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iicarusflew · 2 years

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Spring, Autumn, Winter, Summer... and Spring again

The seasons change in habitual monotone for the rest of the world, but Draco always associates the transition of weather with his conjunction with Hermione. Fall together, then apart and then back to the beginning, it’s a whirlwind. A storm. And in the eye of it, standing still, is the boy from the astronomy tower with his heart on his sleeves. Because after all is said and all is done, he is still in love with her.

AUTUMN

Hermione Granger comes to his mind at unsuspecting times. While he is reviewing some insipid ministry legislations, just the moment before apparating - that split second dissonance of where he is and where he should be , in the midst of his friends, and he’s almost drunk - almost gives in to the piercing longing and calls out her name. He would like to call out her name even if she isn’t there to hear it; it’s better, even. Her not hearing it, not having something (pity? Sorrow? Some fragmented, distorted version of what he’s feeling?) that urges her to call him back. It is better if she does not realize the extent of the trouble he is in.

And the trouble is that Hermione Granger, with that curly mess of a hair, with brilliant brown eyes, comes uninhibited to his mind like an instinct. When he’s done taking a stroll in his estate - the proud Malfoy estate, when he visits his mother’s tomb.

After he’s made love to his wife.

Made love , he would sneer at the idea if he were cruel, but Draco Malfoy is not cruel - not anymore. He is a remolded, twisted, calcified shell of a man - something that bears all the marks of past and present and shallow dents what he thinks his future is ought to be. He is cynical and proud and hates himself with a vengeance.

But cruelty is something he wrenched out of himself. It hurt, the defense mechanism clawed into his skin and made a rebel. Cruelty wanted to latch onto him like a second skin, a thin membrane forged by years and years of habitude, pale and white and so like him. And he understands the terrible creature - because what is he left with when he lets go of it? A bitter boy - a bitter, rich boy - too scared to do the right thing, too scared to do anything else.

They do not make love, he and his wife. They make duty, they make resolutions to give this relationship another go. The bed frame is made of mahogany, it doesn’t creak with his heated, rhythmic thrusts. But Astoria moans as they continue this ritual every other night and Draco remembers to make the distinction between love and duty because they do not make love. They make mistakes. He should never have married Astoria. He still remembers the faint curl of Granger’s smile when he told her that he was going to get married to Astoria. He remembers how that smile fell, in an instant, like the momentary fluttering of a butterfly when she realized he wasn’t joking.

“Astoria?” she sounded indignant, as if it was an insult. Or a cruel joke. Draco hadn’t meant to be cruel.

“Astoria,” he replied, his voice falling and falling and somehow, with pinchers and a clawed grasp, he pulled it up and answered in the uppity tone he gets when he’s ashamed. “Astoria Greengrass.”

“W-why? I mean.” She pursed her lips, a flushed pinkness on her cheeks. “I mean. When? You never mentioned her.”

“It never came up.”

Why should it? They’re colleagues who are friendly, at best. At best, Hermione Granger has forgiven her hateful classmate, the schoolyard bully. At best he can ask for only a minor, scraped proportion of her time while they discuss the ambiguous history of the twelfth century goblin renaissance. He knows the best possible outcomes of their scenarios by heart. But the worsts - well, they’re ingrained in his brain.

“Do you love her?”

“No.” Perhaps it was cruel, the way he dished that out. But he was still learning. Is still learning. “But we are a perfect match, same background and same… past.”

Granger looked at the verge of bursting out. She looked angry and indignant… and hurt. Draco had to remind himself why indulging in the hollowness of her eyes is not a good idea for either of them - especially her.

“Congratulations,” she snapped, rather crudely.

“Thank you.”

This was the last time he spoke to her. He married a month later, in a perfectly intimate gathering, with a handful of both his and Astoria’s friends. Some colleagues from the ministry. Draco wasn’t cruel enough to invite her.

A month later she returned the favor.

WINTER

They meet at annual galas and charity events and on the anniversary of the battle of Hogwarts. Draco tries not to look as if Hermione Granger is always, always on his mind. The voice replacing his own drawling contempt. The soft, breezy voice that snaps him out of his misery, that pulls it right back in. When he reads books now, or pamphlets or legislations, it’s her voice that recites in his mind. The scent in the most ancient manuscript of his library smells like her. He hadn’t shown her his library. He should have shown her his library before the shackles of expectations and customs came in the way. He should have called her by her name at least once because you can bear regret all your life about something you’ve done. It can bring shame and anger and contempt… But what you don’t say aches. Always remembers to haunt you back.

They meet at a ministry ball and Astoria clutches onto his arm a little tighter. They both pretend not to notice this transgression.

“How have you been?” Granger asks. Ronald Weasley is beside her, looking almost on the verge of blurting some uncomfortable jokes. He can never quite maintain their faux civility.

“Good. Perfect.” And unlike her, Draco is tactful enough to throw the next question at both of them. “And you?”

“We’re fine,” Weasley answers. Granger - she hasn’t changed her name - only offers a small smile.

The room is decorated in floating lights, sparking, golden balls almost like tiny suns parading around their heads. It stops just behind the crown of her head, and for a moment her face is eclipsed by the bright light, nestled between the shadow of her open hair. Draco stares, a little too preposterously, and watches, with an uncomfortable twinge in his heart, her trembling lips.

If Draco were a cruel man he would be glad to learn that she was miserable too.

Their marriage doesn’t last. Draco knew it wouldn’t. Granger is not the sort of person to settle into things. She has to thrive, give her best and get her best. She isn’t like him, or Astoria, even, who knows just when to look away, ignore the agitated beat of their senseless heart. To feed it poison little by little so it would die eventually. But in the meantime it would beat with a soft thump, aching. Hermione wouldn’t know how to bear that.

When she tells him the news of her divorce in a rare visit to his office, he offers congratulations instead of condolences. She doesn’t reply. She stares and stares and stares until he can feel her contempt in his bones.

“I thought you liked me,” she says quietly.

“I do.” He loves her. He’s been headfirst in the never-ending freefall since she greeted him at the beginning of their final year at hogwarts. When the flimsy cover of bias was wrenched away, it was distressingly, embarrassingly easy to like her. The brilliant, kind witch. So easy to talk to her about history and morality and helplessness. It was so easy to know her. Then fall for her.

“Why didn’t you ever -” She closes her eyes. “Why didn’t you ask me out? Or accept when I asked you out?”

“Not good in the long-run. Not good for your future.” He hesitates. “Or mine.”

She looks on the verge of saying something - something cruel perhaps, something he deserves. She has always been the one to dish out what he deserves.

But she doesn’t offer any remark on his cowardice, his inability to take control of his life, or his culpability in ruining it. She scoffs, face twisted in anger, before stomping out of his office, and then his life.

They don’t talk again for a year after this.

SUMMER

“I don’t think I can ever have children.” Astoria brings up the topic of their infertility on the breakfast table as if it is the most natural thing. When Draco looks up from Granger’s face plastered on the third page of the daily prophet, he finds Astoria spinning the silver spoon in the potency mixture she’s instructed to drink every morning.

“What?”

She straightens her back. And this time actually looks right at him as if he was the antagonist in her story. “Actually. I know I can’t have them.”

“You know what Pansy said.”

“Yes.”

“She is a good healer.”

“Yes, she is. And I am wise enough to know when I am being coddled like a little child.”

Draco puts the newspaper down, it’s folded carefully so there is no crease on Granger’s smiling face. He doesn’t know what to say. What Astoria says is true, and he is supposed to be upset. Bearing an heir is supposed to be important for them, for the Malfoy dynasty. But every time Astoria brought him another news of their impotency, he felt ridiculously relieved. And for good measure, he would tell himself later. What use is there spreading his genes - his cowardly genes - and bringing a child into a loveless marriage? What could he possibly teach his child about the world? What he knows about life and loss and guilt and shame is something he doesn’t want to admit, which in turn - like a boomerang - spins right back to him. He wouldn’t want to put that on a child. A child deserves a father who is whole. Draco isn’t whole.

“I don’t mind if we can’t have children,” he tells his wife across the table, who always sits across the table.

“And you wouldn’t mind if I gave you ten sons.” She sighs. “You wouldn’t even care.”

The silence crystallizes in the air. There is nothing to answer.

“I think we should just… accept what it is. A failed attempt at following our parents. Yours and mine. I can’t bear it anymore.”

“Astoria -”

“It’s not that you are a terrible husband.” She smiles scornfully. “You aren’t cruel or violent, you just - just don’t care.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I thought I could live like this. Some of my friends are in so much worse… arrangements, but I can’t. Maybe if you’d -” She chuckled. “If you’d hit me once in a while. Or order me around I might even feel something. But I can’t live with my husband being in love with someone else. Not when I can love him better and he doesn’t even care.”

Words trip over in his tongue. He can’t get them out. For the first time in his marriage, for the very first time in three years, he experiences absolute honesty.

“We’ll tell my parents that you left me because your inability to have children is what broke us apart. So I’d not be blamed. You can do that for me at least. But we’ll tell our friends the truth. I left you . We could tell about the infertility issue, I don’t care. We can tell that’s the reason.”

And he knows it’s not the reason, she knows it’s not the reason. The reason is that he can’t look her in the eyes when he comes inside her, and the choked moan he offers reverbates in his mind like his shame. The reasons are all the times he doesn’t tell her how many ways he is not cheating on her. And she doesn’t deserve this. For the first time in his marriage he sees just how beautiful his wife is. But it doesn’t bring any more shame for him, all he feels is a dull sadness.

“I’m sorry, Astoria.”

“I know.” She purses her lips. “I hope you can work this out someday, you and Granger.”

The morning light through the window glints on the polished crystals on their dining table. The hollowness of Astoria’s goodwill and the hollow of his chest build up a vicious, terrible anger. And the age old contempt, and sadness.

The divorce works out in less than a month. When he tells Granger this she offers her condolences.

SPRING (AGAIN)

It takes him a few weeks more to summon up the courage to talk to her. It’s a hot, humid, summer day. He sits in front of her desk, his index tapping into the mahogany as she tries her absolute best to ignore him. It’s been like this for a few days, he comes into her office during lunch and offers to take her into someplace new. She refuses. He insists. And they talk without talking, glance without staring, and he feels the blinding, irresponsible electricity between them when their shoulders brush unexpectedly, or when she smiles without scoffing.

“Do you know what Astoria said to me at our divorce hearing?” he asks. Suddenly, preposterously, in a blunt stroke of brashness.

The quill in her hand quivers. But she doesn’t look up. “What?”

“She wished I could work it out with you.”

The quill stops moving altogether. “Work what out?”

“This - this connection. The age old… fondness.”

“Fondness?”

“Yes.”

“Is that her choice of word?”

“It’s mine.”

A fist forms in her hand, the quill breaks in half as she looks up. Right at him. Right through him. “You asshole.”

“I know.”

“You talk about fondness between us? After - after all these - fucking years?”

“I know I am a bit late, but -”

“A bit? Three years! You told me yesterday that marrying her was a bad decision. Well, Draco, I could’ve told you that three years ago.”

In his mind, Hermione smiled at him when he brought that up. In his mind she accepted his apology with a laugh. He stutters, his well-practiced eloquence blatantly failing him, “I -I mean - you married Weasley too… and -”

“Only after you -” She closes her eyes. “I hurt him, Draco. I hurt my friend because I was lonely and you rejected me and I know that is not an excuse, but you - you fucking prick.”

He has never, ever before heard her use this much profanity in a single exchange.

“I’m sorry.” It comes out like a breath. And when he finally says her name - “Hermione.” - it sounds like a long echoed confession.

Her face softens, but not entirely out of fire. Still she huffs, rolls her eyes and settles back in her chair. “You need to do a lot more than apologize.”

“I know.”

“You have to put an end to this messed up habit of punishing yourself.”

“I know.”

“You have to promise me to never let me go again.”

“I will, I’m ready.” Or he thinks he is. But damned if he ever let the terror in his spine to decide something for him ever again.

“But first and foremost.” She tilts her head. “You have to do one very important thing.”

Draco stares at her expectantly. And suddenly a memory comes to his mind, a fleeting, sparse image of Hermione in the Astronomy tower in a spring afternoon, between classes, sharing her notes with him, sharing a piece of her mind with him. He remembers staring at her as she talked and imagining what it would feel like to kiss her.

When she speaks in the cramped chamber of the ministry, he almost feels the breeze of wind at the highest tower of their old school. He almost feels eighteen again.

“You have to ask me out.”

#draco malfoy #angst #angst and comfort #dramione #hermione granger #one shot #fanfiction #a whole lotta angst #angst with a happy ending #dramione one shot #draco is struggling #draco and hermione #draco x hermione #draco malfoy x hermione granger #astoria greengrass #astoria malfoy #ron weasley

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sepublic · 3 years

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Barrel’s Warhammer!

YYYYOOOOOO SASHA!!!!

She really is the epitome, the pinnacle, of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss! I love Sasha, she’s such an utter mess, morally ambiguous and then downright terrible in so many ways, and genuinely unhinged in just as many! She’s a freaking riot and SUCH an amazing character, y’all!

In general, I adore how Toads are handled in this show! Yeah, they’re big and brutish and used as thugs… But the show still clearly portrays them as people, and some of them are terrible like Bog, but others are just trying to live their lives, like Percy and Braddock! And how they’re all clearly working with this ascribed role as Andrias’ enforcers and iron fist across Amphibia, how they’re encouraged to be cruel brutes… But they’re still people and they’re still oppressed, which is why Grime is leading his rebellion! Good for him, good for THEM!

Also… GRIMMITY?!?! Beatrix?! Grime LORE! I like how Beatrix and Grime have blind eyes on opposite sides, and Sasha roasting Bufo by naturally connecting his name to Buffoon, WONDERFUL! Aldo’s also a legendary, killer design, he reminds me of VLD Zarkon, old and decrepit and fanged and clearly has seen a LOT of stuff, a real warrior of his time… Honestly, getting a look into the Toads and THEIR complicated role in this story, as the ‘bad guys’ but not really, there’s more to them; It’s such a fit to Sasha’s character, and I LOVE how she’s such an utter brute for someone who normally seems accustomed to using honey over vinegar to attract flies (to feed her Toads)! She’s nuts, she’s great.

