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linkspooky · 7 months

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The Death of Kenjaku

So I was planning to write this meta the week that Kenjaku died, but decided to delay until we got full confirmation of his death. Something I didn't believe in even after Kenjaku passed the merger onto Sukuna. However, watching this video about death in Jujutsu Kaisen inspired me to finish this post. Not because I disagree with anything the YouTuber is saying, but because they can speculate on the meaning of so many deaths in Jujutsu Kaisen but can't find the meaning in Kenjaku's sudden death. This has led me to speculate why Gege made the choice to kill Kenjaku in the way that he did. What meaning is there in Kenjaku's abrupt and unsatisfying death?

Who is Kenjaku?

The first step in understanding Kenjaku's death is of course understanding how he lived. We actually know incredibly little about Kenjaku's character by design. Despite the fact he's literally in Geto's body, he's not meant to have sympathetic or human motivations to his actions (though hold onto that "human motivation" in your head for a moment). No flashback sequence shows the audience why this guy is the way he is, no single event seems to have driven him to do what he did.

This is what we know about Kenjaku in brief. He is a sorcerer who is over a thousand years old who was around in Sukuna's day. He once had a friendship with Tengen, but found her original self boring and unambitious. He also contrasts heavily with Tengen, who lives outside of humanity, because he has lived among humanity for 1,000 years. One of those lifetimes was Noritoshi Kamo who violated a woman and conducted heinous experiments. He produced ten children in his one thousand years, the nine death painting siblings and Yuji Itadori. He considers the first children boring, because human and curse hybrids turned out too normal.

He also partially blames himself for how boring they are, because he can't create anything that will exceed his expectations, the only thing that can exceed his expectations is born in chaos. He spent a thousand years organizing the culling games, and wants to use the games to create a merger, because he thinks creating a merger between Tengen and Humanity will create something entirely new and interesting. He also believes the way towards the future lies in further optimizing cursed energy, not in breaking away from it the way Yuki Tsukumo tried to do and Maki has.

The only people whose word we have on Kenjaku's motivations are Kenjaku himself, and Tengen's word and Tengen themselves who claims to not know what goes on in the human heart.

From all of the above Kenjaku seems to be a shallow character who's motivations can be summed up as "because I can" and "I want to see what happens." This shallowness is intentional however, as Gege who once praised the minimalist storytelling of Nasu and Evangelion likes to pick and choose what crumbs of backstory he gives out for his characters. We've never gotten any exposition on the Gojo clan, but we have an entire chapter about Takaba's failed career as a stand-up comic. This isn't a judgement of good or bad writing, this is just how Gege writes as minimalist as possible. This is in line with how Gege writes the ancient sorcerers as well, they are all much more shallow driven by instinct or Freudian Id (I desire) rather than the higher reasoning of modern-day sorcerers. Takaba uses comedy as a means of communication and bridging the gaps between people, Higuruma's backstory is the critique of the modern day justice system. Ishigori apparently lived a satisfying life where he was succesful and had good women, but that wasn't enough so he wants to get into a fight with Yuta to satisfy his hunger and feel like he's eaten desert.

It sounds shallow when I summarize it in text, but in the context of the fight with Yuta, it's a challenge for Yuta who for the most part only cares about his loved ones and sees the world through his love goggles to be more selfish and fight for his own desires. It's also reflective of a more basic and instinctual kind of thinking, as opposed to the higher reasoning and logic that modern-day sorcerers apply.

I'm keeping most of this first part to text for this reason, like go back and read the fight with Ishigori and Yuta. If I summarize Ishigori's character reasoning out of context it sounds stupid, but read the fight and it works because it's ID (I Desire) vs. Yuta's superego in not only having to collect points to help rescue Tsumiki, find a way to protect all the innocent people in the Culling Games, and also collect enough points to take on Kenjaku himself so Gojo won't have to. Meanwhile Ishigori's just fighting to get some of that sweet desert, the shallow works in contrast to the more layered motivations of our heroes.

Kenjaku is a shallow archetype fighting to satisfy his baser impulses (in his case curiosity) in comparison to the main characters who are fighting for more complicated reasons and often people besides themselves.

The question then becomes what archetype is Kenjaku. In that case answering who Kenjaku is is quite simple.

Kenjaku is a clown.

It might be more accurate to say that Kenjaku embodies what's commonly known as the "trickster archetype" but I'mma go with clown.

The most obvious example of a clown villain is what most consider the joker to be, that is a silly little clown man who challenges the straight faced and grim batman and sews chaos where Batman attempts to establish law and order in Gotham and make the city into a better place.

From the book Batman and Psychology:

More than any other villains, the Joker and Two-face reflect Batman himself as funhouse distortions, converses of who and what he is. The laughing, jesting, brightly colored Joker contrasts with grim, dark Batman. The Joker is the Joker. No alter ego. The film's opening bank robbery shows him wearing a clown mask over clown makeup, Under the surface there's only more Joker. He gives no history except inconsistent lies. When he finally considers the impact of his demand Batman unmask, he retracts the threat and demands that Batman's identity remain undisclosed. He wants a batman who has no other self, a Dark Knight whose only deeper layer is further darkness.

Is there a better descriptor for Kenjaku then these words?

Kenjaku is Kenjaku. No alter ego. A clown mask over clown makeup., Under the surface there's only more Kenjaku.

In other words, what you see is what you get.

Kenjaku even mirrors Joker's opinion of Batman, he thinks people should be more like him, not the other way around. He's not the outlier, he's being true to humanity's basic impulses of curiousity and discovery.

A more apt comparison as a clown though would probably be Loki, one of the most classic examples of clowning in the shared mythology of humanity. The character who challenges the common wisdom of gods like Odin who suspended themselves from the world tree for eleven days in order to gain wisdom. Loki, who through his trickery manages to bring about the events of Ragnarok for no deeper reason than because he can. Everyone swore not to harm Balder and Loki goes to find something that can harm him because BET.

Mythological Loki doesn't need a deeper motivation because what he represents in the mythology is someone who challenges authority and brings about a change, because in Norse Mythology nothing lasts forever and no era is permanent. Jujutsu Kaisen is also a story about how things should not in fact stay the same and tradition is bad sometimes.

When Kenjaku finds Tengen's true body he's curled up in a tree root in the fetal position, and he killed what is basically the all-knowing, all-seeing supposedly immortal sorcerer that maintains the status quo of japan, it's not exactly subtle.

Kenjaku is a clown, and clown's gotta clown. We don't need any more explanation that, it's more about what he does for the story. However, what he represents, the deep intellectual curiosity, and also a drive to disrupt the status quo in an attempt to see something more interesting can also be analyzed more deeply because they are human emotions that motivate us as well. The same way that Mahito is an inhuman monster, but he's created and motivated by the fear of other humans, something all of us have. '

Before moving onto his death though, I wanna hammer in how Kenjaku really is just motivated by these two things, a desire to see something interesting, and intellectual curiosity by comparing him to other characters.

The Clown in Fiction

I've already compared Kenjaku to Loki and the Joker, but when it comes to someone who wants to disrupt the entire order of the world simply because they're bored we've got to go to the original girlboss.

So there are plenty of villains who go "I'm evil because I'm bored" but they usually tend to be pretty shallow, either shallowly written for the lulz evil characters who just exist for shock value or just kinda dull. No one has ever done it as good as Junko Enoshima and no one ever will again.

For those who need context DanganRonpa is a death game series where the main villain basically has caused the apocalypse, wiped out most of humanity, and then induces survivors in a bunker to kill each other in a death game, where if someone commits a succesful murder they can escape the bunker, but if they're caught in a trial they're executed. Also, if they're not convicted in the trial everyone else is killed, motivating the jury to find and execute the guilty murderer.

Junko Enoshima the main villain and orchestrator of this death game ended the world because despair. She wants to inflict despair on everyone because despair. Because hope sucks and despair is where it's at.

It sounds shallow and it is and Kodaka has said in interview he wrote Junko to be a villain character with zero redeeming character traits, and no sympathetic backstory to describe why she is the way she is, but there is still something motivating her.

If you go a bit deeper into the lore and read Dangan Ronpa Zero, there is an entire book which explains the lengths which Junko goes to feel normal human emotions. The thing is much like Kenjaku Junko is too smart for her own good, everything is predictable and therefore everything bores her. Once in an attempt to live normally, she literally lobotomizes herself, makes it so that she can't remember anything and has continual amnesia constantly forgetting what just happened to her, because that's the only way she can live without knowing everything that's going to happen and constantly predicting everyone's actions.

Junko has whatever her universe's version of the six-eyes is, but instead of lording it over other people like Gojo and basking in her superiority she wants to feel normal, and connected to the world. If she can't have that she tries to make the world as unpredictable place as possible so she can experience it the same way that everyone else does.

Hope is harmony. A just heart, moving toward the light. That is all. Despair is hope's polar opposite. It is messy and confusing. It swallows up love, hatred, and everything else. Because not knowing where you will end up is despair. Despair is even what you cannot predict. Only despair's unpredictability can save you from a boring future.

I'm still not describing it properly because I don't want to go into a Danganronpa essay in this post about Jujutsu Kaisen, but one example I always use is two characters from American Dragon Jake Long. They're a pair of twins who see the future, one always sees happy things, and one always sees sad things. The one who has happy visions is a goth who's very depressed and the one who sees disaster is an incredibly peppy girl.

Jake is so confused as to why the twin who always sees good visions is so depressed, and she basically tells him to imagine having every good thing, every small little surprise, every pleasure taken out of life.

Kara: When you only see good things, nothing's special anymore. All the pleasant surprises are taken out of life. Sara: But, when you only see bad stuff, even the smallest bit of good news makes you happy!

All of this to say what Junko feels isn't just boredom, or a desire to commit evil for evil's sake, but also a full on existential crisis where she's simply too smart so she doesn't feel any connection to other people or the world around her. In order to feel that connection, that connection that everyone else has, to feel like she is actually a participant in her life not an observer she's willing to go to extremes to make the world a more interesting place, to therefore make her own life feel satisfying.

Kenjaku vs. The World (Kenjaku Pilgrim's sad little life)

To connect all this back to Kenjaku imagine the profound existential despair of a person who's lived for a thousand years, and felt bored all that time. Sukuna is at least a hedonist, he gets his fun by getting into fights, humans might be bugs to him but they're tasty bugs.

