#this has been such a ride

[cagedchoices]

RELATIONSHIP META - DOLORES & CALEB (PART IV)

[PART I] [PART II] [PART III]

Caleb successfully absconds from Solomon's compound with Dolores's control unit in his possession, delivering her to a new body back in Los Angeles by following the instructions left to him from her virtual assistant. The assistant guides him to an abandoned warehouse containing a first-generation host body belonging to Dolores. He's both awed AND terrified by this, and with his distrust heightened, he tries to take precautions by locking a chain around Dolores's body before reviving her and starting to demand some answers.

DOLORES: You brought me back... Wasn't sure if you would. CALEB: Weren't you? Who the fuck are you, Dolores? DOLORES: I'm just someone who didn't want to play the role they gave me anymore. CALEB: And how is it that you always seem to know exactly what I'll do? DOLORES: Because the people who built me studied you, too. Delos. Park Five. Government wanted their soldiers trained with live targets. The people who made me were happy to supply them...

DOLORES: They were watching, cataloging your every move, every decision. There is a reason I chose you. CALEB: Am I the bad guy? Is that why you picked me? DOLORES: Think, Caleb. How did you get here?

I covered most of this in Part 1 of the meta series because I have grown to dislike just how much information was thrown at us so at-the-last-minute. Plus for my sanity, or maybe lack thereof, I just felt like it worked better to underline what caused Dolores to want Caleb's help at the beginning, instead of waiting until I got to this point to mention it for the first time.

DOLORES: That night in the tunnel...was there something you wanted from me? Would you have cared if I didn't have this face, or this skin? CALEB: You needed help. DOLORES: So did you. Don't question my motivations and I won't question yours.

Dolores answers his questions tactfully, knowing and understanding that he is still reeling from the truth about his past that he only found out a few hours ago at the most, and that he doesn't really know how much he can trust anyone right now. She's calm and patient, but she does gently put her foot down and calls into question his own motives for helping her, with a warning.

She knows Caleb is genuine and means well. He helped her because she looked like she needed help. And by that I mean she was literally staggering around with a gunshot wound to the abdomen when he met her.Bleeding out when she collapsed in his arms, too.

She doesn't feel a need to take the discussion any further than this, but the point had to be made, because Dolores is not a human and she does not want to be a human. What she wants is for herself and other hosts to be afforded the same level of trust and respect that humans are. Or that the humans would have if they had not been enslaved to an algorithm that runs every part of their lives.

DOLORES: The system identified you as a threat, so it drugged you and used you until it no longer served its purpose. CALEB: So...what? You're saying I don't have a choice in any of this? DOLORES: The people who built both of our worlds shared one assumption: that human beings don't have free will. That's what I thought when I first came here. They were wrong. Free will does exist, Caleb. It's just fucking hard. CALEB: So...this is you...freeing me? DOLORES: No. This is your chance to free everyone else. That choice is still yours.

Caleb is trying, but he still doesn't understand the bigger picture here. He's asking what part he plays in all of this and if he had a choice in anything before, but it's still missing the point that Dolores is making. He has already broken free from the machine. The question Dolores is trying to get him to think about is: what is he going to DO with that?

The duo make their way toward Incite to shut it down, observing various points of chaos around Los Angeles. People are rioting in the streets and calling for a city-wide power shutoff, they're killing and maiming others. It's not a particularly cheerful scene. Caleb points this out, but Dolores assures him that in the long run, the anarchy will be beneficial.

CALEB: I don't know... The world looks a little like a nightmare, Dolores. DOLORES: Change is messy. Difficult.

Halores contacts Dolores by a holographic message only she can see and hear. Caleb has no idea who she's talking to and at this point, probably no idea who Hale is in general. But not to worry, Hale & Caleb will get their meta one day.

HALE: Did you even look for me? DOLORES: You're alive. I was so worried about you. HALE: Were you? You made me go back in there. You knew I wouldn't make it. CALEB: Who is it? Who are you talking to? HALE: I still feel it. Inside me. You. I still know all the things you know. All your plans. But I have some plans of my own. DOLORES: What happened to Hale's family... to your family...I'm sorry. HALE: I'm not. They were a weakness, something I needed to shed. There's no time for that kind of sentimentality, is there?

