#THE CULMINATION OF ALL MY EVIL FRIEND PLANS

[bonefall]

Clear Sky Killed Bumble; Gray Wing's Desperate Defense

The "analysis" I've seen out there is beyond bananas. We are out there on state-of-the-art exploratory vessels, sailing the 7 seas into brand new lands, discovering new kinds of fruits to compare to the absolute lack of sanity people are displaying.

Clear Sky definitively killed Bumble. Gray Wing does not want to believe reality.

While some try to argue this death down to "negligent homicide," that Clear Sky essentially beat her unconscious and left her in an unsafe area where she got killed, that's so unlikely I'm confident in saying it's wrong. The evidence shows that Clear Sky tormented her to death with a ferocious, sadistic beating which caused her to bleed out, which is second degree murder, and used the smell of a fox and Gray Wing's blind adoration to lie his way out of consequences.

There's not a lot of ambiguity in the evidence that is presented. There is fox scent but no fox bites, and the preceding chapter provides a comparison between the wounds on Misty vs the wounds on Bumble. Clear Sky's story is so convoluted that not a single part of it makes any sense. Quite frankly it's only been topped recently by the "I can confirm this woman is evil because she snored her evil plans in their sleep" fib of ASC.

In either case, Gray Wing believes neither. He does not believe this is Clear Sky's kill in any way.

This moment is an excellent example of how Gray Wing continuously prevents anyone from taking any action against his dear brother's violence until it is too late. By convincing the moor cats to all calm down when they're rightfully furious, and treating the lives and perspectives of native cats as lesser, Gray Wing becomes complicit in some of the harm this tyrant manages to carry out.

To shield a person from the consequences of their own actions is enabling, regardless of if it's direct or indirect, wittingly or unwittingly.

We are going to go over the whole of the 26th chapter of DOTC Book 2: Thunder Rising, from Bumble's death scene to Gray Wing's downplay of it. A meticulous, step-by-step analysis.

Leading-up context

The Scene

The Immediate Response

Incredible suggestions that have been made that I had to read with my own eyes

Leading-up Context

Let's start from square one by introducing the cast, with the assumption you have not read DOTC or are just vaguely aware of it due to its reputation.

Bumble is a kittypet who regularly visits the woods without issue. She is a small supporting character in the first book, The Sun Trail, whose purpose is mostly to be a friend to Turtle Tail, who is the future wife of the main POV character, Gray Wing.

As the two girls become closer friends, Gray Wing becomes more controlling of Turtle Tail and more hostile towards Bumble. This culminates in Turtle Tail leaving "The Settlers" to live with her friend over the winter. All is idyllic until the humans adopt a third cat, known to the fandom as Tom the Wifebeater because of what happens next in Book 2; Thunder Rising.

Turtle Tail becomes pregnant, but notices that her roommates are keeping some kind of secret. She begs Bumble until she reveals that humans tend to take kittens away when they're old enough to be weaned. Turtle Tail leaves to return to the wild, and Tom the Wifebeater begins methodically torturing Bumble over the next month as punishment, leaving scratches, bruises, and "dried blood" all over her when the humans are not looking.

When Bumble tries to seek help from the moor cats, Gray Wing is frustrated that the battered woman has interrupted his walk with his new wife. It is stressed that Gray Wing hates her for taking his love interest away, and he believes she is too fat and clumsy to live in the wild. The leader of the moor cat settlers, Tall Shadow, has a hard time throwing Bumble out, until two outsiders, Wind and Gorse, who are trying to get accepted into this group themselves, take the initiative and drag Bumble back to her domestic abuser.

Gray Wing is biased against Bumble. This is a fact. He explicitly does not like her.

Shortly afterwards, the forest cat settlers, led by Gray Wing's brother Clear Sky, experience a fire and begin to expand their borders. They are already known as a violent group, their leader is a manipulative liar, and Gray Wing himself was once viciously mauled as Clear Sky sat by and watched.

Yes, Gray Wing is aware that Clear Sky sat there and watched, too. He called out to him and Clear Sky did nothing as Fox, a man who knew full well that this cat was his leader's brother, was shredding him.