Kenjaku goes to similiar motivations and has similiar extremes, he's uninvested in the world around him, he's lived a thousand years but has no attachment to the world, to life, to the people around him. I said that Junko wants to be a participant in life not an all seeing observer and that was purposeful language because to bring back an old post. I rambled on this post about Gojo that part of Gojo's problem is that he only experiences observer-to-object relationships or I to it.

Ich and Du, translated as I and Thou is a book by philosopher Martin Buber. His two main porositions is that we may address existence in two ways:

The attitude of the “I” towards “it” towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience.

The attitude of “I” towards “Thou” in a relationship in which the other is not separated by discrete bounds.

In Buber's terms, those who only experience the first type of relationships are only observing the world around them not relating to them. Kenjaku doesn't relate to other human beings because they are objects, he only experiences subject -> object relationships and never subject -> subject.

Buber also goes on to theorize that meaning in our lives comes from subject -> subject relationships we form with other people.

Kenjaku jokingly says that to be his friend you have to never bore him and be his equal, but there's no one considers his equal because he's the subject and everyone else are just objects.

He regrets he can't sit down and talk theories with Tsukumo Yuki because she's one of the few people who think like him.

Kenjaku is a paradox of an incredibly brilliant man who is also shallow as a puddle that you can stand in and not get your socks wet. However, he tragically can't really form a more complex identity because our identities are formed by our relationships to other people and Kenjaku doesn't relate to anybody.

That's basically the theme of the whole Choso and Kenjaku fight, Choso is a weird aborted fetus of a curse who still has a strong identity and is able to feel unconditional love for Yuji because of the connection of family and the ideas of brotherhood that binds the two. Kenjaku is a bad father who abandoned Choso because they were "boring" but also never really gave them a chance to grow up or be interesting, he just dismissed them offhand and moved on to the next weird science project.

However, his reason for dismissing Choso isn't Choso's fault but rather a case of Psychological projection. It's not Choso who is boring, but rather Kenjaku himself, he said so earlier.

"What I can create, does not exceed the bounds of my own potential. The answer is always flickering darkly in chaos."

Kenjaku cannot look within to find anything satisfying abput his life because there's nothing inside of him. He doesn't have a fully formed identiy he's just ID, and because he tramples all over other people to form his desires he also cannot ever form a full ego. Just like Sukuna and most of the ancient sorcerers he's a paradox of being all ego, and yet having an underdeveloped ego with shallow motivators.

Kenjaku cannot look within because he's a boring person, and he cannot look for other people to find worth in his life because they're just objects, so instead he looks into the void, he tries to change the world around him by spreading more chaos hoping that it will make something unpredictable happen in front of his eyes - and that will give him the meaning and investment in his life he's deprived himself of because he refuses to form relationships with other people.

It's the Gojo problem. It's the Kashimo problem. It's not the Sukuna problem, because Sukuna admits he doesn't care about and rejects things like love and meaning.

If Kenjaku makes the world around him a more interesting place, he will be able to live in it. It's the same as Gojo trying to raise people up to his level by creating stronger students.

So after going to great length to demonstrate how powerful and all-consuming Kenjaku's boredom is, and how cut off he is from his own humanity, here's the part where I sort of defend his death.

Wouldn't it be funny if the joke character killed the main villain?

Let's be honest it was Takaba's kill here, Yuta just camped and killstole. I think part of the problem with people not understanding the meaning behind Kenjaku's sudden and unexpected death is attributing the death to Yuta cutting his head off out of nowhere, and not Takaba's thematic victory over Kenjaku.

Takaba represents a blindspot for Kenjaku which is why the main characters use him as a weapon against him, and he also calls out in a fashion Kenjaku's hypocrisy. First and foremost, Kenjaku presents himself as an agent of change, but he actually has no interest in many of the modern sorcerers and holds a bias towards the heian era as the peak of sorcery. He even says that he's going to bring back the Heian Golden Age to Sukuna at the end of Shibuya arc.

Because that's what Chaos is Kenjaku, things being the same as they were 1,000 years ago. Kenjaku is an agent of change and chaos and somehow his definition of change is... resetting things back to the past because the sorcerers of the past were so much better than today.

Kenjaku goes out of his way to awaken hundreds of modern day sorcerers, and then dismisses literally off of them except for Hiromi because they don't have enough potential for him compared to ancient sorcerers. He essentially did the same with the Death Painting Bros, he went through all of the trouble to create them, then dismissed them as not having enough potential BEFORE THEY EVEN GOT THE CHANCE TO GROW UP.

Kenjaku has a habit of just going BORED NOW and leaving before he even gives things the time to impress him. He does the same with the Culling Game, he set up the death game to push sorcerers to fight each other and bring out their powers, but he never actually intended to watch the sorcerers evolve. He just wanted to slaughter everyone inside to start the merger.

He goes through a lot of potential to set up these situations and then abandons them before they have the chance to even evolve, because they do not have enough "potential" in his opinion, but like his opinion is often shown to be wrong. Takaba represents that blindspot because he was one of the modern sorcerers that Kenjaku underestimated and dismissed offhand as boring without giving him a chance to shine.

That is the joke that Takaba introduces himself with "Wouldn't it be funny if a random comic relief side character suddenly defeated the big bad?"

He's immediately pointing out a blindspot, because Kenjaku automatically believes himself to be an important character, he underestimates Takaba because he's a side character, one of the people Kenjaku has dismissed as boring and uninteresting (before they even had a chance to evolve into something else). Like that's the other thing Kenjaku wants things to evolve but he doesn't... let them. He abandoned Choso and the rest before they even grew up, they were literally fetuses and he threw them away. Kenjaku is the protagonist of reality, and Takaba is a side character, and therefore Takaba couldn't possibly harm him because Kenjaku and his boundless curiosity are the center of the world.

It's not just about subverting the audience's expectations to have the main villain die in such an anti-climactic way before the final act even starts, but it's pointing out how narrow Kenjaku's viewpoints really were all along. He wants everything to be surprised but he never lets anything surprise him, because either he gets bored right away, or he looks down on others before giving them the chance to evolve, or the third thing he just straight up has to control everything. He can't let the culling game evolve naturally he's going to slaughter all the players by hand so he can move onto the next part.

It's the contradiction between a schemer who needs to control everything and everyone to bring about his intended result and everything needs to be a part of his big plans, to someone who wants to be surprised by others and have things go off the rails. You can't have both of these things at once, Kenjaku cannot have things surprise him if he rigs everything to go his way with his overly elaborate schemes and his tight-fisted control of everyone in the story.

Like, in comparison to Kenjaku the joker just blows things up and sprays people with laughing gas. They're both playing the same game but the joker is having fun and Kenjaku isn't.

Kenjaku wants an unexpected future, but he doesn't care about any of the modern sorcerers and has a bias towards the heiean era that he considers the height and wants to reset things to bring back the heian era. He wants to be surprised but won't give up control.

Kenjaku's boast is that unlike Tengen he's spent a thousand years living on the ground instead of lording up on them from above like some deity, but is that true? Has Kenjaku lived? Has he engaged with the world? Formed relationships with people? Or does he just sit in the corner rubbing his hands together menacingly and scheming his schemes.

Takaba unironically gives Kenjaku what he wants, something he's never seen before in a thousand years, and it's from a place Kenjaku never expected. Some random guy, who he dismissed as one of the boring modern sorcerers with no potential like Higuruma.

Takaba not only exists in Kenjaku's blindspot, he almost immediately points out Kenjaku's second hypocrisy. If he's willing to resort to mass murder just to feel entertained, then if he found something else to entertain him there'd be no reason to get violent and scheme his schemes.

In other words Kenjaku hasn't really gone looking for other places to try to find what makes life worth living, or at least enertaining, he hasn't really tried any alternatives to finding joy in life because Jujutsu is all he cares about. Takaba says that if he found something else even more entertaining than the merger there'd be no need to go through with the merger, and he turns out to be right. Kenjaku could have found meaning and entertainment with the world someplace else, he was just too narrow minded and never looked anywhere else.

As I said from the beginning Kenjaku's existential crisis comes from his inability to relate to other people and viewing them all as objects, but in Kenjaku's mind of course he can't relate to others they're too boring, so therefore it's the world's fault, and the fault of others and not himself.

However, right away one of those boring people starts relating to Kenjaku.

I joked about how we know nothing about the Gojo clan but Takaba gets an entire backstory chapter about his failed comedy career, but this chapter is plot important because jokes are the way that Takaba relates to and forms relationships with other people. Takaba makes jokes to relate to others but has a fallout with a comedy partner and has never been able to form a lasting relationship with a comedic partner because comedy doesn't mean the same to them as it does to him - because to Takaba comedy is about forming relationships with people. Which is why he thinks he's failed if he's failed to make everyone in the audience laugh because he wants to make comedy that will make other people relate to him and understand him.

However, he almost gives up on comedy because he's afraid that he might fail on that endeavor. He gives up on striving to make everybody in the audience laugh, because of self-affirmation and a desire to protect himself. He didn't want to fail so he started distancing himself from the audience under the excuse "Well, I can't make everyone laugh so it's okay if not everyone understands me."

Takaba at some point gave up on trying to use comedy as a means of understanding and relating to others, because of his fear of failure and at that point he nearly lost - but he rallies himself by saying that he won't give up on making someone like Kenjaku laugh. If his comedy is about connecting to others, about understanding others and having others understand him then he can't just give up on Kenjaku and say it's Kenjaku's fault that Kenjaku can't relate to his sense of humor. He's got to try even harder to make Kenjaku laugh.

This is also pretty much the opposite of Kenjaku's point of view. For Kenjaku it's everyone else's fault for being so boring that's why he can't relate to them. Wheras, Takaba takes personal responsibility, he wasn't funny enough, he has to try harder, he's the one who's going to make Kenjaku laugh by improving himself. Takaba looks inward, and Kenjaku looks outwards because there's nothing inside Kenjaku.

This is a parallel to this.

The difference however, is that Sukuna did not betray his ideology. Sukuna lives for the kicks that battle provides him and wants to face strong opponents so he can eventually devoured them and be momentarily entertained.

Like Sukuna is not bored the way Kenjaku is. The world is his playground. He may refer to living as just killing time until you die, but he also says that there's an infinite variety of humans to entertain yourself with. The world is Sukuna's toybox and he's satisfied with just that. In fact he doesn't even care about the merger, until his frustration with Yuji makes him think a little deeper about himself.

