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auriond · 7 months

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More thoughts about FFXVI's themes, particularly about will, life, death, Clive's character arc, and the ending. Warning: long ramble. Spoilers under the cut.

There's been a lot of debate about whether Clive dies at the end. Team Clive's Alive tend to point to his character arc and his repeated promises to live as proof that he lives, because he doesn't break his promises. Much as I'd love to buy this argument, because I really really want Clive to live, I think it does ignore the fact that this is, at the end of the day, a Japanese game, and there are certain subtle differences in how they treat themes such as will, and life and death.

(Disclaimer: what follows is entirely my own interpretation.)

It's true that Clive starts the game without the will to live, as seen by his single-minded pursuit of revenge. He mentions several times at the beginning that this is the only thing that keeps him going.

Later, when he discovers that he killed Joshua, he has a suicidal meltdown, because not only did he promise to kill Joshua's killer, he's also lost his one reason for living. Cid and Gav try to convince him that there's someone else out there who might be responsible for Joshua's death, but he thinks he knows the truth, and that removes the one thing that's been driving him onward. Without revenge, he doesn't know what else he can live for. As a slave for almost half his life at this point, he is unused to freedom and the concept of living on his own terms, for his own self. And yet, as he tearfully confesses to Jill on that moonlit night, he doesn't understand why he's still alive.

I think that the game goes to great lengths to point out that aside from that one dark moment in his life, he never entirely loses the will to live, because from that point onward he's driven by his desire to help others. When he was standing on the bridge at Kingsfall, he was very seriously contemplating throwing himself into the river and ending it all. But, and I think this was the turning point - he realised that Torgal needs him, and immediately after he heard Gav shout for help. As he's holding on to Gav at the edge of the cliff, there's this critical moment of self-doubt where he's afraid that he'll fail Gav the same way he failed Joshua. But he succeeds in saving Gav, and from that point onward he's found a new reason for living. In a very real sense, by saving Gav, he saved himself. And he probably sees Gav therefore as having saved him, and from that point on he's noticeably a lot warmer towards Gav.

But still, he's not completely free from fate. Throughout most of the game, he seems to see himself not as a free agent, but almost an extension of the men he felt were his superiors - Cid, and his father. In Cid's case, he's literally just picking up where Cid left off. There are plenty of other clues littered throughout the game that he felt less than his own master - his repeated declaration that he will "do (his) duty" as a Shield of Rosaria; his response to Mid wondering whether he was mad for risking his life for her, a girl he hardly knew, was simply: "I just want to help." In his singlemindedness, Clive has replaced revenge with the desire to help, to shield others, possibly at the cost of his life. And everyone around him knew that. It's why Jill and Joshua spend much of their time with him pleading with him to save himself. He's still a slave to fate.

I've seen some analyses of the game comparing Joshua and Clive to messianic figures, which has some truth to it, but in the end I think the games leans more into Buddhist/Shinto values in that it emphasises the value of life, rather than sacrifice. If a person wills themselves strongly to live on, then they will never truly die, because they live on in the hearts of those who are alive. However, those who wish to die are already gone even if their body lives on.

And I think that is crucial in understanding FFXVI. After Joshua's death at the hands of Ultima, Clive finally understands that he need not cling to anyone or anything in order to live. And more than that: that he's not alone. Joshua's speech, about how Clive chose to listen where Ultima turned away, is pivotal for Clive to understand this. Those who follow him wanted his help, but not because he had to: because he chose to. And this active choice to help, to live on his own terms, is what finally frees him from his own shackles. He is no more or less than those he chose to help, or those who chose to help him. Even as he takes on Ultima alone, he is never alone: alive or dead, everyone is together in this fight, in that all of their actions and efforts had come to this. And so he takes on the fight with the will to live.

So, at the end, when he realises that his body is beginning to fail, it no longer matters. It doesn't matter whether he actually lives or dies at this point, because his will has already settled on living. He wants to live. He chooses to live. As he lies on the beach gazing at the moon, he's fulfilled his promise to Jill. He's come back. He will always be with her. And, for the first time, he is whole.

I really feel that the story of FFXVI needs to be told in book form. Much as it made for incredible action and exquisitely beautiful eye-candy, a lot of the game's subtlety would benefit from exploration in prose. I wish I could novelise it, but as you can see from this meandering post, I'm afraid my writing skills are not quite up to scratch. Not that I wouldn't be above giving it a go, but I really wish someone would write an official novelisation. I would read the hell out of that.

What a game.

#ffxvi #ffxvi spoilers #auriond #ramblings #clive rosfield

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zahri-melitor · 2 months

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Okay. I’ve started Rebirth and read the opening stories of the following titles:-

Batman

Detective Comics

Nightwing

Batgirl

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey

I’m paused JUST before Night of the Monster Men and so I haven’t added All-Star Batman yet.

My first observation? Oh what a relief. It’s not perfect. There is work to do and it’s not a straight roll back to preboot but after reading my way through n52, characters and dynamics I recognise are back. It’s like DC suddenly remembered that people enjoy characters interacting with each other. And so, as best as I can tell, the concept was to sort of scatter everyone back to team positions that would make sense if the last comic you picked up was in 2011.

There is definitely some inferred off-screen characterisation going on: both Dick/Babs and Tim/Steph are extant relationships again. Dick and Babs had been longing ‘will they’ exes for the last 5 years of writing where they kept being out of sync with each other (the last time the two were actively dating on page was in 2003; the failed engagement was 2006, and they’d been caring exes shading back to flirting from about 2010 onwards). Tim/Steph broke up in 2004 and at BEST were amicable for 2009-2011.

Batman: Rebirth #1 – this is just a really lovely little stand alone issue that’s setting up Bruce taking Duke on as an active student. It’s just tightly written, with an interesting plot, nods at traditional characterisation, a less-used but known villain – it works really well as basically a training case for Duke. Note for everyone – Duke is still just a kid learning to be a vigilante at this point in the classic Robin model.

Batman #1-6 (2016): The team here is Bruce, Duke, Henry Clover and Claire Clover. This really feels like a back-to-basics storyline. The parallels between Henry and Bruce are not subtle, and they’re not meant to be; Bruce rescuing a family in his own situation and how it plays out is a well trodden story in DC, as is characters getting powers that the use of which ends up harming them. It was almost a modernisation of a Silver Age or Bronze Age story device that we’ve all seen plenty of times – which I guess makes sense for a Tom King story. I do have a soft spot for Claire here. This absolutely feels like a one-storyline-and-done set of characters (Gotham and Gotham Girl) who get hauled out occasionally in the future but mostly left alone. Waller seems somewhat more herself but unfortunately has still not recovered for her dieting. Every time they haul Psycho-Pirate out I wait for him to make some commentary on multiversal stuff, given he’s technically still on the shortlist of people who remember pre-Crisis, I believe?

Honestly, this storyline was mostly a relief after some of Snyder’s drama (said with full tongue in cheek over the fact it also included Bruce steering a crashing plane from the outside with cable and two rocket thrusters)

Nightwing: Rebirth #1 and Nightwing #1-4 (2016): This is very much a transitional storyline. It’s Dick’s story, but Damian, Bruce and Barbara are popping in and out of it. In terms of moving on fast from Grayson, the fact that Tim Seeley is writing this means that we don’t get a clean break (this is still basically a spy mystery story), but Dick putting back on the Nightwing suit with blue was such a moment of relief, I can’t tell you how big. He hadn’t worn that since 2009. It also unfortunately involves Court of Owls drama carried over from Batman & Robin Eternal and the 2011 Batman and Nightwing runs, but hey, Dick’s back talking to people, he sounds more like himself, he’s wearing BLUE, and he’s hanging out with Damian in a ‘I love him but he drives me up the wall’ way which is honestly not bad as characterisation. Also this line from Nightwing #2 (2016) stuck with me: “But Batman also taught me every life is worth saving. Even if it always seemed like I believed it more than he did.” While I have my quibbles over the second line (ACTUALLY Seeley that philosophy is pretty fundamental to Bruce), for Dick? At this exact moment in time? After recent events? It feels like a renewal. Every life is worth saving.

Damian here is an irritating little snot, but in the largely affectionate way he tends to get in better writing with Dick, and he’s still acting like a kid, which is always nice to see.

Detective Comics #934-#940: I’m not crying, my eyes are just watering, okay? Oh my GOD. This is Kate Kane, Tim, Cass, Steph and for some reason Basil Karlo on a team together. Okay. I see why Tynion’s run is considered a highlight. It’s not perfect, it’s in no way at all perfect, but Tynion took on an unenviable task (merging Tim, Cass and Steph into usable versions of their preboot characterisation/personalities grafted on to the existing situation of all three characters at the end of n52) and he did it in a way that spent a lot of time signalling that yes, he’s actually read their solo runs. They all had moments where they sounded like themselves and acted like themselves.

Tim still had his stupid arm computer and is at peak arrogance and at one point said “This is what happens when you give a sixteen-year-old genius who doesn’t sleep an unlimited budget” (sigh. SIGH. C’mon, Tynion) but my initial fears from the way the first issue was framed that Tim was going to be treated as less capable than Kate Kane (someone who, even in n52, Tim had spent more time as a vigilante than) were relieved by Tim slotting capably into the ‘support strategy’ role he is so good at. Of course as well then he is sort-of not-really playing around with the idea of moving on (he’s got his invite for university but you can read him as either ‘wanting to move on but trapped by Bruce inviting him back to being closer’ or as ‘Tim didn’t expect to get this, is stymied by it, and feels he’s being pushed about taking the opportunity if he lets people know’). It’s a concept he flirts with on occasion but can’t go through with. And then my sweet boy sacrifices himself and shows up Ulysses fucking Hadrian bastard Armstrong and… we get the acknowledgement that TIM IS THE GLUE. He’s just pulled this team into working together in a functional manner and we get “You were reconnecting threads that could not be reconnected. You’re so loved, so deeply intertwined. It became crucial that we take you off the field.” Which? He hasn’t been for 5 years of stories. That’s my boy, my fix-it Robin.

Steph…is sort of controlling and clearly lacking in training and has some edges to her and bickers with Tim? Which oh my god, I can see actual continuity with pre-War Games Steph here. It’s not perfect, she’s suddenly in an established relationship with Tim and quite focused on that, but I can see some Dixon in her! It’s a miracle!

Cass has had the hardest reboot of the lot and has lost 99% of her vocabulary and is back to her cryptid ways, but even there I can see Batgirl 2000 characterisation moments peeking through. She drops in the window while Tim is stripping down (Fresh Blood! FRESH BLOOD MY BELOVED. The parallels here!), she supports Tim during a fight but pushes Steph out of the way and takes over…that’s Cass’s assessment of their fighting abilities. That’s Steph overreaching her capacity and Cass dropping in to haul her out of trouble.

Kate Kane is very much Kate Kane and while I disbelieve that she and Bruce are really that close in age, this is the start of Rebirth and doing things like gently stretching back out the timeline so that we’re in Year 18 or so again, not Year 6. (Year 18 is rough back-of-the-envelope Year 3 = Graysons fall, Year 13 = ALPOD, Year 15 = NML, Year 17 = OYL to Reborn, then n52 is a single year). I like seeing her actually spend some time actively working with other Bat characters if she’s going to be fully integrated, rather than just turning up for events.

Batgirl #1-5 2016: oh Babs. While this run is winking at past Barbara characterisation (the use of Amy Beddoes as an alias! However there is no awareness that that is a name known by the Suicide Squad and Waller and not only heavily linked to Oracle, but to Barbara’s feelings about guns and Joker), it remains squarely in the ‘fluffy light storytelling that might be suitable for a 22-23 year old character but doesn’t match anything about Barbara Gordon’. I really wish this was good.

It is, I guess, an adequate tonal sequel to Burnside, and if that’s your Barbara you will probably enjoy it, but I can’t help but mentally want to slot every single one of these stories into a past history that occurred during Babs’ ORIGINAL stint at Batgirl.

The concept of Barbara going on a world training tour break isn’t bad and echoes Cass being sent off to Hong Kong (though Hong Kong is skipped over for Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul and Shanghai), but the heavy reliance on Barbara’s eidetic memory as her strong point and THEN Barbara ‘switching it off’ to be faster???

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Rebirth & #1-6: It's Barbara, Dinah and Helena all on a team together? Miracles really do come true!

First point out of the gate: yes, I hate that this contains several take-thats at fans of Barbara as Oracle. I think they're mean spirited and exhausting to read. There is absolutely nothing wrong with fans of a team created by Oracle wanting to see it lead by ORACLE. THAT SAID, characterisationwise this is the closest I've had to my girls for a while.

Barbara is far more like Simone's n52 Batgirl than Burnside. She actually acknowledges aspects of her past, and the struggles it's brought with it and why that should have resulted in growth.

Dinah is unfortunately still running around as Dinah Drake Lance with the shitty n52 backstory retcon intact and reliance on the band stuff. Sorry, Dinah. The first run really didn't do much to recanonise anything preboot for Dinah, just outlined her new history, though Siu Jerk Jai got a few references.

Helena? Look. This is the fourth? version of Helena's origin I've read and it looks like it's most riffed off Huntress Year One, and it's sticking with Helena's mum having an affair, sigh. However, on the scale of "is this actually Helena Bertinelli", there is so much credit on the 'once again has a backstory that actually works as a Helena Bertinelli backstory' side of the ledger that I don't really care. This is about the process of rehabilitation, and Helena is not just a Bertinelli, but the first thing she does is butt heads with Barbara over their combined stubbornness and her refusal to take direction, soooo. Yeah, pretty stoked.

I will say, with this lineup of new histories, instead of being the "two cops' daughters and a mafia princess" group it's now the "Missing Mothers Who Might Be Evil Issues" team. Which is a downgrade. I wouldn't care about them bonding over their mothers so much if it wasn't stereotype missing mother hour.

Overall conclusion?

I became emotional reading Batman: Rebirth, 'Tec, and B&BOP. Even for their flaws they all were trying hard and hit me with what they were attempting to achieve.

This was in no way a complete fix, and heck DC is STILL untangling some of the threads that they started trying to fix here with Rebirth, 8 years later. But oh it is enjoyable to see writing teams actually try and act like yeah, people are allowed to like preboot characterisation.