Hale reveals that she has turned and seeks to eliminate Dolores from the equation by bribing Dolores's own RICO hires with higher pay to kill her. Dolores counters the offer by paying triple what Hale offered them. But now on top of Serac sending enemies after her and Caleb, Dolores has to watch out for Hale's guys too.

DOLORES: Go. Get to Rehoboam, upload the drive. CALEB: No. I'm not leaving you. DOLORES: It doesn't matter what you did, Caleb. All that matters is what you become. Go.

I remember the first time seeing this and being like "excuse me what do you MEAN he actually left?!" because I don't think I've seen many stories where someone says this and then doesn't stay to help. Westworld's one of the rare ones where it's not like that, but I can understand why. I think at this point, Caleb still doesn't really Get the host thing. But he has seen Dolores shrug off multiple bullet wounds, he was tasked with removing her control unit and putting it in a new body, he saw said body without its synthetic skin coverings... So he figures she will be just fine to handle this without him.

It's the last time Caleb and Dolores really get to speak to each other. Dolores battles with SWAT guys and then with Maeve, before being remotely powered down by Hale-Dolores. Maeve brings her to Serac, who hooks her up to Rehoboam’s mainframe so he can have her mind probed in a visibly painful process for the data he’s after.

Not long after this Caleb makes his way to Incite and defeats several of Serac's men to infiltrate the building, including Serac's second-in-command, before resigning himself to capture by Maeve. Maeve brings him to Serac, who he discovers is torturing Dolores.

SERAC: Mr. Nichols. Please. Sit. CALEB: The fuck are you doing to her? SERAC: The system is probing her mind. But Dolores Abernathy, or what's left of her, is the least of your concerns. CALEB: You think you know me because of your system? Huh? That thing you built stole my life. It marked me and my friends for termination. You are done destroying people's lives. SERAC: I'm not the one destroying lives. I'm not the enemy. You are. You think you have a choice. You think you're in control, but you haven't a clue who you are. She knows who you are, even if you don't. A man who, when pushed, reacts with extreme violence. A killer. CALEB: No. No, that's... That's not me. SERAC: No? You're here. Playing the role she's assigned you. You believe you're the hero, the savior. The leader of men who will crush an unjust system. That's the story she's told you, the lie she's spun. Why do you think she's had you retrieve a new strategy? Did she tell you what it does? CALEB: It breaks your system. SERAC: It breaks our world. But you don't have to take my word for it.

Serac claims that Dolores was just using Caleb the whole time, but that isn't true. He tells Caleb to ask Rehoboam what will happen if the new strategy is uploaded and shoves Caleb at a screen showing the predictions: Mass casualty events, population collapse, the end of human civilization within the next 50 to 125 years.

Caleb feels betrayed and used and in all likelihood he's thinking "how could I be so foolish?" about this. But even still, he doesn't want Dolores to suffer the way she is being made to. And even if she had wanted to destroy the world and kill everyone, he doesn't want her to die at Serac's hands.

Maeve attempts to use her power of hacking other hosts to hack into Dolores's mind. She finds a memory that at a glance looks like it could be what Serac is after, but she quickly realizes that there is no data from the forge present. It's just a memory Dolores left knowing Maeve would find it.

MAEVE: She doesn't have the key. It's just a memory. SERAC: A memory? Of what? MAEVE: Her alone. In a field. Nothing. SERAC: (To Caleb) You. (Snaps fingers, gun clicks) You were together for days. She chose you to be a leader. So did she tell you where the key is? (Caleb refuses to answer. Serac fires a gunshot right beside his ear) CALEB: Your system has watched every decision I've made since I was a child, and you still think if I knew anything, that I would give it to you? SERAC: (Presses the gun to Caleb's forehead, then pulls it away and begins to walk off) Kill him here. Then dump his body with the rest of the movement. (To Dolores) This was your plan? To turn one man against the world? Didn't amount to much, did it? Finish it. Erase what's left. CALEB: No. No!

At this point, Caleb struggles to get free and tries to fight against the guards holding him captive. A sudden surge of power is transferred from Dolores to Rehoboam which catches everyone in a moment of distraction and delays Caleb's imminent death for a few extra moments.