Kenjaku is not the Sukuna in this scene, he's the Gojo. He believed he was above others, only to be reminded suddenly that he was just the same as everyone else and brought back down to humanity. I mean, they even die off panel the same anticlimactic way. Gojo's infinity meant nothing in the face of one surprise attack a world-cleaving slash Gojo didn't see coming. All of Kenjaku's backup plans meant nothing in the face of Yuta camping and kill-stealing.

Kenjaku didn't lose because Yuta's plan of camping and killstealing was simply too brilliant for him to prepare for however, we're given the exact reason kenjaku lost - because he was having too much fun with Takaba.

Which meant what Takaba said earlier was true, if Kenjaku found something funnier, something other than the merger that could make him laugh there'd be no need to go through with the merger to begin with.

Kenjaku loses because all along he could have related to people, formed meaningful relationships with others, looked for meaning in life outside of Jujutsu but just chose not to. Which is also a parallel to this.

Sukuna says that Kashimo and Gojo both lost because they were greedy. They already received love in a way, they had the love of everyone who regarded them as the strongest, they had people who earnestly wanted to challenge them and respected them - which Sukuna sees as a form of love, and yet they still wanted more.

They were the ones who put themselves up on that pedestal and decided to stand above all of humanity, they don't get to whine about being lonely on top of that.

To add my interpretation to Sukuna's speech, what he's outlining is a general conflict in Jujutsu Kaisen, you can choose to be all ego to put personal development above everything else but it comes at the cost of not being able to form relationships. Maki's as powerful as Toji now, but the sister she always wanted to protect is dead and basically committed suicide. Meanwhile Noritoshi Kamo didn't participate in the final battle, but he reconnected with his mother and half-brother.

There are plenty of characters who die and suffer in jujutsu kaisen because they chose to value other people above themselves, because Jujutsu Kaisen rewards selfishness and punishes selflessness / having an underdeveloped sense of self.

I'll pick Mechamaru as my biggest example, he lived to protect Miwa, and not only does he die an unsatisfying death, he also breaks her heart.

However, at least Mechamaru experienced love. His desire to protect Miwa is granted, because Miwa is also out of the final conflict. Mechamaru is one of the most miserable characters in the manga, and yet he experienced love in his life for someone else that made his brief life meaningful. The characters who choose love, and other people over strength tend to get stepped on, but they at least had that love in their life to begin with.

It's a having your cake and eating it too situation. Kashimo chose strength over love, and he got to be so strong he was unbeatable and lived to old age, but not only is he unfulfilled but he whines about being unable to relate to the people around him - you're the one who chose to step on everyone like bugs.

Characters in Jujutsu Kaisen don't just experience death when they try to be selfless however, like yeah there's a disproportionate amont of selfless minor characters who die, but like Yuji is the most selfless character in the manga and he's continually punished for it and yet he's the one referred to as a person with an unbreakable will.

Rather instead of Jujutsu Kiasen preferring the selfish side on the scale of selfishness / selflessness, the kind of messy, deaths that get handed out to people like Mechamaru happen when you betray the ideals you were living for. Whether they were selfish or selfless.

It goes back to Toji's internal monologue. You lose when you lose sight of yourself - like there's some deaths that don't fit the mould but for the most part, Gojo, Kashimo, Toji's and then Kenjaku's deaths all follow this pattern. By coincidence they also all take place offscreen for the most part (I suppose we see Yuta cut off Kenjaku's head but it's quick and unsatisfying compared to all the rest).

Kenjaku died because he betrayed what he was living for and he temporarily lost sight of himself. As I said Kenjaku's airtight principles were that everyone was boring and people weren't worth relating too so the only way to find enertainment in life is to cause chaos - but he found himself relating to some nobody he wrote off as a minor character Takaba and having fun with him. Which meant the belief he was false, he could have tried relating to other people all along he just didn't.

He warped his sense of self to reaffirm his identity. Takaba almost did that too, he tried to blame other people for not finding him funny to protect himself, but he moved past that and redoubled his efforts to make Kenjaku laugh.

There's also the added layer of irony that Kenjaku's sudden death brings about, the person who spent a thousand years trying to make the merger happen doesn't get to see it.

However, here's my assertion on why Kenjaku's death before the merger always had to happen.

Because, even if Kenjaku had seen the merger he still would have been bored.

Literally everything about Kenjaku's character and previous actions shows that even if he made his big scheme come true, he would have gone "meh" and moved onto the next scheme because that's how he always reacts.

He got bored of the death painting siblings, he presumably got bored of Yuji, he got bored of all the ancient sorcerers and new sorcerers he made for the culling game, he worked with the disaster curses and got bored of them and dismissed them as inferior primitive curses, he goes out of the way to engineer these chaotic situations and then never feels any satisfaction from them so why would the Merger be any different?

Not only did Kenjaku die before he saw the merger, he was basically doomed to never see the merger, because it would not have fixed whatever is wrong inside of him.

Because it's not the world that's boring, it's Kenjaku himself.

He gets a brief glimpse of what he could have done in life, that he could have tried to forge connections with the people around him and related to them on a personal level - and then he dies the way he lived, in a kind of boring and unsatisfying way.

It's the narrative punishing him in a way, the same way it punished Gojo, and Kashimo, by not letting him see the big explosion after he went to all the trouble rigging the bombs. It's punishing him for the same reason too - by deviating from his true self and showing what he thought were his reasons were shallow all along. Gojo could have always related to people he just chose to stand on his pedestal alone, and Kenjaku could have always found the world to be more enertaining he was the one dismissing other people as boring without giving them a chance to grow.

Takaba confronted his beliefs and then stayed true to his ideology of making everyone, 100% of the people in the crowd laugh. Kenjaku didn't confront his beliefs, he strayed from them because he didn't have the strength of character to evaluate himself the way Takaba did.

Hence, he's finished off by one of those boring people who used their power in a way he never expected. The main villain is defeated by the comic relief character and it's hilarious.

#jjk meta #kenjaku #fumihiko takaba #ryomen sukuna #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen theory #jujutsu kaisen analysis #jjk spoiler #jujutsu kaisne spoiler #big spoiler actually

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bitchy-craft · 10 months

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Bibliomancy Messages For You | Pick A Pile

Hello and welcome to this Pick A Pile! In here you'll find a few bibliomancy messages for you! I hope you guys enjoy and find this useful. Do make sure to leave comments down below on your experience! I do want to remind you all that this is a General Pick A Pile which means this is for a lot of people: therefore keep what resonates and leave what doesn't.

Masterlist > Questions > Paid Readings

Pick A Pile!

Pile 1:

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

Pile 2:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

Believe you can and you're halfway there.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Pile 3:

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

Change your thoughts and you change your world.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

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rizsu · 2 years

Text

project: i'm going insane suna rintarō.

sum. when a project brings together two students & possible crushes. ( no part two sry !! )

a quiet room with only the sweet melody of birds singing tales as the sun kisses your skin. ah, how sweet. it's such a blessing—being lost in paradise as you gaze upon the dancing flowers. truly a magicial scenery! oh, how divine. how divine it is indeed—

“students are to pair up with their deskmate for the project.”

right, you're still in class. reality is truly a pain. you really could've been listening to the sweet melody of birds but instead you got the sweet melody of hell (school).

you haven't turned to face your partner yet. you're not gonna face suna rintaro right now—especially not after he witnessed you graciously trip on nothing this morning.

“so are you gonna talk or are you gonna continue looking at me every five seconds from the side of your eye?” suna asked, tilting his head into his palm while he knocks his pen against the desk.

“i'd rather not honestly.”

“i don't care about your excellent fall this morning, y/n.”

that got it. that sentence awards itself as the sentence that made you whip your head to suna.

“don't spread lies. anyways, what're we gonna do for that project?”

raising his eyebrow, suna thinks. what are you guys going to do actually? he's sure that he'd forget about the whole project after three days.

“i dunno,” he shrugs, typing in random numbers into his calculator before continuing, “here, save my number we can talk more about it later.”

leaning into his side of the desk, you secretly pull your phone out from your bag, trying to save his contact as fast as you can before your homeroom teacher turns back facing the class.

“why the fuck did you save me as ‘some hoe’?!”

“mind your business.”

ಇ. AT HOME

it's 7 pm. you're just coming out of the shower, patting your face with a towel before reaching for your phone.

i should text suna, you think. double tapping your screen, you eyes widen slightly in surprise. it seems as though the other party had the same plans as you did.

snickering at the spammed messages, you opened his chat.

“what a fucking loser.” giggling at his text, you place your phone down going back to finishing your nightly routine.

ಇ. NEXT DAY

if there's one word to describe your mood right now it'll be annoyed. it's far too early for anything nor do you have the time and patience to talk with anyone at 06:45 am. releasing your earbuds from its jail, you put both on at max volume and try to continue your previous slumber.

“no way you're sleeping right now.” a soft voice speaks, the owner of the voice wraps his palm around your neck squeezing it a little.

you don't respond. you know what they say, don't respond to the devil!

oh but that doesn't stop suna. not at all! who is he if not your number one bully? suna knows your aware that he's next to you so how dare you ignore him! clicking his tongue, the boy pulls out one of your buds and places it in his ear before sitting down copying the exact way you're sitting.

suna looks at you. his eyes scanning through your features with a small smile. you're pretty, really. he notes every little feature on you mentally—noting how you always have two fringes/braids framing your face, noting how you actually fell asleep, noting how good your music taste is.

lemme save these songs too, suna thinks. he reaches over for your phone before dropping his hoodie on you. it's quite cold this morning and he'd rather not hear your ten-thousand complaints when you wake up from the nap.

──

“CAN YOU NOT WALK SO FAST?!”

“can't help that i'm an athlete.”

“NO ONE CARES! SLOW DOWN A LITTLE.”

it's 5:42 pm, the beams of the evening sky color the area in its glory. it'd be a beautiful scenery if two teenagers weren't bickering down the street.

a young boy, around six feet tall, walks with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a yogurt. behind him stands a young girl, around (your height), walks with anger as she playfully throws her school bag at the boy.

“keep hitting me and see if i won't throw you down the street.” the boy says, wiggling his finger at the girl as he warns her.

“are you trying to tussle and bussle?” the girl answers back, rolling her eyes at him.

“bussle... what is your vocabulary?” the boy questions, fighting back a smile. he finds her sentence amusing.