#z canon read throughs #let's go rebirth #the worst I can say about any of these opening stories was that some were a bit average #I'll take 'average' over 'trying to make me gouge my eyes out working out how this makes sense' any day

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mewly · 1 year

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"Her stubbornness and drive rivals Aloy’s which isn’t something she’s really faced with a companion before" ikrie and talanah are laughing somewhere

I don’t even personally ship Seyloy if that’s what you’re mad about 😂

Anyway you’ve missed the point of what I said there entirely. So allow me explain!

Tl;dr: Seyka’s stubbornness and drive is harsh like Aloy’s, Talanah’s isn’t (and Ikrie isn’t a companion so she didn’t have the same impact), they are different, and I thought narratively that Seyka’s would have had a bigger impact than it did.

This is what I said in literally the next line: “Aloy got to see what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that instead of the perpetrator.”

I said at first I thought Seyka’s character was created to act as a mirror of Aloy, (with the similar personality traits, both mission driven, finding a focus and younger sister rescue) so that Aloy could experience firsthand how she has previously acted towards others with her own drive and stubbornness making her leave them behind and letting her know how that felt from an outside perspective. Let’s be honest, Aloy can he harsh at times because of her mission and weight of it and that comes across in her drive, we’ve seen companions like Varl and Erend comment on this before. Seyka was written to be the same way. She’s quite mean and rude at times towards Aloy, whereas no other companion has been to that extent before. She’s not afraid to snap at Aloy. I believed as the dlc went on that Aloy would have an epiphany moment - since Varl isn’t there to explain these things to her anymore - like “oh damn this is how they all felt”, further pushing Aloy towards letting people in and changing her mentality to be more open, and in turn helping Seyka open up too. It was her whole character arc in HFW so I assumed it would continue into the dlc. BUT, that isn’t what happened sadly. It was romance coded.

As the DLC went on, I clicked that Seyka was written to be our first love interest, and not her own character like all the other companions. And I’ll stand by that conclusion. People can all argue until the cows come home that Seyka’s her own character, but this is my opinion and I don’t think she is right now, 90% of her character is Aloy recycled and just not as good. Which is why the character mirror theme would’ve made more sense to me. (It’s also why I can’t ship it, I think they’d clash long term. Too similar. Anyway, I’m off topic.)

Aloy is pushed into the supporting role at times with Seyka, which is jarring to us as the players. (That might also account for why I felt like a major third wheel the entire main plot of the dlc lol, but I digress).

In regards to Talanah and Ikrie, Talanah is a huge positive force from the get go in HZD, and willingly helps Aloy and there’s no real pushback in HFW after a brief conversation (eg. Talanah agrees to go back when she’s hurt, whereas Aloy tries to push onward until she’s physically forced to stop by her wounds after the Hades proving lab), Talanah’s stubbornness and drive is admirable but it is different from Aloy’s and that’s just fact. Ikrie is a DLC side character (not a companion ergo she won’t have the same impact on the story) that I genuinely don’t remember much of so I can’t comment there, but I know even she didn’t act like Seyka does towards Aloy, (which as I said before, comes across a little mean at times).

I genuinely hope that clears things up for you about what I meant from that line.

I was trying to be positive in my wording in that review, so that anons, such as yourself, didn’t jump down my throat for “not liking Seyka or Seyloy” since discourse was rampant then. But as always people find something to be mad at! 😂

But a word of advice if I may? Clearly you prefer Talanah and Ikrie for Aloy, or as characters in general, which is fine. Ships ahoy! But ships aren’t the be all and end all of fandoms nor should they be, and this game is so much more than ship discourse and I’d hate to see it reduced to such now that romance has been confirmed in whatever extent that may be, it’s a phenomenal game series and I could write about the themes and narrative behind it (or potential themes lol) until my fingers bleed. I didn’t like Seyloy because it didn’t make sense to me narratively, not because “omg a new girl kissed Aloy and my ship is now dead nooo wahhh”. Some people like Seyka and/or Seyloy, some people don’t, and I’m indifferent to it all mostly. And that is ALL okay (as long as you’re not like, one of those homophobes who tanked the reviews of course because of it).

Anyways all the best nonny.

#I’m begging y’all to have some reader literacy #and I assume the other ask I deleted before was you as well #since you mention Talanah and Ikrie in both #you want a response so you finally got one #I was gonna ignore this one too but I’m choosing to assume you just didn’t get what I was saying #I’ve been in fandoms way too long now to deal with this crap #mollybabbles #hfw spoilers #horizon forbidden west #hfw:bs

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redcap3 · 1 year

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Charming - Pt. 3

Sunday: Expected and Unexpected Joys

Sunday morning, I needed to be up, mobile, and in one of the Mainsail rooms by 9am so I could attend the volunteer raffle. It was nice to feel appreciated and get a couple little rewards for the work I had done over the weekend (and I still had one more Consent Team shift left!), but ugh. I really was not feeling much joy about getting my butt up for that, even if I did end up with one of Linny’s beautiful glass bottle charms.

I had a little time to get ready for my class at 11:15, and sleepy returned to the room before I left. There had been another positive covid test, and they had attended several of the classes she demo’d for. Her rapid test was negative, but she had made the decision to stay in the room, watch some of the AGDQ runs we’d missed, and wind down as gracefully as she could as a way to manage her mental health. Camden and I both made a point of telling her how proud of her we were before it was time for me to get going for the Kink and Disabilities workshop.

I have presented this “class” something like eight times now. I see some familiar faces each time, and some new ones.

I have to admit that the last two times I have led the class, I started to wonder if I was just telling people the same things over and over. I worry that people won’t find it valuable, or that I am mostly just shouting into the void. (Especially when teaching online, and it’s difficult for me to ‘read the room’!)

Then I see the reactions of people who had never realized others have the same (or similar enough) issues with limitations, physical play, or mental health making them feel like they couldn’t play, and the lightbulb moments of “I can do this!” that makes the effort worth it every time.

Several people came up to thank me for the ideas I had given them, and I happily had a quick hello with Goddess where she was doing Door Dragoning before I went over to the Consent Team table to say hello to Jenny, one of the other team members who I actually had met before we both came out to each other as into hypnosis, and we had a nice low key hangout where we both answered some questions, got some feedback on some of the different Sunday uncon plans that people wanted brought back to the concom, and I wished them a safe drive home after T. came to relieve her.

While I was there, Lynx announced that they were trying to get rid of as much rope as possible before driving home, so, well…I bought more rope. Look, it’s a better habit than drugs.

Or gunpla.

Or battletech minis.

…probably.

Goddess would stop by to chat with Wiseguy where he was holding down the Concom table, and she mentioned stopping back down later. (I did not get a chance to talk to her about the ‘collar-versary’ that day, or before we flew back to Minnesota, but it is a discussion we did have later, and we are OK. She is Keeping Me, and I am happily Kept.)

I asked sleepy if she would be ok with running me out a bottle of water or two when I realized I was getting really dried out, and she was awesome and did so before heading back to the room. Not long after that Lynx and I talked as she delivered my final rope order, and we spotted a minor concern that I would end up notifying the concom about, and Psy was a gentleman and a scholar, handling it within a few minutes.

As my shift wrapped up I asked if T would mind me leaving a few minutes early, because my energy was flagging. He happily sent me onward, and as I brought myself back to the room I thought I could hear some noise coming from inside.

I swiped my key and opened the door to the sound of Daja’s voice trailing off, and a steady Tick…Tick…Tick…Tick…

Without even consciously realizing it I had stopped just inside the room so the door could shut behind me, and started rocking on my feet in time to the metronome that was sitting on the dresser as Miss Dawn approached me with a confident little smile. “Well, isn’t this a lovely surprise…”

I had asked if I might get some trance time on Sunday after basically being in Top Space for a lot of Friday and the parts of Saturday where I was out in public, and Dawn had been happy to assure me that we would make some time.

Part of me thought it might happen in the midst of a Sunday Evening event we had been planning with friends, but I had stumbled into a perfect opportunity, and Miss Dawn wasn’t about to waste it. I saw sleepy on the bed Cammie had been using, tranced out and blissful, and Miss Dawn guided me over to the other, telling me to leave my roller bag by the armchair and to slip my shoes off. It did not take long at all for her to bring me down into trance, taking advantage of some shared triggers and connections that Goddess has been helping sleepy and I build between us, and I strongly recommend you read her writeup of how it went down, because it was absolutely wonderful to read it again and feel myself back there once more.

I remember getting very trancey. I remember laying down on the bed. I vaguely remember sitting back up again, but I didn’t really remember how I got into the other bed with sleepy until later. Cuddled up and more than half asleep, we ended up taking a nice nap that would end after Cammie returned to the room to pick up a few things for the evening, and mentioned that Goddess had passed on a community award she had been “given” at the last Charmed to Enscenic. (It was awarded to her at the last Charmed in an online ceremony, but the physical box had to be shipped cross country to her, so we only received it a short time before we left for Maryland!) If I have any regret about my afternoon, it is missing that, but even that was a relatively soft and mild thing considering why I wasn’t there.

Sleepy and I decided to have dinner while Cammie went to Daja’s room, and we had a chance to say goodbye to Scarlett and Emma before they left for the airport, promising to keep in touch. Once they had left, I took what felt like my 20th rapid test of the weekend so that I would be able to unmask for…

The Vampire Salon

Several weeks before the con, Nath, Panda, Daja, Kitty, and some of our other friends who enjoy vampire play (and / or are LARP nerds like me) had decided it would be fun to do a vampire room party on Sunday night as a nice way to end the con.

Sleepy and Goddess had both been invited to participate, but neither felt up to it, and as I waited for Nath to let us know when (or if) she was ready, I have to admit that I had some moments of doubt that the evening would actually happen - and a lingering fear that without Goddess or sleepy there, I would be a fifth wheel, at best.

I knew Daja and Cammie had been planning something special for that night, even being given a heads up that Cammie might be acting “out of character”, and I knew that Nath had plans for Panda and Tigress, too. I did reach out to Panda to see if it might like to try some play, and it was open to the idea depending on what Nath wanted it to do, and that helped settle my nerves a bit before I changed into a white chemise I had shown off prior to the con which had gotten a great deal of approval.

I was looking forward to being a “victim”, so to speak, and when I received the message to come up to Nath’s room, it was like being an iron filing drawn up to a magnet.

Welcomed in by our hostess, she noted her own approval of my outfit, and I was ushered in.

Daja and Cammie arrived shortly after I did, and while I didn’t know the exact nature of what they were doing, it wasn’t too hard to figure out that Daja had essentially taken complete control of Cammie, above and beyond their normal power exchanges.

(I would later learn that with Goddess’ permission, Cammie was, for one night, completely Daja’s, and I am happy they were able to enjoy that!)

Panda would join us soon after in a similar outfit to mine, and Tigress would join us not too long after.

Sitting on one of the room’s bed’s I was not explicitly in trance at first, but it was very easy to just relax into watching Daja showing off with Cammie while Nath shared several lovely stories of her own vampiric escapades, including taking a moment to enrapture Panda to her will.

Then, Nath turned her gaze on me, and as I stared into her eyes she barely needed to say a word to make me feel increasingly fuzzy and enthralled.

I remember a moment she told me that I could just sit and enjoy myself as a docile little pet, and it sparked off of some of Goddess’ programming in the back of my mind. “Docile and tame,” I murmured, and when asked to speak up, I repeated the phrase.

Daja smiled at this, and produced a package of tattoo markers.

I have a thing for body writing, particularly for praise and positivity. It’s often hard for me to see what others appreciate in me, and seeing that in literal black and white on my skin is reassuring and affirming.

“When I write this on your arm,” Daja instructed me, “the words on your skin will be the commands in your mind.”

I felt blissful as she carefully wrote “Docile” and “Tame” on my arm, gazing at the nicely embellished words in gentle delight. “Now,” she ordered, “You’ll wash this off tonight before you go to sleep.” I felt a little sad about that, but agreed. After all, it was an instruction, and I was very good at following instructions.

Nath would slide behind me on the bed, pulling me into a cuddle, and I happily melted into the touch, particularly as she murmured praise and compliments into my ear.

There would be a point where Daja and Cammie needed to step out, but I knew Cammie would take care of her partner, and Panda was also called away. With Nath now happily playing with me and Tigress, I was given the chance to enjoy being fed from in a gentle, tender moment, and I was pleasantly surprised to realize the two of us were developing some rather lovely sparks that I think Nath and I will be exploring more.

Unfortunately, further plans were interrupted when I stood up to use the bathroom, and we realized that there was drying blood on the comforter where I had been sitting. I went to the bathroom to take care of my needs and examined my foot, realizing a set of calluses on my foot had broken open and begun to bleed.

Regretfully, I said my goodnights to Nath and Tigress, then headed back downstairs to the room so I could ask Sleepy to help me clean and bandage my foot before I showered off the markers and began getting ready for bed.

I am happy to say that Nath and Tigress spent more time together that night, and that when Camden returned, she assured us that she had taken care of Daja, leaving us all tired but in good spirits as she and sleepy settled down to sleep together that night, and I did as much packing as I could before bed to prepare for our trip home the next day.

Monday: And Away We Go

I would wake up to the sounds of sleepy finishing her packing so she could meet a local friend for breakfast, and get out to do some sightseeing with them before she would meet us at the airport. I took the opportunity to give her the digital art I had commissioned for her birthday, gave her a kiss on her way out, and grabbed a shower before eating my remaining leftovers and getting myself ready for the drive back to the airport in a couple of hours.

I was able to say goodbye to both Daja and Turq when I entrusted my unsold books to them, which they would take back and then ship to me in Minnesota later, and I did my best to make sure I had repacked by bags to be a bit lighter for the trip home, and hopefully save me some overage fees.

(Spoiler: Nooope. Paid about the same overage fees on the way out as I did coming in. It would seem that the extra rope and baked goods took a toll!)

Because we had Timbit’s seat converted to a pet ticket, we couldn’t check in early for the return trip, and had to handle getting our boarding passes at the Delta counter when we arrived.

