes him out horse riding. This gives him relief, since he can enjoy her company without sacrificing his feet.

But a new problem arises, he doesn’t know how to ride a horse.

“Don’t worry,” she says as she sees him confused about what to do, “you can ride with me. Sit behind me and hold on tight.”

He settles carefully behind her, turning red once more as he puts his hands on her waist and feels her warmth against his chest. He can smell her perfume, her hair tickling his neck.

The horse starts moving with her silent command, and soon they are crossing a forest, the low leaves tousling their hair. It’s peaceful, only birdsong filling the atmosphere. He sees flowers. So many. And he can’t help but wonder how they’d look if he used them for his paintings, instead of the algae he used in the past.

He ends up collecting a whole bouquet with the Princess’s help, who’s eager to see how they will look as pigments as well.

This day couldn’t get any better, he thinks.

“I have an idea. There’s a mountain nearby with a wonderful view from its top. Shall we go?”

Rafayel nods without a second thought.

Once they arrive at the mountain trail, she gets off the horse.

“The path is narrow and rocky in some parts, so we have to go on foot. But don’t worry, it’s a short hike.”

Of course it is, why did I agree so fast…

So they walk, having tied the horse to a nearby tree, they make their way up. And though it may be short, Rafayel’s feet don’t let up. For all he knows, they could be bleeding.

A small relief is the fact that the view is indeed wonderful when they arrive.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” She smiles, taking in the puffy clouds, the setting sun, the ocean disappearing in the horizon.

He nods, looking at her.

The fourth day, after dancing and strolling through the town, Rafayel leaves the castle once the sun has set to cool his feet on the shore. He sits on the sand and sighs. His feet look fine, but they feel like they’ve been mutilated.

The sea is calm, and he takes a moment to reminisce about his family.

As if his prayers were heard, a head pops out from the water. And another. And a few more. His brothers.

“Rafayel!” They swim closer, disbelief in their eyes as they see his legs.

“What happened? You disappeared! Why do you have…”

He tries to explain, to no avail. He points to the castle, then to himself. After some back and forth between the brothers, they seem to get the gist of it.

They decide to come visit Rafayel every night after this.

The fifth day, as they both sit in the garden, him painting, her reading, enjoying each other’s company, she closes her book and looks at him, her expression unreadable.

He stops painting to look at her too.

“You remind me of someone… A man that saved me not long ago. Have I told you this story?”

He shakes his head, although he knows the story she’s about to tell.

“On my last birthday, which I celebrated on the open sea, there was a terrible storm, and the ship capsized. I thought I’d die, but I awoke on the shore, a man by my side. At that time I knew he was the one who had saved me, brought me back to life. I fell in love immediately, and I think he’s the only man I could ever feel this way about…”

Rafayel suppresses the urge to bang his head against the canvas he’s working on.

“But, like I said, you remind me of him. I know you’re not him, of course, but with each moment that I spend with you, I forget him more, and I find myself wanting to be by your side, instead of his. In any case, I could never be with him, for he is a holy man and belongs to the temple.”

The urge goes away, now replaced by butterflies in his stomach.

This is perfect, he thinks, she’s growing to love me, I’ll marry her in no time.

Filled with joy, he leans forward to embrace her. She laughs, hugging him back and kissing his cheek, after which she returns to her reading.

He’s blushing, his heart beating out of his chest, his eyes sparkling. True happiness is near.

The sixth day, the King and Queen receive news of a suitor that will be visiting later that day. Both the Princess and Rafayel are annoyed by this visit.

“I’m forced to welcome him, but I won’t marry him,” she confides in Rafayel that morning. “If I had to choose someone to marry, I’d choose you.”

He smiles, his expression turning to surprise and then embarrassment as she leans forward and kisses him on the lips. One of her hands runs through his hair, while the other lays on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. He returns the kiss timidly, his hands cupping her face. In that moment, he truly feels as if all the sacrifices he made were worth it.