“don't question it. anyways, can we go to a café?”

“yeah, i'll grab some snacks for my sister too.”

and so, they set off (still bickering).

ಇ. MIDNIGHT

giggling at your convo, you smile hard before coming to realization.

“did i just fucking giggle at suna?!” questioning yourself out loud, you raise one eyebrow before switching off your phone. i'm going insane, you think.

laying down in a starfish position, you look up at the ceiling wondering about your feelings towards the one and only suna rintarō.

do you like him? yes.

is he annoying? yes.

do you like his company? yes.

do you wish to bash his head in with a rock sometimes? yes.

your romantic emotions clash with your platonic emotions which then clashes with your confusion and creates a whole new headache!

i don't have time for this.

meanwhile at suna's

“ayah, do you think i'm crazy?” suna asks. he's sitting at the end of his bed staring at a wall.

“yes!” the little girl answered, playing with her toys as she ignores her older brother's reaction.

ಇ. NEXT DAY

at the school's gym holds two teenagers that sit side by side, judging other students. one student named suna rintarō aggressively chews on his gum agreeing with the words being said as the other named y/n l/n continues to judge.

“y'know the girl in the right's cheating on her boyfriend?” you say, raising your eyebrows at you look at suna.

gasping, suna looks at you, “you're lying oh my god.”

“no i swear. like, if i was her boyfriend i'd just go home right now.” you replied, shrugging your shoulders as you reach for one of suna's gums.

“that's crazy but who are we to judge honestly.” suna says, popping his gum before standing up.

“i have practice until six today—” he stops before leaning down to your ground level, “don't miss me.” he continues, slightly smirking before pinching your cheek.

“hands OFF. and no, i won't miss you.” shoving his hand away, you stand up to walk out the gym with him (even though there's no reason to).

— at suna's.

suna walks into his home, greeting his family before dragging himself up to his room. he's whipped and absolutely battered. sometimes, he thinks he's not cut out for volleyball—well at least not with mr. perfect kita who does indeed follow a properly written routine.

i'm fucking beat, suna thinks. he plops onto his bed face down but immediately turns around. he thinks about the little interaction from earlier today; you guys were close. he's not really a teasing person but he doesn't know what possessed him to get that close—close to the point he could've moved five centimetres and your lips would meet.

you know that little cartoon effect where a red blush rushes from the character's neck to the head? yeah, that's suna right now. he's done and DUSTED.

“this cannot be real.” suna whispers, he thinks he's going insane. no way he can't stop thinking about you. no way. reaching over for his phone, suna looks at the screen before thinking, should i text her or nah.

he goes with the “nah” option and decides to take a nap. maybe he'll sort his feelings out after his nap.

#. ae-generated: haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #suna x reader #suna rintaro x reader #haikyuu fluff #suna x you #suna fluff

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sinsdaycorp · 2 months

Text

Enid never attended nevermore bc her parents were ashamed that she’d never turned. Enid had been showing ‘normie’ traits all her life and her parents kept her hidden, homeschooled her, lied and said that she was adopted and they found her all alone. Enid, being the youngest and the only siblings were boys, believed them when they said they desperately tried for a girl and were “so happy” when they found her that they just kept her. Enid wanted to believe that, but they were so mean- well, she didn’t actually know any different kind of “love” than what they showed her.

So, Wednesday was always in Nevermore, her powers did start showing a lot earlier, and Morticia and Gomez decided to keep her in Larissa’s schooling system. Besides, Aunt Weems was and always will be Wednesdays fave.

Somehow, it comes around that there’s a high school reunion and Wednesday is forced to attend. But, it’s a fake dating thing too. She hires Enid online, pugsley helps her, of course. A fake date to Jericho. A high school reunion.

Enid, never having much luck in the money line, having been so sheltered and “protected” only sought jobs in the outcast line because she was sick of hearing normies gossip about them and snicker and be downright racist to them.

She followed her brothers to Jericho for schooling, but staying homeschooled. Her parents thought that if she ever one day started developing signs of wolf-like behaviour, they’d tell her the truth. That she wasn’t adopted and she was their kid.

So, Enid stuck around Jericho, because although racist towards outcasts, Enid had made some friends with kids from her brothers’ school, Nevermore Academy.

She did work Weathervane Cafe for a while, worked as a sales attendant at the place she liked to spend all her earnings on, and, on the side, sold her services on the internet. NOT IN A CREEPY WAY! She offered advice, for a small fee- girl gotta get cash! She offered a fake date to get parents or other people off your backs for a night, and a decent sum. Lying made her feel yucky inside.

…

Fake date, Wednesday hires Enid for the reunion, and because none of Enid’s brothers were in Wednesday’s year after she did some quick math to make sure she’d know no one before agreeing, Enid was suddenly being met with a woman dressed in all black and a folder being handed to her.

“Wednesday?” Enid asked hesitantly.

The woman nodded. “I assumed you were Enid after my brother described you as “exact opposite and best for the ruse”. He was right. You’ll do nicely.”

“What’s this?” Enid asked, looking at the folder and flipping it open, her eyes widening. “F-Fifty Thousand?” She squeaked.

“I apologise, I would prefer to pay you a decent fee, your sight seemed too low a price for my askance, consider this a persuasion fee after you’ve read the list of, I suppose you could call them demands. And then, if you decide not to go along with this, I’ll pay you fifty for your time I’ve wasted already. And if you decide you’d like to help me this coming weekend, but the fifty is not enough, I’ll be happy to meet whatever your fee. You have until Thursday, at noon, to let the number on the top of the page know. A simple yes or no is all you need to write.”

Enid watched at the woman dropped a twenty on the table beside her untouched coffee and left the cafe.

Enid stared at the folder, closed it and stood. She had some thinking, and probably drinking, to do. Enid had to get home.

One of the conditions, she’d be Wednesdays fake wife to get two ‘boys’ ( t*ler and x*vier) off her back.

“You think they’d still be holding a flame after fifteen years?”

“Those boys started their idiotic fight over me since our parents were in school and we met when we were merely months old.”

“So they know you’d’ve gotten married?”

“An Addams Wedding is the most private thing, Enid. We do not invite anyone other than blood. Those boys are not blood.”

#WenClair #Enid Sinclair #Wednesday Addams #fake dating #prompts #ideas

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fiveredlights · 7 months

Text

we should be worried i’m listening to moon song by phoebe bridgers and thinking about maxiel…i’m giving it twenty seconds before i can think of a fic to write (i lied i already have a plan for the fic if you wanna hear it, if you don’t too bad it’s here)

okay so it starts with maxiel breaking up around 2021/2022 or 2018 i haven’t decided yet, but i wrote a bit that i think sums up with they broke up:

“I would’ve given you everything,” Max says quietly.

He knows. Daniel knows it so deeply. “You were a kid and you looked ready to spend the rest of your life with me.”

“Don’t call me a kid.” Max bites back, angry and hurt. He’s digging his fingernails into the palm of his hand and Daniel reaches out to unfurl them, like he used to do a thousand times when they were younger. He regrets it, instantly.

He forgot how much he liked holding Max.

The world always seemed a much quieter place with Max in his hands.

i can’t decide if it’s max or daniel who calls it off, because i think the whole reason daniel would call it off is because how scared he is of max—in the sense that he would literally do anything for him. daniel probably wouldn’t know what to do with that so he does what he has always fallen back to and it’s to run. max, i can’t think of a reason rn but that’s a future me problem.

anyways cut forward to the future, daniel’s back at red bull etc etc he retires in 2026/7. but during this redbull s2 stint they start falling back into old habits. they’re not together, far from it but it’s so achingly reminiscent of their relationship in the beginning. max is also dating someone else during this time and daniel knows if he said anything max would break up with them in an instant, so he’s very careful to draw these lines.

max’s wedding is in 2028 and daniel’s invited because of course he is (and he attends because he loves to hurt himself.) you know that part where it’s like “if anyone has any objections speak now or forever hold your peace” daniel is looking at max who to his horror is looking right back at him. like he’s daring him to say something. nothing happens, they get married and it’s probably the final breaking point for daniel, he can’t still be thinking about max a decade on. he goes radio silence and moves back to perth.

2030, max divorces his wife and shows up in perth unannounced. daniel closes the door on him because he knows what max is here for. a couple hours later he opens the door to leave and max is still there on his veranda. it’s a bit pathetic, daniel thinks—but he takes pity on him and lets him in. they argue, they fight, max still tells daniel he loves him and it hurts so much. for the words to come out so easily like they’re still people with absolutely nothing left to lose. then max hears a baby crying and the floor falls beneath his feet. he very tentatively follows daniel, to where he’s bouncing a baby in his arms, trying to get her back to sleep.

it’s there for the first time where max realises (for the first time in his life) that daniel has always had the option of moving on. he did, so why did he feel like daniel couldn’t? and max does what daniel to him ten years ago and he runs. he leaves, has to start properly closing the chapter on daniel ricciardo. he sits in his airport rental car on daniel’s driveway and wonders where did it go so wrong for them. he sits there for a good thirty minutes before daniel knocks on his window and sits in the passenger seat next to him.

and for the first time in probably three years daniel talks. he talks and he talks and he talks. he learns that it’s just daniel and his daughter. she’s about three months old. tentatively, slowly, max reaches across the console to hold daniel’s hand. daniel allows him.

they can’t be the same people they were ten years ago, but they also can’t start from the beginning. they’ll start in the middle, relearning everything about each other. it’ll be slow, it’ll hurt but they’re together now.

—

this whole thing revolves around these lyrics:

And if I could give you the moon / I would give you the moon / You are sick, and you're married, and you might be dyin' / But you're holdin' me like water in your hands

this will literally take me 6+ months so like daniel ricciardo trying to lower everyone’s expectations about the performance of VCARB—don’t hold your breath….

#please scream about this with me in my ask box i can’t stop thinking about this #moon song verse #daniel ricciardo #max verstappen #maxiel #wip #f1 fic

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absolutefilthimsosorry · 3 months

Text

Spoilers for DnP Incohearent!!!!

I’m having so much fun trying to solve these that I made a list to keep track! Message if you can help me fill in any I’m missing or if I’ve got any wrong!!!

Also lmk if you see any I’ve missed!! I’m going to keep updating this and have it unrebloggable but you can reblog this post to have a link to it!

These are all gathered from this post and this post so check the notes on those first to try to solve them then look here if you need answers!