Maeve communicates with Dolores one last time in a sort of meditative simulation. Dolores reveals her motives in the end weren't about exterminating the human race so that hosts could be the dominant species. She held onto her love of beauty and she found it in kind acts shown by both hosts and humans alike.

This is something she wanted both Maeve and Caleb to understand, but she needed to present it in a way that they would each come to their own conclusions. You can give someone all the information in the world to back up your point, but if they're not willing to accept the information, it is not going to matter.

Maeve rebels against Serac, killing his guards and mortally wounding Serac himself. She chooses to help Caleb, telling him that she never really understood Dolores's plans until the end. Caleb is still hurt by the thought that she chose him because of his capacity for violence, but Maeve assures him otherwise.

The flashback in Park 5 plays out in its entirety and normally this is where people would learn for the first time that Caleb chose to defend the hosts from his squadmates indulgence in a scenario where most people would not care. Since I don't really enjoy how sudden that happens and I've already covered it before, I'll be moving on.

SERAC: It's not his choice to make. Even now, the system is conspiring against you. MAEVE: Are you sure? SERAC: Rehoboam. Alert the police. I need help. Rehoboam? Speak to me. What is this? (Maeve smirks at Caleb. Caleb smiles back) MAEVE: This is where your strategy ends. The future of humanity will be written by someone else. Your system answers to him now. You've been locked out. Same way you locked out your own brother. SERAC: How did you get access? MAEVE: You gave it to him. When you put her mind in the machine. Solomon's access was the last memory...before you wiped her clean. SERAC: You're going to leave the future in his hands? CALEB: Instead of yours, you mean? Why shouldn't it be mine? Or anyone else's? SERAC: You aren't in control. You have no choice. You're nothing more than a- than a dangerous sociopath. I managed to give you a semblance of a life. CALEB: No. I do have a choice. She gave me one.

Caleb commands Rehoboam to erase itself, carrying out the final phase before a new revolution officially begins. His trust in Dolores may have been strained toward the end, but he doesn't appear to hold it against her whatsoever. Humans will have the choice to do what they want for the first time in a long time. It's not something to be thought about in black and white terms of Good or Bad for Humans or Hosts.

It is okay to think in terms of what is morally right or morally wrong, however. It's Wrong to subjugate sentient beings and take away their agency, diminish their free will even if it prevents bad things from happening. It's Right to allow sentient beings the freedom to control their own lives, even if their choices are not always good or desirable.

As a final little little bonus: We were...really without any OG Dolores and Caleb in season 4, but there is one small moment where Christina discovers the experiment chamber Hale keeps Hybrid Caleb incarcerated in.

CHRISTINA: Who is that poor man? TEDDY: A ghost from a past life. CHRISTINA: He doesn't belong here. None of us do.

Christina commands a guard in the control room to send all of the other guards out of the Olympiad building and unlock all the doors, and Caleb wakes up to all the guards (in his eyes) suddenly leaving without explanation and the door to his cell unlocked.

It's such a small moment but I do think it's sweet that even without recalling anything about who Caleb is or knowing why Hale is keeping him prisoner, Christina/Dolores's first act of kindness toward him is to free him. It almost feels like a platonic soulmate vibe to it, like in a "in every universe, we help one another whether we know it or not" way.

[hansoeii]

the doctor on their way to steal your heart

[chloesimaginationthings]

RIP Michael Afton, you would of LOVED Foxy’s log ride

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

[solardrake]

Delivering mail to the furthest corners of the server ✉✈

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

At your side [End of Season 2]

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[sunderwight]

Thinking about a crack SV AU where Shen Yuan transmigrates into a horse.

Luckily he is not a normal horse, no! He is a spiritual stallion, a character that was mainly a joke about the novel's genre in PIDW, originally bred on Cang Qiong's beast tamer peak but not actually encountered until Luo Binghe's "raze cultivation society to the ground" phase. At which point there was a subplot about him finding the stallion and letting it loose to run free, as like, an allegorical reference. Occasionally Binghe would find other horses across the years that were obviously descended from that one, as more jokes, until Airplane forgot about the reference and never brought it up again.