I love the explanation for the eye symbol, I love Sasha really getting to appreciate Percy and Braddock, and for a moment I thought she really was learning her lesson… When she gave them an out, I thought maybe she took what happened with Anne to heart, but now…! Maybe this is what she’s always done; Made empty promises. God, I love this little arc for her character, how she wants to be a good friend, but she keeps valuing power and control over all else…

AND HER RAGE! HER JEALOUSY! At Anne and Marcy being with each other, leaving her out, Sasha’s mind jumping to all of the worst conclusions, and how THAT anger is what unlocks her gem power, not heroism or anything else! Sasha’s such a complex and messed-up character but you can’t help but root for her, she really IS a Problematic Fave! God, with how she’s going to meet Anne in a volcano, and the whole “Sasha is Anakin and Anne is Obi-Wan” just WRITES itself, with Sasha angrily accusing Anne of turning Marcy against her, Anne retorting that Sasha did that herself, etc.!

God Sasha’s such a complicated mess and ball of unresolved emotions and contradictions, denial that’s insisting everything’s fine when it’s really not… She’s a manipulator who prefers to be hands-off, yet is also somehow the raw brute with unthinking, unyielding strength! She’s utterly terrifying, no wonder all of the Toads are in awe of her ferocity and power!

Also, I like how Barrel’s Warhammer was included; At first I wondered WHY the Narwhal Worm would guard the weapon used by the Toad who fought it, but as we can clearly see… Barrel must’ve conked it out BADLY with his Warhammer, knocking it out, and the hammer has been stuck since! And once more, the hammer has been slammed into the worm… And in general, I love seeing the Toads just ROOT around Sasha and Grime, I love seeing villainous characters get to go feral and unhinged as you root for them, as THEY rise up and fight against all odds as the underdogs!

Percy and Braddock and the gag with the kawaii poses was great, but it’s also sad to see them go! They’re definitely a wake-up call for Sasha and I like it, I wonder if you could parallel them, one-by-one, to Anne and Marcy respectively? Perhaps Anne and Marcy were initially not taken seriously by Sasha at first, but ultimately she DID grow to care for them and not just as ‘tools’, who knows? With Anne and Percy and Braddock, I think Sasha’s going to have to reconsider things… And GRIME, how he just sort of accepts that, yeah, you gotta lose people to achieve a goal! I could see him being a bad influence to Sasha, unintentionally- Like her, he means well, they’re really great parallels to one another!

Like, Sasha and Grime are both brutes, power-hungry, and wanting control, but Sasha prefers subtlety and manipulation, appeals to both her and others’ emotions, while Grime prefers to be raw and unthinking strength, he’s a seasoned veteran from combat, while Sasha is likely a rich kid, young and learning… They’re such a dynamic duo with a lot to teach one another! Maybe Grime sees himself in Sasha; Himself when HE was a kid… Maybe when he was a gladiator, he had friends but left them behind to be promoted to Captain? I wonder if Beatrix has anything to say on this, too…

Could Beatrix provide insight to Grimmity? Did Grime leave her behind in a sense…? Does SASHA have a sibling, and that leads to her weird power complex, as another parallel to Grime! Either way it’s sweet, I adore the dynamic of two horrible people who are good friends and bad, enabling influences to each other… Being problematic faves, you can’t help but cringe at their mistakes but also cheer as they win as underdogs and turn the tables on their enemies! I like how Sasha is still supportive of Grime and vice-versa, Grime’s guiding this kid, but Sasha’s fully supporting Grime as the de-facto leader and backing him up, not trying to seize control!

I think it really parallels Anne, how she just wanted to get back home… But somewhere along the way, she realizes how much she loves and enjoys this, and values her friend! And maybe it could lead to Sasha not wanting to head back home after all, especially if there’s nothing there for her; Which could play into her keeping all of her gem powers as she opposes Andrias openly, while Anne has some of her power because again, she’s more neutral, and then Marcy has none because she’s fully bought into the Newt King’s schtick!

Also, it’s funny that Sasha is no doubt feeling betrayed, like her trust has been jeopardized by Anne and Marcy, considering she did the same to Anne in Reunion! Lying to her about what she intended to do with the Frogs… It’s wonderfully hypocritical and this kid does NOT want self-awareness, she’ll toy with it for a bit, but then immediately backpedal! Get better and well Sasha, for everyone’s sake… The confrontation and paranoia as she loses her friends and only has Grime, who means well but isn’t so great himself, is also nice!

Honestly, there’s even a parallel to the idea of Sasha meaning well, only to be ruined by her own toxicity… And Grime wanting a better life for Toads in his revolution, but still allowing a hierarchy to exist by the end of the day, instead of abolishing it for all! They both have good ideas and initiative, but it’s ruined by Sasha and Grime not backing down on certain things and not listening to others, being SO sure they’re right… Very compelling stuff. Now I’m starting to wonder if Sasha will be open to Anne about her suspicions, if they WILL get along for the Third Temple…

…Or if she’ll try to manipulate and fool her again, thinking that SHE’s been betrayed herself! And maybe Sasha will realize her faults in the battle of Newtopia, only for it to be too late, Anne has been too betrayed, Sasha has only herself (and, well, Andrias) to blame! In the meantime, as Sasha no doubt embraces her role as a rebel, but also unknowingly as a hero against Andrias and his master… I can see her tapping more into her gem powers and actually using them as part of her rage, hence the shots we see from the Third Temple! She’s going to be terrifying, y’all, and even more of a match for Yunnan at this point… And Anne, poor Anne’s going to be caught between TWO toxic friends!

Both mean well, but both have other bad points… And it just means Anne’s gonna have to forge her own path, make her own decisions and group and faction, be her own person and take initiative once more! But it’s also gonna be lonely and could contribute to more trust issues along the way… And maybe she’ll think she can only trust herself, only do things on her own, and how this might pair badly with her selfless martyr-complex. We’ll have to wait and see, though… We’ll have to wait and see.

#amphibia #amphibia sasha #sasha waybright #amphibia grime #captain grime #amphibia percy #amphibia braddock #analysis #speculation

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dalishthunder · 3 years

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can we get some lanque/reader red/pitch vacillation with 4) “You’d better be quiet or everyone’s going to know what a naughty little slut you are.”

Rating: Explicit Words: 675 Pairing: Lanque/Reader (gender ambiguous) quadrant vacillation, choking, semi-public sex

He was a sadist. Without question (though anyone who'd even think to question it really should have rethought that decision). His face, complete with his signature sneer, sent out one very loud message: Lanque Bombyx was not your bottom bitch.

He wasn't anyone's bottom bitch.

And his reputation preceeded him; the jadeblood was notorious for chewing up partners and spitting them out usually by the end of the encounter. You liked to think you were different. You were different. Sort of.

Which was how you found yourself in such a compromising position over and over again with this conniving, sadistic, piece of shit asshole.

He had started off sweet. Tender almost. Well... no. Definitely objectively not sweet or tender, but compared to his usual games he might as well have been; Kissing you sensually outside some rich dude's hive before tugging you into what was probably their gardening block. Which made sense for them to have considering it was a garden party instead of the usual rager Lanque crashed.

He'd sucked and nipped gently at your neck, even letting you tangle your fingers in his hair and hold him close. But as soon as you'd even brushed against his horns he'd shoved you up against the wall and given you a very stern bite. Just hard enough to draw blood.

"You wouldn't want to turn things pitch now would you? Just when things are starting to get heated?" He absolutely purred into your neck, lapping your blood up with his tongue like some rainbow drinker.

You really did pity him far too much.

It had progressed more smoothely from there, but you'd made the mistake of letting out a loud moan when his bulge stroked at your thighs as he teased you open. His other hand closed around your throat. "Careful. You’d better be quiet or everyone’s going to know what a naughty little slut you are.” His bulge pushed in unceremoniously, and even though you tried to stifle your keen you knew that if he hadn't cut off your air supply that you'd probably have been caught. "Letting yourself be fucked in some stranger's garden block. The party isn't even that loud. If I didn't know any better I'd say you wanted to get caught."

You shook your head, bucking your hips into his frantically. He gave you a chaste kiss and returned the favor, skillfully undulating inside of you.

"I bet you like this, slut. My bulge deep inside you like this." He whispered, nipping at your ear and you mentally noted that he was far more of a slut than you, and you would have told him so had he not been cutting off your air supply just enough for you to form words. He was such a pretentious douche acting like you were the only one affected when he clearly was sweating, barely able to hold in his own moans as you wrapped your legs around him.

You could feel him getting closer just as you yourself were winding yourself up.

"Do you want to be my filthy little bucket tonight, slut?"

You sort of wanted to roll your eyes because that was extremely messy but you knew that he really liked pailing inside you; he was kinky like that. And because you were so soft for him you nodded despite how messy it was.

After a few moments you tipped over the edge, and it didn't take him long after that to follow you, warm slurry pumping into you and filling you. Lanque kissed you passionately, fingers curling in your hair and holding you close as he emptied himself.

It took a while for you both to come down, panting messes. You giggled a little despite the uncomfortable feeling of genetic material oozing out of you slowly. He orlled his eyes, but you could see the faint smile, the tell that he would be back. That for some reason, this fanged, slutty menace had taken a liking to you.

And for some reason, you kept coming back to him too.

#100d under the cut #lanque bombyx #feeling thorny #thunderous applesauce #Anonymous

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6ftslytherin · 3 years

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I didn't know what to draw so here's a fic instead.

Sabine has something important to tell Merula.

(Trigger warnings for depression, internalized homophobia, and a description of a suicide attempt.)

"When you need to tell someone a difficult topic, you need to look them in the eyes. Make sure you are ready to talk yourself. People tend to take rough news better sitting down. Plan what you want to say before hand." Sabine continued to replay her father's advice in her mind as she flew to the side of Merula's house with her room's windows. Sabine wasn't allowed to use the front door. In fact, she wasn't even allow to be at the Snyde house. Merula's aunt didn't like her or her family.

She didn't consider them to even be human. Too be fair, the Ministry didn't either. Her own grandfather had been denied admittance to Hogwarts because of his Succubus mother. Her father only got in by working his butt off to earn letters of recommendation from the Board of Governors. She was only 12.5% Succubus but her birth certificate said third generation Cambion. Even if her genes affected her harder than her brothers because of her sex, it still wasn't fair.

Sabine could tell when people knew. It was the same look everytime. Disgust. The exact look Merula's aunt had when she had asked about the points of her ears. Sabine didn't like her ears. She looked human except for them. But who was she to complain? Her father had red eyes. Her grandfather had horns. Besides, Merula did say they were cute in her special way. "Your ears are more interesting to look at then the rest of you." An insult from others. A compliment from her.

Sabine reached the side of the house and got off her broom. She was glad Merula's aunt wouldn't be back until noon tomorrow. The Snyde home wasn't new by any means, but definitely newer than Lowell manor. Considering the manor had been built during the seventeen century it would probably be older than most of her classmate's homes. The Snyde house was bigger than average homes. Not that you could compare to any of Merula's neighbors. The closest one was only noticable if it was pointed out to you. Perfect for broom rides (or gatherings of Death Eaters).

Merula's window was already open. Perfect for such a hot summer night. Unfortunately, her room was on the second floor and windows were not easy to fly through. This wasn't her first visit to her girlfriend's room though. Part of having a long, rich, lineage was all of the magic items accumulated over the years. The most important at the moment being the Ladder-in-a-bag. The LIAN never made it to market due to a little design flaw that caused it to become electrified.

Sabine put the bag on the ground in front of the bushes and opened it. Just as the product name said a ladder long enough to reach Merula's window deployed itself. Sabine was worried that one day she would manage to launch a ladder through one of the windows. But she wasn't here to break glass today. She had to tell Merula something deeply personal.

Sabine adjusted the strap on her backpack. She climbed the ladder holding her broom and stepped into the room. She put the opening of the bag onto the top of the ladder. It sucked the ladder back in and she closed the window. Merula wasn't in the room. Sabine put her bags and broom in a corner and sat on a large purple beanbag chair. She knew better than to try and look around the house. The last time a painting of Merula's great uncle told on her. Luckily he had said Merula had a boy over. One of the perks of being gender ambiguous. Merula had stated that she didn't want her aunt to know about her liking girls. At least not until she was seventeen and a legal adult. Then ownership of the house would transfer to her. It's difficult to kick someone out of their own house.

Sabine looked around the familiar room. They had only been together for half a year but her influence was noticeable. Last year's potions textbook sat on the bookshelf. Inside was a pressed flower Sabine had picked for Merula on their first date. A hoodie that used to belong to her was hanging off the back of a chair. They had been caught in the rain and Sabine gave it to a shivering Merula. In exchange they kissed for the first time.

On the ceiling above Merula's bed were some glow in the dark stars they had found when muggle shopping on a whim. They had used an astrology book to arrange them in the shape of their zodiac constellations. Capricorn for Merula. Aquarius for Sabine. When they had been putting them up Sabine had gone in for a kiss, only for Merula to stick a a star on her lips. That star now rested above Sabine's headboard. It was hard to believe that these great memories wouldn't exist if she hadn't failed last year.

The door opened and Merula walked in. Her hair was a bit wet. She always showered before they met up. She looked cute as ever. Even cuter when she saw Sabine and gave a smile. Sabine stood up. "Hey." Merula said. Sabine couldn't help but give a goofy smile, not her rehearsed smile. "Hey." She said. "You wanted to talk about something?" Merula asked. Then Sabine remembered what she was there to do. She had sent Athena the owl with a letter three days ago. Her smile faltered. This wasn't something to be happy about.

Merula noticed and stopped smiling herself. "Is something wrong? Do I need to hex someone?" She asked. "No. I mean... It's a complicated situation." Sabine said, well aware Merula would hex everyone in the world until Sabine smiled again. That was part of her charm. Even if Sabine couldn't couldn't stand up for herself Merula would. "It's actually what I wanted to talk about. Would you mind sitting down?" Sabine asked. Merula looked concerned as she sat on the end of her bed. Sabine sat next to her. This was the big moment. She would tell her the truth.

"Merula. I have been thinking about saying this for the longest time now. These past months have been some of the happiest of my life. I love spending time with you." Sabine said as she touched the the tips of her finger to her thumbs. "But I need to admit to something. I want this to be more than just us messing around. I really care about you. But I need you to understand my mental health before we go any further. So I don't want to keep this secret from you anymore." Sabine put her hands on both sides of her hips and pushed them into the mattress. Here it was. Deep breath.

"Around this time last year I tried to end my own life... and I almost did."

The color drained from Merula's face.

Sabine wasn't sure what else to say at this point. It was clear Merula didn't know either.