Sow march cheer ray = so much cherry

Wee nay urn for uke oye yer tub = we’ve never fucked on youtube?

Ta fold in fig = the golden pig

Feed hay hid eho = vday video

Tat he won ape hit morse him he = daddy want a bit more simmy

Watt ken ice hay = what can I say

North key bus teabag king = naughty busty baking

Fool tie enter nit hobo / fall tie mint her nepo moe / fault aye mint earn are ohm owe/ foul thyme inch hermit hole mold = full time internet homo

Cumin mile aid deed or = come in my ladydoor

Hum hay zinc tan = amazingdan

Elven ower fug sedge own = eleven hour fuck session

An berry moth ribeye adam stir = and every month we buy a hamster

March rest array = Manchester eye

Cyst herding yell = sister daniel

Add a ding teps = editing tips

Cop dubai khaki luna = topped by kakuna

Late eat tore = ladydoor

Half tugger etch two eggs cyst = have the courage to exist

Perish she end wink = Parisian twink

Coal ten big/ goal then pick = golden pig

Cyst ordain yell = sister daniel

Train youth inks = try new things

Gay mean moss/ gain ink mass = gamingmas

Soften need = soft and neat

A wools lied = owl slide

Topper bought them hill = top or bottom Phil

Coat fit firenze = golf with friends???

Few ours pig meow fits = viewers pick my outfits

Read less tar = red lester

Eye eight soup igloo = I ate super glue

Insight youth era too walls = inside you there are two wolves

Mine amy stan = my name is Dan

Clap hella = glabella

Hiss teeth rent = hits different

Eel eyes apron kay kiss = Eliza pancakes

See pram haze ink bra jet = super amazing project

Feels lie yawn = phils lion

Fuel ease snot dawn fair = Phil is not on fire

Jaw shush ear son = josh hutcherson

Ball bull him tour food = bauble in your foot?

Sure eck = shrek

High ate dust = hiatus

Add a dink deps = editing tips

Ga hay shoom air age = gay shoe marriage

Pope eat plate aim = poppy playtime

Eat aches stu = it takes two

Goo gal few ed = google feud

Baze ick lee eye meg ay = basically I’m gay

Ko min yout ti ew = coming out to you

Ender knit subvert grew oop = internet support group

Phylis turn yar a sheen yes = PHIL LESTER YOU’RE A GENIUS

With Audi intern yet wean ed brr wood halve mat = without the internet we never would have met

Gum ban yins drool I’ve = companions through life

Reed sons wide answer flail = reasons why dans a fail

Ewan dam ah some are reed = you and Dan are so married

Denver sis fill/ Denver cis full = Dan vs Phil

Or lawn huffing = all or nothing

Dunk rye core raft = don’t cry craft

Mortal jester roam and thick/ Morph adjust row antic = more than just romantic

So wall how debris poll light = swallow to be polite???

Oar hinge art = orange heart

Foray virgo em = forever home

Chai reel loop/ share real oob = cherry lube

Cad boyd anne = cat boy dan

Far turf ill lip = father philip

Tess lit hen ink = the slittening

Forth house indie rolled or touches = four thousand year old tortoises

Hey moth swish roundup floating = a month without uploading

Jam march let pet tea an farms = Je mange les petit enfants

Day lion howl tour = Dalien Howlter

Ima let all kit = I’m a little kit

Feel pearl lays shell ter = Phil plays shelter

Fewer blue key app ending = viewer spooky happenings

Hell low iam tour reel = hello I am Toriel

Laugh tuh gey mile kuh = left to get milk

Villas eek wreck why vuh = Phil’s secret wife

Footy strain gin said dent = ___ strange incident????

Snow core play sum = snokoplasm

Nope puts cereal sleeping mage innit = no but seriously imagine it

Tear rip pulling flu hence = terrible influence

Jeff why eye aisle hike vague liner = fyi I like vagina

Eggs intense all cry cis = existential crisis

List of contributors

@fletthewreck @dandp @deadandphilgames @manchesterau @thephouseplants @awrfhi @jonsaremembers @rachosaurusrex @dapgolf @dan-whoell @dnphobe @dreamingalto @steveandscraggy @phanbeats @danandfuckingjonlmao @pepper-pastry @yonpote @un-interactive-introvert @spaniel-trowel @sisterdanieldyke @queerdnp @morganadelacour @amid-fandoms @spectral-kitkat @goingpheral @angelzonearth @wdapteo @2009phan @dansevilpianotea

#phan #dnp #dan and phil #incohearent #dnp incohearent #dnp incohearent masterlist

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crimeronan · 9 months

Note

hey what is wwaitsoatl?

oh! it's what we are is the sum of a thousand lies, my most popular toh fic by FAR and the thing most toh people here started following me for. back before i got sucked down the princess luz hyperfixation rabbit hole. it's a fic that takes more work to write than any of my others because it has an incredibly involved drafting & editing process. bc i am a perfectionist.

the premise is a canon divergent timeline wherein belos suspects that hunter lied to him at the end of hunting palismen. and completely wrecks hunter's shit forever. and infects him with curse goop in the process. and darius (who, Very Importantly, does not yet have a friendly rapport with hunter) trips over the kid's half-dead body.

and freaks.

and kidnaps hunter n takes him to the owl house. bc that's the one surefire place of refuge on the isles.

there are a bunch of emotional threads, hence why it's novel-length and not even finished yet despite being about just four characters chilling in a house together.

mainly it's about:

hunter unraveling his cognitive dissonance and cult brainwashing in an AU where he doesn't have all of hollow mind's answers; his feelings are Incredibly complicated and messy & he gets incredibly mean and snarly about it

darius grappling with the fact that his own grief and resentment blinded him to a kid who Very Much Needed Him, darius dealing with the fact that actually he never DID grieve his mentor or his mentor's dead family

darius and hunter developing a rapport in a timeline where hunter very much has Not broken out of all the cop shit that darius disdains So Much. so darius is so fucking exasperated and tired all the time

eda trying desperately to help hunter learn to live with a curse / chronic pain / chronic illness, while having very little faith in herself to begin with

luz feeling Horrifically guilty about hunter's curse and injuries, bc she thinks she should have clocked the abuse and brought him home with her or otherwise stopped it

hunter developing an almost immediate and pathological emotional attachment to luz because of her kindness, which complicates all of his complicated feelings WAAAAAY MORE

eda, darius, AND luz all desperately trying to get hunter to admit that he's been abused and that what happened wasn't his fault. you would not believe how fucking long it takes.

i'm actually really, really, Really proud of it -- it's rare for one of a writer's best works to be their most popular, but this genuinely is one of mine. if not my best work, period. there's a lot of nuance and messiness and emotional complexity and grief and arguing that i'm SO happy with.

also, despite the subject matter, it's often extremely lighthearted. some of the funniest dialogue i've ever written is strewn throughout all these serious emotional threads.

i'd apologize for how long this response is but this story is a heart project and has 67,000 published words on ao3 so far. (the chapter i'm writing rn will likely be another ~8,000 words, then there are a couple more chapters to come.) so there's a lot to say!!

it's my most popular ao3 fic for any fandom, ever, in the 12 years i've been on the site. the response has been WILD. if you sort by kudos, it's the 31st most favorited owl house fic Of All Time, the 7th most popular fic involving darius, and the 5TH most popular hunter & luz relationship fic. again, of all time. which is. insane.

people have been very kind and patient with me having been too sick to work on it for a while. there was a seven-month break between chapters 8 and 9, and if i finish chapter ten soon then there'll have been a nine-month break between chapters 9 and 10. so i don't know how many people are actually going to come back to read it, a lot of ppl have moved on from the fandom and such. but i'm extremely extremely extremely grateful to everyone who's given it a look!

#replies #long post #toh #my writing #horrible mindscape trauma pals #dadrius #darius deamonne #eda clawthorne #wwaitsoatl #hunter toh #luz noceda #i really am in love with this story i like. i somehow forgot how in love i am with this story #but i do i love it so much. i love it So Much. i could talk about it for Ages

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mariacallous · 19 days

Text

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice indicted two employees of RT, formerly Russia Today, a Russian state-run media outlet, for covertly shoveling millions of dollars at MAGA influencers happy to do Russia’s bidding.

This has led to the delightful specter of high-profile rightwing commentators loudly insisting they were too stupid to know that Russian money was behind the wildly exorbitant sums they received for producing content.

While watching Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson scramble is hilarious, the indictment is no joke.

Indeed, it confirms that Russia continues to manipulate American politics via willing right-wingers — the exact thing Trumpers have long insisted isn’t happening.

Russian propaganda through MAGA mouthpieces

The indictment names Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, aka Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, aka Lena, as the RT employees who laundered close to $10 million through foreign shell companies, ultimately raining all that money down on an unnamed American media company, US Company-1, who then passed it along to unnamed commentators 1-6.

Though unnamed, the company and several commentators are easily discernible to anyone paying attention to the rightwing media grift. The company is most definitely Tenet Media, and its founders are most definitely Lauren Chen, who was also at BlazeTV until the indictment dropped and they fired her, and her husband, Liam Donovan.

And the commentators? Tenet’s ridiculous website describes them as “heterodox commentators” and “creators who question institutions that believe themselves to be above questioning.” That would be Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, Matt Christiansen, and Tayler Hansen.

Kostya and Lena are charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Anyone acting as an agent of a foreign country must register with the attorney general if they are engaged in certain activities, such as politics, on behalf of a foreign country. This ensures the American public doesn’t fall victim to covert foreign influence. The key here is the covert part. There’s no prohibition on publications from foreign governments overtly and transparently attempting to shape American opinion. The idea is just that Americans have the right to know.

Kostya and Lena are also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, as the $10 million they gave to Tenet was sent through a truly staggering maze of shell entities in the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Mauritius, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. They also lied about what the money being sent to Tenet was for, with the indictment noting that the wire transfers to Tenet often referred to the purchase of electronics rather than paying for media services. The indictment alleges that all that shuffling around of money was done with the intent to violate FARA.

Make FARA Violations Great Again

FARA has been on the books since 1938, but had only been enforced seven times up until 2016. What changed in 2016? Trump. Nothing more, nothing less.

Numerous Trumpworld denizens violated the law by failing to register. Trump’s onetime campaign manager, Paul Manafort, pleaded guilty to failing to register as an agent of the Ukrainian government back when Ukraine was controlled by pro-Russian then-president Viktor Yanukovych. Trump’s first national security advisor, Michael Flynn, admitted to taking hundreds of thousands of dollars to work on behalf of Turkey’s government but did not register. Flynn has also taken RT money to the tune of $45,000.