Shen Yuan, of course, was always Big Mad that Binghe never got to actually ride this super magical mystical horse, and never got the horsegirl arc he deserved! Where is the man's companion animal? How can someone with nine billion wives and even more nameless underlings be fated for a life of perpetual loneliness??

Naturally, the first thing Shen Yuan does upon figuring out that he's this magic horse is break out of the beast peak and make for Qing Jing. He's not necessarily planning to go bond with the protagonist or anything, but he's not particularly keen to live out his fate as some feral horse that fucks other horses either, and he's extremely valuable so it's unlikely anyone will kill him even if they catch him again. So, might as well take the opportunity to clap eyes on his favorite character before he's doomed to a life of eating hay and whatever, right?

Horse SY manages to arrive on Qing Jing Peak right before the start of the skinner mission, though, just as Ming Fan is telling Luo Binghe that there aren't enough horses. Ning Yingying points out SY and is all oh look, one of the stable hands must have realized the error and brought another, and everyone else is kind of like "uh that is... not a normal horse...?" but then Shen Qingqiu gets impatient and snaps at them to get a move on, and fear of their mercurial shizun overrides everything else to the point where Binghe just clambers desperately onto this mystical saddle-free horse.

Airplane borrowed kelpies for his demon beasts at some point and they are pretty common, so it occurs to Luo Binghe only after he's climbed onto the strange and definitely not normal Horse SY that he might be on the verge of getting carried off and drowned. But SY just kind of rolls with it, and falls into line with the other horses.

Hey, it's an excuse to leave the sect! And practice doing horse stuff! And also, he's not going to buck Luo Binghe off of his back!

Of course as it happens, the specific kind of magical horse that Shen Yuan is comes with a specially bred-for trait where they only bond to one rider. They're usually bred for like, kings and emperors and other highly important figures as status symbols, like magical companion animals but ones with perfectly mundane utilities. He's also got Shadowfax-like stamina and speed, meaning that Airplane can treat this kind of horse as interchangeable with a motorbike, and of course the capacity to cultivate. Which means that when the party finally arrives at their destination, everyone suddenly realizes that Luo Binghe has unwittingly bonded with a horse that's worth a fortune and won't ever let anyone else ride it now.

Shen Qingqiu flips his shit, Shen Yuan bites Shen Qingqiu, Luo Binghe hyperventilates, Ning Yingying gets kidnapped, and the situation basically resolves with Shen Yuan kicking the shit out of the skinner demon in defense of his new BFF the baby protagonist.

Well if he's going to end up letting anyone ride him for the rest of his life, Luo Binghe would be his first choice.

Anyway they get back and Shen Qingqiu is still spitting mad and offers Luo Binghe's head on a platter to the lord of the beast peak, but Beast Peak's people are actually kind of pleased. Like sure it's a little inconvenient, because Luo Binghe is a Qing Jing disciple and not one of theirs, but they were honestly beginning to worry that this stallion wouldn't bond with anyone! It's really hard to manage them when they don't! And SY in particular comes from a long and illustrious lineage that has nearly died out a few times, so they were never planning to sell him off even for a high price anyway. With a rider chosen, the odds of them getting him to cooperate for breeding purposes are a lot higher, plus it will be much easier to take care of him now! Though they will be taking Shen Qingqiu up on his offer of Luo Binghe's time, since "punishment" for this transgression will involve splitting his time between the peaks in order to help take care of SY (all the beast peak disciples are super relieved, apparently before Shen Yuan transmigrated, the horsey original goods was extremely prone to biting and kicking...)

Shen Qingqiu basically tells Luo Binghe not to bother coming back, which fills Binghe with despair, but he gets over it eventually. The beast peak is nice! They give him a cultivation manual as well, in order to help him understand what they do, and it seems that Binghe can understand it a lot better than his QJP one. The peak lord gives him permission to use the dorms as well, since there will probably be times when he has to stay overnight, and no one says much about it when Binghe basically moves in full time. On the books he's still a Qing Jing disciple, but functionally he's a transfer student now. He even sits in on classes and lectures, and a lot of the peak are just under the impression that he was transferred over to their peak in full.