"I... Shit..." Merula laid back on her bed. Her eyes swirl as she tried to comprehend Sabine's words.

It felt like hours past. Was telling her the wrong thing to do? No. It had to be done. She didn't feel right not having her know. Especially around this time. She had a feeling she would get depressed towards the end of July.

Sabine felt something touch her hand. It wasn't hard to guess what it was. She took Merula's hand and laid back on the mattress with her. Sabine was more than glad to give Merula her hand if it helped her get grounded. To be honest, Sabine needed a little grounding herself. She gently ran her index finger over Merula's nails. She didn't have to look to know they were freshly painted. Merula always put great effort into her appearance when they met up. If Sabine was being honest, it made her feel so special. She hadn't even seen her with slightly unshaven legs until Sabine had surprised her with a visit early one morning.

Merula said something Sabine didn't catch. "Hm?" She asked. "How did you do it?" Merula repeated. "Pills. They're like little oval pearls muggles uses instead of potions. They come in small bottles with a bunch of them in it. I must of taken about one hundred with wine I stole from my parents. I heard mixing those things can be fatal. They were sleeping pills. I thought it would be like falling asleep. It most certainly wasn't."

Sabine felt her hand get squeezed. "Why didn't you just use a poison?" "My family is well known. Buying a poison would have gotten back to my parents. If I tried to brew my own then the only place I could get strong enough ingredients would be my grandmother's cabinet. She doesn't lock it so anyone can experiment with them. It would have destroyed her to know I abused her trust to do it."

"Why?" Merula asked. "I didn't want to live anymore. I felt like everyone would be better off without me. I thought my existence was mistake. The only things I felt anymore were sad or angry. I started smoking just to feel something else. I didn't feel like I could tell anyone because it would bother them. Why would they care?"

Sabine unconsciously squeezed Merula's hand. "My parents had lost John and Jacob because of me. Marie was told she had a forty five precent chance of surviving leukemia at nine years old. My mother and grandmother lost their entire family to Nazis. What did I have? I was sad. I couldn't grow up and continue the bloodline because marrying a man felt wrong, but I was told liking girls was worse. I thought I brought nothing but despair. I believed I wasn't the daughter my family wanted. I didn't feel like I deserved to stay alive."

Silence.

Did Merula have no more questions? No. She was probably just trying to process everything. Sabine knew it wasn't easy to hear, especially from someone you care about. Maybe telling her was the wrong thing to do? No. If they were going to continue this relationship she needed to tell Merula. Sabine had accepted they might break up because of this. After all, why would anyone want to stay with someone as crazy as her?

Sabine felt the weight on the mattress shift. Merula had rolled into her side. She placed her free hand over Sabine's heart. As if checking to make sure it was still beating and Sabine wasn't a ghost. Sabine turned her head and looked at Merula. There were no tears in either girls' faces.

"Have you thought about trying it again?" Merula asked.

"Once or twice." Sabine said.

That was it. Merula cracked. Her hand balled up Sabine's t-shirt.

She buried her face into Sabine's shirt. It quickly became damp with tears and snot as she tried to quietly sob.

Sabine started to gently pet Merula's hair. "It's alright. I'm not planning on going anywhere any time soon. I've been seeing a psychologist ever since. My support system is a lot stronger than it was. Your an important part of it." Sabine explained. She needed to let her cry it out. Sabine remembered similar events last year. It always felt weird to watch someone mourn the Sabine they thought they knew.

"Y-you... fucking..." Merula said through clenched teeth. She was mad alright. Why wouldn't she be? Her girlfriend just told her she had moments of weakness where being dead seemed better than being alive. Maybe that was going too far. But it was important to tell her the truth right? Sabine had never really been able to read people right. Maybe it would have been better to not have said anything. Sabine could tell she was working herself up. She took a deep breath and said, "If you need some time I can leave." Merula gripped her harder. "Don't..." Sabine settled in for a long night. Merula rarely cried, but when she did it would take sometime to calm back down.

It must of been an hour before Merula calmed down. She was now quietly laying on Sabine's chest. Her eyeliner stained Sabine's shirt. "When I got your letter I thought you were breaking up with me." She said. "No. I wanted to tell you because I trust you. I think our relationship is going great." Sabine said as she pulled Merula closer. "Just so you know, I only cried because I'm about to get my period. But... I'm glad you told me. I never realized you felt that way. I'll try to be more sensitive to your feelings." Sabine knew the first thing she said was a lie, but she believed what Merula said after that. "I've always been good at hiding my feelings. That's part of what my psychologist and I have been working on. He says it's important for me to express my emotions in a healthy way."

Merula got quite. Sabine stared up at the stars on the ceiling. She had never been good at astronomy. It was probably her worst class. If it hadn't been for Rowan she might have failed. She definitely wouldn't take it unless she needed it. Then her thoughts were interrupted by something she heard from Merula. At first she though she misheard her. Merula couldn't have said what she thought.

"What?" Sabine asked.

"Merlin, are you stupid? I said you can't die yet because I love you."

Merula covered up her now cherry red face. That was when the words hit Sabine. Her own face turning a similar shade. "What?!" Sabine asked as she nervously laughed. Whenever she was unable to control her feelings she laughed. "Don't make me repeat it!" Merula grabbed a pillow and hit Sabine in the chest. That just made Sabine laugh harder. Merula stood up from the bed and did her cute little pouting face. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to laugh." Sabine said as she got up. "What brought this on?"

Merula tried to not look her in the face. "You shared your feelings. So I shared mine. It was only fair... and if being open about how we feel is the next step in our relationship then I should say what I feel. I love you. So don't try anything that would hurt yourself." Sabine wasn't sure what to say. She was expecting just about every reaction except for being told for the first time that her girlfriend loved her. Sabine's goofy smile returned. She took another deep breath and held it for five seconds. Sabine grabbed Merula by the shoulders and spinned her around to face her.

"Merula. I feel the same way. Being with you has been so amazing. I honestly can't wait to see what else we are going to do together. I love you too."

Merula's eyes got big. Had she not expected Sabine to love her back? Merula came back to reality.

"Oh course you do. I'm one of the greatest witches of the modern era!" Merula said as she tried to pretend she didn't just experience one of the greatest highs of her life.

Sabine cocked her head to the side. "One of them?" She asked. Merula used one of her hands to pinch Sabine's cheek. "Well... Your pretty good too." They looked at each other and started laughing. Merula leaned forward and kissed Sabine. "It must be about two in the morning. I'm gonna wash my face. Change into your pajamas. I don't want to snuggle up to a snotty shirt."

By the time Sabine had changed Merula walked back in. "Not knocking?" Sabine asked. "It's my room." Merula said as she got into bed. "Fair enough." Sabine got in on the other side as the lights went out. Sabine moved closer to Merula. "What's this? Aren't you the big spoon?" Merula asked as Sabine snuggled up to her. "I just want to be held this time. Is that alright?" Merula put her arm around Sabine. "Fine. Do whatever you want." She said, clearly enjoying the new experience. She kissed her on the forehead and quickly fell asleep. All that crying must have worn her out. Sabine nuzzled Merula's neck. She never told anyone, but she loved the way Merula smelled. Was it weird for Sabine to enjoy Merula's scent like this? Stupid succubus genes. With that thought her own eyes got heavy.

A door downstairs loudly closed. Sabine and Merula shot up. They looked at the window that was letting in fresh morning light. They didn't have to say anything to each other. It was obvious Merula's aunt was back early. They jumped out of bed. Sabine quickly put on her shoes and grabbed her stuff. Merula opened the window. Sabine got on her broom. Merula gave her a quick kiss. Sabine kicked off and tried to go out the window as fast as she could. Unfortunately, she hit her head on the top of the window frame and went tumbling into the bushes. Real smooth moves from a quidditch star.

Sabine rubbed her forehead as she heard Merula's door opened. "What are you doing up?" Her aunt asked. "I got hot so I was opening the window." Merula said. There was silence. The door to Merula's closest opened. Then there were footsteps approaching the window. Sabine watched in fear as she saw Merula's aunt poke her head out the window. Despite being agnostic, Sabine gave a small prayer to turn invisible. She gave a sigh when the aunt came back in. "Don't think I can't tell you had a boy here you little tramp." Merula's aunt left the room.

Merula waited a minute before looking out the window to check on Sabine. For some odd reason, they found this hilarious. They did their best to stifle their laughter. Sabine got out of the bushes and kicked off the ground. She hovered in front of the window and blew Merula a kiss. "You dork." Merula said giggling as she caught the kiss. "You gonna fly home in your sweat pants?" She asked. "I'll get changed in the bathroom of a park nearby."

Merula smiled. "I love you. And I'm glad you failed."

Sabine smiled back. "It's my greatest failure. I love you too."

#hogwarts mystery #hphm #sabine lowell #jacob's sibling #mc #merula snyde #jacob's sibling x merula #mc x merula #tw suicide attempt #fan fic

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dearheartwitcher · 4 years

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ocs masterpost

for ease of access! in-depth descriptions of all my favorite ocs, all in one post. you can find even more of my ocs (brief descriptions + reference images) over on my art fight page! (you have to be logged in to view!)

[[MORE]]

DnD Characters:

note: for some of these, i have to omit large portions of info as i am either actively playing them, or saving them for a future campaign, and i dont want anyone im playing with to see and accidentally spoil themselves

Fennryn Autumntide—

They were separated from their parents as a baby, and instead raised by an older dwarven woman named Rhiannon Autumntide (AKA Anna). They lived in the forest on the mountain together. She taught them how to fend for themself, and a basic respect for nature and other living things. Their relationship was very teacher/student, but as the years went by they saw each other as family. Fenn solidified this by taking Anna’s last name when they were of age. Eventually, Anna passed away, and Fenn was left in the woods alone.

Fearful of dying alone without ever having experienced life off of the mountain, Fenn sets out to find an adventure. And they find one, alongside a younger tiefling man named Finn. Finn is an experienced pirate, but he is vulnerable. Finn and Fenn trust each other explicitly, and after some time, they fall in love.

Fenn is tall, muscular, and an older elf. They’re around middle aged.

Alistair—

Alistair is a mystery. They are a bizarre-looking half-elf, with a wicked grin, and glowing cyan eyes that lack pupils. They are seemingly fairly young, despite their hair beginning to grow white at the roots.

Alistair is extremely curious, and values sating that curiosity above most things. They spend much of their time exploring and researching. They also have a complete lack of respect for personal boundaries, and love to study and inspect whoever they can get their hands on. (They’re good with a pair of pliers, if you’re willing to let them pull a tooth. They’d be happy to show you their collection.)

Alistair also thrives on positive attention, especially from people who don’t give it easily. Perhaps that’s why they insist on hanging off of Frey as much as they do. Frey Matthias Wolfe is a rich bastard. He’s a man of study as well, but he’s a real mean bitch. And Alistair loves him.

Alistair’s patron... Is a whole other story. One that will remain secret, for now.

Jesse—

Jesse was spawned from the thought “I should make a mean nerd for everyone to bully!” And the execution, imo, was flawless. A 24 year old human man. Jesse is a bard, and he hates it. He has been traveling on his own for a while, and finished his bard college education a couple years ago. He’s pretty studious, and he’s determined to learn everything related to magic that he can.

Despite being a jackass, and kind of a stick in the mud, he does have some semblance of a sense of humor. He also likes to use his intelligence and skill to feel superior to the people around him as often as possible. He is visibly extremely disturbed by corpses.

Jesse is very vague about his past and his reasons for traveling alone.

Ford—

Ford is my newest character! He is a firbolg cowboy. Extremely tall (approaching 8’), with a powerful build. I can’t say much about him yet! He is seemingly very friendly and happy to lend a helping hand whenever he can. He has a sister, named Clementine, who owns a small grocery store.

Cressida:

(note: cressida city + the world its a part of belongs to my boyfriend @ghost-gore ! all the characters that mine know belong to him as well. warning for gore on his blog.)

Ellis—

Ellis is a demon who works in limbo under a man named Crow. Ellis is technically speaking, pretty old, but he looks just as much the young man he was when he died. He keeps his long hair back in a ponytail, and can’t seem to ever wear his suit properly.

Ellis’ powers allow him to see and alter people’s memories. Limbo, as it works out, is a mess of memories. He is always very busy keeping things in order. He’s no stranger to making mistakes, but he has a knack for fixing them to make up for it. When he has a moment to himself, he likes to slip into the dreams of humans. He thinks they’re interesting! (But he keeps accidentally bringing them nightmares...oops. Don’t worry, he can fix it!)

Ellis is in love with his boss, and has been for over a century. He has a hard time keeping it subtle, but fortunately(??) Crow is oblivious. But a century is a long time... And things have gotten intimate between them more than once.

He is also good friends with a much older demon, named Cordia. They like to meet up for drinks, and bond over funny cat pictures.

Rosier—

Rosier is an old, powerful demon. He was once a high-ranking officer in “Hell”’s military. He was charming, and an excellent strategist. (Having a powerful beast form also helps.)

However, something triggered him severely. In a frenzied panic, he shifted into his beast form and flew off.

As a beast, he has large red eyes, long antennae, sharp claws, and huge black wings. Years passed as he isolated himself, and legends spread of the Mothman. Rosier lost himself more and more, until he lost the ability to speak. He stopped seeing any people as the apocalypse happened all around him.

Later, living in the ruins outside of Cressida, he is found by a young hero named Ghost. Ghost is initially intimidated by Rosier, and treats him as an enemy. They fight a few times, before Ghost realizes that Rosier isn’t necessarily a foe— he’s just defending himself. Ghost then begins to treat Rosier almost as a pet.

After some time rehabilitating Rosier, Ghost brings him back to Orion HQ, where they work for Cordia. Cordia is one of very few demons old enough to recognize Rosier.

Eventually, Rosier is able to read, speak, and transform back into a more human shape. He still retains a few of his moth form’s traits, including fully red eyes, fur here and there, and limbs that fade to near-black at the tips.

Cyrus Darcy—

Cyrus is a rich bitch whore. He cares about three things ONLY: wine, sex, and himself. Money is power and he has more than enough of it. His parents passed away when he was a teenager, and they left him a fortune.

Cyrus always gets what he wants. If money can’t get it for him, he has another trick up his sleeve that can. Cyrus is a celestial, meaning a human born with supernatural powers. Cyrus has the power of suggestion, meaning that he can give anyone a short command that they are compelled to follow.