Elliott Broidy, a major Trump fundraiser and the former deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee, pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Malaysia and China, taking millions to covertly lobby the Trump administration on behalf of those countries. Trump, of course, pardoned all three. And earlier this year, the DOJ indicted Barry Bennett and Douglas Watts, both of whom worked on Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, for their failure to register and disclose they were lobbying on behalf of Qatar.

Media companies are exempt from registering if they’re organized under the laws of any US jurisdiction, are at least 80 percent owned by US citizens, are run by US citizens, and are not “owned, directed, supervised, controlled, subsidized, or financed by any foreign principal or agent.”

So, if Tenet had been genuinely financed and controlled by Chen and Donovan, there would be no problem here, even if they had some relationship with RT. The issue is that it appears Tenet was wholly financed by RT in secret, Chen and Donovan knew it, and the RT employees got to shape coverage.

What was in it for the Russians? Rants like the below one from Pool about how “one of the greatest enemies of our nation right now is Ukraine … we should rescind all funding and financing, pull out all military support, and we should apologize to Russia.” (Video via @DrewPavlou on twitter.)

Besides the fact that laundering pro-Russian, anti-Ukraine content in secret through willing American talking heads allowed Russia to pretend that sentiment was homegrown, RT had another reason for going through Tenet: RT itself was dropped by American cable distributors, banned in Europe, and RT America went out of business in March 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine.

The indictment explains that both Chen and Donovan worked directly for RT before this, with Chen having a contract between her unnamed Canadian company and ANO TV-Novosti, RT’s parent organization, and Donovan working directly for RT. Chen incorporated Tenet around January 19, 2022, right as Russia was massing troops on the border of Ukraine. It wasn’t until December 2022 that Chen began negotiating with an entirely fictitious person, Eduard Grigoriann, about launching a new YouTube channel.

And now we arrive at the part where all of these right-wingers can only get out from under these allegations by claiming they are very dumb.

Dave Rubin and Tim Pool made a fortune from Russia

From the details in the indictment, it’s impossible Chen and Donovan didn’t know their money was coming from Russia via shady means.

First, the Russians, through the imaginary Grigoriann and two other unnamed nonexistent personas, sent Chen a proposed contract run through a Hungarian shell entity as the purported client, a company that had no publicly available website. Later, one of the unnamed personas asked Chen to submit an invoice through a Czech shell company, which at least had a website, albeit one where it ostensibly sold auto parts. Chen later signed another contract sent to her by one of the Russian personas that was an agreement not with Grigoriann, not with the Hungarian shell company, and not with the Czech shell company, but instead with a UK shell entity with no website.

The indictment makes clear that despite all the shell companies, Chen and Donovan knew their money was coming from the Russians. They also knew that the Russians ran the show, with messages asking the Russians about hiring a producer and the Russian persona approving the hire. Kostya was also presented to Tenet as an outside editor, allowing him to monitor internal communications and edit Tenet content without disclosing he worked for RT.

Chen then solicited Commentator-1 — Dave Rubin — and Commentator-2 — Tim Pool— to work for the imaginary Eduard Grigoriann, drawing from a shortlist of candidates sent by one of the Russian personas. However, both Rubin and Pool demanded a lot of money. The indictment alleges Rubin wanted close to $5 million per year to create content for Tenet, and Pool wanted “100k per weekly episode to make it worth his while.” Chen warned the Russian persona that it would not be profitable to employ either of them, but the persona responded that they would love to move forward. In other words, Chen knew full well that their backers were willing to throw large sums at right-wingers with no hope of achieving a profitable return, a move that would be very odd for an actual business.

For a brief moment, it looked like Rubin might have been smart enough not to work for a completely unknown entity with cash to burn. The indictment shows that he inquired more than once about who Eduard Grigoriann was and wanted to know about the company and who he would be working with. However, he did not need much convincing, as there was no particularly robust effort to make Grigoriann’s existence believable.

The Russians created a one-page profile, reproduced in the indictment, with Grigoriann’s alleged career highlights. The profile refers to Grigoriann’s time at an unnamed bank, one which has no record of ever employing him. Additionally, a Google search turned up no results at all for that name in conjunction with the bank, despite the profile saying Grigoriann had high-level private banking and investment roles.

Despite this shoddiness, Rubin’s only concern was that the profile used the term “social justice,” which he had a problem with because they were trying to create a conservative network.

Rubin ultimately agreed to a monthly fee of $400,000 and a $100,000 signing bonus to produce four videos weekly. Pool got $100,000 per video. Both Rubin and Pool, along with Benny Johnson, are now saying that they are the real victims here and that they were deceived. They’re getting help pushing that talking point from the likes of Marco Rubio, who went on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show last night and dismissed the indictment’s revelations about rightwing influencers.

“We're talking about preexisting political opinions in the United States,” Rubio said. “They legitimately believe in the views they're espousing. They were victims." (Watch below.)

But buying that requires believing that at no point did Pool, Johnson, and the others think it odd that a small Tennessee company could pay them six figures per video. Rubin, meanwhile, is apparently able to be convinced of someone’s existence with a one-page fake profile and no other data.

In conjunction with this, the DOJ sanctioned several Russian individuals and entities, and Putin has already howled that Russia’s response will make “everyone shudder.” It’s all part of the DOJ’s fight against election interference and an open acknowledgment that the Kremlin favors a Trump win. It’s a more aggressive approach, thankfully, than Obama took in 2016, and will hopefully lead us to a better election result this time around.

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another-goblin · 8 months

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2.0 SPOILERS and random thoughts

So the hotel building was a prison, right? It sort of makes sense, hotels and prisons have similar layouts. But imagine, the place of concentrated suffering of hundreds of thousands of prisoners, or maybe more (look how big it is), now turned into a weird supernatural hotel - what could possibly go wrong? (what if they kept prisoners in dreams too, and the dreamworld is a former prison dreamworld. And they were fed Soulglad to keep them docile). These cells were quite spacious though.

The way Sunday talked to somebody in the end reminded me of Cocolia. Is it possible a stellaron is involved here too?

The dead characters - no way Robin and Firefly will stay dead. They look playable, and you don't kill characters before they become playable (unless it's Qiqi or Blade)

I have a theory based on nothing, that Robin is alive and is actually behind whatever is going on. (Maybe her plan is for all these disruptive guests to kill each other in the name of harmony) She's in cahoots with Sparkle who pretended to be the body.

Sparkle - with her ability to shapeshift, aren't we supposed to be constantly paranoid? Anybody can be Sparkle. But also, seeing how vicious and unhinged she is, she feels like she should be the main antagonist in her own story arc, not just an extra. I mean even Sampo seems apprehensive of her.

I understand people who were enamored with Firefly and saddened with her death, but I personally weren't, because for me her part has the outward appearance of a romantic story, but inside it's just two hours of lies and tutorials. I also saw theories about her different identity and If it's true I hope the writers know what they are doing. Also why is our character so sure she's dead? Don't people who die in a dream just wake up in real world?

If Duke Inferno is dead, and stays dead, and his cool gang is never mentioned again, it's going to be the funniest thing in this game yet.

BTW how did Acheron allegedly enter the hotel using Duke invitation? Aventurine knows that we know that it's very hard (he witnessed our problems with DH's invitation). Make it make sense.

Gallagher - either he's up to something or he's extremely incompetent. He let go an actual stawaway and the huy who fits the description he just provided (Caelus - a guy with grey hair). Also it was him personally who stole confiscated Aventurine's stuff.

Speaking of which. I think Aventurine mentioned "cornerstones", plural. So it's not just his aventurine, but others too? Ratio implied that these things are crucial for their success and that Aventurine might be in danger from IPC without his rock, I wonder what's that about, and why Aventurine is so dismissive about losing them.

Anyways I'm still curious why IPC sent these two. It looks like they decided to achieve their goals on Penacony in a more or less peaceful way (unlike their military invasion on Jario-6). So why did they send Dr. Ratio, notorious for having the social grace of a nuclear bomb, and Aventurine, who isn't doing that great either.

I wonder how the game expects us to see Aventurine. The game probably expects us to see him as slimy but charming and dangerous. And yeah, he somehow (conveniently behind the scenes) managed to come to some agreement with Black Swan, but otherwise he fails miserably in most of his interactions.

When we first meet him, he pretends that he has the power to help us with our invitation problem, awkwardly compliments Robin and Sunday, tries to buy our friendship with a ridiculously small sum (well it was probably all the money he had left). Then he tries to intimidate us but gets spooked by Acheron. Ratio leaves in the middle of their conversation, Sparkle catches him stalking her and roasts him, and so on.

So my current VERY subjective impression is that he's quite desperate at this point. He constantly fails but tries to save face. He lost his confidence after his stuff was confiscated, he can't count on buying people's loyalty with giant bribes as he probably used to.

He obviously had a difficult childhood, he had to claw his way up, and IPC doesn't seem like a place that nurtures one's appreciation for genuine human connections. He probably learned to see genuine feelings as liability. As the result, he only sees people as assets, and "friends" as tools. He talks a lot about friends and trust, but never even pretends that he wants to achieve genuine trust or friendship with anybody. (I can continue but this post is long enough and it'll probably become obsolete with the next update anyway)

And I know it's probably too much to hope for, but maybe he'll get some character development, making him more open to the idea of genuine human interaction.

I already have seen a lot of interesting theories about what's going on, and I really hope the game won't just ignore all these hints and details it gave us, and all these things are actually important.

#honkai star rail #my stuff #hsr spoilers #hsr 2.0 #hsr 2.0 spoilers

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whisperwillyou · 1 year

Note

Do you have any good Hunter fics that are long and non romantic up your sleeve? Super not asking for a friend it’s for me

*rolls up my sleeves* oh buddy DO I EVER

Fair warning, I’m an angst gremlin so these all contain a healthy dose of the Sads™ but considering you’re also a Hunter fan, odds are you also enjoy the angst lmaoo

Most of these are Luz and Hunter-centric bc I love the Noceda Siblings and I’m nothing if not predictable 😌

Let us begin…

What We are is the Sum of a Thousand Lies

Ongoing 59k+

FAV FAV FAV FAV FAV my all time favorite fic, they captured both my FAVORITE flavor of Hunter characterization, AND my favorite flavor of Luz & Hunter interactions (+bonus Eda, Darius, & Flapjack!) it’s just *chef kiss* PEAK content. I reread it regularly

Contingency

Ongoing 108k

Inside you there are two wolves, one is a sad lil boy and the other is the psychological embodiment of the obedient, brainwashed, soldier you were created to be, which your uncle programmed into you when he built you in his evil lab.