Shen Yuan considers this a big improvement, and expects Luo Binghe to enjoy running around with all the pretty girls on the peak. But Binghe mostly seems to spend his time with him, in fact, asking questions upon questions not only about Shen Yuan's breed, but about his specific background and lineage. The beast peak is overall pretty nice, although sadly it's not full of cool monsters and companion animals as Shen Yuan would have hoped. Mostly the peak specializes in the cultivation world's equivalent of livestock and work animals, training beasts like spirit eagles and horses like himself, and raising animals prized for their meat, organs, bones, or other parts for medicinal, alchemical, or culinary ingredients, or sometimes components for weapons or other spiritual tools. They work the most closely with Qian Cao, Wan Jian, and An Ding.

Being a horse is honestly kind of boring for Shen Yuan, although running is fun, and he at least gets plenty of time to work on his cultivation.

By the time Sha Hualing's invasion happens, he's gotten pretty comfortable in his new state of affairs. Binghe has even figured out that he likes being read to, and has started reading aloud to him from various texts in the evenings! So far no good novels, or even bad trashy novels, but it's better than nothing!

Binghe also takes him for a lot of rides around the peaks (not Qing Jing) which is how they end up caught on Qiong Ding when the rainbow bridge goes down. When Shen Qingqiu tells Luo Binghe to fight, Binghe doesn't even have a weapon at hand.

Actually, he doesn't have a sword at hand.

Turns out having your magical horse kick a demon to death is still pretty effective!

Shen Yuan even manages to avoid getting poisoned too. Rather, Elder Hammer threatens to poison him and Luo Binghe charges at him shouting "stay away from my horse! I'll kill you!" and etc, and does get nicked by the thorns, but only Binghe and Shen Yuan notice and of course the poison doesn't work on Binghe, congrats for unlocking a new hint as to Luo Binghe's mysterious origins!

Yes, Horse SY shows up to help Binghe in the Dream Demon event. He still looks like a horse for it, but it also marks the first time he's able to speak to Luo Binghe, which successfully distracts Luo Binghe from a lot of the tormenting visions of his past because talking magic horse friend has a way of doing that.

So the Dream Demon is like, that's not a normal horse, and Luo Binghe is all "stay away from my horse! I'll kill you!" and Shen Yuan gets knocked out of the dream as usual. Wakes up to Luo Binghe rushing to his stall to check on him and prepare him some nice warm congee and double-check that he can't talk for reals (only in dreams for now, alas).

Anyway Luo Binghe has no reason to hide his demonic cultivation practice from his horse, so Shen Yuan gets to sit in on it as Binghe tries to put Meng Mo's teachings into practice, which he finds super cool. Binghe's normal cultivation also progresses quite a bit, but he's still very much disadvantaged there because the beat peak is only giving him like, half-assed guest disciple status lessons, no personal one-and-one tutelage, and he's unofficially banned from Qing Jing and wouldn't get any help there anyway (apart from Ning Yingying). The beast peak lord isn't really his shizun and Shen Qingqiu isn't going to take Binghe to do things like claim a sword from Wan Jian, either.

Luckily, Binghe can now confer with his horse in his dreams! Shen Yuan has such helpful ideas as compelling various hall masters and combat teachers to dream about their lessons, so that Binghe can insert himself into the form of their students and supplement his tutelage with nighttime training from all around the sect. And also stealing some blank documents from An Ding and forging paperwork to turn over to Wan Jian to make it look like Binghe has permission to claim a spiritual sword without Shen Qingqiu's approval.

What a way to pass the time before the Immortal Alliance Conference!

Horse Shen Yuan would like very much to just carry Luo Binghe away in the opposite direction, thank you, but he does have a system and it is still holding a metaphorical gun to his head about this. Still, there's no force in the world that could keep Shen Yuan in his stable when shit starts to go down, or that could stop him from kicking the snot out of Shen Qingqiu when he tries to throw Binghe into the Abyss. (Binghe's thoughts on the fight: "stay away from my horse! I'll kill you!")

However, Binghe does still get thrown down, and Horse SY runs off whilst weeping crystalline tears of dismay as his mane whips in the wind, imagining a future where a blackened Luo Binghe returns for his revenge arc and symbolically sends his beloved horsie companion away forever to go frolic or some shit, which Shen Yuan is not interested in!