Thankfully, aside from having to pay another pet fee (ugh) and my bag fee (ugh) the check in went relatively smoothly, and I was able to make sure everyone had their boarding passes before heading to security.

I was also asked if I could check my roller bag due to the flight being fairly full, so I went ahead, forgetting I had put my noise canceling headphones in the roller bag and not the rope bag that I was now using as a drawstring backpack.

Whoops.

At least I had my phone, wallet, and iPad, and my passport so I could go through pre-check and head down for our gate. I knew I needed some kind of lunch and something to drink, and ended up deciding to hit the Smoothie King right by our gate - and as I did, I ran into Skaetlett, who I had barely been able to see that weekend, Linny, and Camden! There were more hugs and catching up on things each of us had missed, and then we eventually moved down to our gate, where YS, Goddess, Timbit, and Jukebox were waiting, and it wasn’t long before Tigress and Copper joined us as well.

We all got to talk and catch up (while carefully editing some topics for the sake of Younger Spawn’s ears), and it was a really nice way to spend the time before boarding - though I will admit as the time before boarding ticked down, I was increasingly nervous about not hearing from sleepy.

Thankfully she would send us a picture message about 15 minutes before boarding was to start, letting us know she was at the airport and heading for the gate.

Phew.

Even better, her ‘standby’ ticket had been bumped up into the Comfort+ section, meaning Delta would be giving her a bit more comfortable ride home for a birthday present!

Goddess, Timbit, and I pre-boarded, and I made sure all of our tickets were scanned at the gate this time so there would be no confusion over our seats.

The flight itself was…ok, but not great, especially since we had something like five small children around us, and the lack of my ANC headphones meant that I had to find distractions. I ended up watching a few episodes of No Reservations on the in flight TV with subtitles on, but I also capitulated to paying $5 for Wifi so I could have access to the internet for twitter, facebook, and what I jokingly called ‘ADHD’ tax - where I quickly found that sleepy had done the same thing, which I gently teased her about over DIscord as she sat in the lap of moderate luxury. When we finally reached Minneapolis again, we regrouped in baggage claim and made our plans: Copper, Jukebox, Camden, and sleepy would take a lyft back so that sleepy would be able to make a scheduled call with her parents, Cammie could have some decompression time, and Copper would grab my car from the house while Jukebox grabbed the Bolt, and they would come back to MSP to pick us and all the bags up.

Financially this was probably the best call, but I have to admit that by the time they had jumped off, I was tired, hurting, and really just wanted to go back to the house for a bit, have dinner with my family, and go back to my place to unpack.

I would have happily spent another $30-40 on Lyft for that, but I accepted that this would be easier on Goddess, Timbit, and the others, so I did my best to stay comfortable and wait.

Copper would end up taking me, Goddess, and Timbit back, while Tigress, YS, and Jukebox got themselves and most of the bags. We ordered dinner from one of our favorite Chinese restaurants that delivered to the house, including extra orders of potstickers for the birthday girl, and had some good general winding down time together with cuddles, hugs, and kisses goodnight before I got myself home.

Mitch, the friend who had been house and cat sitting for me while I was gone had done an amazing job of cleaning up and organizing a bit while I was away, which I still feel about equal amounts of gratitude and guilt for, and Jet and Rocket both made it clear that I had been missed.

I had taken Tuesday off and really should have gotten my bags in, unpacked enough to sleep, and gone to bed, but let’s just say I got wrapped up in some online discussions (including a lot of mutual ‘I miss you all!’ from people I had been at the con with), and it was a lot closer to 2am than 1am when I finally crawled into bed.

It really was an amazing weekend, and for every plan that fell through I felt like something else ended up happening to make up for it, while I very much accomplished my goal of trying to make more connections and friendships in the community.

I will probably adjust how I do future cons (especially that overcommitting thing!), but I had finally made it to Charmed. I know I will be going back next year, and I cannot wait for June, when I will hopefully get to see many of my friends again

#Charmed 2023 #charmed #con recap #hypnosis #disabilities #vampires #travel

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elvimoon · 1 year

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I think there's a lot to be said of the plants we gravitate to and what plants we become associated with. I have a friend who has some of the coolest cactuses in the northern Midwest. Desert plants that thrive inside a place that gets mountains of snow. I have another friend who loves monsteras and that is the first plant I think of when thinking of her. I know another who grows succulents in recycled beer cans on his kitchen window. A friend in the Keys with a variety of orchids. A coworker who had an aloe aristata on her desk. An old professor who gave me a cutting of purple heart from the hanging planter he had in his office for nearly 40 years. The list goes ever onward.

I really like plants that climb. Vines and trailing plants tend to be my jam, a curtain of trailing green hung over windowsills and book shelves. Which isn’t to say those are the only ones I own. I have a handful of succulents that are successful and I love them. I have other tropical plants that enrich my space: Monstera, Schefflera, Pilea, Fern, and more. Still, I don’t know what plant people would associate me with if they’d have to pick.

Or perhaps that is just how I think of people, by the plants they love.

My mother loved bulbs. In my childhood home she turned our front yard into an English Garden of sorts. We had stone pavers to reach the deeper bits of garden she built during the time she was there and in good health. She planted annuals of every color - vibrant pinks and purples - but also hundreds and hundreds of bulbs. A dense cluster of orange lilies that lined the space next to the garage that stood tall every spring and summer. The same kind that lined the space by the front door, a place of honor as I’m told she had dug up the bulbs from her previous homes every time she moved and transplanted them. (Those bulbs died when I tried the same 15 years after her passing.) There were daffodils that signaled Easter in my memory, lining the path by the drive way. Crocus bulbs by the mailbox and the path between the fence to my neighbor’s house, so that we would see them all the time and know when spring was coming. Tulips - hundreds of them in every color - that were the stars of the spring.

The garden promptly got ripped up the summer after her passing. It was too large, too much upkeep. Too much on the hearts of those left behind. My dad got a landscaper to tame it back. The garden was wrangled to just a decorative perimeter around the house and the boundary was defined with stone. Grass seed was placed and that was that.

That didn’t stop the bulbs.

It became a running joke, “How many could one woman plant before she died?” My mother planted hundreds of tulips alone, as if that were her last mission with her health declining. Every year we would get them growing on the lawn, the ghost of a garden past. Plants that grew seemingly out of spite, as each year the spot they popped up was dug up to remove them at the source. And no matter how many bulbs we removed, more popped up the following year. Tulips bloomed on that yard till the day the house was sold and we had to move.

My mother was superstitious in her plants. I do not remember most of it, too young at the time. But I remember she refused to plant marigolds for some old wives’ tale that they were bad luck around children, a bringer of sadness and misfortune. My mother similarly disliked sunflowers for attracting unwanted attention and for the mess they left (according to an Aunt). She considered snapdragons an ill omen for when the blooms withered, skull looking pods remained. I lean opposite; I plant marigolds wherever I move to because I think the puffy orange blooms bring happiness. (They certainly do to pollinators and I believe that must count for something.) Summer and Fall are not complete to me if I don’t have sunflowers at some point to put in a vase, sticky sap on my fingers from trimming the thick stems. I love snapdragons, full of character - lively and bright - and I find their skull-like husks at the end of their life cycle anything but morbid.

I love gardens and plants in ways my mother did not. And so much of me comes from the tiny window in which I knew her (and I struggle that I didn’t. Not really). I think of my mother and I remember her standing on the front lawn screaming “grow” at freshly planted spring flowers. I think of my mother and I think of green beans kept in a pot with a trellis on the driveway in summer. I think of my mother and I think of her green thumb for plants I’ve yet to figure out. I think of my mother and I think of tulips blooming on green grass outside the boundary of where they’re supposed to be.

#Personal musings #Perhaps a touch personal but it's been on my mind a lot

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xx-vergil-xx · 2 years

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okay so I'm finally reading Hounds and I have to yell at you here, too because

DESIRE

you write them SO GOOD, you write them SO FRIGHTENING, the enormity and deepness and awful ceaselessness of human want! humans want CONSTANTLY! they want sex and they want love and they want violence! this is why I think that Dream and Desire are SO similar because dreams and desires cover the entire breadth of human emotion, the good and the bad! except Dream responded by repressing so hard he turned into a black hole and Desire responded by going fucking insane!!!

(also, on a more serious note -- how far into Hounds did you get when plot hit you? and was it something like that you just kinda realized you were writing it and it was going somewhere, or did you have a concrete idea that came to you? always interested in other writing processes, because i tend to start writing something for the ~aesthetic~ and then I'll have a plot that'll smack me in the head and I have to go back and redo stuff lol)

hello hello!!! first off, as a devoted patron of ur absurdly good work it’s an honor and a delight hello comrade in arms <3 <3 <3

thank u so much!!! writing desire was just so unbelievably fun bc it’s characters like that that are so fuckin maxed out knobs-turned-to-11 insane where for myself, as primarily a poet with a fondness for Strange and Off-Putting Language, i can just go crazy go stupid ya know? i fully agree with your desire and dream similarity thesis i really think that they hate each other because they are so similar that it drives them both up the wall — dream reviles desires indulgence and desire thinks dream has a major stick up his ass but deep down they’re two sides of the same lunatic coin, they’re batshit when it comes to any and all emotions (and dream’s repression continually bites him in the ass because his emotions get so compressed he inevitably spills over and lashes out — my favorite example being nada getting cast into hell like he’s so overcome with embarrassment and almost shame at rejection and also grief at what he’s done to her that it makes him act like a Major Fucking Asshole because he loses control anyway sidebar sidebar). i love desire and if i can work their voice back into the fic at a later point god knows i will because it was a joy to write them (on par with the corinthian who has been my FAVORITE voice so far ugh my blonde bastard beloved <3)

i too started with a Vibe Only — it was about half a chapter in my notes that was hob in a nightclub in berlin seeing someone who looked like dream (i think that became ch 3) and a chunk abt dream where i was trying to conceptualize how imprisonment in a body would work for a very non-corporeal being who can’t die, mostly as an experiment in body horror — hounds emerged from these little scraps and the plot has come along in organic fits and starts. not sure where ur at in ur read (holy shit i never imagined it would be as long as it is now) but little arcs sorta developed for me one after the other — the rescue trope first bc i am a sucker, then corinthian arc, and now this current one, and it’s sort of a ridiculous stroke of luck that they’ve all escalated on each other enough to form a coherent and rising plot that actually is leading up to the moment i’ve been beating my head against the wall abt for the last two days (thanks to @aberfaeth for her infinite wisdom and feedback and also giving me a god tier concept that i’m stealing to use). that’s often my typical process, i tend to go very organic, but i’ve never done it with something this long and i’m shocked it’s still functioning. hopefully this gift from the muses and the spirit of hob gadling continues onward as i desperately attempt to figure out how this is gonna resolve!

thank you a thousand times over for reading! <3

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tadpolesonalgae · 1 day

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is azriel ever going to regret the things he said/did and try to make it up for it because after reading some of your answers i'm really close to giving up on him 😭 like how is he the endgame but still... the way he is??? at this point reader is better off alone in my personal opinion because he literally showed no improvement whatsoever, he just keeps driving her away from him and he's not even aware of it in the slightest

like he still thinks "why does she feel scared? why does she feel like she can't talk to anyone?" idk man you tell me, is the spymaster title just there as an accessory omfg HE'S SO FRUSTRATING

i totally trust you but idk if i can view azriel as a love interest after everything because i feel like there's no hope for him i'm sorry

i'm really curious how he's going to develop romantic feelings for her because it feels impossible with the way he is right now, he needs to open his eyes and understand her situation first before anything

Oh my gosh there’s so much I want to tell you but I can’t 😭😭😭

If it’s any consolation, I’ve been viewing cbmthy in roughly two parts (I suppose it’s technically three but 🤐), chapters 1 to 15 being the first part, 16 to probably 18 maybe 19 as a transition section, then 20 onwards as the ‘recovery’/‘live life to the fullest’ part so it makes sense that you’re feeling that way about Azriel still? I am, obviously, nervous to get onto the ‘recovery’ (emotional recovery, that is, for all the stuff that’s happened) section of the story since if part one of cbmthy has been her and Azriel (and the rest of the IC) growing apart, then part two should be about the gap being bridged? But I don’t want to give anyone false hope that it’s going to suddenly turn into sunshine and rainbows, I think there’ll probably always be an undercurrent of angst until the last chapter or two but just hopefully not in a way you can guess 😭😭😭 I’m scarred from some of you guessing the plot points in future chapters 😭

#anons <3 #cbmthy

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angry-slytherin · 3 years

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We Really Like Fluff

a totally incomplete guide to dousy fan fictions that are a must:

according to me, anyway

no idea where to start? looking for a fic you read a year ago? I’ve got you.

help me find the tumblrs of those not tagged (if they have one)!

all we do is drive. (romantashas) @romantashas

Daisy has missed the open road. She used to always love taking her van out and just driving. Los Angeles was where she liked to stick around, but she would always go on these road trips just because she wanted to explore somewhere new.

She's always liked running away from things.

It was different, having someone with her.

In which Daisy Johnson helps Daniel Sousa explore the modern world by taking him on a cross-country road trip in a van. Post-Finale road trip AU with MCU tie-ins.

the first beloved fic by this fandom. completed in august 2020, it strays from canon somewhat at S7E11, but the characterization makes you forget that anything is different at all. truly a masterpiece, and definitely a must-read.

6/17/55 (lazyfish)

6/17/55.

She never thought it would mean 1955.

(Spoilers up to 7.06.)

one shot. soulmate au. beautifully written. it’s only just under 2k words but one of the most popular fan fictions under the tag on ao3. absolutely adorable and you’ll feel your heart flutter for them.

One Year Later (marvelsquake) @marvelsquake

Set right after the series finale's 'one year later' part where Daisy stares into space with Sousa and Kora.

Inspired by the 'anatomy analysis' bit Jemma says to Daisy.

there are so many amazing “anatomy analysis” fics out there. that is one of those “if you know, you know” things;) this one is really thoroughly written, and marvelsquake took their time to make every detail perfect. really, just excellent.

Stay (SteeleHoltingOn) @steeleholtingon

Not everyone knew she could feel heartbeats. Sousa’s sped up every time he looked her way.