Burnt Out

Complete 3K

This one’s a short one but it’s one of my favs so I had to include it. ✨Sic fic✨

Even Sad Birds Still Sing

Ongoing 54k+

Hunter gets turned into a cardinal by a cursed gemstone. Ngl when the first chapter of this fic came out I thought it was gonna be more of a crack fic. I was unbelievably wrong and it is so SO good.

La Gaundière

Complete 12k

This one is some really good post Hunting Palismen Golden Gaurd era Hunter

To be or Not to Be

Ongoing 28k

Hunter takes some ‘me time’ after Hollow Minds and camps. He has a horrible time.

Peak traumatized Hunter seasoned with some great Noceda siblings content and a garnish of Hunter and Hooty friendship. 👌

Blood Moon

Ongoing 48k

Honestly I don’t know how to summarize this fic without spoiling anything, so just trust me, it’s so good.

Your hands do more than Hurt

Ongoing 27k

Darius and Hunter-centric, mind the tags though, this is a sad one

With Clay and Star Scraps

Complete (open ended) 48k

Hunter discovers that being a grimwalker comes with some super fun, funky, and not at all distressing side effects.

Enough to Leave Scars

Complete 14k

Post King’s Tide shenanigans of a former child soldier. ie ptsd

Oop hit the link limit lol rip

Learned Response

Complete 11k

Hunter fabulously misinterprets Luz’s relationship with her mother like the traumatized autistic he is.

With His Beak He Tries to Soothe Me

Complete 10K

Some really sweet Hunter and Flapjack content

Refuge

ongoing 10k+

Camila adjusting to having four new kids under her roof and is unsure what to make of Hunter being… the way he is.

The Golden Brat

Complete 5k+

Coven Scout meeting the Golden Guard for the first time in person: “what’s with this sassy lost child?”

Hopefully you enjoy these!

Special thanks to all theses authors for the platonic content. You’re doing the lords work, feeding us starving lil’ AroAces 💕💕

#the owl house #TOH #hunter the golden guard #Hunter Noceda #Luz Noceda #Flapjack #toh fanfic #fan fiction recommendations #TOH fic rec #this was nice to do since the new episode coming up is giving me the Bad Tummy Feelings™#here’s hoping things are left implied so I can actually watch the episode #I will be devastated if I can’t #now I have to go reread all of these 👊#fox talks

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pomea · 5 months

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“Will you tell me, William, you who know so much about heretics that you seem one of them, where the truth lies?” “Nowhere, at times,” William said, sadly. “You see? You yourself can no longer distinguish between one heretic and another. I at least have a rule. I know that heretics are those who endanger the order that sustains the people of God. And I defend the empire because it guarantees this order for me. I combat the Pope because he is handing the spiritual power over to the bishops of the cities, who are allied with the merchants and the corporations and will not be able to maintain this order. We have maintained it for centuries. And as for the heretics, I also have a rule, and it is summed up in the reply that Arnald Amalaricus, Bishop of Cîteaux, gave to those who asked him what to do with the citizens of Béziers: Kill them all, God will recognize His own.” William lowered his eyes and remained silent for a while. Then he said, “The city of Béziers was captured and our forces had no regard for dignity of sex or age, and almost twenty thousand people were put to the sword. When the massacre was complete, the city was sacked and burned.” “A holy war is nevertheless a war.” “For this reason perhaps there should not be holy wars.”

umberto eco, the name of the rose

#quotes #the name of the rose

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chloe-caulfield94 · 7 months

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Max's and Brooke's drone date

Max: Now that you've entrusted me with your drone's remote, do you mind me asking you for a little bit of personal advice?

Brooke: Not at all, Max. Go ahead!

Max: How do you attract someone? What I mean is ... Suppose you set your heart on somebody. What would you do to get them?

Brooke: Grab them! And take them!

Max: You grab them and take them?

Brooke: Take them! Like that.

Max: So ... You mean to say that I should wait until after they tell me that they wouldn't refuse if I offered to bang them, that I make them feel like they have a reason to stay in a place they've been dreaming of escaping from for years and that nobody is good enough for me except for them. And after they ask me to kiss them, proclaim to everyone they are going to be my date for today's party and quarter-jokingly propose to me, right? Only then I should grab them and take them?

Brooke: Perhaps I haven't been clear enough. Max, waiting for good things to come your way is the opposite of grabbing and taking. Now, let me give you an example. Imagine Chloe is ...

Max: [blushes red as a hibiscus flower]

Brooke: I mean, imagine a completely hypothetical person of unspecified name and gender who hasn't had a particularly easy life so far finds themself in a difficult spot. Even though they want nothing more than to be with you, they start to push you away, because that's the only thing they know when it comes to relationships - being left behind. If that happens, you should tell them they are your number one priority now, the only thing that matters to you. You grab onto them and not let go of them, no matter what. And then you take them someplace where the past has no hold over you both.

Max: That was ... helpful. I'll keep all of that in mind. Not that I doubted it before, but you really are smart, Brooke.

Brooke: Max, I'm a straight-As student. I'm not bragging, that's just stating the fact. If you are able to comprehend chemistry and physics, you can understand human beings very easily. When you think about it, every single thing happening in your mind, every thought and emotion, including love, is a result of chemical reactions and physical processes taking place in your nervous system.

Max: I'm ... not sure if what you just said is reassuring or depressing. Anyways, how do you know so much about Chloe ... Sorry, the hypothetical person I asked about?

Brooke: It may be difficult to believe now, but freshman and sophomore years Chloe was top of the class in chemistry. We would compare notes ... and sometimes smoke joints. Studying and school in general can be so stressful. That's how I used to unwind. And Chloe had much more to unwind from, with her father's death, and all that stuff going on at home ... You know, at one point I owed that creep Frank Bowers a hundred dollars for weed. He put me down in his notebook. He was pretty aggressive in collecting. I lied to my parents that I needed extra money for school supplies and I managed to quickly pay him off before he could balloon that sum into the thousands with outrageous "interest", like criminals always do. I know Chloe owed him too. But I couldn't help her. What I got from my parents was barely enough to cover my debt. And then we drifted apart. I hope he's not still bothering her.

Max: He is. It's really bad. But she has a partner now. I won't let anyone hurt her ever again.

Brooke: See, Max? You're a natural at this "grabbing and taking" thing.

--------------------------------------

This started out as my attempt at "incorrect quotes", with the joke being that Brooke is equally as determined in pursuing love as Grace Jones's character in "Conan the Destroyer". But then it grew into a short story.

#max caulfield #chloe price #pricefield #life is strange #lis #brooke scott #frank bowers #incorrect quotes #incorrect life is strange quotes

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what-if-queen-camilla · 1 year

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Chapter 24

Another sad one but tomorrow's chapter is going to be brighter again, I promise you 😉

1st December 1994

"I don't want you to divorce! You promised me you're not going to divorce but now you are! You lied to me!" Seeing her poor little daughter standing at the edge of the staircase, desperately crying and screaming at them broke Camilla’s heart into a thousand pieces but also kind of summed up that absolute hell of a year they'd all been through. That goddamn interview Charles had given and everything it had brought about for her and her family, her mother's death and, now Andrew had announced that he wanted to divorce her. She had begged him to at least wait until Christmas was over, so that they wouldn't ruin the festive season for their little girl, but he had been relentless, he wanted to divorce her, as soon as possible, and wanted to marry Rose - as soon as possible. "It will break her heart.", Camilla had told him in regards to Thea, but he'd been sure she'd cope well - but it now turned out that he'd been wrong. He had, indeed, managed to ruin not only the festive season for her but basically crashed down everything she'd loved and believed in, everything that'd given her safety, within the wink of an eye. And she hated him for that. "Thea, darling, please, come here…", she said, rushing up the stairs to take her crying daughter in her arms, but Thea was so pissed off she couldn't bear that kind of closeness right now (a trait which she had definitely inherited from Charles…), turned around and stamped over to her room, slammed the door behind her, fell onto her bed and sobbed into her pillow. "Well done, Andrew! I hope you're proud of yourself!", Camilla hissed at her future ex-husband, looking at him so withering that it almost froze his blood. "See, Camilla, that's exactly why I want this divorce as soon as possible - because, in your world, it's always somebody else's fault, you're perfect and never do anything wrong, it's always somebody else!", he screamed at her and she couldn't believe the utter nonsense he was talking. "Oh just shut up and leave me alone! You know what? You can have your divorce, as soon as possible if it's so important for you, go and marry your lover and live happily ever after, I don't care anymore, I really don't!", she screamed back. "Just go! I can't have you here tonight, go to Rose or any of your other affairs but get out of my way!", she added, knowing exactly that there had been only Rose for him for at least the last five years and there was no "other affair" anymore, but there had been times where he probably couldn't recall all his lover's names himself, and after he'd made her baby so unhappy, she thought he deserved a little punishment tonight. Andrew grumbled something, grabbed his car keys from the sideboard and took his leave.

Once the door had slammed shut behind him, Camilla allowed herself to cry a few tears, before pulling herself together again, putting on a brave face and going to her daughter, who needed her love and comfort so badly. "Come here, darling.", she said, pulling Thea into her arms, tenderly rocking her back and forth, like she had done when she had been a baby. "Don't worry, my sweet little darling.", she whispered. "I know this is a hard time for you, but Daddy and I love you so much and we will always be there for you, both of us." "But everything's going to change!", Thea moaned. "And Daddy won't have time for me anymore. Will he get himself a new family, like my friend Gemma's Daddy? She only sees him like once a year nowadays… I don't want to see Daddy only once a year!" "Shush, darling. Of course you will still see Daddy. He can come and visit you anytime, or you can visit him whenever you want to.", Camilla promised her.