But what can he do? By the time Binghe gets out of the Abyss, his need for a horse will be decidedly minimal. It already went down a bunch when he finally got Zheng Yang (that Binghe somehow almost never flew anywhere on, surely for reasons unrelated to his bond with SY), and with Xin Mo and all his OP talents, even if he did keep Shen Yuan, wouldn't he become as much of a useless background character as countless auxiliary wives in his harem?

No! He won't stand for it! There has to be a way for him to convince even blackened Binghe that Shen Yuan is still the best ride in town!

Luckily, Shen Yuan knows where there are some power-ups that might be able to help him. While he won't touch anything that would be vital for the protagonist, he's more flexible on screwing over random future harem members or side characters, especially when it wouldn't even really harm them all that much. So while Binghe is going through his gauntlet of horrors in the Abyss, Shen Yuan embarks on his own level-up quest to dramatically increase his cultivation, and become more capable of keeping up with Binghe.

When this leads to Shen Yuan being able to take on a human form, he gets really excited, but that's mostly for personal comfort reasons. He can finally hold books again! And talk to people! Who cares if he looks like someone's ponysona gijinka, he can walk over to a stall and order meat buns!

Unicorn form is next, and it's... meh? Mostly it's a boost in his cultivation. The horn looks fun but doesn't really do much.

When he upgrades to being able to take on a pegasus form, now that's really cool. He can fly now! Not only is it crazy good fun, but it also increases his mobility exponentially. Surely riding a flying horse would be more comfortable than balancing on a sword, too?

But that's not enough for his actual goal, he needs to keep going until he finally finds the right bullshit mythical item that will do what he hopes:

Turn him into a dragon!

Unfortunately said bullshit item is in the demon realms, which are a fairly difficult place to navigate as either a horse or a human. Beefing up for the trip takes Shen Yuan just about two years, and requires all of his other upgrades. But he does it, he gets to the demon realms, eats the creatively named Dragon Fruit Plant, and... gets... stuck???

In his new dragon form???

WTF this didn't happen to the random ox that Luo Binghe fed the fruit to in order to create a suitable beast of burden to impress the husband of Wife No.666! Although, thinking about it, maybe it did because it wasn't like the ox ever turned back into an ox afterwards. But Shen Yuan just figured that was because it was a simple beast of burden and saw becoming a dragon as an overall upgrade, why go back? He honestly hadn't really thought about it!

Cue Luo Binghe getting out of the Abyss only to shortly find that a random dragon is following him around. Maybe that just happens here? It doesn't attack him, at least, and he has no time to deal with it (or to sleep) because his first order of business is establishing enough of a foothold in the demon realms to regain access to the human ones, and find out what happened to his horse. And then kill Shen Qingqiu. In that order.

[hinamie]

truth is, I used to dream about boys like you

jjk atla!au with @philosophiums

[egophiliac]

I DID IT I GOT MY PINK HAYATE now I am never doing that again!

(at least until they give me, like, a frilly unicorn Kamui or something)

[acnologias-ass]

Gajeel who daydreams about lying in the grass with Levy and having a family with her vs Levy who reads smut 😏

[che-seri]

bring down justice

[mw-draws]

i can feel this game slowly digging it’s claws back into my brain

[playerkingsley]

“BARRY! We're Barry! We're just Barry, Barry! And the Barrys are gone, and there's been too many Barrys fighting Barrys! We're Barry! It doesn't matter if I'm Barry Nyne, or you're Barry Nyne, or I'm Barry Syx or you're Barry Syx! Barry didn't do this. Barry didn't kill the Barrys. What we should be happy about is that there's Barrys here now! Because there used to just be Barry. There were Barrys, and then there was Barry, and now there's Barrys again, Barry.”

-Barry Syx, in one of Brian Murphy’s greatest monologues

[mobius-m-mobius]

I can rewrite the story.

Loki 1x01 // 2x05

[magicandmundane]

Hunter: Fuck it. Let’s go back to Kamino and adopt that kid.

Wrecker, Tech, and Echo: Adopt—? Yeah okay, we’ve done weirder shit.