Cyrus has all the makings of a villain, but in actuality he is very neutral. He just wants to have a good time unbothered. He uses his powers mostly to get randos to leave him alone. (Randos like Arley and Kier, who are sent by Cordia to recruit Cyrus for Orion. It takes a while.)

Evelyn—

Evelyn (AKA Evie) was born in the Victorian Era, to a rich father. With money and good looks, she was often pursued by men wishing to court and marry her. She was disinterested in all of them. She preferred to spend her time reading and studying. Evelyn loved to learn, but she also loved a good romance or fantasy to sweep her off her feet.

Enter Cordia, who spent her Victorian days posing as a man. They had a passionate love affair, until Cordia made a sudden exit from Evelyn’s life.

Many years later, Evelyn awakens in the afterlife as an angel. When she and Cordia meet again, it is as equals and business partners.

She is now working as a librarian/an archivist. She also boxes, because she likes to feel strong.

Marcy—

Marcy is a thotty rave twink. They love music, they love neons, and they love to flirt. Marcy is very enthusiastic, and they are a little bit in love with basically everyone. They flirt constantly, and are not shy with physical affection. They like to do drugs and make out and they’re happy to do that with pretty much anyone who’s willing.

Marcy is also a celestial. Their powers allow them to control their personal gravity. They can jump really high, and come down hard, among other things! They mostly use it to help themself go fast. They used to be in roller derby! And they still love to skate.

(ps they have thighs for days and an ass that wont quit. thank u)

Other:

Bonnie Briary—

My newest oc! She belongs to a world where monsters are real, but hidden. Monsters aren’t super common, and they generally avoid integration with human society. (The setting is also a blend of modern + victorian fantasy. Think Lemony Snicket ambiguity.)

Bonnie is shy, sweet, and curious. She likes to study plants in particular. Her style of choice is cottagecore/fairycore blend. She has a garden that she loves very much.

Faust (belongs to tovomiel on ig), is a trash punk gargoyle monster, who for some reason has decided he likes Bonnie. He teases her relentlessly and loooooves to make her flustered. The catch is, he’s too shy to make a move beyond teasing and the occasional kiss. Bonnie, sweet as she is, is dying for him to stop leaving her hanging. Shenanigans ensue.

#knock knock its knuckles #ocs #oc masterpost #i will put this in my links page later tonight!

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qm-vox · 5 years

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The Far Realms vs. Obyriths: Cosmic Horror in D&D

Shout-out, once again, to Afroakuma, from whom I learned most of the material I’m about to explain and with whom I’ve had many fascinating discussions about this topic.

It’s ya boi Vox, back at it to complain about RPG shit in an educational fashion again. Remember when I did a whole article about (evil) gods in D&D, arguing that they have more potential than to be used like supervillains? We’re gonna do that again, but this time with incorporating cosmic horror elements into your D&D campaign. Some of this advice may also be useful for games similar to D&D but for the sake of my own sanity I’m gonna confine myself to the one system or I’m gonna be here until my kids are in college.

This article will be broken down into three parts: an overview of cosmic horror’s origin and original thesis (in which we travel my favorite magical land, Full And Complete Context), a breakdown of the Far Realms in D&D (including older takes from late 2e & 3.5, how those changed in 4e, and their ambiguous state in 5e) & how you might use them for a cosmic horror campaign, and a breakdown of Obyriths in D&D and how you might use them in your campaign.

No discussion of cosmic horror is complete without some Content Warnings. Right up front: cosmic horror has its roots in extremely racist fiction, and I’m going to be talking about that straight-up. Also included in this article will be body horror, descriptions of mind control and mental corruption, supernaturally-induced madness, violence, and medical horror, among other things. This is a genre that hit the ‘fuck shit up’ button with its face on fuckin’ Zero Day and does that but again every time we successfully write something in it. Additionally, spoilers for some of Lovecraft’s work will be in here, with absolutely no tags and no warnings before they happen. You have been warned; do as thou wilt.

HP Does A Racism - Origins Of Cosmic Horror

Yeah, I’m about to be like that about it.

In the beginning there was Howard Phillips Lovecraft, an absolute garbage fire of a human being whose personal issues are such a knotted mess that I’m half-sure that the concept of the Ouroboros is just the echo of his bullshit reaching backwards through time. Like many authors of his time, Howie Love here was born into significant wealth, and while his education would be cut short (he had some manner of health problem in high school that ended his attempts at schooling) it was pretty high-quality, as it tends to be when you’re rich and white in the late 1800s. When he began writing his most famous body of work, Lovecraft had three attributes which would shape it: EXTREME racism, an incredible love for the works of Edgar Allen Poe, and every fucking phobia ever turned loose on God’s green Earth.

If you want to know more about that first point, try looking up what he named his cat; Lovecraft was so racist that even other racists thought he was too racist. Mother fucker was so racist that he wrote about the dangers of contaminating one’s bloodline with French-Canadians. His racism made it into all of his works in some way, shape, or form; many had themes of miscegenation, plenty included people of color only as deranged cultists of terrible powers, and as we’ll get into later in this segment the very racism that caused him to do these things also made him write the...let’s say ‘villains’ for lack of a better term, of his ongoing body of work as thinly-veiled stand-ins for white people.

No, really.

Lovecraft’s early work included a few short stories in the American Gothic style, the most famous of which is The Rats in the Walls. It’s a fairly classic story as far as those go, but Howie Love would soon abandon American Gothic for the genre he founded and defined: cosmic horror. Keep the racism and phobias in mind going forward, they’re about to become real important.

Howie Love Clowns On Himself - Themes And Thesis Of Cosmic Horror

While Dagon is generally accepted as the ‘first’ cosmic horror story, I prefer The Colour Out Of Space as the definitive example of the original thesis of cosmic horror at its most clean and clear (it’s also the work of Lovecraft’s that has aged the best; I highly suggest it if you haven’t read it yet!). In it, an alien presence - arguably but not necessarily an entity - crash-lands outside the fictional town of Arkham. Our narrator, a surveyor, coldly investigates the horrors that occur after and learns the sorry tale of a family destroyed by this alien presence as it blights their land, corrupts their bodies, and drives them to madness. The presence leaves, but not wholly; a fragment of itself remains behind, alongside the chilling possibility of a repeat performance.

The Colour Out Of Space, and indeed most of Howie Love’s work, was written at a time in the United States and the United Kingdom where human exceptionalism was the norm. Humans were not merely important, but special, chosen, exalted in nature and placed in a universe whose sole purpose was to be the stage for our domination. The Colour Out Of Space proposed a different idea: that we ain’t shit. Not only is humanity not exalted, but humanity is insignificant, existing at the mercy of fate, able to be casually annihilated at any time by forces we do not understand. It was a shocking proposal when it was published, and though the zeitgeist that gave it power has faded (most people realize we ain’t shit these days, can’t imagine how that fucking happened) it still resonates with many people.

The later works that defined the Cthulu Mythos would build on this theme, introducing powerful beings which claim dominion of Earth or of all reality. You’ve probably heard of most of them - Cthulu is the big one, of course, but there’s also Yog-Sothoth (The Dunwich Horror), Azazoth, Catboi Slim (Nyarthalotep), and many more, not all of which were written by Lovecraft himself. These beings are gods, or else so far above humanity that the difference is academic, and this brings us to the second defining theme of cosmic horror that Lovecraft would lay out, that of forbidden knowledge.

Protagonists in Howie Love’s stories have a tendency to lose their minds. Later authors would chalk this up to the idea that witnessing these gods or their works is so inherently horrifying that the mind simply snaps in their presence, or even that these gods are bound up in the concept of madness (this second one is a rather incompetent reading, not that I’m thinking of any PAIZO in particular that just ran with it in their RPG setting), but Howard’s own work doesn’t always bear that out. The protagonist of Call of Cthulu is not driven mad by that being - he is driven towards the brink by the realization that the Cult is still out there (and coming for his life), and that Cthulu will only rise again. Our viewpoint character in At The Mountains Of Madness realizes he has committed unspeakable atrocities on living beings much like himself by mistake, and that if further explorers come to disturb their slumber they will only repeat the same errors and lead to mankind’s annihilation. It’s not just that these ancient powers are terrifying or even that they are alien, but that to comprehend them is to understand that humans are so far beneath them that their attitude towards us cannot be thought of as ‘benevolent or ‘malevolent’, because we are beneath their notice, lesser in comparison than even a bacterium. In such a context, all humans do is consume resources better used by our superiors, and thus our existence is a profanity upon the divine. The only moral action, the stories argue, is self-annihilation; only ignorance permits us to justify our own existence to ourselves.

Sound familiar? Almost like this is the exact argument chucklefuck racists make about the existence of people of color, Jews, and anyone else they happen to not like? Yeah. This is the part where Lovecraft accidentally made himself the villain of his own work. Congratulations Howie, you played yourself. And since his audience was largely fellow white men also hard up on that whole racism thing, this idea of human profanity tapped a deep well of anxiety. I’m not about to argue that racism is over (it isn’t) and that’s why this vision of cosmic horror is less popular; indeed, it’s retained a pretty solid cult (heh) following, in part because the idea of such beings is inherently kinda terrifying. But I’d be remiss not to bring up the fact that this terror has its roots in racism, so...there you have it.

Other authors also built on the Cthulu Mythos, with Lovecraft’s enthusiastic blessing. These days their works tend to be mistakenly attributed to Howie Love himself, but that’s not actually his fault; they were published on their own, under their own authors’ names, and as far as we can tell Howard never tried to take the credit. These other authors had a tendency to substitute the indifferent divinity and corrupted humans of Lovecraft’s work with direct malice; their vision of these god-like beings was one in which they noticed humanity and did harm to it, creating a movement away from Howie Love’s original thesis (”human insignificance will lead to the unimportant and unmarked event of our destruction” & “seeking knowledge can only lead to self-annihilation”) during his life which only picked up momentum after his death. Indeed, most modern attempts at Lovecraftian horror mimic this overt malevolence, often without even lip service to the original thesis. It’s not necessarily an unworkable angle of horror, and it definitely has bones in with its origins; “God is real and He hates you personally” is a terrifying idea! But this movement away from the cold indifference of stories like The Colour Out Of Space definitely contributed to the current climate of...sloppy adaptations, let’s say.

Not that I’m thinking of any Paizo in particular.

So Should I Use Mythos Content Directly In My D&D Game Or What?

No, because I will cry and tell everyone that you punched my children and kidnapped my girlfriends.

More helpfully, probably not. The presence of other divinities, but especially evil divinities like Erythnul (Greyhawk) or Malar (Forgotten Realms) makes the thematics of cosmic horror pretty fucking weird. If you really wanted to, your best bet is to not use the published system of divinity at all (see the previously-linked article, up at the top of this one) and instead make Lovecraft’s gods the setting’s only gods. That means asking yourself some hard questions about clerics in your game world and possibly divine magic in general - that’s a separate article though - and even then you’re in for a rough row to hoe. D&D’s characters tend to be competent, dynamic, empowered - a far cry from the educated but otherwise fairly helpless protagonists on which cosmic horror tends to trade. Themes of futility in the face of incomprehensible beings don’t really make for good D&D most of the time, not when so much of the system (any edition, it doesn’t matter) is set up to create and reward cunning and heroic struggle. Classic cosmic horror, in the original proposed form, is not a good fit.

Thankfully, we have two solutions to give you what you crave in-house. Let’s start with the one that is somehow both the closer fit and the further fit.

You Have Fucked Up - The Far Realm Overview

Originally introduced in late AD&D 2e, the Far Realm as an idea hit its stride during 3.0/3.5 before getting a major rework as part of 4e’s cosmology, where it became the source of most/all aberrations. We’re gonna go ahead and pretend 4e didn’t happen, not because 4e is bad (and for the love of fuck please don’t start an edition war on my cosmic horror post) but because 4e’s cosmology just doesn’t really fit in with any of the rest. 1e <-> 3.5 is more or less coherent and you can beat 5e into line with a wrench and some harsh language, but 4e...well, anyway.

The Far Realms is outside reality. No, not in another dimension, we know what those are - those are the Planes. It’s outside reality; it is Somewhere Else. “It” is probably even the wrong term, since by definition any place (”place”) that isn’t the multiverse as D&D knows it is the Far Realm. To paraphrase Afroakuma, if the Great Wheel is a Lego brick, the Far Realm is a giant squid; if the Great Wheel is a bowl of Fruit Loops, the Far Realm is the theory that intelligences from Pluto rig the results of major sporting events. The contexts are not compatible. These two things do not go together in any way. Combining the two can only end in sorrow and woe.

So mortals try to combine the two all the time, because we’re dipshits like that.

Every now and again, some truly, monumentally stupid person - usually but not always someone inside reality - breaches the skin that contains reality inside itself, and lets in the essence of Outside. This is a phenomenally bad idea; the immediate result is corruption in both directions as the essence of each form of reality bleeds into the other. Both attempt to ‘scab’ the breach, translating the foreign substances and beings into something more like the reality they have moved to. If a breach happens, there is one of three outcomes. If you are very, very lucky, no being on the other side notices the breach, and you’ve ‘merely’ blighted and corrupted a vast stretch of land, tainting it with something sort of like, but not enough like, Chaos and Evil for millennia to come - maybe even forever. If you’re not lucky, a being on the other side notices the breach and acts to seal it, the ripple of which causes you to not have a nation or continent any more as said corruption absolutely consumes the lands in which you live. And if you are phenomenally unlucky, the being on the other side is just as stupid as you are, and it comes through. The last time that happened the original Gnomish pantheon got murdered. Their homeworld doesn’t exist any more.

There is no ‘good’ outcome. This is the repeated and absolute theme of the Far Realms; whatever your reasons for getting involved with them, whatever you wanted, whatever you were seeking, you don’t get it. Mortals fuck with the Far Realms because our inability to comprehend them leads us to think of them like things we can experience. The scabbed-over beings we meet that are from there (Psuedonatural creatures; see the Alienist prestige class in Tome & Blood and Complete Arcane, as well as the bigger version in the Epic Level Handbook) are Chaotic Evil because that is how reality translates them. They aren’t Chaos, they’re another reality, and their unwilling and unwitting corruption of all around them gets redefined as Chaotic Evil in order to reduce their damage to all of existence to a manageable fucking level. Were you seeking the Far Realms in order to harness power for great change? Get fucked, you can’t control what happens. Were you seeking magical power? Get fucked; the reason people go mad when exposed to the Far Realms isn’t just that the knowledge they gain makes no sense, it’s that the complete lack of context means all of the stuff you killed and stole and lied and cheated for is more or less completely goddamn useless. Trying to escape existence for some reason? One, death is faster, but two, hope you enjoy suffering the entire time you die - and that’s if the breach stays open long enough for you to be able to enjoy death as a concept before you get sealed away in a place where mortality doesn’t meaningfully exist.