"Are we going to relocate?", Thea asked further, immediately adding: "I don't want to relocate. This is our home and I want to stay here!" Camilla sighed and lied down on the bed next to her, staring at the ceiling in excessive demand and desperation. "God help me…", she thought, pressing her daughter against her chest. "We haven't decided on that, yet.", she said, but that was a lie, they actually had, and it was clear that they'd have to sell the house but she didn't manage to reveal that, not today, not like that. Thea was already so heartbroken, she simply couldn't bear giving her more bad news. Instead, she said: "But no matter what's going to happen and where we might be a year from now, I will always be by your side, my darling, and we'll always have it nicely and cosy, as long as we have each other, I promise you." At this, Thea's sobbing decreased a bit and she buried her little face on her mother's chest. "When Daddy marries Rose, will you marry Sir now as well?", she asked, totally out of the blue and Camilla almost burst into laughter. "No, darling. That's not going to happen.", she said and Thea frowned her forehead. "But why not?", she asked, as if it was the silliest and most illogical thing she'd ever heard, explaining: "You're in love. You always kiss." Camilla couldn't suppress a smile. It had been a rough few months for them in summer and she had been really upset and mad with him, but he'd done such an effort to get her back, apologised a thousand times, not only to her but also to her children, to her father, and even to Andrew… he'd sent flowers, wrote letters and poems and hadn't she finally given in at some point, he'd probably have climbed on the roof of Buckingham Palace and performed "If I could turn back time" from Cher or something. So by the end of September, they were all in love and together again, though things remained difficult and they still had to be extremely cautious. He did indeed still hope to be able to marry her one day but she couldn't really see that happening. Apart from the fact that she surely wasn't, and wasn't ever to be, the sort of wife anyone with or without influence wanted for a future King, she herself didn't want to live that sort of life either. She loved him dearly, of course she did, and she, too, hoped that one day their relationship would at least be so much accepted that they wouldn't have to hide anymore and could maybe go out together again like a normal couple could but for nothing in this world would she ever voluntarily marry into that family and the sort of life it'd mean. In contrast to Diana, she had always been aware that nobody could ever marry "just Charles". She'd have married "just Charles" immediately back in 1972, but even then she had been aware that it wasn't "just Charles", but it was a public role, she'd have said yes to as well, a whole institution, with their own sometimes cruel rules, traditions, duties, forces and sacrifices, and that as something she had never wanted and still didn't want. She loved her freedom and was not willing to give up on it, not even for him. Also, she wanted her daughter to grow up as normal as possible, and it was already hard enough for her now with the divorce and everything. This was certainly going to be a very sad, last Christmas at Middlewick House for all of them…

*Side Note: Camilla and Andrew's marriage was officially divorced on 19th January 1995. After everything that had happened, they decided to release a joint press statement which reads as follows:

"The decision to seek an end to our marriage was taken jointly and is a private matter, but as we have no expectation that our privacy will be respected, we issue this statement in the hope that it will ensure that our family and friends are saved from harassment. Most especially, we ask that our children, who remain our principal concern and responsibility, are left alone to pursue their studies at what is clearly a difficult time for them. Throughout our marriage we have always tended to follow rather different interests, but in recent years we have led completely separate lives. We have grown apart to such an extent that, with the exception of our children and a lasting friendship, there is little of common interest between us, and we have therefore decided to seek divorce."

I've read these lines about a hundred times but it still breaks my heart. It all must have been so hard for her. Thinking of these dark days makes me appreciate everything we get to see of her as a happy and healthy Queen these days even more.

#king charles #queen camilla #andrew parker bowles #royal family #royal baby #fanfiction #fanfic

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lieutenant-teach · 8 months

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Who is more villainous – Anakin Skywalker\Darth Vader or MCU!Loki?

There’re two trends in Marvel and Star Wars media – ‘Loki is such a bad person, worst of all’ and ‘Anakin never did anything wrong, he was the best Jedi ever’. Both have sad and tragic backstories, both turn bad, both iconic villains. So I decided to have my own small investigation – is Disney justified in their attitude?

What are Loki’s crimes?

1.Setting up his brother (coronation situation) – ‘to delay his idiotic rule for a while longer’, as Thor obviously wasn’t ready. Evidence from the movie show that he didn’t even want them to go down to Jotunheim – he expected to be stopped by Heimdall and even sent for a guard to tell Odin about their departure [1 - 4.12]. For the sake of ‘Loki making bad decisions’ – count.

2. Usurped the throne – no! Frigga gave it to him [2]. Don’t count.

3. Almost killing Thor – frankly, when he gives Thor a slap with the Destroyer, it looked as if he wasn’t trying to actively kill him, more like lashed out. Still, count.

4. Killing Laufey, his biological father – count.

5. Attempted genocide of the Jotuns – * sarcasm* nevermind that he was doing exactly the same thing as Odin (slow murder is still murder. I’d say Loki even shows more mercy – at least he’d kill quickly, not slowly making the planet decay for a thousand years.). Not trying to say the idea was good, just pointing out the hypocrisy in- and out-universe. Count.

6. New York – in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ we learn that 74 people were lost during the invasion. ‘80 people in two days’ per Natasha are mostly on Fury – Loki had no way of knowing the place would be destroyed. It’s clear from the movie that the facility was already unstable due to tinkering with the Tesseract. Why didn’t Fury stop the experiments and start evacuating people? And the most important factor – mind influence [3, also], though it’s unclear to what extent, and coercion. For the sake of ‘Loki killed innocent people’ – count 154 ( + Coulson, but looking at 7 seasons of ‘Agents of SHIELD’, I find it hard to count him in.).

7. ‘Loki killed his mother’ bullshit – all he did was lead the Kurse out of the prison a little bit faster. Anyway Malekith already knew where the Aether was, it was him who killed her. Why not blame Thor or Odin with the same vigor as Loki? So, don’t count.

8. Loki usurped the throne – he offered Thor the throne, Thor refused [4]. Of course, he lied to Thor pretending to be Odin. I’ll give it half a count.

From the moment Taika Waititi came, it becomes hard to count, as he never cared about canonical portrayal of characters and actively hated Asgard [5]. Both Loki and Thor are absolutely different from as they were shown in pervious installments. I cannot value the movie where a) the director never watched any of previous films and b) improvised 80% of the movie [6]. But to see the full picture of Original Loki (however askew it becomes from this moment), I’ll be brief.

9. Loki being a bad king – paying attention to arts and giving freedom of self-governing to other planets is bad? Don’t count. And yes, Ragnarok is on Odin – Loki had no way of knowing about it, just as anyone else except Odin himself.

10. Loki betraying Thor all the time – this was improvised, such as ‘the snake story’ and ‘obedience disk’ moment [7], thus can’t be seen as direct continuation of character consistency. Don’t count.

I’m absolutely going to ignore whatever crap Michael Waldron did in the Loki series. I refuse to take into consideration the writing of a person who a) never watched an ounce of Loki-related media and b) just rehashed his own original script [8]. And anyway, he’s a Variant!Loki, not OG!Loki, they’re different people.

Sum up: kind of set up his brother, almost killed abovementioned brother, killed his biological father, attempted genocide, killed 154 people, kind of took the throne.

What are Darth Vader’s crimes? (I count everything that he’d done while he was still Anakin. No matter how Disney tries to pretend, Anakin IS Vader, not two separate entities [1].)

1.Slaughter of the whole Tusken camp, including women and children. Yes, they killed his mother. No, still murder. Count.

2. Torture of a prisoner in ‘The Clone Wars’ s2 ep.8. Good guys don’t torture anyone (yes, looking at you, TR!Thor). [Frankly, if we speak about TCW, the situation is a little bit difficult, because war. I pointed out the torture moment, because you can’t claim the character is perfectly good if he knowingly tortured someone with the Empire’s melody in the background.] Count.

3. Beating up his wife’s ex to the pulp in s.2 ep.4, knowing that she’s flirting with him not because she wants so, but because of the job. Count.

4. Slaughter of younglings in the Jedi Temple. Count.

5. Betrayal of the clones. Leading a brainwashed army (who presumably were his friends) to kill his family (Jedi). Count.

6. Choking his wife. Even better, pregnant wife (doesn’t make it acceptable if she weren’t, though.). Count.

7. Trying to kill his best friend / master / father figure, twenty years later succeeding. Count.

8. Slaughter of all the remaining Jedi across the galaxy, destruction of their culture. Yes, Palpatine manipulated him, but he could have helped Mace Windu [2], and none of that would’ve happened. He didn’t, thus making his choice clear. Count.

9. Maintaining the fascist regime across the galaxy for more than twenty years. Count.

10. Choking his subordinates. Count.

11. Trying to kill his Padawan (‘Rebels’, s.3 ep.22), almost succeeding. Count.

12. Maiming his own child and trying to kill him when he refused to join him. Count.

In case of Vader, lots of his kills remain off-screen, and here go speculations. Different sources (Reddit, ScreenRant, Youtube bloggers) name different numbers from 55 to 69 direct kills throughout all the movies\TV series (not counting tie-in comics). Everyone killed directly and indirectly off-screen hard to estimate – from what we know, numbers can go up to millions.

Sum up: killed at least hundreds of innocents throughout the galaxy, killed or tried to kill members of his family (at least 10 Jedi + Luke), children murders, tortures, completed genocide, maintained a fascistic government.

Interestingly, everything Vader is accused of – true. I couldn’t find any instance where he was blamed, but in fact was innocent. Yes, originally he was trying to save Padme. But a) at what cost? b) save her for her or for his own feelings for her? [3] He was choosing being as he was for many years, he wasn’t mind-controlled or anything.

Also it’s interesting to count the time span of their villainy. Loki committed his crimes in short period of time, after that going into ‘antihero’ mode, helping Thor more than harming. Anakin, on the other hand, took the chance of stopping his villainous acts only once – in ROTJ. Loki – roughly 2 years of his 1053-years-long life. Anakin – 23 years of his 45 years long life.

So, after this investigation, I believe the winner is obvious.

Before anyone says anything about my personal preferences and biases: I like both of them, but also try to be objective – both of them have done bad things, although they’re both sympathetic. Of course, we can delve into Loki’s and Anakin’s mental traumas – but I deliberately didn’t dive into this, because I went into ‘crimes are still crimes’ mode, and giving full psychological portraits wasn’t the goal anyway.

But for me it’s weird that a ‘family-friendly’ company tries to ‘forgive and forget’ Darth freaking Vader and simultaneously blames Loki of all the things possible, even those he’s never done. In terms of crimes committed Anakin wins without questions, so – why?

#marvel #star wars #loki #mcu #in defense of loki #darth vader #anti thor ragnarok #anti loki series #anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker critical

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