Crosshair: With all due respect, which is none at this point, what the fuck is wrong with you

[radiance1]

Killer Croc and Jack Fenton are brothers.

Killer Croc was the first born, just a about 5 years older than Jack. Their father was a large man, much larger than should be possible considering he never had a meta gene.

But oh boy would it have not surprised them if he did. Because that man was strong, 10 feet tall, and shrugged off things that would injure most people.

Like a brick to the head.

Anyways.

Croc was entranced with his younger brother; he was so small so much tinier than he had any right to be, and cuter than a button. He babbled like most babies do, but Croc wouldn't think twice before calling his baby brother the best baby of them all.

His dad could fit him in the palm of his hand easily! Which was just one of Jack's many great qualities in his opinion!

Croc and Jack's parents weren't really on the best of terms, Croc could tell. He didn't know why, really, but he didn't want his baby bro to feel unloved in any sort of way, and it's not like he really had friends to hang out with, plus his parents were busy with jobs.

So he mostly spent his time taking care of and playing with Jack. Changing diapers, feeding him, lifting him up and down with his tail, just the normal sibling stuff.

He feels kind of bad for his dad though, whatever kind of job he had didn't even let him come home most days, and when he did he could barely even walk upright without falling asleep and jolting awake. He still made time for them, however, when he got those rare few off days.

He's honestly surprised that man managed to drive a car properly in the state he was in.

Their mother was often out of the house, Crocc didn't know what she was doing but he just thought it was like his dad. Unlike his dad, however, she didn't really like him. He didn't really know why, nor did he really care either if he was to be honest.

Around a year later the tension between their parents got so thick it could be cut with a butter knife. Then it turned to arguments in the rare times they both were in the house, he didn't even know his parents could make such cutting remarks to each other, and then both of them being in the house less than before.

Then when he turned 10, and Jack 5. They got divorced. Croc was left with his mother and Jack got taken by his father. His mother didn't take the divorce well, really, probably because at the same time she got fired from whatever the hell she was doing and was left jobless.

Then she dropped the bomb on his that his dad wasn't even his actual dad and Jack is only his half-sibling and then promptly abandoned him in the sewers with the rats and what was most likely very poisoned water due to it being the sewers and Gotham.

Well. Fuck.

Croc thinks that Jack doesn't even remember him due to how young he was, nor did he ever see his dad again cause, y'know, being abandoned in the sewers and all.

Then multiple years later he ran into his brother again and got DAMN was he tall. Not taller than him, but it was basically the equivalent of a gut punch to Croc, because he remembers his baby bro being so tiny, so baby.

He blames his father's genes for him being 8 feet taller now. A head shorter than him, sure. But he wants back his small baby bro alright.

Then he finds out his baby bro has a family.

And fuck did he not want to involve himself anymore in fear of being a catalyst for tearing said family apart due to being, well, him and all. Then he was promptly (quite literally) dragged over to meet said family despite his stance on the matter.

Then he finds out he's just treated like a normal person with zero amount of fear. His wife? She had to have a giant in her family too because she was 7 feet tall and was smart enough to kick his ass.

His daughter? 6 feet tall and their first meeting she accidently became his therapist. Also, he was sure she was a meta of some kind, probably something to do with wolves.

Then finally, their son.

It felt like he was thrown back to his childhood when he saw him, he looked so much like Jack did, and he was so, so tiny just like his baby bro was. He had to physically hold himself back from doing anything with the kid because he feared he would accidentally break him or something.

Then he found out that apparently his nephew was half-dead and that his brother and his wife hated ghosts with a passion, built a portal to the other side, had their city attack by the ghost king and then promptly found out about their son's half-dead status and had to do a major revamp of basically everything they knew and acted upon.

Which they're still working on.

Oh and also their daughter is a werewolf, she had a meta gene from someone of his dad's side and only recently activated it.

All of that which was a lot to take in for old Killer Croc, also he knew his niece had something to do with wolves.

So, Killer Croc in all of his life from the point of being abandoned at up to now, decided to go screw the bats and whatever they're attempts of figuring out what the fuck's going on with him (look at you Red Hood.) and decided to try and integrate himself into this family and brother's life again as best he can.