His reaction wasn’t particularly unusual, and Daisy was an expert at fending off unwanted advances. But that was just it: Sousa hadn’t actually made any advances, and if he did, Daisy wasn’t sure she’d ward them off.

Her heartbeat, it seemed, liked to match tempo with his.

this one needs little introduction. it has been recced(??) to death, and rightfully so!!! the author is this incredible genius and I love them for giving this to us. it’s over 150k words, so be ready to commit some much deserved time to this excellent character study on both Daisy and Daniel.

Feel Good(I Like It) (enigmaforum)

It's not the the first time she’s felt something for someone since Lincoln but it’s the first time she felt like it had the possibility to actually turn into something. Something Good.

I’ve always loved the title of this fic, but that’s besides the point. enigmaforum is a very talented writer who does plot AND characterization like a pro. definitely an A+ in terms of quality. also part of a series with some other excellent works!

Exposure (agentquakingskye) @blcssqvake on instagram

Dying in a half-second blast of radiation wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be.

Dying all over again, slowly, because of that half-second of radiation?

That was worse.

okay I lied. we also love angst and this work is angst central. it’s a cancer AU following the finale, but it’s just as happy as it as sad. prepare your tissues, but also prepare for some seriously good writing.

A Week After Death (manoutoftimeandquake) @puddle-of-awesomeness

An explosion in an alien junkyard sends Daisy, Sousa and Kora back in time to meet some people from Sousa's past.

the astro ambassadors sent back in time to meet the AC cast(essentially). such a fun, action-packed, hilarious work. such a classic. go read it now!!

Where I Need To Be (JennaPotter)

This is set from Episode 7x03 onwards and follows the story of Daisy Johnson and Daniel Sousa, and how their relationship has been developing throughout this amazing season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.! This story mostly follows canon but is interspersed with missing moments between Daisy and Sousa that I imagine could have happened off-screen.

almost 200k words of absolute beauty. it’s incredibly detailed and excellently written. it’s like reading a published novel!! but with dousy!!

you’ve got that power(over me) (romantashas) @romantashas

"It's you," Daniel whispers. He's in awe, looking at Quake. She steps back away from him. "Let me help you," he says, reaching out toward her injured arm slowly.

Daniel only gets a moment more to admire her glowing eyes and her purple hair before she turns and runs away, her hand slipping out of his.

In which the superheroes of the Marvelverse actually try to keep their identities a secret and Daniel Sousa is determined to figure out who is behind the mysterious Quake mask. Superhero AU with MCU tie-ins.

yet another classic(I’m definitely misusing that word… it’s deserved by these authors) work by romantashas. the description gives the gist of it, but it’s one of the best dousy AUs out there.

get ready for the shameless self promo…

Your Heartbeat On The Highline(Once In Twenty Lifetimes) (doctorsimmonswilson) @angry-slytherin

He’s a man out of time and she’s an orphaned superhero. They’ve just got to figure out what to do next, after the mission is over.

[aka Daisy and Daniel’s story post finale]

welp… I included my own story. honestly it’s because it is one of the most popular in the tag(I’m sifting through too kudos and top hits). I’m really super proud of it, so read it if you’d like. it’s canon compliant (and extremely fluffy for the most part:)

somebody hurt you(but you’re here by my side) (agentmmayy) @agentmmayy

Daniel doesn't leave Daisy's side, even when she's out of the healing chamber.

very popular, and for good reason. such a sweet, nice fic. I very much enjoyed it and it’s a quicker read than most on this list!

and here’s to the question marks

aka: unfinished works that are beautiful and deserve your attention

want you(to unravel me) (IzzieBee)

Daisy never wanted to be rescued, by anyone. She never wanted to owe someone that debt, but especially not to a handsome WWII Vet, traveling through time. Daniel, who was brave and decent, and kind of funny, and who she could easily depend on, which was way too dangerous to consider.

Daisy really wasn't ready for Daniel Sousa.

sexy, fun, well-written… what more could we ask for? it’s missing the last chapter, but the brunt of the story is there, and it’s satisfying either way.

A Truth Stranger Than Fiction (wordsmithraven)

Daniel Sousa was having the worst day of his life...and he’d lived through a war. Service had always been something he’d understood. Honor. Sacrifice. Duty. He’d just never thought his journey would mean leaving everything he loved behind.

a lot of daisy and daniel getting to know one another… a little bit of season 7 adventure… a whole bunch of fun.

Loving The Journey Together (manoutoftimeandquake) @puddle-of-awesomeness

Moments in the lives of Daisy and Sousa (and Kora) after the end of the team's final mission.

this one is a WIP(being updated currently). manoutoftimeandquake has some amazing snippets/slices of life waiting for you in that work!

it’s in the subtext (eggsaladstain)

Snippets of the relationship between Daisy Johnson and Daniel Sousa through the words they said and the ones they didn’t.

SO. FREAKING. GOOD. just go read it, okay?

and finally, some links to some authors who’ve written a bunch of amazing stuff.

romantashas

manoutoftimeandquake

enigmaforum

@hecckyeah

lazyfish

hereforthephilindafics

dearemma

seriously, there’s so many more amazing fics in this tag. I didn’t have the energy to include all 800+. these are just some that are most popular and/or deserve your attention.

thank you for taking the time to read through all of this! I hope you’ve found some things to bookmark(or binge-read;)

#dousy #agents of shield #the dousy fic rec post #daisy johnson #daniel sousa #aos fandom

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hanniiesuckle17 · 3 years

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Ateez Reaction: Going Clubbing with S/o

A/n: so this was requested based off my reaction for SKZ which you can find on my m.list at the bottom of the reaction! i hope you guys enjoy it! <3

Requested by: @sleepyhead00i

Warnings: suggestive, of age drinking, maybe a cuss or two

Hongjoong:

“I’m picking you up in ten mintues right?” Hongjoong asked for the fifth time over the phone. The device was laying on your bathroom counter, your boyfriend talking on speaker phone as you finished applying your makeup up. You smiled at how cute he was, brushing setting powder away from your cheeks.

“Joong, baby...honey..., yes. Come early if you want. Just chill. It’s just a night out!”

He sighed before agreeing with you and hanging up the phone. Hongjoong wasn’t the only one with a busy schedule. He was busy being the leader, producer, and composer for one of the biggest up-and-coming k-pop groups of the current generation. You were busy with college and a part-time job that was having you work almost thirty to forty hours a week.

Your boyfriend was a planner. Never before in his life had he been one to schedule things or even make long term plans for his future. Then you came along and all he could think about was making time for you. Any time he spent with you, he wanted to be perfect. Hongjoong wanted to give you only the best.

By the time the two of you got to the club it was already packed. Your hand was laced with his as he guided you through the lavishly decorated room. “They’ve got amazing bottle service!” Hongjoong shouted over the music. “Do you want to get a table?” He smiled as you nodded and flagged down a waitress. She reserved a VIP booth for the two of you and grinned as you pulled Hongjoong to the dance floor.

“Do you like the music? I looked up this DJ. He’s really good. He only plays for like the top nightclubs in Seoul-”

“Joong,”

“What?”

Sliding your hands up his chest, you felt him shiver. Your fingers played with his dyed hair and you watched his eyes sparkle underneath the flashing colored lights and lasers. The many piercings in his ears glinted, catching the glare of gobos. “Relax, baby.”

“I just want everything to be perfect. I want you to love tonight.”

Your heart fluttered at his words, but you continued to move to the beat. His eyes never left yours even as you guided him away from the dance floor and back to the booth. His dark mesmerizing eyes watched as you pushed him down onto the seat, lips curling up into a smile. As you leaned over him, Hongjoong pulled you down onto his lap, smirking as you played with the straps of his suspenders before snapping one of them on his chest lightly.

Finally, almost when you thought he would stop breathing, you pressed your lips against his, dragging them slowly together. His hands gripped your hips, moving them over his own, lost in the solitude of your own private nook. “Just keep doing this and I’ll love every second of tonight,” You whispered against your boyfriend’s grinning lips. You laughed feeling him flip you over to lie on the plush velvet booth. Even in the dark corner, his smile glowed.

“You drive me crazy, Y/n.”

Seonghwa:

Clubbing never really appealed to Seonghwa. Dancing and public events were part of his job on a daily basis so he didn’t really see the point of waiting in line just to do that in his free time. But, when he heard how much you wanted to spend the night at an up and coming nightclub, he figured he could put aside his opinions just for you. He also wasn’t complaining when he saw the dress you were wearing out.

Arm wrapped tightly around your waist the two of you entered the club, lasers and colorful lights flashing all around the space. Seonghwa nodded his head to the music as you both stood waiting to check your coats. The second an attendant took your jackets you grabbed your boyfriend by the wrist and practically dragged him onto the dance floor.

“Don’t tear my arm off, babe!” He laughed.

The grin quickly turned to a smirk feeling you pressed up against him, moving to the music. “Still feel like going to the club isn’t fun?” His long hands attached themselves to your waist, tugging your back to be flush to his chest. Seonghwa’s hips moved to the thumping rhythm with yours and his head dropped to your neck, hair tickling your cheek in the most enchanting way. “Well, look at you, Toothless.”

“Yes, look at me,” He whispered for only you to hear.

Turning your head your lips met his in a kiss that made you feel drunk. Pulling away, the two of you smiled and danced with each other, savoring the moments when even you were surrounded by so many other bodies it only felt like just you and your boyfriend.

Hours later you were sitting on the sidewalk, head feeling too heavy for your neck to hold up. You giggled to yourself at how funny your feet looked in the strappy heels you put on for the night. Sitting under the street light you stared at the ground and your silly looking toes. Another pair of shoes came into sigh and the person attached crouched down in front of you.

A happy smile appeared on your lips seeing Seonghwa looking down at you. His own cheeks were slightly pink for the few drinks he had. “Drink this, muffin.” Your boyfriend handed you some bottle of something he got from the convenience store across the street. After drinking it, he gently lifted you up and maneuvered you onto his back. “Time to go home, Y/n.” You only giggled, pressing a sloppy drunk kiss to his cheek.

“Onward my valiant steed!”

Seonghwa, tipsy himself, neighed like a horse and carried you to the nearest bus stop he could find. The two of you giggled and poked each other until the public transport arrived to take you both home.

Yunho:

Yunho was practically bouncing as the two of you waited in line. He was so excited. This all started when your boyfriend invited over one of the backup dancers he was close to. You had no problem with Yunho bringing friends over to your shared apartment. He could bring whoever he wanted as long as th eplace was clean and he texted you.

But, the dancer would not stop going on about a new club that opened up in Hongdae. Normally when Yunho got excited about something he would be obsessed with it for about a week and then never thought about it again.

You had been to this club not once, not twice, not thrice, but five times in the past three weeks. By this time the owner knew you and was saving a booth for you when you came. The bartenders knew you by name and what your usual drink orders.

Despite the chilly air your boyfriend jumped up and down in excitement as the line moved forward. “Y/n! Y/n! Look! We’re almost inside!” Yunho grabbed your hands, swinging them as he bounced.

“Bear, are you sure you aren’t tired of going clubbing?”

He tilted his head in response to your words. “What? No. I love it! Don’t you, baby?” His lips pouted and your tall boyfriend hunched his shoulders. Quickly you shook your head.

“Of course, bear! I just want to make sure you love it still!” You rubbed your arms feeling a particularly cold wind blow by. Seeing you shiver, Yunho shed his jacket and placed it around your shoulders, pulling up the collar to block the wind.

“Good.” The tall idol leaned down, placing a kiss on your forehead. “Let’s get inside.”

Showing the bouncer your IDs, the two of you entered the club immersing yourselves in music that sent vibrations all throughout your body. “Get me a drink?” You asked, dropping off your stuff at a secluded booth. Yunho nodded and disappeared into the crowd towards the bar.

He was only gone a few moments before you heard, “DRINKS ON ME EVERYBODY!” The familiar sound of your boyfriend’s voice floated over the crowd of people cheering at the opporunity of a free drink. Shaking your head you waited for your big loveable bear to return. He appeared with two drinks in hand, a big smile on his face, and a wiggle in his hips. The vision couldn’t help but make you laugh. “Your beverage, my lady,” He bowed before handing you the martini.

After finishing your drinks, your boyfriend pulled you onto the dance floor. He held you tight and made sure to show off his moves. By the time you left the dance floor, the both of you were covered in sweat with big grins and definitely a little tipsy. However, it didn’t matter. You loved seeing how happy Yunho was dancing and freestyling to songs that he wouldn't even remember the next morning. As long as it made him happy, you would keep doing it.

Yeosang:

The second you walked into the club Yeosang made a beeline for the booth and flagged down the nearest waiter. Wooyoung just shrugged and dragged you onto the dance floor. The next time you looked over Yeosang was surrounded by at least two orders of chicken and one burger. Each had bites already taken and your boyfriend was happily chewing on a drumstick.

He saw you looking at him and waved to you before returning his attention to the piece of fried poltry. You sighed but continued dancing with Wooyoung. Maybe you were crazy, but when you suggested going clubbing to Yeosang, you didn’t think you would end up dancing with his dongsaeng while he pigged out on good bar food. You had dressed up for fucks sake! You made sure you looked like a hot ass bitch and Yeosang was more interested in a chicken leg.

Wooyoung made sure you were happy. He danced with you. Blocked off weird guys from getting to close. Even held your drink when you went to the bathroom. Wooyoung was acting more like your boyfriend than Yeosang was!

Two hours passed and you finally decided to confront him. Wooyoung trailed behind you like a puppy as you approached the booth that housed your boyfriend. Shockingly, the table was now filled with not only another basket of chicken but also quite the assortment of drinks, none of which had been touched. “Kang Yeosang!” You scolded, hands on your hips. He looked up at you, handsome face looking even better under the purple and blue lights. “Why am I dancing alone?”

He shrugged. “Babe, you aren’t alone. Wooyoung’s here. That’s why I asked him.” He said motioning to his friend. The boy awkwardly waved before sitting down and taking one of the untouched cocktails.

“Where did all these come from?” You asked, getting frustrated.

“I don’t know. The bartender keeps sending them.” Yeosang continued to eat chicken until the bone was clean. “Says they are free though, so take one.”