You don’t get what you want. This was a bad idea. You fucked up.

5e, the most recent edition of D&D, mainly continues this trend. It has suggestions of the lazier interpretation of Lovecraft’s work tied to the Far Realms, which I heartily suggest you ignore, but some of the other ideas are phenomenal. The Great Old Ones Pact for Warlock has one in particular that I like quite a bit, which suggests that the Warlock-to-be created an unintended connection to a Far Realms intelligence and gained power against both of their wills and possibly without the intelligence in question even noticing. You don’t need to change a lot in 5e’s run to bring out the extant themes of the Far Realms - though admittedly this is greatly assisted by the fact that 5e barely has any Far Realms content to begin with, so there’s not a lot to edit. That also means there’s not a lot to use, so if you want to use Far Realms stuff in 5e you’re gonna have to get ready to spend a lot of time making your own. Which brings us to...

Who The Fuck Funded This Research?!? - Using The Far Realms In Your Game

Considering that all-important theme - “this was a bad idea” - the Far Realms are likely to be antagonistic in nature in your game, even if ‘antagonistic’ isn’t the right term. Published adventures have used Far Realms content as a sort of backdrop (Firestorm Peak comes to mind here) before, and you can easily make Far Realms creatures a more direct problem for your PCs by centering the campaign around a cult or research team attempting to cause a new breach. This could be a great time to engage with player-side themes such as the ethics of magic use, the cost of power, and the burden of responsibility for said power, assuming your group is down for it. Even if they’re not, horrifying monstrosities that by definition have no place in this universe are great to kick in the head(s).

What motivates people to cause a breach? Mainly stupidity, but the special kind of stupidity you only get when someone is highly educated and deeply intelligent. For awhile, in the real world, there was a burst of designers making D20 heartbreakers - successors to D&D 3.5 meant to fix its many catastrophic flaws. Each person thought they had it, the secret to make the system they both loved and hated finally function, and they were all wrong. Causing a breach into the Far Realms is like that. Every sign points to it being a bad idea. Reading the research and spells of the last people who tried it reveals that it’s a bad idea. All of the diaries and primary sources of those who did it and those who stopped them say it’s a bad idea, but that’s okay because I, Wizardhat von Dipshit, am not like those fools. I will be more careful, and the power to reshape the Planes will be mine!

The easiest way to make Far Realms creatures for use in your campaign is to start with an existing monster and fuck it up; rearrange its abilities (adding or emphasizing mental attacks and psychic damage, if you can), alter its physical form, and generally just make that shit wrong and fill its blood with spiders. If you want to get more alien from there or make something original, the best guideline I can offer for you is that aboleths were the result of Far Realms taint in the beginning of this reality (it’s telling that the closest thing reality could translate their progenitor into was a Greater Deity).

No one wants power for its own sake, of course, but what your antagonist actually wants is more or less irrelevant because the important bit is that they had every chance to know better and they’re about to make this bad decision on purpose anyway. This is how the Far Realms brings out cosmic horror themes in a heroic context; power that is beyond both mortal comprehension and control, which has no place in this reality and recoils from us as violently as we recoil from it. Like Lovecraft, whose stories revealed a deep cynicism about knowledge and science, your antagonists will be erudite individuals whose ruinous plans are only possible because of what they have learned and, in turn, chosen to ignore. If nothing is done, unstoppable catastrophe will be unleashed, and with it will come madness and desolation. If only some heroes were on hand, eh?

The disconnect the Far Realms has from classic cosmic horror is also the source of why they fit; they don’t belong here. In Lovecraft’s work, it’s humanity that doesn’t belong - we are a blight upon the rightful property of higher beings. The Far Realms are instead an intrusion, something from Elsewhere which doesn’t want to be here as much as we don’t want it here. That helps those classic cosmic horror themes work much better in this context, but maybe you’re looking for something else, something from here. Do the Planes have cosmic horror from within the shell of Reality?

Yes. Oh yes, they do.

Ancient Evil Survives - Obyrith Overview

In the beginning, there was war.

The primordial War of Law and Chaos is the greatest conflict to have ever rocked the Planes. It was so destructive, so all-encompassing, that it consumed entire Material Plane worlds, reshaped the nature of the Planes themselves, and is still happening, even now. It began in the early days of the Great Wheel and was prosecuted by Chaos, led by the self-styled Queen of Chaos, over a single question: should reality be real? Should effects follow causes, should gravity exist, should fire burn and light reveal, should things age and die, should...

The forces of Law said yes to these questions and fought to establish and maintain an order and logic to reality. Chaos fought for an unbound reality, one in which each individual would be completely free to express their own true essence as tangible changes in the existence around them. The War was never truly won or lost, but the imprisonment of Miska the Wolf-Spider broke the backs of the Chaotic coalition and brought the War to a stalemate of sorts, in a reality which, if not dominated by Law, is definitely Law-leaning. Mortals are familiar with the terrible demons used as footsoldiers by the Abyss, the Tanar’ri, who reign yet in that terrible place. But it was not the Tanar’ri in command of Chaos, and not the Tanar’ri who prosecuted that terrible War. Indeed, the beings we now recognize as demons rose up against their creators, the Obyriths, after the imprisonment of Miska. They overthrew the Obyriths in a great slaughter and replaced them as the dominant exemplars of Chaotic Evil.

The Obyriths are not dead. They plan, and they wait, and they wage war and slaughter upon their wayward slaves in the Abyss. Every last one of them burns to reignite the War and achieve their vision of unbound reality, free of the wretched Law and all too weak to survive without it.

Prisoners Of The Flesh - Obyrith Nature

So what are Obyriths? The easiest answer is that they’re demons - the first demons, in fact, which preceded the more famous Tanar’ri (when you think of demons in D&D chances are you’re thinking of a Tanar’ri), and while this answer is entirely correct it is not the whole story. Tanar’ri are famously Chaotic Evil; they revel in corruption and destruction and are driven to maliciously annihilate or taint all they come across. A demon army marching across the land will stop to personally kick every puppy between point A and point B and they will absolutely mutiny against you if you try to stop them from doing so. What is good and pure must be soiled; what exists must be made to not exist, its foundations shattered, its virtues turned against themselves, its values abandoned. Tanar’ri respect only raw might, and only as long as they think they can’t defeat it.

But Obyriths, their progenitors, are Evil Chaos.

Let’s have some examples. This little guy is a draudnu, a kind of Obyrith made from the bones of chaotic celestials which post-dates the ‘end’ of the War by a pretty significant amount of time. They’re on the weaker side for Obyriths.

(You’ll find this boi in Monster Manual V for 3.5 incidentally.)

Take a nice long look. Really take it in - because that’s not the draudnu. That’s the prison of flesh, the scab, that reality has forced on the draudnu, that the terrible Law has locked it within. The actual draudnu looks like it’s inside me God it’s inside me I can feel it growing and twisting it HURTS get it out, it’s seeping into my blood it’s inside me it’s INSIDE ME -

Let’s have another example. This is a sibriex, recently re-published in Mordenkeinan’s Tome of Foes for 5e with no mention of Obyriths, which is a damn shame. They were instrumental in defining the forms of the common breeds of Tanar’ri.

Fun, right? But again, that’s not a sibriex; the actual form of a sibriex is perfection. Absolute beauty and grace. I am nothing compared to this perfection. I am no one in the face of this perfection. My existence can only profane this perfection. I must serve the Perfect One. I must let it remake me and reshape me, I must appease it, I must make amends for the crime that is my trespass upon the reality made for the Perfect One.

Those two are ‘common’ Obyriths, examples of that race of demons which have peers who are much like themselves, but the Obyriths still have extant Demon Princes. The Queen of Chaos is still alive and nursing her ancient hate. Pale Night’s true form is so profane that reality cannot stand its existence; when she reveals it to you, the multiverse destroys your soul so that knowledge of her truth does not exist. Obox-Ob, murdered by the Queen of Chaos, yet exists as an Aspect of himself - and the Planes live in fear of the rise of the Prince of Vermin, whose truth is agony, rot, and corruption, such that even if you magically remove memory of it from your mind you continue to die from the soul outward.

And Dagon plots within the depths of his palace, sponsoring and advising Demogorgon - the Prince of Demons - and contemplating unimaginable lore of evil. The Demon Prince of Depths looks like this.

This is the form carved on blasphemous altars in the depths of the oceans, where sunlight has never reached. This is the form worshiped by mortals who delight in corruption, destruction, and fear, who dream of a sea where vision is a distant memory and predators hunt by the scent of blood. It is the form sought by those who lust for ancient lore, kept in places far from mortal sight and utilized by an evil older than many gods and mortal races, a form whose mere touch can taint a body of water, mutating & mutilating all within and unleashing their fury, their terror, their slaughter, for ages to come. And it is not Dagon. Dagon’s true form, imprisoned within that flesh, is I’m drowning in the cold dark, I can feel my bones breaking, my eyes are bursting, I’m blind and I’m drowning and I can’t die, my lungs are gone, the water is seeping into my blood I’m drowning and I just want to die make it stop I’m DROWNING.

It’s telling that witnessing Dagon’s true form, his Form of Madness, can give even creatures that breathe water, or which do not breathe at all, crippling hydrophobia.

The true forms of Obyriths are not flesh or matter; they are not, by nature, Material beings the way other Outsiders and mortal things are. Their true forms are that you, personally, are going mad. You, personally, are being assaulted, violated, and infected; you, personally, are being victimized, corrupted, consumed, and betrayed. Imagine if the act of pouring flesh-eating beetles into someone’s eyes had a personality, will, and desires - not the person doing it, the act itself - and that’s an Obyrith. They are evil because what they are is evil, much in the way Erythnul is evil. Unlike their creations, the Tanar’ri, Obyriths aren’t in it to kick every puppy that has ever existed. They want to throw off the yoke of the Law and release their unbound forms. They want an existence of darkness and isolation in which all beings are free to express their true essence to the limit of their might and their will.

They just wanna be themselves.

No matter who has to die.

The Foes Of All Reason - Using Obyriths In Your Campaign

Do you enjoy life’s little conveniences, such as cause-and-effect, linear time, predictable & observable physical laws, not having your body boil away beneath the agonizing will of some random asshole, and the capacity to recognize patterns in nature? Then Obyriths are your enemies. As demons, Obyriths can be summoned and are thus easy to use in the sort of ‘guest star’ role that Tanar’ri are often used in, even if it takes a moon-sized pair of brass balls to decide you can contain one. However, this use - while valid - is not a good way to bring out their cosmic horror themes, and since you decided to read an article about cosmic horror in D&D this far down I’m going to go ahead and assume you’d like to do that.

As one of the Planes’ most ancient and active evils - arguably the most ancient one that hasn’t died or otherwise fucked off - Obyriths are absolutely prime for campaigns that deal with ancient lore, primordial conflict, and unreality. If you like the idea of long-burn plots by masterminds with the patience of aeons, Obyriths are definitely for you. For an example of one such story, check out The Tale of the Whale, written by Afroakuma. The downside to using Obyriths in this way is that if you want to do so in canon settings, you need to be prepared to do some absolute fucking deep dives on the lore, which may require access to books or PDFs as far back as 1e & 2e. If you’re using your own setting this problem is lessened, though at that point you do have to manage to sell the ancient nature of such beings in a way that makes them feel suitably eldritch.

For more...let’s go ahead and say modern for lack of a better word, takes, keep in mind that Obyriths are not Tanar’ri. They do not scheme to overthrow the government of a nation; your pale, fleshly shadow of the Law is nothing to them. The plots of Obyriths upend the Laws which underpin reality itself. Could the great contract that details the alliance between the tribes of Men and Cats be found and perverted, turning each against the other in all reality? Could the insects of this realm be infected with the essence of Obox-Ob so that the Demon Prince of Vermin can feast on mortal souls and effect his own return to power? Could a bridge linking the Deep Ethereal to the Abyss be constructed, permitting the sibriexes and their master, the Prince of the Chrysalis, to shape new slaves from the very essence of raw Potential? Obyriths pervert what is and should be, not just because it suits their end goal of chaos unbound, but because corruption and violation is their very nature. It’s how they think, how they move, what they believe in, love, and value.

Obyriths have a lot to suggest for them when it comes to cosmic horror stories in D&D’s context. They bring out direct themes of madness, terrible truth, malign alien intelligence, and reality-unreality. You can comprehend their motives and even their nature, sort of, but their end goal is completely alien to mortal beings; the reality they want would be completely unrecognizable to the denizens of the current one. They are evil as mortals understand the concept, but not in a way that matches or even relates to their peers, which means they act in surprising and unpredictable ways.

All of this of course damages their ability to fulfill the classic cosmic horror thesis, but there’s something to be said about the idea that an alien intelligence, to be horrifying, needs something humans can attempt to relate to. It certainly makes writing for them easier.

If you’re using Obyriths in 3.5, you’re set to go; look for them in the various Monster Manuals, as well as Fiendish Codex. If you’re attempting to use them in Pathfinder, good decision but you’re gonna have some stat block converting to do. Trying to use them in 5e is gonna be the absolute bitch of a job, and I’m not sure where to even start on those suggestions except to note that the signature trait of Obyriths - the thing that makes them them, mechanically - is a Form of Madness ability, where they reveal their truth to their victims. Forms of Madness are mind-affecting abilities which hit all non-demons near the Obyrith, tainting them in some way. You can see some example ideas above, and the ones from 3.5 in the published books I just mentioned, but here’s hoping I can find an expert on 5th Edition’s mechanics kind enough to lend me a hand here.

I hope this article proved helpful to you! As with all of my work, questions and critique are welcome. Thanks for reading!