The time of the visit draws near, and the Royal family gets ready to welcome the suitor. While they wait, a servant comments: “I heard the visiting Prince has been studying abroad in a temple in our kingdom, to learn how to be a virtuous ruler.”

This catches the attention of both the Princess and Rafayel.

It’s then that the doors of the castle fly open, revealing the Prince and his entourage.

“It’s him,” the Princess whispers, breathless.

She stands up and walks towards him, surprising everyone in the room.

“It was you who saved me.”

The Prince smiles and nods. She embraces him, his arms wrapping softly around her. Then she turns towards Rafayel.

“Isn’t this wonderful? I’m so happy!” She takes Rafayel’s hands. “My wishes came true…  I hope your wishes come true too, my dearest friend.” She smiles sincerely.

He returns the smile, his eyes looking right through her.

The seventh day, they are to be married. Both kingdoms want to ally as soon as possible, and seeing the love the Prince and Princess have for each other, they decide not to delay it further.

Rafayel already feels his heart breaking. He will turn into seafoam come tomorrow morning.

The whole city celebrates, music and cheer in every corner. There’s decorations, and food, and the smell of flowers permeating the air.

The ceremony takes place in the biggest ship the kingdom owns, citizens and Royalty alike invited. They both say their vows, having only eyes for each other.

Rafayel doesn’t even register the words being said. He thinks about the fact that this is his last day alive. How he lost everything. His family, his body, his home, his voice, his love. His life.

Fireworks go off as the ceremony comes to a close, reminding him of that first night he met the Princess. What a blissful dream that first sight of her had been.

He joins the rest of the dancing crowd. He doesn’t care about the pain anymore. It’s his last day, he might as well go all out. His last day seeing the Princess, the sea, the starry sky he once thought he would never witness.

He sees the happy couple, chatting and laughing in each other’s embrace.

The celebrations continue until midnight, when the couple retires for the night and the rest of the guests go to their respective rooms below the deck.

Rafayel stays behind, leaning against the railing and watching the waves, the sea breeze almost a comforting balm.

There, amongst the waves, his brothers appear. As they peek out of the water, he notices their hair has been cut.

“We visited the Sea Witch,” they explain with low voices, “Word reached that the Princess was to be married, but not to you, so we asked her for a solution so that you won’t die. She asked for our hair as payment.”

Rafayel listens with hope. Things might not turn out so bad, after all. Even if he doesn’t have the Princess by his side, at least he’ll return with his family.

“Here, take his knife.”

He does, looking at it with confusion.

“You must plunge it into the Princess’s heart before sunrise, and when the blood falls on your legs, they’ll turn once more into a tail, allowing you to return to the sea. You won’t turn into sea foam, brother!” They all smile.

But he stares at the knife with empty eyes, unsure.

He nods and makes his way to the Princess’s chambers. Everything is quiet as he turns the knob and enters.

Step by painful step, he approaches the bed. They are both asleep, her head resting on his chest. He moves to her side and carefully peels back the covers.

Through the window, he sees the sky turning rosy, a sign that dawn is near. He makes haste and leans to kiss her forehead for one last time, like he once did when she was unconscious on the shore, wishing for her to live, only to pull back as he hears her whisper the Prince’s name in dreams.

His hands tremble as he grips the knife. He, who had lost so much, who loves her so much.

He can’t do it. He throws the knife out of the window. The water turns red as it lands.

Rafayel looks at the Princess once more, his mind and heart broken, yet filled with only her. Her. Her.

He sees the first rays of daylight as he jumps off the window.

By the time his body makes contact with the sea, he’s turned into pure sea foam.

A/N: It felt right to post this on Raf's birthday, hehe. To be honest, I'm not entirely satisfied with the way this turned out, although that might be my perfectionism. However, I do encourage any writers reading this to try to write this in their style! Thank you for reading and I will see y'all in therapy <3

Bonus: A song and a meme.