You scoffed, tongue prodding at the inside of your cheek in annoyance. Looking around the venue, you were met with many pairs of eyes belonging to beautiful scantily dressed girls and a few men who were all staring at your boyfriend. Your boyfriend- of course- was staring at the perfectly fried chicken leg in his hands.

Taking the nearest blue colored drink, you downed it in one go then slammed the glass on the table. Woyoung jumped at the sound. Before Yeosang could take a bite of the new piece between his fingers, you pulled him up by his collar smashing your lips against his. Hearing a slight thunk you assumed he had dropped his precious drumstick. Regardless, he kissed you back with a fiery passion running his fingers threw your hair.

“You’re dancing with me.”

“Okay.” Eyeing every person staring at your boyfriend you took his hand and pulled him onto the dance floor, but not before he managed to sneak another piece of chicken with him. “You have what you want now, kitten?” He asked dancing with you, one hand creeping towards your ass and the other holding his fried chicken.

“I’ll take what I can get,”

San:

“San......SAN!”

“Yes, what?”

Your boyfriend was walking down the street with you, excited and bouncing as the both of you made your way to a club a lot of idols went to. This was no time for excitement. Not for you anyway. You and San had only been dating a few months. It wasn’t that you were shy...it was just that San was very territorial. Out of all seven of his bandmates you had only met two.

Hongjoong you had met unfortunately after he walked in on you and San when your horndog boyfriend thought the dorms were empty for the day. You were still trying to get over the embarassment of looking that man in the eyes and not remembering he had seen you naked already. Wooyoung you had also met, with clothes on (Thank the fucking lord). Him being San’s best friend it didn’t make sense for you not to meet.

“What if they don’t like me?” You questioned. There was only a block standing between you and the club. “What if they hate me, San?” He stopped and turned to look at you, eyes softening.

Walking back, San took your hands in his. “Y/n. You’re mine. Therefore, they will love you.” Taking a deep breath you let San pull you the rest of the way and into the nightclub. San was like an anchoring, keeping you tethered and focused as you maneuvered to the back of the venue. As you approached a view of seven extremely handsome men were all seated in a round velvet booth. “Guys, meet Y/n- the most attractive person on the planet besides me.”

All the boys were very kind, getting up and greeting you warmly. Hongjoong hugged you, and Wooyoung tackled you. “You’re pretty.” A willowy man stated matter of factly.

San nodded, hand on the small of your back. “That Yeosang. Yunho made sure he had a couple drinks before you met so it’d be easier on you.” You nodded in understanding, mouth shaping into an ‘O’. After a few minutes of awkward conversation all seven idols dragged you out onto the dance floor.

Dancing with seven men who did it professionally was definitely an experience you were not going to get used to. The entire club watched the tree you remembered as Yunho freestyle in the middle of an open circle that had formed at one point.

Throughout the whole night San stayed by your side. His hands were almost always on your ass, but he was by your side. You got surprisingly close with Seonghwa, dancing and talking with him most of the night. The other boys were very welcoming, pulling you into dance with them, twirling you around and jumping around you when a particularly good song came on.

San and Wooyoung at one point during the night bribed the DJ to play one of their songs and the boys were shocked to see you doing the choreography along with them. You could see in your boyfriend’s face that this was what he had planned all along.

He knew that if he kept both him and you sober and brought you to a neutral environment to meet with the boys, you would get along. He probably saw it in a video about introducing a new pet to your other ones knowing San. Around three am you were helping Seonghwa and Hongjoong stuff a drunk Yeosang and Mingi into the group’s van.

After saying goodbye, San took your hand as you walked to the nearest subway station. “See that wasn’t so bad. They loved you!”

“Next time don’t treat us like cats, babe.” Your boyfriend laughed swinging your hands back and forth. “I’m hungry. You want to get some food?” You asked, seeing a pizza place across the street still open

“Fuck yes. I’m starving.”

Mingi:

Your best friend just got dumped by her boyfriend and you knew only one way to distract her. So, you gathered up you other two best girl friends and Mingi then dragged them to the club with the most attractive guys and strongest alcohol you could find. F/n whipped her hair around as the four of you jumped around on the dance floor. Three shots of tequila and one strong cocktail made you at least think you were the greatest dancer in the entire club.

Deciding you needed a break from a very creepy guy trying to grind on you, you manuevered and wiggled your way off the dance floor. Your eyes landed on the tall glass of water that was your boyfriend, who sat at the bar. With a tipsy gait you walked over and draped yourself over his shoulder.

“Hi, baby!” You greeted, sloppily kissing his cheek.

Despite your slightly drunk antics, Mingi smiled holding onto your arms that tightly hugged his shoulders. “You look like you’re having fun.” He laughed as you hiccuped in response. “Wow...you’re cute.”

Blushing from both the drinks and your boyfriend’s words, you held onto his large hands. “Thank you for being our driver tonight, Mingi.” He smiled and handed you the glass of water he was drinking from. His long fingers pushed the bottom of the cup to tilt towards your lips.

“Of course. In fact the only reason I got my driver’s license was so I could watch creepy horny guys hit on my girlfriend and then drive her and her friends home.” As if the universe wanted to make a joke, the bar tender approached with a cosmopolitan in hand.

“For the lady, from the guy at the end of the bar.”

Mingi’s sarcastic grin quickly turned into a scowl as the both of you turned to look at the sleezy but semi attractive man who was waving at you. Your boyfriend wasn’t one to get angry, but when he did he was scary. Mingi’s eyes darkened and his long arms wrapped around your waist protectively as if to claim you as his own.

Smirking, you picked the vessel up by the rim and took a sip of the drink before grabbing your boyfriend by the jaw and smashing your lips on his, still holding the gifted cocktail. Standing between Mingi’s long legs you dragged your teeth over his bottom lip. “I think he knows you’re mine.”

“Just cause you’re driving doesn’t mean you can’t dance with me.” Mingi laughed as you pulled him from his seat.

“I thought this was a ‘Girls-Hate-All-Guys-Except-For-The-Random-One-F/n-Goes-Home-With-Night’?”

You shrugged, lacing your fingers with his. Surpringly, your friends greeted him excitedly. Mingi started dancing with you, enjoying the knowledge that every guy who looked at you that night was jealous you chose him to grind on. At the end of the night Mingi drove you and your friends back safely and put you to bed in your shared apartment. He kissed your forehead before climbing into bed next you. You were so thankful to have a kind and patient boyfriend willing to put up with not only drunk you, but also your drunk, sad, crazy friends.

Wooyoung:

Sweat dripped off your forehead. Between Wooyoung’s hands on your body and the music thumping and vibrating through the floor and up into your bones you couldn’t help but feel like you were floating. Not only was your boyfriend one hell of a dancer on stage, but moving with him on the floor of this club that you couldn’t even remember the name of was a thrill you wouldn’t trade for anything.

“I'm thirsty,” You whispered into his ear, lips brushing his skin.

“Oh are you?” A smirk played at his lips, fingers holding tighter onto your hips.

You rolled your eyes, still presssing against your boyfriend. “Liquid thirsty. Not you thirsty.” Lauging, Woouyoung took your hand in his and brought you to the bar for yet another drink. It had only been an hour and the both of you were a little more than tipsy. “Sidecar please, babe.” He nodded, flagging down a bartender all the while his hand stayed firmly gripping onto your ass.

“One sidecar and four tequila shots please.”

“Four?” You asked, pulling on his shirt sleeve. Wooyoung nodded like it was the most clear and obvious knowledge in the world. “I have a feeling I’m going to be carrying you home.” He just laughed and turned back to the bar.

Two hours later and your feeling was turning out to be correct. There was nothing you could do but stare as your boyfriend danced like a stripper ontop of the bar. At first it was funny. Then you stopped laughing when Wooyoung started unbuttoning his shirt. “Babe, get down!” You shouted over the cheers and music. He couldn’t hear you. He was way too drunk and having way too much fun.

“I am Jung Wooyoung! I am a sex machine! And that person,” He pointed to you, eyes clearly not focusing well. “THAT ASS IS MINE!”

Before you could respond, two very big men in black shirts lumbered through the crowd. Now it was your turn to laugh as the two buff bouncers grabbed Wooyoung by the arms, one struggling to get your boyfriend’s shirt back on, and lifted him off the bar. “Who does this hooligan belong to?”

You raised your hand, squeezing through the pack of young people. “Me. He belongs to me! I’ll take the hooligan.” Despite claiming your overly intoxicated boyfriend, the bouncers carried him outside, you trailing behind.

Wooyoung’s feet wobbly reached the ground and he stumbled onto the street. “Y/n? Y/n where are youuuu?” He said giggling. “Love of my liiiiiifffeeeee!” The bouncers shook their heads before turning to you with serious faces.

“Yeah, he’s not allowed back here.”

“Noted.”

“Y/NNNNNNNNNNNNN! BAAABBBYYYY!”

Turning, you saw the idol once again free of his shirt and hugging a street sign. “Babe, babe- that’s not me. I’m over here.” Taking his arm and pulling it over your shoulder you started walking away from the club. “Wow, you are way heavier than I thought.”

“DON’T FAT SHAME ME!”

“Woo- please don’t yell.” No response came from the man you were carrying. Turning you saw him completely pass out on your shoulder. “There’s never a middle ground with him is there?” You mumbled, dragging your unconscious and heavy boyfriend to the nearest bus stop.

“Stop calling me fat, you jerk.”

“I- I didn’t- Just go back to fucking sleep.”

Jongho:

Jongho was not excited. This was the last place he wanted to be. He watched you happily walk in front of him with Mingi and Yunho. Jongho wasn’t the jealous type and he knew you loved his friends. Mingi was already a little drunk so your boyfriend watched as the other tall man and you attempted to keep him from stumbling, laughing the entire way.

Your group was currently walking from the first club to the second. The boys had gotten an entire weekend off and Yunho had proposed the amazing idea- only to you and Mingi- of going club crawling. Even though he would rather being doing practically anything else, Jongho tagged along because you were so excited.

As you entered the second venue you were greeted by what Jongho sweared was the exact same song the first club was playing when you left. You squealed, hugging onto your boyfriend as he and your friends squeezed your way to the bar. While your boyfriend was never one for PDA, he kept a hand on you at all times, gently letting everyone in the building know that you were off limits.

“LET’S SHAKE OUR BUTTS!” Mingi shouted, throwing you over his tall shoulder and running off with you to the dance floor. You waved to your boyfriend who stayed seated at the bar. “WOOOOOOO!” Your friend cheered, putting you down and immeditaley spinning you around.

Yunho tapped Jongho’s shoulder. The younger turned before being handed a beer. “If you aren’t going to dance you should at least loosen up. Tonight is supposed to be fun. For everybody.” Yunho tried to coax him onto the dance floor but failed, leaving Jongho at the bar taking tiny baby sips of the drink.

Everytime you looked to the bar, you were met with your boyfriend’s eyes staring back at you. He would give you a small smile, one that made you feel like a total bitch for leaving him by himself. Having enough, you walked away from your dancing bafoons and towards the handsome man waiting for you at the bar.

“You want a drink?” He asked, hand finding your waist once more. Nodding, you rested your head on his firm chest, breathing in his smell. You were drunk enough to get away with being clingy but sober enough to remember that the only reason your boyfriend was here was for you. “One manhatten for the lady please,” Jongho said to the bartender.

You were quickly passed your drink, pecking your boyfriend’s lips as a thank you. The drink left a pleasurable burn as it slid down your throat. “Darling, I’ve gotta go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back. Hold my drink?”

“Of course.” He kissed your cheek and covered your glass with his hand when you set it on the bartop.

When you returned he was still protecting the glass like it was his singular purpose in life. He practically looked like a dragon, ready to bite off the head of anyone who even came near it. He even glared at you when your hand touched his shoulder, but his gaze quickly softened eyes turning into that of a puppy.

The two of you talked and finished your drinks. Yunho and Mingi were still in full control of the dance floor when you checked. Suddenly you got an idea. Leaning over so only Jongho could hear, you whispered a large incentive he might receive when the two of you got home.

“Well come on, Y/n! Let’s dance!” He cheered, pulling you with him towards his friends, dancing along the way.

Masterlist

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thelovelyghostwriter · 3 years

Text

Ranking the HxH guys in my Simping Tier: Countdown

Note: This is just for fun and lame-ass humour. You are free to like anyone in hxh and this tier doesn’t reflect how great the character is. It’s just a ranking based on how much I simp for them.

14. Meruem

Okay. There’s a reason why Meruem is at the last list. He’s an ant. He’s not even fully human FML. Can’t believe people wanna fuck this teenaged mutant ninja ant. Can’t even say those people are a furry because this ant has no fur. It’s a no for me.

13. Illumi

The Illumi simps are gonna hack me for having him too low. I find him cute and has really nice hair that can be for shampoo ads... but his eyes... it covers 70% of his face. It’s guppy eyes. It’s like he wore those coloured contact lenses that enlarges the eyes.

12. Shalnark

OKay. Shalnark is cute. He’s really one of the most good looking guys in the series. However, I don’t know why but his personality is kinda “ehh”. He’s a little psycho who controls people with his phone, but somehow his personality is overshadowed by a lot of extreme characters with Hisoka. Also, I try not to get too attached to him because of what happens in the current arc.

11. Kite

Okay. This is weird but... I find Kite more attracted when he’s a red-headed female ant right now. Okay. I know I went all like “MERUEM ISNT EVEN HUMAN” but female Kite LOOKS human. She has freckles and all that. It’s real cute. But I’d say he’s a little lower because he doesn’t really have that “oomph” personality so-

10. Pariston

Now, talk about a character with FABULOUS presentation of himself. Pariston shows himself off with extravagance. NOW, that’s a personality. He’s like one of those celebs that are just so extra like Lady Gaga that it’s amazing. I know he’s underrated in the simping world, but he’s essentially kinda like Hisoka (who has a big simping fandom), only he prefers to play with people’s minds rather than fight people.