#D&D #planescape #far realms #demons #obyrith #cosmic horror #body horror #advice #I'm Not Sure How To Use Tags #reblogs welcome #critique welcome

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nightcoremoon · 4 years

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there's lots of tiny brained bad takes of the far left branding things as Bad™ based solely on their association to other things or certain aspects of part of their fanbase.

this isn't to discredit the shit idiot brain fungus plaguing everyone from centrists, the moderate right, the far right, and the alt right, and even some of the moderate left, where they label everything that isn't about a Cishet White Male American Capitalist Bootlicker who's stateist, ambiguously christian/atheist, neurotypical, able-bodied, has "aryan" facial attributes, is an insufferable asshole, and the like, as "SJW garbage".

but see, prejudice and judgment is bad even if it's not motivated by minority demographic. being a rude dismissive asshole is, you know, bad. maybe making fun of a furry or whatever isn't as bad as being a racist, but you're still a fucking dickhead either way. fuck both of you but fuck the racist more. I'll punch both of you but punch the racist twice (maybe a third time for good measure). do y'all understand what I'm trying to get at here with the tiers of badness? the shades of grey? the steps down the path of evil from "kind of rude" to "literally hitler"?

bigotry is not the only bad thing in the world. yeah it's one of the worst, but you can talk about other bad things without discrediting that, which I know is next to impossible for teenagers (or people who never bothered to mentally progress from such) to comprehend.

anyway what sparked this is all the fuckin joker memes. now I went into it expecting, you know, literally taxi driver 2 followed by a silly horror movie about a clown murdering people. which is what the joker of the comics is all about. if I never watched the movie and only saw, what, the killing murray scene, the stairway dancing scene, the trailers, and joaquin phoenix sitting in a padded room and laughing, that's exactly what I'd had gotten.

but like. I fucking watched it because my dad wanted to watch it with me and he fucking loves all things batman (except Ben Affleck). and wolverine but mostly batman. he's a comic nerd. so yeah I went to watch it with him.

and it was legitimately terrifying from a purely psychological perspective. it's LITERALLY the best scary movie I've ever seen without being horror in the slightest. the acting, the writing, the score, the pacing, the cinematography, it was well put together without being a moffat level overproduced mess. it was a good movie. you're allowed to not care for it or not like it but to objectively call it a bad movie is not only a logical fallacy (eye of the beholder) but it also discredits the opinion of every single person who didn't hate it and makes you come off as a pompous fucking asshole rather than having different tastes.

it's about a guy with severe mental trauma in a bad situation trying to make the best of it and care for his family and hold down a job but he gets fucked over from literally every angle and eventually he snaps and makes a mistake and kills the misogynist rich asshats on the train. oh fuck. he could have gone to the police and said self defense and go through the court system but wait, society in gotham doesn't allow for a clean system of justice when you aren't rich. so instead he proceeds to be a major creepazoid turned murdering lunatic blaming everyone else for his own bad situation instead of the whole deal where he did stupid shit like taking a gun into a fucking children's hospital and stuck his fingers inside a child's mouth and stealing shit and falling further down the rabbit hole. until finally, he says fuck it and seeks revenge. the whole bloody mess that follows is his own fault. he chose to kill people. he chose to murder for petty reasons. he made his decisions and he suffered the consequences for it. all of the festering rotten crime in the city spawned by waynecorp's supreme negligence heralded him as a hero and so begins batman's story.

arthur fleck is not a fucking hero. he is a villain through and through. his circumstances were unfortunate but he made the wrong decisions. the world fucked him over and he said okay and retaliated. joker is exactly the fucking same as breaking bad. arthur and walter white are both evil people through their own decisions. but they were once normal people. and that's the point. the scariest monsters in the world are usually the white men angry at the world for their own shortcomings. oswald. ruby. dahmer. bundy. gein. manson. klebold and harris. white. fleck. they're all the filth stuck in the gutter of society that, if left unchecked, has deadly results.

I'm not kidding at all when I say joker was an important movie for myself personally to see exactly when I saw it. because that first half, I'm not gonna lie, it got me. the therapy didn't work and then it was taken away. he didn't eat most days because he had to support his mother. the people he worked with were dickheads, the people he commuted with were dickheads, his boss was a dickhead, people treated him like garbage on the streets. he couldn't remember the trauma inflicted on him when he was a baby but it still warped every aspect of his life. he had aspirations but lacked the skills. he was sad. alone. empty. he was suicidal. he was me.

then he started killing people and using the neighbor girl as a tulpa and I realized oh no oh god oh shit OH FUCK I need to change from this. and I did.

joker is a perfect template of how not to react to the world when it kicks in your teeth. it's a perfect template of a dark movie. just enough to sympathize with the bad guy but not enough to excuse his actions. the opposite of star wars with kylo ren. a good movie. a good character. an amazing actor. a terrible person.

if you watched joker thinking you're watching the story of the protagonist, you're right, but if you conflate protagonist with the good guy, yeah you won't like the fucking movie because it'll leave a sour taste in your mouth. you'll feel slimy. disgusting. unless you're a megadouche shitlord piece of human fucking garbage who wants to cosplay arthur fleck because he's so damn cool like walter white and eric cartman and rick sanchez and bojack horseman and tyler durden and all those FUCKING HORRIBLE LOATHESOME HUMANS TO NEVER EVER TRY TO EMULATE OR YOU ARE AN UNEMPHATIC ASSHOLE AND A MORON TO BOOT.

if you hated the movie, that's fine. you're kinda supposed to hate it. and if you loved the movie, that's fine so long as you understand what the message was. but if it's one of your favorite movies of all time ever made holy shit please go to therapy jesus christ.

still the point of this post is, discrediting the movie as a steaming pile of shit is incredibly ignorant. and as for the "good movies made by white men are only liked by other white men and are therefore bad movies" thing... if y'all can thirst over eddie brock in the trainwreck of venom and admit that the standards of good movie vs bad movie are all subjective, you're a goddamn idiot if you can't apply the same logic and reason to every movie just because some white boys like edgy clowns (even tho joker is way less edgy than pennywise but go off) in abusive relationships with harlequins. oh and assflash newshole, I'm not a white man.

I swear this bandwagoning bullshit is exactly the same mentality as "hurr durr nickelback worst band ever" even though nickelback is ripe with musical talent underneath a few pop songs that they wrote for the record label as part of their career so they can make a fuckin living BECAUSE CAPITALISM IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL and also because of all the misogyny that bled its way into the music industry in the 2000s but that's a topic for another day. 'joker bad' and 'nickelback bad' are products of the same mental decay that social media wrought upon us all, inflicting mass mob mentality and incapacity for individualistic rational thought. which is exactly why there's a war between camp 'joker is bad' and 'joker is amazing' and nobody acknowledges the group in the middle that's like 'joker was good objectively but also terrible subjectively and content-wise'. polar. I could make a political statement and also say how the neoliberals and the fascists are at war while the people in the middle are caught in the crossfire and forced to fight like pawns on a chessboard, but the moderate right, dumbass centrists, pastel commies, and pockets of the moderate left, but that just throws everything into chaos.

tl;dr learn to think for yourselves omg

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redorblue · 5 years

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Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood

I know both the TV version and the book version, but since I try to be a serious book blog every now and then, I’ll talk about the book (although they’re pretty similar, which is what happens when you let a writer actually weigh in with script, set design etc. - you get a show that’s true to the source material. Revolutionary.). Just one thing about the show: I loved both versions of the story, but honestly, I’m even more impressed by the show because it’s so much harder to show ambiguity on screen where everything you see is a deliberate choice. In a book, it’s normally much easier to leave things out without being too obvious about it - details in the background, thought processes, facial expressions and the like. It also depends on what kind of narrator the author chooses, but generally if the narrator doesn’t pick something up, that’s just bad luck for us readers, a gap we’ll have to fill ourselves. On screen, if you don’t want to skip scenes all the time (which is not an option for this book, you’d have to skip a lot) you have to show some things, at least; the actor has to have some kind of facial expression, there need to be a few props in the room, that kind of thing. Ergo, not much room for ambiguity, which is what this story is all about. But it worked, and it’s great, and now I’m gonna shut up about the show and talk about the book.

The book needs ambiguity because it revolves around an unsolved question: did Grace Marks, an immigrant maid from Ireland, help kill her boss and his housekeeper, or was it a simple case of wrong place, wrong time? After spending 6 hours watching the TV show and another 8 reading the book, I’m no closer to an answer than I was before. The fact that this was discussed during a real life murder trial doesn’t help either - it was mostly public sentiment rather than proof that led to the historic Grace Marks spending decades in jail. I know some people find open endings unsatisfying, and on some level I get that, but some part in me that loves to suffer has a thing for open endings, so this is perfect for me.

The book has two narrative strings: The first is about the efforts of a charity group to get Grace out of jail, which is why they hire a doctor in the up-and-coming medical discipline of psychology to examine her, and the second is Grace’s own account of her life story as told to said psychologist. This is one of the things I like about how Grace’s story is handled: she’s allowed to tell it herself (in a fictionalization of what is known about the real Grace Mark’s life, but that’s as close as we’ll ever get to her own voice). That’s especially important because as much as she’s been stripped of agency since the moment she was born - as the eldest child in a big, poor family, as a maid who exists at the pleasure of her boss, as a prisoner on a life sentence, as an object of public demonization and fetishization - at least in her own narrative she’s the one who gets to decide the what, when and how. It would be naive to assume that this radically turns her life around (spoiler: it doesn’t, she spends another decade in jail after the interval with the psychologist), and it certainly doesn’t improve her material living conditions, but it’s more power than she’s had for most of her life. The one positive thing I can say about the psychologist is that he listens to her relatively free of bias.That means that she gets to decide which part of her she wants him to see, to make him see her as a fully formed human being with hopes and fears and contradictions instead of the stereotypes she’s been carrying with her all her life: the dirty immigrant - the lowly servant to do with as you wish - the secret whore with the pretty face - the devious murderess - the helpless, blameless, defenseless maiden. Take your pick. It’s not much in the way of agency, and yet it’s everything.

The thing is, I can’t even blame those people around her who think she’s the victim of a terrible mistake of the jury. For most of the book, I believed it myself, completely. You understand pretty early on that she was involved in some kind of crime, although the details are revealed much later, and from the way that Grace is presented, and especially the way she presents herself, it feels so wrong to think of her as a criminal, a perpetrator. It makes you overlook certain clues in her interior monologue that suggest that she’s not as innocent and naive as she seems. So after the key scene when she’s hypnotized and made to talk about the murders (that is, when she’s stripped of her agency to shape her own narrative once again) I was so confused that I was ready to believe pretty much anything.

There are three explanations on offer: 1. She’s faking her amnesia concerning the murders because she doesn’t want to get hanged, which makes her guilty. 2. She’s possessed by the angry spirit of her friend Mary who passed away because of a fatal abortion and wants to take revenge on the world and especially rich men who sexually exploit their female employees, which makes her innocent. 3. She has a dissociative identity disorder and one of her selves did commit the murders, which makes her... complicated. Now while the book is full of superstitions, I do recognize that option 2 is very unlikely (although I kinda like the thought of a revengeful she-ghost punishing exploitative people for their behaviour). But between 1 and 3... I honestly couldn’t decide. Grace’s mind is so highly structured and she’s so self-possessed that I wouldn’t think it beyond her capabilities as an actress to fake it, especially since she does have violent thoughts sometimes (and with reason). It’s a real dilemma, but in the end I think the book is trying get a message across: that sometimes it’s incredibly hard to stick to “innocent until proven guilty”, and it needs a lot of conviction and belief in principles to not bend under the weight of assumptions, wherever they may lean. This is a case where there is no easy answer, which makes it all the more important to hold on to a principle such as this, because in the end you might just throw an innocent person into jail for decades. It’s not elegant, it certainly doesn’t feel good, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

But the book also shows something else. It shows how men, and rich people, and especially rich men can/could get away with almost anything. Time and again, the book demonstrates how the female servants (almost all the women, and almost all the servants in this book) are screwed over by their masters. Grace’s friend Mary dies from having an abortion after her master’s son gave her a ring and then proceeded to get her pregnant, but instead of punishing the man, the whole thing gets hushed up and Mary ends up with all the blame. Grace herself gets chased out of the house when said son switches his attention to her and ends up at the house of another rich man who lusts after her. The housekeeper of said man was equally forced to take a position with him because she had an illegitimate baby and nobody else would take her in - which makes me feel that this man likes to employ women who have no place else to go and no way to refuse him when he comes onto them. Granted, the housekeeper seems to like being his lover, but it’s obvious that she still suffers from the power imbalance between them. It goes on and on. Even the rich characters that are somewhat likeable, like the psychologist and the family who tries to get Grace out of prison, seem to be completely unconscious of the hundred little ways in which they make the lives of their servants miserable every day. The only one who develops a bit of an understanding of what it’s like to be a servant is the psychologist who reflects on how he made a mess of things when he was a kid and how hard the servants at his house must have had it (and honestly, I’m not sure he even counts, he has a huge crush on Grace, or an idealized version of her, and that doesn’t really make his epiphany a redeeming quality). The rest live on, tearing their dresses and staining their pants in blissful ignorance. Which shows that it’s imperative to let people who normally don’t get a voice tell their own story (and listen openmindedly!), because otherwise it’s all too easy to forget that they, too, are human beings.