9. Tserriednich

You might be wondering, why the fuck is he here? Okay, first of all, he reminds me of Hannibal who is by the way, charming. And yes I mean it in the Mads Mikkelsen AND the Anthony Hopkins way. Makes me wanna his Clarice but I’d rather have Theta have that spot. Secondly, he’s a prince so being his bride is literally a dream come true. Thirdly, yeh, Tserriednich is actually very handsome. Nice blond hair and that facial beard.

8. Gon

He’s quite low on the tier because I had always seen him as a cute green mini-Ging. Personality-wise, he’s really sweet and I can see a lot of girls liking him because he knows how to treat women respectfully. He can even handle the crazy ones like Palm. His alpha side came out during the Chimera Ant arc and his adult form is hella attractive.

Jokes aside, this character is really amazing as an MC. It’s sad that he gets overshadowed but I believe he’s a pretty unique shounen MC because most of the time, a shounen MC doesn’t kill or has a pretty much black-and-white morality. Gon Freecss breaks that stereotype and he’s truly appreciated.

7. Leorio

Listen to me. This man is supposed to be the type of man you’re supposed to marry. Doctor, loyal, caring and funny. This man is the total package. I think the reason why he’s a little lower in my simp tier is because well... he’s the type of guy that I will go for in reality. In fiction, that’s where all my crushes for crazy guys should be. My simp tier is based on my heart, not brain.

6. Killua

Okay. I was down bad for Killua when I was younger. DOWN BAD. So down bad that it was scary. I sort of got over him now. But what can you do? Killua is simped by a lot of teenaged girls or women who had a crush on him since the beginning of time. He’s fiercely loyal, has white hair and pretty blue eyes, is a fun mixture of mischief and seriousness. He’s the type of guy you can count on to get out of trouble and one to always treasure you. I do think that if I ever meet Killua though, that he’d bully me to oblivion.

Okay, we’re at the top 5. From here onwards, some real NSFW simping words.

5. Hisoka

I kinda do understand Hisoka stans, but at the same time, I do not get them. Like him or not, he’s a very flamboyant character. He stands out of the crowd and he just have that unexplained charisma.

He’s actually a really well-written character. He’s the balancing factor in the narrative of HxH. He’s like the joker in the deck of cards. Back to my simp tier, he’s very attractive ESPECIALLY with his hair down. There’s a certain aura that is addictive about him that I can’t pin-point. And for that, he earns my top 5 spot.

4. Feitan

I swear. This simping phenomenon actually manifested from Hiei. Yes, Feitan’s character blueprint, Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho. (The real OGs will know that Hiei is the character blueprint, not Levi). I know a lot of people compare him to Levi but let me explain why Levi and Feitan are alike: it’s because their character blueprint is Hiei.

Anyway, Hiei is HOT. And to me, the hxh equivalent is Feitan, with a huge addition of sadism and emo-ness. Okay, that makes it even hotter.

I have read some Feitan/Reader on AO3 and BOI. I enjoyed reading certain stuff that I never thought I would enjoy. I read a fic about Reader-chan getting whipped and basically all sorts of BDSM and OMG it’s heaven.

“They say all good boys go to heaven, but bad boys bring heaven to you”

3. Chrollo

At first, I didn’t really care about Chrollo until he wore that tuxedo and let his hair down (Is it just me or a lot of hxh boys look good with their hair down?). HE LOOKS SO GODLY HOLY FUCK.

I’m 100% sure that his character blueprint for the hair-down is Koenma. He also gives me Tuxedo Mask vibes. Overall, such chivalry and handsomeness all in one man. Not to mention, that sexy sexy voice when he recites his fortune-telling. I would say he has the sexiest voice among all hxh guys. He is just that HOT and charismatic. I wanna see where he hid that Spider tattoo and scratch his back.

2. Ging

Okay. Ging is hardly simp by girls. And I do not understand why?? He is motherfucking attractive. Even now. GAWD. I love him.

I think my attraction to him pre-started because he looks and acts SO much like my childhood crush Yusuke Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho. I know he’s an asshat but he’s a CHARMING asshat. Yeap, I said it. He is actually highly intelligent and just acts like a total haggard because he can.

It’s not just when he’s young. I STILL think he’s hot even in his 30s. He’s not that old for me to me honest. I don’t care if he’s a decade older than me because I think that’s the appeal of it. I

It’s kinda sad that he’s not that popular because I need some Ging/Reader smut content. Like, I envisioned a smut fic where the reader is like in her 20s and is strangely attracted to Ging. He’s wildly confused over this but he’s seriously considering of tapping it because his old ass haven’t had any action lately. The other Zodiacs are also confused and are convinced that he must have given some sex pollen to the reader because who the hell is sane enough to be attracted to him? (But it’s just that you need some acquired taste to actually find this man alluring). He’s one of the most fuckable characters ahhh.

And... for the last one...

Drumroll please....

1. Kurapika

Seriously, was there even a surprise.

THIS MAN IS THE AKAKU GOD. He’s beautiful, he’s sexy and fucking dominant (yes, I say he’s domineering because do you see the way he throws a hot tantrum during the whole YorkNew arc, demanding shit from his enemies, taking charge of everything?) His chains drives me nuts. I love it when he gets angry. I know he’s kinky on the inside. When he wore that tuxedo... ooof. He looks hella fine. He’s the only guy in hxh that fulfills my ala Michael Corleone mafia boss kink. I want him to ^&*(%%%*%^ (to save myself from embarrassment, I self-censored) as we attempt to repopulate the clan and produce more scarlet eyed babies, as he whispers some real degrading and possessive shit in Kurta while he tells me what to do. AHHHHH. *bye gotta go write some kuraneon porn now byeee*

#hxh #hunterxhunter #sorry im just down bad during quarantine #kurapika #akaku #kurapika akaku akaku #akaku god #ging #ging freecss #chrollo #chrollo lucilfer #feitan #this is a shitpost

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five-rivers · 3 years

Note

Now i would like to see prompts of a curious benevolent eldritch being coming to visit Amity Park and coo at the baby eldritch (Danny) and tech him how to access his eldritch powers.

I know this is probably supposed to be about some more traditional and tentacle-y eldritch abomination, but this is essentially what I’m writing Grandfather Clocks as (not to mention assorted other oneshots and everything happening in Mortified). I’m too invested in Lost Time to clearly imagine anyone but Clockwork in the Adult Eldritch Abomination role... at least from a more general prompt like this one.

... on the other hand I now have Vague Ideas (tm) about a full AU where Danny has eldritch abomination powers instead of ghost powers and all the eldritch abominations he’s ‘fighting’ are just coming to play with the baby.

WARNING this is for real written as horror, since it’s from Danny’s perspective.

Time seemed to congeal as the shadow in Danny’s soul stretched backwards. This one had a name. It skittered between the dark and the part of Danny’s mind that still resembled a human’s. He breathed in, slowly, then out, tasting it on his tongue. Once, it had been two.

Finally, it coalesced into something he could actually speak. “Skultech,” he said.

“Relative of Skulker?” asked Tucker. “Or Technus?” He didn’t look at them or at Danny. He had protections, but they weren’t perfect, and he’d already taken a step away from the light.

“Yes,” said Danny, internally translating the vibrations of air into something with meaning and weight.

Skulker. The hunter, fleshless and tireless. A pursuer of the mind more than the body. Almost sporting in his own way. The library with all its labyrinthine but immaterial paths was the best place to lose him.

Technus. A horror that lurked in the depths of the internet, luring in deep-web users and more than a few unluckly click-bait and phishing victims. Technus didn’t kill them, did very little to them, really, but there was a reason there wasn’t a computer club at Casper High anymore.

They had been two. Now they were one. Part of Danny was fascinated. Another was thrilled, happy, as it always was when these dark things manifested themselves in Amity Park.

His shadow stretched, whispering over his features. He could feel curl over the texture of the ground beneath him, grasping at grass and bark and soil as if it were possessed of a thousand thousand tiny fingers. It wanted to open up and play.

(’It,’ Danny said, as if it weren’t him, an extension of himself.)

“What do we do?” asked Sam. She, unlike Tucker, looked directly at him, even half-shrouded in shadow as he was. She always did, even if she averted her gaze from the likes of Skulker and Technus.

Near the beginning, Sam had made the connection between the others, especially ones like Ember, who were as beautiful as the were dark, and cults. She had started a joke about making one for Danny. Over time, it had become less of a joke.

Danny tried to ignore the pleasant buzz of his skin as he imagined a cult attempting to do something as sweet as bind him to their will.

Because, really, he shouldn’t be thinking of something like that as ‘sweet’ at all.

“It’s still Skulker and Technus,” said Danny, even if he had never seen them like this. “I think... the same type of thing should probably work. I distract, Sam gets people out of the way, Tuck, you get the computers at the library ready and tell me when to lead them there?”

“Do you think it’ll really work when it’s both of them?” mumbled Tucker. “I don’t know if I can even do both of the things at once...”

“The alternative is not doing anything,” said Sam, “and considering that they seem to be after Danny...”

Tucker made a face, the glow from his PDA reflecting from his glasses. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t try.”

“Remember,” said Danny, “don’t give me the go-ahead until you and everyone else is out.”

“Yeah, I remember, I remember,” he said.

“Go do your thing,” said Sam.

Danny nodded and left the shelter of their hiding place. He did not stand up, or walk, or move. He simply stopped being there and started being in front of Skultech.

From a distance, he probably still looked human.

They fought.

It was hard to describe how they fought, exactly, in human terms, but they did. Right up until one of Skultech’s three-fingered hands wrapped around Danny’s ankle and his shadow vanished.

He, breathing hard and falling, remembered what it was to be human. To be vulnerable. His shadow came back to him, flickering. He came back to himself.

There was a darkness that was himself, and he was so relieved. Why? How often had he wanted this gone? But he was whole, and like that he was half, and-

He’d gotten distracted.

Skultech had surrounded him, a hunting ground strobed with lightning. This kind of fight was an oddity to both Skulker and Technus, this kind of movement, this kind of strategy. Danny began to doubt that his earlier plan would work.

What was a library but another kind of forest?

With only enough warning for his self to wrap around him protectively, Skultech yanked him down into the Dream. The pale seaweed threads of human consciousness gave way to the dark and the other. He fell to the floor of a midnight palace and rolled to his back, coughing up not-water from the idea of his lungs.

Here, said Skultech, in something that wasn’t quite language. The True Voice. Danny had seen people fall to their knees when the others used that. Had seen sane men turn into blind faith worshippers. Had heard lies that became true in the speaking, or near enough that it didn’t matter.

He had never quite managed to speak that way himself, no matter Sam’s cajoling.

Danny managed to open his eyes. He did not come to the Dream often, no matter how much it called to him. Both his halves agreed, here, where every place was also a person, it was dangerous even in the shallows.

The ceiling was covered in layers upon layers of spiderwebs, and he did not like what that meant. Skultech was nowhere to be seen.

He pulled himself up and got to his feet.

The floor beneath him was glass. Beneath that was clockwork, but the gears were galaxies and solar systems, the springs were entropy and enthalpy, and the chains were the laws of physics themselves. Clockwork. It was... It would do, as a name.

The distant sense of amusement was disturbing.

Danny looked around. He needed a way out, a way back up, to where he could leave the Dream.

Why did Skultech bring him here?

Spiderwebs and gears. Symbols of control, of interconnectedness, of carefully laid plans. Was he stuck in a web he couldn’t see?

He spun, slowly, trying to see if he could see any doors or other openings. Something flashing, moving, in the distance caught his eye. His first instinct was to move away, but...

But it was like he was being drawn in. Like he couldn’t turn away. It was a mirror. A window.

It showed him himself. At first, a hundred paces away, just himself, as he was, but then at pace ninety-nine it changed. Mirrors did that, in the Dream. Everything did that, in the dream.

Time sped up. The mirror reflected not just light, but sound and feeling. He could see himself, his shadow, and-

He felt it when all the little Loves that kept him tethered to his humanity snapped, the lives they were anchored to burning up as they met their deaths. He screamed and heard it echoed back to him a thousand times over.

He could not stop walking. He could not stop watching. Ninety steps away.

His shadow in the mirror was wild. Unbound and grieving. Flesh and blood and bone existed, but his two part mind was unbalanced and divided from itself. He sought aid from the only other like himself and received a knife, received Hate to replace love and at seventy-five steps he watched as what he had once been embraced Vlad and devoured him whole, eating and becoming everything that made him him.

The shadow unfurled, hungry and seeking. The memory Love it once had and the Love it had desired for so long driving it onward and outward, the center pulsing like a diseased star. Seventy steps. It had eyes like constellations.

The mirror showed the Dream, now. Veins of sickness wound through the garden of human thought, through the tangled vines and twisted paths. What it found did not satisfy, and it sought more, and more, delving deeper. Sixty steps, then fifty.

It ate at the best of people, of others. The singers fell silent. The doctors could no longer heal. The kind became cruel.

Darkness fell. Then war. The shadow ruled all from its misery.

It was not enough.

Forty steps. It’s eyes met Danny’s. It knew he was here, knew he was watching. It began to speak in its True Voice, and Danny could not cover his ears to keep it out.

It spoke of the things it had done, of the things it would do. Danny watched as it carried out its plans, and even more. It spoke of how it, he, was Danny, and all this destruction, all this suffering was wrought by his own hands. It spoke of Love Danny did not cherish sufficiently, of fragility, of how it was determined to Be rather than Be Not even though its every moment was loneliness and Hatred to the point of agony.

Danny’s ears were bleeding.

Thirty steps.

It spoke of how it would hurt Danny, in particular. How it would rend his shadow, wound so there was no hope for him to escape his fate, even with foreknowledge of it. It spoke of how, with Danny watching, the mirror was a window, was a door it could reach through and Danny saw it reaching.

Saw it reaching out and in and towards now and those that he Loved, those that he cherished and Danny would have pushed himself to run but he couldn’t stop walking.

Twenty steps. It could make itself look like Danny, and even though it was wrong, Danny was wrong too, he was so, so, so, wrong and his wrongness was going to get them killed. It was going to get everyone killed.

They were looking at it, not him, speaking with it, not him. His darkness was covered. With it, these things were like staring at the sun.

It tore away the protections he had so painstakingly layered over those he Loved.

Ten steps.

He saw his parents with a bomb made by their own hands, one that would devastate the Dream for miles around, killing anything that dared to imagine, the culmination of their work. Nine steps. He saw Mr. Lancer writing lesson plans with his own blood, each sentence less English than the last. Eight steps. He saw Sam with the ritual knife, her smile full of blood and sacrifice. Seven steps. He saw Tucker clawing out his eyes, surrounded by computer screens flaring with symbols humans were never meant to use. Six steps. He saw Jazz-

He saw Jazz notice.

Five steps.

He could have wept.

She armed herself with stories and legends and saltwater and truths that made Danny seize and the fact that this thing was not her brother. Four steps.

He watched her confront it.

Three steps.

He watched it toy with her, her machinations only delaying her doom.

Two steps.

He watched it k-

One step.

No!

For the first time, he screamed in his True Voice. His fist snapped out, striking the mirror dead center. It shattered.

Was that enough? Was he in time? He- He couldn’t feel them. He couldn’t- They couldn’t be dead. They couldn’t be gone.

He dropped to his knees. The shards of the mirror glittered up at him, calling him. His hand shook as he reached out and picked one up. Slowly, he raised it to his lips. He opened his lips and as soon as the shard was even with his teeth, he bit down, the glass crunching like thunder.

Already, he was reaching for another piece. He swallowed. His hands went out, nails scrabbling along the floor in his hurry. Mirror shard after mirror shard was shoved into his mouth and choked down.

There was something around his neck. With one of his many hands he reached up, feeling up his chest to throat. There was a collar there. It felt like control, like ownership, like Love.

Something liquid dripped from his eye.

Even as he gagged on glass, two of his hands, his human hands, explored the circumference of the metal piece. There were delicate fractal patterns on the surface that had double on the interior. As his fingers pressed down on them, they in turn pressed on the skin of his neck, sending pleasant curls of thought down his limbs.

His questing fingers found the collar’s lead. It was at the same time, like the spider silk above and the clockwork chains below. Flexible. Strong. Indelible. It was as inevitable as gravity that he should Be Loved and Love in return.

He licked the last powdery pieces of mirror off his fingers and his extra arms slowly evaporated back into the Dream as if they never were.

Who would Love him like this? Love him to the point that it manifested in the Dream like this? The answer was all around him, was inside him, as his heart echoed back the Love as best it was able, but he could hardly believe it.

The sound of footsteps on the hard floor jolted him out of his reverie. He looked up and met the red eyes of Clockwork’s avatar.

It had the appearance of a blue-skinned man wearing a cloak and festooned with symbols of time. A few long white hairs peeked from beneath its hood, and a painful-looking scar laid over its eye.

For a moment, Danny was stunned, because this was a true avatar, an extension of Clockwork himself, not a human hollowed out for use as a vessel. For someone as powerful as Clockwork had to be to be so vast in the Dream to bestow such attention on Danny-

He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but the only thing that rolled off his tongue was blood. Shame crept up his cheeks. He didn’t know if it was his use of his True Voice when destroying the mirror, or consuming all those shards afterwards, but his normal voice was gone.

Shh, soothed Clockwork’s avatar, gloved hands cupping Danny’s cheeks and forcing his lips closed. You need not speak, child. Those who love you will know your intent.

Danny nodded slowly, beginning to feel dazed. He remembered the scenes in the mirror. Remembered what the shadow-him had done. His fingers bent around the lead- it was almost as thick as his wrist- and looked up at Clockwork’s avatar.

Clockwork could strike him down, now, could destroy him so completely that even the merest memory of him was gone, and he would not care, because he would know it was done out of Love.

The lead shivered against his palms and grew.

No need, said Clockwork’s avatar. You have devoured your destiny and become free of it.

That sounded reasonable. The avatar brushed a thumb across Danny’s lips and smiled.

You have given yourself fangs.

Danny blushed again. He hadn’t meant to.

The avatar released Danny’s cheeks to reach for his hands, arranging them in Danny’s lap and rubbing circles into his palms. Then the avatar gently brought Danny’s attention to the door in its chest.

The door was glass. Beyond the glass laid an approximation of a heart made of the same elements as what laid beneath the floor. A metaphor for Clockwork’s heart, Danny guessed, though what laid in the avatar’s chest couldn’t be anywhere near as grand as the real thing.

The avatar nodded, and then leveled a gloved finger at Danny’s own chest. He looked down.

There was a door, there, too.

His breath caught in his throat and he tried to scramble away, some still-human part of him objecting strenuously to whatever was going to happen.

All at once, the whole of Clockwork’s attention turned in on him, and for an infinite moment of time he was held in a perfect embrace. His thought from earlier returned. Anything, and he would not object, because it was done out of Love.

His edges, usually so sharply defined, even in the Dream, went fuzzy, almost blending with his surroundings, those surroundings being Clockwork.

The avatar reached for Danny’s door and opened it. It hurt, but not as much as he thought it would. Within, laid his heart.

The surface, the shape, of it looked human enough. The veins and arteries were all in the right places. The atria and chambers all looked to be the proper sizes. It beat an even rhythm.

But inside it was as black as night and something like a star twinkled in its depth.

It was... odd, how closely it resembled Clockwork’s galaxies while being at the same time so different.

Clockwork’s avatar opened the door to its own chest, pinning it to his cloak, then he reached into Danny’s chest.

There was the pain he had been expecting, radiating from his core to the very tips of his fingers and toes. If he were not held immobile by the sheer force of Clockwork’s regard, he would have arched backwards and screamed.

Methodically, the avatar cut and tied off every one of arteries, veins, and nerves that led from the rest of Danny’s body to his heart. Finally, the heart excised and cradled in its hands, it drew back.

Danny should be dead. The Dream did not follow the same rules as the reality he had been born into, but his mind would not let go of the fact that he had no heart. He should be dead.

The avatar inserted Danny’s heart into its chest, next to its own, and closed its door. Slowly, the image of Danny’s heart faded into metaphor as it sunk down into the deeps to nestle next to Clockwork’s true heart.

Danny understood, then, that from this moment on, Clockwork would decide the direction of his heart, would determine who he Loved and who he Hated. If he should Love or Hate. Danny rather doubted Clockwork would let Danny do anything so damaging as Hate.

I shall keep it safe for you, said the avatar, something more profound behind its words that might have been Clockwork himself, until you are old enough to protect it on your own.

Danny understood, too, that although this promise was not a lie, he would never be old enough to reclaim his heart, no matter how much time passed or how powerful he grew. Clockwork’s Love and protection would keep both him and it safe, young, fragile. How could it do otherwise, when time itself would flow around him? When Love would keep him anchored to one form?

Clockwork’s attention relaxed, then, and Danny could move again, curling around the gaping hole in his chest. The avatar ruffled his hair and, with his other hand, held something out to Danny.

Six paired sets of life and death glimmered against the lavender of the avatar’s glove. Danny recognized them. They belonged to the people he Loved. He had not realized he Loved Mr. Lancer, but he could see now that it was true.

Moving slowly, as if underwater, Danny held his cupped hands beneath the avatar’s. His breath caught as the avatar tipped the lives and deaths into his hands.

So precious. He brought them down to his lap and, with painstaking care, began to peal the deaths away from the lives. Each death he ate, consuming it and breaking it down into nothing. Each life he placed in the hollow that had once housed his heart.

Like this, they would not die, they would not leave him. They would be with him, always, just as he would always Love them.

Exhaustion hit him all at once, and he slumped forward to rest his head on the Avatar’s shoulder. It laughed, lightly, and helped him close the door in his chest. Then, it took a heart-shaped padlock from within its cloak and threaded it into the latch of Danny’s door. The click as the padlock closed echoed off the floor and distant walls.

With a kind of detached curiosity, Danny watched as the edges of the door, latch, padlock and all, melded into his skin and vanished as if they had never been there at all. He knew that he would not be able to find the door again without help, and that, even then, to open the door he would need the padlock’s key. A key he had not yet seen.

But what reason did he have to open his chest? Others might have cause, those who wanted to hurt him, or those that he Loved. This was another protection, another way to keep him safe.

This time you devoured your destiny, said the avatar, petting him. The sick futures have been cut away. Next, we shall remove the presents where you Are Not. After that... The sentence trailed away in a buzz that made Danny’s thoughts go quiet.

The avatar began to do something that could only be described as singing even though neither voice nor sound were involved. It was a lullaby, and Danny felt himself become even heavier and softer than before. He curled into the avatar’s side, feeling small. The pain of his missing heart eased itself into something more bearable. The threads of love that kept him from becoming a monster wound tighter around his limbs and sewed themselves deeper into his skin.

His eyes drifted closed.

When he woke, he was in his bed, in Fentonworks. He blinked several times at his ceiling, and leapt to his feet only to be waylaid by dizziness and static across his eyes. He brought a hand up to his neck, half expecting to feel metal.

He didn’t.

He shifted, pressing two fingers against an artery. No pulse. He switched his grip to his wrist. Nothing.

Right. No heart.

No heart but six lives and-

He stumbled out of his room and started banging wildly on her door. Jazz threw it open and froze.

“It’s really you?” she asked, voice quivering.

Danny opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out. It didn’t seem like Jazz really needed a verbal response, because she threw herself at him, enveloping him in a hug.

“I was so scared,” she whispered. “The- the not-you-” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “Everyone was dying, and then- and then it was just- It was like a dream. Like it didn’t happen. But you were gone.”

Danny nodded, even though she couldn’t see him.

“I’m so glad it’s you,” she said. “I’m so glad it’s you.”

Her love, so tenuous and slender compared to Clockwork’s, but no less genuine, wound around his wrist. He hugged her back.

If he had been able to speak, he would have said, Me, too.

#danny phantom #ask #answer #prompt fill #eldritch abomination au #prompt #body horror #horror

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felikatze · 3 years

Note

give me the a brainworms i am deeply invested in this man

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okay first of all you asked for this. second of all if i am a little off track from the game that is explained by me just building thoughts like building blocks without looking back. third i was supposed to be studying for an exam but this counts as practice right? it's character analysis anyway lmao.

buckle the fuck up, my dearest anon, because I have sub headings.

1. A as the Player Character

Let me begin with why I am obsessed with this horrid little guy in the first place: he's a silent protagonist. I am always obsessed with protagonists. It's a law of nature. I love taking hollow characters and dissecting them for scraps. It's a long standing practice of mine.

Being a silent protagonist, A, as X, does not have a set personality. However, there are patterns. Firstly, as any semi-silent protagonist, A is a reactive character. He does not start incidents, he only responds to situations, presented by the Sephirah, as they arise. He does not actively seek out new information, merely going about the routine of expanding departments, but expresses curiosity when information is presented to him.

I'm aware fandom likes to characterize X and A differently, likely because they are initially presented as different characters. I, on the other hand, would like to pose the theory that they are more similar than expected.

I believe that A is also a reactive character, rather than active. Despite the fandom wiki describing him as stubborn, the goal A pursues with such fervor, the completion of the Seed of Light, is not actually a goal he set for himself. Carmen is the one who set this goal for him by leaving him her legacy.

Throughout the backstory we get relating to the Cogito Project, A is Carmen's assistant, whereas Carmen is the driving researcher. This is how many of the City's inhabitants seem to be; going with the flow of goals set for them by superiors. Yes I will get into his attachment to Carmen later.

The above is not to say A isn't stubborn. Once he has accepted a goal as his own, he will pursue it at all costs, as is obvious from any and all flashbacks leading to horrible deaths. But the point isn't his pursuit of the goal, but where that goal comes from. Even Lobcorp itself supports this, despite what Hokma may say; A as X follows the "simple" task of managing the Corp's day to day activities, and executes any mission given to him by the Sephirah. He outranks them, and doesn't actually need to do their missions, but does so anyway. Players are driven by the reward offered by those missions, of course, and A might be the same in that regard. Nonetheless, at no point in gameplay do you do anything somebody else hasn't told you to.

The overarching narrative of the Script would be the most obvious example. Every single person in the game follows the script, whether they know it or not.

Lastly on this note, a phrase we hear attributed to A, "Machines must behave as machines." Now, Angela may be attached to this phrase because it bears significance to herself as a machine, and informs most of A's unjust treatmeant of her. However, what if it doesn't just apply to machines? The phrase reads as such, "Everyone must act according to their own role."

2. A, Carmen, and the disease of the mind

So, A will at any cost pursue goals Carmen set for him. Question is, why? The obvious answer would be saying he's in love with her, which like, true. But also, how did Carmen come to be so precious to him?

Let us return to the comparison, "This is how many of the City's inhabitants seem to be." We don't really know why exactly most characters joined Carmen, excluding mainly Daniel and Benjamin. But this does not mean we can't have theories.

Carmen's ideal was curing the "disease of the mind." What is the disease? Complete hopelessness. The inability to form aspirations and dreams, to think of a better future. A is a very reactive character who does not set goals for himself. Therefore, I personally conclude, that initially, Carmen's ideology resonated with him because he could identify with the disease.

This is the point where I start rewatching Lobcorp story clips. Dear god.

So, by briefly binging day 27 onward, I've come up with lines that very much support this lil theory of mine:

First, from Carmen, a description of the disease, "People lock away their own potential."

Second, a line from Angela, after the memory synchronization, "You've locked yourself in this prison without bars."

Carmen describes A as humble, and Benjamin thinks he is warm. If I suppose A was one of the diseased initially, Carmen would be the catalyst for this change. Carmen was someone with big aspirations, with plans to heal what is wrong with the City, and it gave him hope. He was one of the diseased, but through time with Carmen, with that relentless optimistic spirit, he may have been cured, for a time. It's not a stretch to say that she was his light.

But lor shows us what happens when the seed of light sprouts wrong, doesn't it? It distorts. A grasped hope for the first time and then it is ruthlessly crushed. Carmen was everything. Yes, A is described as a jack-of-all-trades, as a genius in all pursuits he puts his mind to, but what does that matter in the face of someone who can unite people? Who can give them hope of a better world? Who can inspire them to actually use the talents they have?

And what kind of pressure is it to put the legacy of a messiah in the hands of the diseased?

3. A and the Perception Filter: A is weak to White damage

No, I am serious about that. He's extremely weak mentally. Obviously death of a loved one is a changing experience for absolutely anybody, but Carmen's death destroyed him.