#2018 #books #book review #alias grace #margaret atwood

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lunaravenclaw25 · 6 years

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Random Thoughts About The Flapjack And Adventure Time Theory

I’m sure this theory has been highlighted before but does anyone find this theory scarily plausible. I stumbled upon a random reddit post a couple of years ago by u/TheNarwhalKing that talks about this theory and they bring up a lot of interesting evidence for this theory to be plausible. Being a 2000′s kid that grew up with both of these shows I found this to be one of the few cartoon conspiracy theories that I actually found to be interesting. Looking back at it, I find it weird that I never considered these two shows having a link with each other. Flapjack was cancelled in around the time Adventure Time first aired and I never found it strange that the latter had a main setting called the Candy Kingdom in the Land Of Ooo and the former’s plot was about the main characters trying to get to a mysterious island dubbed Candied Island. Although one could argue and see this as a plothole of sorts since the Candy Kingdom is part of a huger land/continent whereas Candied Island’s suggested to be just a simple island, however, then I got to thinking. So Adventure Time’s backstory revolves around the premise of a nuclear war, called the Mushroom War, that destroyed the world and almost entirely wiped out the human race, leaving mutants and other humanoid creatures to rebuild society. For the first two seasons of the show Finn assumed that he was the only human left, despite not knowing much about the war and it’s impact on his race, and becomes curious when he sees other characters such as Susan Strong who are left ambiguous over whether or not they are actually human or not. But of course we find out over the course of the show that there is still is a human population albeit small but still leaves optimism for Finn and the viewers that the human race are somewhat okay by the series finale. Now, where does Flapjack fit into this? Well, if one was to consider the theory as true, one would have to look no further than the current state of the show’s main setting, Stormalong Harbour. The place looks a mess and has a population made up of mostly thugs and pirates. Rats and stray cats run rampant on the streets, the setting looks like something out of a time warp, and the citizens are all to some extent unhinged and creepy. It’s obvious that the town’s society has collapsed and is in shambles judging by the fact that there are no real strict authority figures on the streets, and whatever rich folks that live there seem to refuse to contribute to repairing the town since they never take any keen interest in it’s state and usually scoff and ignore the townsfolk unless it benefits their own needs. The whole setting of the show gives off a rather dystopian feel, depicting a crashed and rule free society. Despite the show giving us insight into some of their well-known characters, the show neglects to explain how Stormalong got into this disrepair, or why the characters seem to ignore the state of their town, however this could be chalked up to the writers making it look like an exaggerated version of a dockside town with pirates in it. But then why is the harbour sitting right in the middle of the ocean? Stormalong is located nowhere near any type of land and the only way to get from one place to another is by boat and given the extreme weather conditions and sea monsters, makes it difficult to accomplish this at times. Despite this rather odd detail, the show itself has never given any reason behind it’s strange choice of location. But what if there really was a reason behind the harbour’s location and existence outside of cartoon logic? Would it be impossible to assume that the harbour was built for a purpose outside of being reliable for sailors? Well, not exactly. What if Stormalong Harbour is really just the new home to some of the survivors of the Mushroom War? The town’s main population mostly consists of humans after all and begs to question why these people would even want to remotely settle there considering how run down and dangerous it is. The fact that none of them ever move out of town or seem to be too keen on leaving the place to explore the islands (Except for the pirates and sailors) seems very odd. What’s keeping them from leaving Stormalong Harbour? Well, what if they really had nowhere else to go and were stranded there. After the Mushroom War, the survivors had to find somewhere to escape from the high amounts of radiation in order to stay safe and to rebuild whatever kind of society is remaining. Enter, Stormalong Harbour; an idealistic place (At least for the time) to build where these survivors can start life anew without having the worries of having to revisit what they once had, hence why they live off of the land, to not be reminded of the barren wasteland that they once called home. Over the next millennium the residents of this new place had to live off whatever supplies that they could gather and took to the seas for hobbies, fishing and practicalities e.g. exploring different islands for signs of life and supplies. The fact of survival of the fittest and the fact that the world they knew had taken a toll on the survivors had turned them cold, reclusive, cynical and untrustworthy of others, hence why many take on the lifestyle of piracy and other crude activities to get by. With all these factors at play, this became the norm for the residents of Stormalong Harbour through the generations while the rest of the world recovered from the blow in the background. The sea monsters and talking animals such as Bubbie could be the result of mutation or a new species of life that formed over the years after the war and appears as a normal sight for the residents of Stormalong because they have been accustomed to it for centuries or have been passed down as sailor stories and folklore through generations. The residents are somewhat aware of these changes to the world overtime but choose to ignore them and carry on with their own life's. This is where the myth of Candied Island comes into play. The idea of an island made entirely out of candy sounds ridiculous, but is fuelled by being passed down as an old sailors tale, viewed by many as a form of entertainment. Though a good majority of the citizens don't believe in the tale, it is accepted as being a story told by a sailor who claimed to have seen it, giving the existence of the island massive speculation. The only two people in the show who claim to have been to or have throughly believed in the island are Captain K’nuckles and Peppermint Larry, the former of the two not being seen as reliable enough as the latter. K’nuckles throughout the series has made it his life’s mission to find the place and prove of it’s existence, however given his reputation as a deceitful pirate in the past has caused the citizens of Stormalong to think that he is either delusional or making it up to get attention and this is played as a running gag throughout the series. Peppermint Larry on the hand, is the only character to have alledgely stepped foot on the island and is the closest we get to knowing information about it. Even though the show plays up the fact that he is clearly not all there, the town seems to listen to his claims about the topic over K’nuckles word for it. This could be because Larry is the town’s bartender and is therefore a prominent and well liked figure in the town, and hearing his tales from down at the bar would be considered widely entertaining and intriguing to the locals. Another key thing to note about Larry is the fact that he has a life sized doll made out of candy that is called Candy Wife and is supposedly his spouse. This could be seen as either a joke to show how crazy he is or to showcase the fact he has been to Candied Island even more and the “wife” can be assumed to be modelled after someone or something he met on the island. A common belief is that this is the first real connection/tie the show has to Adventure Time. One could take in the features of the Candy Wife and assume/speculate that Larry modelled this thing after Princess Bubblegum, using her as his muse. Though the doll has it’s likeness to Bubblegum, the show often implies that the Candy Wife may be actually sentient and therefore would leave me to believe that the “wife” could actually be a Candy Person, or an invention created by Bubblegum to give to Larry. So, would this mean that Candied Island is actually Candy Kingdom and the sailors who have claimed to have been on or seen Candied Island mistakes it as an island due how to close the sea is to the Kingdom? With all this in my mind, despite there not being any solid evidence to prove that these two shows have any connection in canon terms, I find it interesting that Pendleton Ward and Thurop Van Orman, the creators of Adventure Time and Flapjack are good friends and have worked on each others shows, which makes the idea of there being connections between the shows still plausible nonetheless. And even if I'm looking into this theory a little too much, I find it possible that maybe Pendleton Ward just maybe took inspiration from Candied Island for the Candy Kingdom on Adventure Time to create the setting or else it’s just a funny coincidence. Nonetheless, I still find the theory of the two shows being in the same universe to be very interesting and one of my favourite cartoon conspiracy theories.

#marvellous misadventures of flapjack #adventure time #cartoon theories

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ao3feed-brucewayne · 2 years

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Billy Batson's Weirdly Specific, Oddly Consuming, Family Dynamic - Is This Normal? Alfred Just Shrugs Watching The Manor Burn Ablaze Inside The Living Room

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/oVINw4t

by NagitosWaifu

It started off with the worst of impressions, then overall good feelings, THEN a downhill tumbling into what Billy Batson means to the world at whole.

Still something is terribly wrong with this family, left unspoken, untouched, and unseen; Billy wonders if somebody will ever bring up the expanding, pitless hole growing inside these brothers of his. Billy starts to realize, slowly but surely, as to why a random rich man randomly adopted him. Whether a good man or a selfish one, Billy admits his life has improved. Of course, like a water's flow through the river, inevitably Bruce is Bruce and mistakes are being made.

Unknown to him, Everybody dealing with going back 5 years into the past with no real rhyme or rhythm to who remembers what. With some resets a few are having it better than others, while everybody else is having a hard time. Also for some reason, this world's weather is going insane, especially in Fawcett City. Sadly, it's unknown why the Wizard hasn't chosen his Champion once again.

"Does such a thing like Purity exist beyond a limited means knowns a Finitive?" Billy thinks 'No, it doesn't'

Words: 7441, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: DCU, Teen Titans (Animated Series), Young Justice (Comics), Impulse (Comics)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage

Categories: Gen, Multi

Characters: Billy Batson, Bruce Wayne, Batfamily Members, Michael Carter (DCU), Kon-El | Conner Kent, Bart Allen

Relationships: Billy Batson & Justice League, Billy Batson & Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne & Everyone, Batfamily Members & Billy Batson, Bart Allen & Tim Drake & Kon-El | Conner Kent, Dick Grayson/Koriand'r, Michael Carter & Bruce Wayne, Bart Allen/Preston Lindsay, Bart Allen & Carol Bucklen & Preston Lindsay

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe, Time Travel, Pre-Captain Marvel, This is a mishmash of DCAU and ComicVerse, IDK Comicverse Teen Titans nor Justice League apart JLI, Dick Grayson is Damian Wayne's Parent, Dick Grayson is Not Okay, Bruce Wayne Tries to Be a Good Parent, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Good Sibling Jason Todd, Jason Todd Has Issues, Tim Drake is Robin, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Tim Drake is Not Okay, Bad Parents Jack and Janet Drake, Dick Grayson is a Gift, Dick Grayson Has Issues, Rape Aftermath, Touch-Starved, Abuse, Neglect, Dimension Travel, Mental Anguish, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Emotional Manipulation, Gaslighting, Billy Batson Has Abandonment Issues, Honestly everybody in the Batfam does, But none ditch more immediately than Conner, Alfred Pennyworth is So Done, Worried Alfred Pennyworth, jonathan kent brings complications for the Supers, Kon-El | Conner Kent is Superboy, Past Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent, Bart Allen is Impulse, Bart Allen is a Mess, Minor Michael Carter/Ted Kord, Michael Carter Has Mix Feelings, Ted Kord is the refrigerator wife, The Longlasting Blue Beetle Tradition, Ambiguous Age, Past Barbara Gordon/Ted Kord, Past Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson, Smallville (TV) References, Past Clark Kent/Lex Luthor, Internalized Homophobia, Self-Esteem Issues, Bruce Wayne & Ted Kord Are Frenemies, Especially since Michael Carter are their shared custody, But Kord will fight off the Monopoly that is Wayne Enterprise, Also Bruce Might Of Copied Off Ted's Work, But as long he doesn't sell it, Ted begrudgingly allows it, Michael Carter and Clark Kent Do Not See Eye To Eye

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/oVINw4t

#IFTTT #bruce wayne #batman #the dark knight #the cape crusader #gotham #dc universe #ao3 #ao3feed

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trcent · 6 years

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- the creation of adam -

“he’ll see you now.”

there’s still an air of ominousness to the secretary’s words, even now. even now, when he’s twenty-five years old (twenty-five???) and seasoned enough in the world of interacting with entertainment professionals and supposedly entirely unafraid of corporate big shots with the power to destroy his life with the swoop of a pen in spite of everything. yes, he reminds himself, somewhere deep down underneath his nonchalantly confident gait toward the ceo’s office doors, entirely. unafraid.

he pushes back his own flashbacks to the last time he walked through the shiny glass doors of a record company’s executive office, forces them to stay on the waiting room chair he’s only just vacated. this is not their moment. they had their moment years ago, when he was nineteen and scared and broken. he hadn’t spent hours sitting under the spray of lukewarm water until his fingertips were wrinkled and pale, washing the terrible looks on their faces down the drain for those memories to pop back up again at the moment he needs to be the most confident.

he keeps his shoulders back and his spine tall. he’s here because he wants to be. he’s here because they want him. he signed their cute little contract because he wanted to, and because he was kind enough to humor their want for him. they do not own him, these glass walls are not a cage, and the man sitting behind a desk and weeks’ worth of charmingly unkempt facial hair does not own him.

“you’re probably wondering why i’ve summoned you here today,” inho starts smoothly after he sits across from the ceo, the corner of his lips curling into a barley-there smirk to indicate the effortlessly uttered cliche it’s as much of a joke as it sounds. though what follows is less so.

“i’m not going to play this down for what it is. it’s groveling. or it will be. something like that.”

he makes himself comfortable, makes a point of it, crosses one leg over the other. it’s an intimidating office and his ceo is an intimidating man, but inho outgrew intimidating offices and intimidating men when he got up and brushed the dirt of their cruelty off his shoulders.

“i’m going to ask you, or, tell you, something that could change how you view me entirely. which is obviously insane, because you are absolutely way too busy and important to know my name. it’s okay,” his air is easy, professionally playful, “i know you’re sitting there, so very cool and rich thinking ‘what’s this one’s name again’? and that’s totally fine. as long as i get eventually get a stage name that’s at least half as cool as prhyme.” there’s a chuckle that follows, deliberately ambiguous so that it’s unclear whether or not there’s a mocking lilt or genuine admiration behind it.

then he moves slightly closer to solemn, shifts forward toward the front of the chair, balances arms on armrests, keeps his spine straight.

“there’s a talented someone you didn’t hire out of your talent contest. and i don’t mean me.”

it’s easy enough to lace seriousness with smooth hints of humor, years of acting and improvisation classes settle comfortably into his blood.

“he’s a trainee now. somewhere else. somewhere he hates. somewhere that kind of hates him, actually. and with all due respect, i think you made a huge mistake letting him end up anywhere but here. i don’t know what you’re planning, because i know i definitely don’t fit the mould of the typical trc artist, so i’m guessing you have some kind of trick up your sleeve. or something. you wouldn’t keep feeding us if you didn’t need us for some wild experiment or another.”

he gestures vaguely, nonchalantly, as if he hasn’t just compared himself and his peers to helpless lab rats right to his ceo’s face, all without missing a beat.

“but all i’m going to tell you is that his name is jin sungho, and that, if they lose him, which, at this rate, seems likely, then you’d be…” the only pause needed, to cycle through his vocabulary and find a word that isn’t too insulting in present company, “thoughtless, not to snatch him up yourself.”

he breathes out at the end of it, subtly, through his mouth, the deliberate beat after a monologue, the quiet aftermath of a storm.

he doesn’t want to wait for the response. the office and the desk and the windows make him feel like he’s nineteen again and sitting back in front of a panel of jeering executives.

“think about it, sajangnim. that’s all i ask.”

he stands, offering the ceo a customary bow from his waist.

“i’ll leave first. back to the island of misfit toys,” punctuated by an unbothered toss of his hair and a coy smile on his way out of the office, “or something like that.”

At first, all Tiger JK does is stare at you with an arched brow. When you’re done, he stops you from leaving without an answer, and lets out a powerful laugh.

“You got some nerve. I’ll give you that.” He shakes his head in amusement. “I like you. That’s why I agreed to this meeting to begin with - I thought you wouldn’t have requested it unless it was an emergency or some sort of groundbreaking idea. I really believed you wouldn’t waste my time… Instead, you waltz in here and basically tell me that my casting system is messed up and that you know better. You. A simple trainee, whose training bills are on me.”

He calls in an assistant through the phone before continuing. “You were my excuse to get out of a boring meeting with the financial department, and for that I am thankful. But next time you ask for some of my valuable and limited time, you better have a more interesting topic in mind than suggesting I steal a trainee from Katie Lee.”

The assistant walks in at last, and Tiger JK instructs her to scort you outside. “Find us some trainer and make sure they work with this gentleman on a dance routine all through the night. Inho here will be presenting this dance first thing tomorrow in front of the whole company; he thinks he knows everything there is to know already, so it’s time he shows it off on stage.”

As you leave, the CEO lets out one last amused sigh through his nose. “I know what I’m doing, kid. And if you’re so certain you know more about the industry than I do, feel free to quit wasting my money and leave to start your own damn company instead.”

The assistant is quick to find a trainer and schedule him to the all-nighter. When you’re left alone with the coach, he smacks you behind the head. “Great. Now I have to cancel dinner with my wife and work overtime because of your screw up. Well done, asshole.”

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ragnarssons · 6 years

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I don't like the royals as a concept at all and obviously Harry's nazi costume was horrible and not okay, but it's the only public mishap I really know about and it was in like 2005. He apologized and he probably has grown a lot since. Like it doesn't excuse it, but he's clearly learned from the shady things he did 12 years ago. He's also served in the British military, so given Britain's stance in WW2 I think its safe to say it was a tasteless joke and not a show of sympathy.

(cont’d) When I was 21 (his age at the time) I was in a theatre production that did a “Japanese Inspired” version of Hamlet that looking back was definitely racist and gross and the worst thing I’ve ever done and I’m very ashamed of it and would never do it again. That doesn’t mean I didn’t do it, but he’s made a mistake because of his place privillege, acknowledged it publicaly, apologized and never repeated anything similar. Idk it’s complicated tbh. Because as I said, given the ROYAL FAMILY’S history in WWII well… it’s ambiguous. Edward VIII was photographed several times having tea parties with Hitler. Idk I’m French and as you’ve just confirmed, I really was 12 yo when it happened lmao. I heard about it, it made a fuss but everyone moved on in my country. I mean, we have our own dirty laundry regarding Royalty tbh, even tho we pretend to be so much better because “Revolutiooon”. I don’t know how it was perceived or treated in England. To me, the Royal Family is FAR from being a role model anyway, all the drama and the secrets (it’s what I love about The Crown tbh) and the elitism. They’re all filthy rich and stuck in their ways, and a 100 years old protocol that doesn’t make sense anymore. Of course they’d be the kind of people to think that wearing Nazis stuff is a joke, haha funny (as in, I don’t even KNOW if he really apologized because I never saw it and never cared about whether or not he did... it’s not like I had a high opinion of rich people being closeted in their own ways). But if I have to be honest… do people even know the amount of people who are, in our generation, totally disensitized to Nazism? That’s a problem. And maybe Harry’s stuff was just a symptom of that, even tho his own family, his own grand-mother was directly involved into this whole mess. To me, it’s a big problem in Europe, how everyone has ALREADY moved on from WWII and the threat of facism/nazism. How fast far-right parties are already gaining the people. AGAIN. It’s appalling and it’s not the subject here. All I remember is what a fuss it did with the Queen. The Queen who, herself, fought in WWII AGAINST the Nazis. I just watched because I heard Meghan’s dress wasn’t pretty lmao (and I appreciated a lot of things in the wedding… I think it’s cute to see how William and Harry both are “allowed” to love their spouse and show it and how it seems more natural than poor Diana’s wedding or Elizabeth’s). I’m also happy to support Meghan even tho everyone made a fuss about the fact that she’s black or “just an actress” or even an American. All I know is that I’m happy to see that Diana’s heritage still lives on with her sons (and how her grand-children look exactly like her!! awww) . And all I want is for the Royal Family (*cough* Charles) to know that she isn’t erased from memories and that people love his sons because of HER not because of him.

#nazism tw #answered #anonymous

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lovehoperomance · 3 years

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As for the COVID aspect:

I don’t actually know the details. Did they quarantine for two weeks after being tested? That’s the only proper benefit of being tested. Did they go over the people limits for wherever it was? Because I have a problem with it and I want him to do the right thing, being someone who is immuno-compromised myself who lives in a place in Australia where we went into full lockdown for at least two months with much fewer cases, but I won’t condemn without all the facts. That is cancel culture instead of call out culture.

I will also say I think in that celebrity/rich people community, it’s become normalised for many of them to still travel, still have small social events and what not. And that doesn’t excuse it because there are definitely people who are not doing this but it speaks to his frame of mind. It speaks to something that he may not be doing to intentionally be an asshole who doesn’t care about covid but that he may reflect on later and realise when he’s not part of a community of enablers and privileged people. Of course reflection doesn’t change anything after the fact but I will always give someone the potential to grow and change while acknowledging that they fucked up bad.

And lastly, I’ve seen a lot of tumblrs who didn’t start talking about this until after they saw other people talking about it. As in, their first comments were on Harry’s outfit and Harry/Olivia and then they realised. Which is fine, I did the same, but then they’re also posting about how messed up it is that larries don’t care and that it’s all about H/O which I don’t think is the case at all. I too have gotten used to seeing celebrities still going about their normal lives and assuming that they did everything possible to make it safe while still feeling uncomfortable that they did at all. So I think everyone’s first thought was not automatically covid. I go on tumblr to get away from most of that because it gives me anxiety so sometimes the social consciousness part of my brain is switched off. More to the point, it demonstrates that there are a lot of varying levels of blasé about covid, particularly in America, and while that is not okay, it’s perpetrated by people in power or people who were in power lol. And, so, Harry presented with this invite to a wedding of someone who he’s presumably really close to, might have been careless and not thought about it and again, that is not okay, but a lot of people have been there and then realised their mistake. Let the facts be known first and the situation. And remember that you can be unhappy with all of it and still be a fan because you’re learning along with him. I stopped being a fan of Taylor Swift in the aftermath of her scandal because I couldn’t reconcile it with the person I thought I knew and it seemed the thing to do when everybody else was but when she came back and things became more clear, I realised I just jumped on a bandwagon, and never gave her the benefit of the doubt. I never tried to remember that people can do stupid or morally ambiguous things for a variety of reasons and it doesn’t mean you have to stop loving them.

#H #harrie #and a Larrie #and a Louie

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uraneplunia-blog · 7 years

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NEPTUNE

"My wife was born under the sign of Pisces and their planet Neptune. Extremely sensitive and compassionate, she was confused about the world she lived in. Only after I started practicing astrology I began to understand what I did not understand about her then. She was a Neptune creature-she lived in a world that seemed to have little to do with the reality of the Earth, and whose rudeness often suffered. Probably why he left this world so early. He was 39 years old when he died from his damaged heart. Her Neptune experiences helped me to see both sides of Neptune. On the one hand, how the influence of Neptune's energy can confuse our lives and, on the other, get a deep understanding. Neptune wants understanding, understanding for himself and the world we live in. Neptune tells us - "I am the ocean, you are the drops in the ocean that you create, you can not understand the world unless you understand yourself as the particles that make up this world." Neptune is an emotional planet looking for understanding how emotions can confuse our lives, how under their influence we do not see the truth, how under their influence we can make mistaken decisions. We need Neptune to understand his delusions, illusions, fantasies, and mistakes, and by realizing the truth to achieve a deep understanding of ourselves. It is a planet that inspires poets, artists, musicians and artists for creativity, while others stimulate alcoholism and drug addiction." The Neptune horoscope is where we most need to understand ourselves and the world we are connected with. We associate Neptune with the sign Pisces, the twelfth house and god Poseidon - the ruler of the seas and all the waterways. The astrological element of feeling water acts like Poseidon. When one emerges from the sea, one of these two things happens. In some cases, the waters open majestically and cheerfully. In other cases, his appearance is marked by fierce storms and hurricanes. Similarly, when our feelings come to the surface, they can be abundant and divinely inspired or swept like a tidal wave. Neptune symbolizes both the longing for the dissolution of the boundaries of the personality and the experience of unity with life. Neptune is a fog and a disguise, its location at home will show where we are constantly confused. Pisces are the most mystical sign, we associate them with sensitivity, emotion, compassion, imagination, illusions and delusions. The power of Pisces comes from the ability to change through imagination, mysticism and compassion, and their success is due to the strong sensitivity to the emotional states of others. In the positive manifestations, the Pisces compassionately serve others, seek greater perfection, do not lose faith in difficult situations, can cure others with unconditional love. In their negative manifestations they lose a sense of reality, blur the borders, ignore their personal needs, sacrificing themselves for others, creating illusions for helplessness, going to extremes of indulgence in themselves.

Neptune is the strongest in the 12th home. This is his home, the home where he can show his best or worst qualities. The twelfth home is connected with the closure of a cycle of human experience that can become a new beginning. In this house, things are falling apart so that we can adjust to cosmic harmony. At its most essential level, the 12th House presents the pursuit of dissolution existing in every person. In the Pig Gulf, two fish swim in opposite directions, a symbol of two opposing aspirations of the soul. One - to separate from the source from which it originates and the other - to reunite with it. In other words, our personality does not want to feel isolated, but at the same time he fears not to lose his own self. The blurring of the boundary between an individual and others may confuse our perceptions of where we start and where others end up. The very fabric of Neptune is fluid - just like the water in the ocean. This is why we consider Neptune to be the planet of ambiguity and blurring of borders. People with Neptune in the 12th home can periodically be swallowed up and overcome by emotions, may have a tendency to escape - a desire to retreat from life. Therefore, they must learn to accept the good with the evil, the beautiful with the ugly, the perfect with the imperfect. We come into this world prone to react in a certain way by experiencing and processing events from our past. The way in which we will work our past is determined by the aspects that the planets displayed in the birth chart have. When a planet is in aspect to Neptune, it clouds the clear vision. I will point out with a few examples how Neptune affects the other planets when they are in aspect with him.

💙Aspect Neptune/Moon- makes a person very sensitive to suffering (especially in coincidence), a person has elusive feelings and can be drowned by emotions because both planets are emotional. Moon looks for emotional security, and Neptune - emotional happiness. It is difficult for people in this aspect to get a real break for their own feelings or to understand what the feelings of others are. In this aspect, it gives a strong yearning for a merger, a fusion with the Cosmos, a merger with the Mother, a quest to return to the womb from where we came. One with this aspect often idealizes things. Desperate for a better future often idealizes the past and is difficult to cope with the present.

💙The Venus / Neptune aspect is a combination of bondage. Both planets are related to harmony and love. Venus is a symbol of earthly love, which is practical, and Neptune is a symbol of Divine Love, which is unconditional. Typically, people with a Venera / Neptune aspect dream of a wonderful relationship that is romantic and of heavenly origin. This aspect exists in my horoscope, and as a younger one I did not realize I was not living in the real world and I was looking for an ideal partner to show an idealism about my relationship with women. Often I was blind and I could not see the woman next to me in the real look. As Shakespeare says, "when we are crazy in love, we do not see things clearly." Later, I discovered the true look of my partner and I was disappointed. This was repeated many times in my life until I realized that Neptune misled me. The truth is that sometimes I did not want to see things clearly, my illusion was more pleasant and romantic. People with Venus / Neptune (especially in coincidence) are looking for a mystical experience in their love affinities, something of heavenly origin. That feeling was deep in me. People with Venus / Neptune are inspired not only by love but also by beauty.

Mercury is a planet of mind and communication. Neptune undermines Mercury's rational and objective function.💙The Mercury / Neptune aspect has the gift of giving an extremely fruitful mind with a rich imagination or distorting reality. Often the reason for this distortion is that facts can be seen as God, at the expense of inner reality, of what we feel within. The strong and accurate aspect of Mercury / Neptune makes a person highly sensitive to external influences. It is something like a radio receiver that needs fine tuning to receive and transmit the information clearly. In this aspect the boundary between the thinking of a person and others is very thin. This makes one able to perceive everything that comes from the outside, devour it into itself, and then change it.

Through Venus and Neptune we seek love and enter into relationships with others. In all relationships, we bring together the experience of the past. What we carry from the past can have a confusing impact on our present lives and under Neptune's influence to lose a sense of reality. Obviously, we can not remember what we have experienced in the past, it is a mystic for us. This is why Neptune is considered a mysterious planet. Obviously, in order to reach a true understanding of Neptune in the horoscope, we must go through illusions, delusions and fantasies, suffer the consequences, and then experience, to come to a deep understanding by becoming aware of what and how we have done in the past, about being connected to everything existing in the universe. Neptune's astrological model approaches the needs of the soul as a necessity for a higher understanding of its spiritual nature, as a planet that helps us to realize the Great Reality, which in love holds everything existing in one.

Neptune teaches us how to deal with the hidden pain we carry with us, how to unload our soul from what weighs us. As long as we are in the power of the ego, we are unable to heal our internal wounds caused by our love adventures. We need to become aware of how we have made our connections in the past, how we have been hurt or injured by others. We will heal our wounds by forgiving all past misconduct and failures by purifying ourselves from all painful and desperate experiences at the emotional level. This is the reason for Pisces to replicate healing abilities. Through Neptune we try to get to the Divine - unconditional love. He believes in the manna celestial, the mystical connections, the probability that impossible dreams will become reality. The coloring of relationships and events under Neptune's influence are subjective and unrealistic. Even our attempt to protect ourselves from the awareness of our illusions fails during the unfavorable Neptune transits. However, the mess caused, the final truth is revealed when we realize how in the past we have acted innocently and falsely.

Self-deception is what we sometimes need to distract the mist around us and free ourselves from self-destructive and unhealthy attitudes. Neptune as a planet of superior harmony and unconditional love gives us the ability to bring more beauty and harmony into the world. He can transfer the soul to the subtle levels of awareness and teach us to recover from our spiritual wounds by really deepening our past actions by realizing our past mistakes and misconceptions. At Neptune, our relationship with the partners is heavenly. We sincerely want a loving, carefree and helpful partner who will not leave us. But ironically, if we choose the wrong partner because of fraudulent expectations, we will later have to divide with him. Of course, this is not easy because neptune relationships involve complicated psychological attachments. Expectations of a wonderful and perfect relationship lead to great pain because no one is perfect, no one is God. Disappointments are inevitable when we do not really see things. Neptune's illusions collapse as we open our eyes and see the truth. This is the deep understanding that Neptune wants to tell us through the horoscope

We are constantly subject to delusions. We are deluded by ignorance, lack of understanding, lack of real knowledge. Politicians are deceiving us with unrealistic promises, misleading the media with half-truths and idle advertisements for poor goods, misguided partners with false words and unclean intentions. To protect ourselves from the delusions we need to know the Truth. This truth can be learned from the soul. Neptune is the soul.

Pisces is a sign of healing, understanding heals. By understanding your Neptune in the horoscope you will free yourself from illusions and delusions, understand yourself better and accept the world as it is. You will understand the deep meaning of folk wisdom: "And the Lord can not help you if you can not help yourself.

#neptune #moon conjunct neptune #venus conjunct neptune #mercury conjunct neptune #pisces #venus in pisces #moon in pisces #mercury in pisces #astrology

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