Not only did he refuse to confide this grief to anyone and bottled it up, now everybody looked to him to lead the project, but he just isn't Carmen. He isn't an ambitious person, he doesn't have the same optimism, he can't bring people together, but people expected him to, and he failed. Hard.

While he was without a doubt talented in science, he was also just an average guy.

After her death, A grew to hate humans. He lost trust in them. He refused to confide in anyone, and be confided in by anyone. Thus, the team fell apart.

In both lobcorp and lor, we get interesting tidbits about precations taken to protect the manager.

Firstly, Lobcorp's perception filter. The cartoony art-style of the game is a result of the game being in first person. Through the eyes of the manager, everything is cartoony!

This is a measure undertaken to specifically protect the manager's psyche. Angela tells us that, before it was deployed, the manager would frequently go insane, one notable incident including the manager trying to hang himself. When we first hear this, the previous managers and X are still separate in our minds. However, they're all A! A went insane multiple times without it.

This is understandable, considering that employees also frequently go insane and try to kill both themselves and others. But they're there in action, confronting the Abnormalities directly. Just watching them made the manager go mad. They could not handle the responsibility for the employees' deaths.

In lor, Angela explains why she picked the Rabbit Team from R Corp as their main contractor instead of any other team. One team was simply too big for L Corp's narrow hallways, and the other team... dealt in psychic damage. It was simply too big of a risk for the manager. But the manager is always secure behind the cameras. Would that teams methods just be that brutal visually, or would their attacks have reached the manager?

Combined with his immense grief at all of his friends and coworkers dying in part because of him, A cannot bear to look at death.

4. A's greatest flaw: Avoidance

A common thread during Core Meltdown flashbacks: A refuses to look at suffering. He just can't. Whether it be looking away from Elijah writhing on the floor or hanging up on Daniel's panicked report of death.

This is actually the thing Angela takes the biggest issue with, and what hurt her most. A would never look at her, acknowledge her, and she did not understand why. But I think A did not refuse to look at her out of maliciousness. Rather, it was out of grief over Carmen. He could not look at her without being reminded of what he lost.

Angela's creation came about because A wanted someone to guide him, someone like Carmen. He threw himself into the project to the point it made Benjamin happy that A was passionate about anything again. But as soon as the project he distracted himself with is complete, he is filled with regret. Carmen cannot be replicated, and he breaks again.

Furthermore, tying this back to my first point about A being a reactive person, we see Angela take charge over A. She's the one recruiting employees and leading the business. It was likely a relief for him to be able to step down from the leading position.

But avoiding it made everything worse. He did not act when he saw Elijah's unchecked ambition, he did not act beyond a simple check at Gabriel's decay, he gave Giovanni the same hope he clung to to no avail, et cetera et cetera.

Avoiding his problems is making them worse and sending everything down the drain (including his psyche), so he deals with it the only way he knows how, avoiding them more!

Biggest example of A's big avoidance problem as his psyche crumbles: the memory wipe. A, in perhaps his one singular moment of acknowledging his emotions, recognizes that he is incapable of fulfilling the Script in his current state. His grief is just too much.

By erasing his own memory, he could start fresh without his grief, because he might've really killed himself otherwise. His suffering became bigger and bigger, and he coped by avoiding it.

The memory wipe allowed him to distangle his problems. Through his interactions with the Sephirah (which I will not individually detail for the sake of my sanity and because I dumped all this on a friend on discord already), he can deal with and actually process his issues one at a time.

As the motto describes, only by facing the fear can he build the future. Only by finally facing his grief and acknowleding it, seeing that the past cannot be changed and he has no choice to move forward, can he actually do so.

5. The Sephirah as ghosts

Lobotomy Corporation feels like a ghost story. I've touched upon this in my previous A post.

As you reach the Corp's lower levels, there are less Sephirah. First there are four. They act like normal employees, and do not breach into the story's underbelly until you reach their core supressions and the facade breaks. Second, counting Tiphereth as one, there are three. They still go about their duties, but they know what they are. Third, there are two, and the facade is gone. They know what they are, and they will tell you about the sins of the past.

And finally, you reach Keter, and there is only one.

This gradual decay of the facade is what really gets to me. I said that by interacting with the Sephirah, A deals with his issues one by one, but that's what the Sephirah are, in this case. Representations.

The people the Sephirah used to be are dead, and the Sephirah are their ghosts. The core supression involve putting these ghosts to rest. Doesn't it match the progression of a typical ghost story? Find the ghost, find what they used to be, and help them move on.

So, if everyone is a ghost, then A is alone.

But, behind the scenes, the Sephirah are still there. They are still people, and they have changed for the better, too. As always, A simply does not look.

(Does he even see the good others see in him? Does he look away from praise, too? Did he even realize Benjamin's admiration for him? Will we ever know?)

6. A's end.

A's progression of moving on would be fine and dandy if it did not end as thus: A does kill himself.

A sees himself beyond the point of no return. Everyone is dead. He is alone. Carmen is never coming back. He can't call it quits now, or else everything has been in vain. (Even if the last days show us a part of him wants to just quit, so badly.)

So, there's only one thing left to do: follow the Script to its ending. Fulfill Carmen's legacy at all costs. Death as the ultimate release.

This is the point where I admit I do not like the death as release trope. But the game does a good enough job as presenting it as the only option A had, or the only option he saw himself as having.

However, I've mentioned it before, I'll mention it again: A was not alone. Death was his release, but he left wreckage. In order to end his own suffering, he inflicted the same pain he went through on others.

Throughout the game, he moves on and pushes through. The ending shows that in reality... he didn't.

At least in lor the characters stick together and help each other heal.

This has been most of my thoughts on A, amounting to my longest analysis post ever, having taken me approximately two and a half hours to complete, and clocking in at 2337 words including up to this paragraph.

Thank you anon for giving me the incentive to verbalize all of this, so I can finally be at ease having inflicted my thoughts on everybody else.

#Feli gets asked #lobotomy corporation #ayin #library of ruina #also i saw apparently another fandom besides lc uses the ayin tag which is just fun to watch honestly #many characters could rival this word vomit probably but as i said i already inflicted most of my thoughts abt netz on my good pal borgor #thank you borgor for dragging me back into projmoon stuff. also curse you terribly #long post #Feli speaks

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elia-de-silentio · 3 years

Text

Vanitas and affection: a complicated relationship

In light of recent chapters and waiting for the next to deliver our new dose of pain, I've decided to make a bit of analysis on how Vanitas relates to affection.

Vanitas enters this world, and gets the first of a long series of traumas. A classic: mother dies in childbirth, the baby is blamed for existing. Vanitas had internalized this thinking from his father ... or maybe it was a reasoning he made on his own (he says that his father 'must have hated him', but does not recall the man actually telling him so), and his father did not correct him - either because he subconsciously agreed or because he wasn't the most emotionally attuned man in the world.

After all, the only thing certain about Vanitas's father is his tendency to self-sacrifice: he abandoned his birth family and respectable profession to follow the woman he loved in her travelling caravan, even if he didn't like the rest of the people there; he gave up his life to save his son.

And this latter part is what furthers Vanitas's trauma, as he will feel an extra dose of guilt for causing his father's sacrifice.

After the death of his family, he is taken by the Chasseurs to be trained and become one of them. His strong hatred for vampires fueled him, and it's likely he was quite good at fighting, given what we see of him now. But alas, he caught the attention of Moreau.

Vanitas's damnation was his high empathy. As Luna will later point out, he would be able to escape; but Moreau had faked his death by killing a kid that looked like him, thus triggering his trauma of 'other people sacrificing for his sake'.

And then, he thought that even if he escaped, someone else would be tortured in his place. The reasoning is actually more based in self-loathing than reality, as attested by the existence of n.70 and 71; so he turned his reason for being there into trying to get more torture and lift it from the other children whenever he could.

Then he gets saved. Well, he likely doesn't perceive it like that, because Luna is a vampire, especially the Vampire of the Blue Moon whose blood Moreau injected him to try and turn him into a vampire. Nevertheless, there appears to have been a somewhat peaceful period between the escape from Moreau and the start of the series: we see Luna take care of him and Misha, giving them shelter, teaching them about malnomens and trying her hand at life lessons; we see little Vanitas do most of the chores, even if with a standoffish attitude; we see little Misha basking in the happiness of a somewhat stable and nice family situation.

Then something terrible happens.

It is revealed that due to Moreau's experiments, the kids are not exactly human anymore, but they aren't vampires either; their body can't substain this state of being, and they will die if they aren't turned into kins of the Blue Moon. Misha accepts, Vanitas refuses, wanting to stay human. Next thing we know, they are both kins of the Blue Moon with Marks of Possession, and Luna is dead.

As of the time of this writing, it is not clear exactly what happened; we know that Luna died, and that Vanitas played some role in it. Misha outright accuses him of killing her, but the framing of the actual events is quite ambiguous.

Vanitas, on his part, seems to have conflicting feelings: he says he wants to take revenge on Luna for drinking his blood, but when he's half-delirious, he mutters that he didn't really hate her; he appearently made Misha some promise that he didn't keep, and he is crushed by guilt as a result.

But whatever happened, his consent on the kin-making was ignored (just like it always happened in Moreau's laboratory) and another person that was close to him died either at his own hand, or because of him. And he gets some other trauma on top of an already long list.

Moreover, he was surprised to find out that Misha was alive. So, for some time, he believed the person who he loved like a brother was dead. Add good old grief to the mix.

So, we get to the Vanitas of the very first chapters of the manga. An outgoing, cocky individual ... a mask. After all, every time he has shown his actual feelings of anger and grief, it didn't turn out very well for him in the end, did it?

It also allows him to annoy and gross out people, specifically Noé and Jeanne. Nobody really likes his arrogance and pushiness, so they won't give him the affection he doesn't deserve.

Then, the aftermath of the Bal Masqué. Vanitas is provoking Ruthven, and Noé goes unexpectedly to protect him. To take risks for his sake. This already scares him, but then Noé has the gall to go and try to understand him! His reaction has to be more extreme: he flat out tries to attack Noé with a knife and tries to get him away, whereas he had been pretty much stalking him up to this point. But Noé refuses; and Vanitas is maybe just a little comforted and moved, enough to stop trying to push him away.

Then there is the Catacomb Arc, where a new character is introduced: Roland. He doesn't show spite to Vanitas, but still sees him with condescension, denying that he is acting out of his own free will. And this, to the former Chasseur who was left by the rest of them in Moreau's clutches, is untolerable. Roland means well, but he's going at it the wrong way.

After the fight with Roland, there is another argument between Vanitas and Noé. Vanitas does exactly what Noé had done before: shields him. This sends Noé on a sermon about how Vanitas, as a human, is weak and shouldn't take such risks, which infuriates the other boy: he bites back by calling Noé overconfident, citing the Ruthven accident as an example. This confuses Noé, because didn't he want him to become his shield?

I suspect that this was both Vanitas tendency to sacrifice himself for others, and a sign of tentative trust towards Noé. He does the same thing the vampire did for him ... and got rebuked, and called weak for his trouble. Noé's attitude is too patronizing to be seen as an actual sign of concern,and his already bad mood sours considerably.

Well, there is to say that after a similar crisis repeats itself a chapter later, complete with anti-vampire slurs on Vanitas part, Noè amends ... by using him as a fake hostage against Roland, which is still better that treating him as if he was weak.

Now, Noé might be naive in a lot of regards, but he is not stupid. From that moment onwards, he gets that Vanitas will be treated as an equal. He won't force him into dangerous situations, but he won't even treat him like he's too frail for it. He will be incouraging, but not condescending. And the result is that he actually snaps Vanitas out from his trauma-induced flashbacks, and gets him to be more open and trusting than he has ever been.

In the Gevaudan arc, Vanitas's emotional connections get shaken on two fronts: Noé 's and Jeanne's.

In this arc, he is the one to encourage and support Noé. He gives him advice on how to handle Astolfo; he gets worried about him when he's captured by Chloé (even if he expresses it in his own way).

He saves Noé from getting lost into Jean-Jacques's memories, listens to what he has to say, and concedes to what he wants, where at the start of the manga he was all 'my way or the highway'. He even almost (almost) admits that he was worried about Noé!

He still receives some actual support: demostrations of Noé's spirit which are good for the soul, and a proclamation that he believes in what Vanitas thinks about the origin of Malnomen, the first time a vampire says something like that. Vani plays grumpy, but he is obviously very shaken, in a positive way.

He finally shows Jeanne some actual support: he is cold to her after he was unwillingly vulnerable in her presence due to his illness, but pushes that aside rather quickly, in order to help her realize what she truly wants (saving Chloé instead of killing her) and that she's right to want it. He reminds her that she's a person, not a tool.

And she's grateful for it, and has definitely no qualms about expressing it. The result is that our hero spends days in blue screen, to then have a complete freakout at the possibility of being actually in love with Jeanne. He's so out of it, he ends up oversharing his feelings of being undeserving of love to a Roland who he doesn't like and a Olivier he has never met before. Still, it's the first time he flat-out says his issues.

This brings us to his rooftop conversation with Noé. I really liked the vampire's behaviour here: he was comforting in a sort of roundabout way, à la Vanitas. He said that he is happy Vanitas is the way he is, even if he still doesn't like him very much. Translation: you're a way better person than you think you are, and you deserve to be loved. This is coming from a totally unbiased place, I'm not a weird person who would like you or something.

And this is the last conversation we see between the two of them: as of the time of this writing, Noé has been compelled to drink Misha's blood, and Vanitas has just arrived on the scene.

Vanitas has seen his self-loathing perspective challenged and has changed a lot in the span of a rather short time, and I really don't know how he'll react to Noé learning the details of his past; he sure won't want any form of compassion. Personally, I suspect he'll be very cold to Noé for quite some time, possibly even trying to drive him away, before a reconciliation.

Thanks to anyone who bothered to read my ramblings!

#vnc #the case study of vanitas #vanitas no carte #vanitas no shuki #vnc vanitas #vnc meta #vnc analysis #vnc noe #vnc jeanne #vnc luna #vnc mikhail #elia's recaps

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