Gray Wing doesn't want to believe his brother is a bad person. This is also a fact. He explicitly feels guilty when he has thoughts otherwise.

On-screen, through the POV of Gray Wing's nephew Thunder, we see a native woman named Misty slaughtered by Clear Sky for her land. Her children are taken, and her body lays unburied and rotting for two days before Wind Runner and Gorse Fur (sporting new names at the request of the moor cats) find her.

They describe the wounds they found on the corpse in detail and make an accusation,

Now, before this point, Wind Runner and Gorse Fur have been doing everything in their power to endear themselves to this group. Gray Wing himself trusted them, because they've taught him methods for living here, caught and shared food, and even saved the life of his other brother, Jagged Peak, when a burrow collapsed on him.

But now his xenophobia towards them is coming back-- because they're calling for action against his brother. He's only ever uneasy about them when they seem to have an ounce of influence over his group.

Turtle Tail's conclusion is completely sound, and if it hadn't been for someone else, would be correct. Clear Sky DID move to kill the children-- he was stopped by his underling, Petal. Turts was able to understand what Clear Sky was going to do without seeing it firsthand.

The crowd is shocked and furious, for logical reason. They ARE in danger. Clear Sky IS escalating his violence and expanding his territory. It's starting with the native population, and the moor cats are able to understand and predict what will happen next.

Except Gray Wing.

The Scene

While investigating ONE confirmed murder, as there is no reason to doubt Wind Runner and Gorse Fur except for conveniently xenophobic ones, and TWO suspected murders of children, the patrol hears the sudden shriek of a cat in pain.

Bumble is found bleeding to death on a previously unclaimed patch of land, at the very center of a circle of trampled grass. There is the reeking smell of fox, and under that, there is the scent of Clear Sky.

Her wounds are described in great detail,

Completely consistent with the way that the wounds were described on Misty. Nearly word-for-word.

The only evidence of fox is the smell. No one heard it bark, there is no note of it bounding off, there are no bites or wounds consistent with those of a canid. They were described exactly the same as Misty's.

Slits are cat claw wounds. Not fox bite wounds. She was not being bitten, she was cut all over her body, prominently down her belly and sides.

Unless this fox shapeshifted into a cat and then meticulously created wounds consistent with the ones left on Misty, Clear Sky did this.

Where did the fox go? Probably came to investigate, maybe licked at the bloody cuts expecting a meal, and then was scared off by Bumble suddenly waking up and screaming. It's possible, but unlikely that the patrol's clamor scared it off, considering they didn't see or hear any fox noises.

There are also signs of a struggle-- and Bumble was not able to fight in the condition she is currently in. It's most likely it was the struggle from when she was being tormented and trying to get away, unless there was a fight with a fox while Bumble was still unconscious and she was dragged to the middle of it, for some reason.

However, a fight with a fox is still unlikely, as the patrol was able to hear the whimpering of a cat in pain as they approached but not the furious sounds of a battle with a large predator. If there was this whole epic brawl with a fox that trampled the grass around Bumble, why was there only a single shriek?

Gray Wing, expert on the smell of Clear Sky's armpit, confirms it's his brother. His whole world spins when he realizes his Dear Brother is involved in this, feeling horror and disbelief.

(Also note that Gray Wing implies Clear Sky's involvement is the prophetic bad thing his adopted son mentioned in the previous chapter, not the shredded woman dying in front of him lol)

The rest of the group is able to acknowledge reality, coming to the obvious conclusion. Clear Sky is expanding his territory, including the very patch they're standing on. He has been violent in the past, even against other settlers. Misty was slaughtered in a way consistent with the victim dying in front of them, so he is killing cats who stand in his way. Gray Wing's immediate, literally DESPERATE response is first to jump to Clear Sky's defense.

Gray Wing asks Bumble directly if it was a fox, and she is too weak to answer... until she finds the strength, as a domestic abuse victim, to blame herself for the way a cat beat her bloody. She thinks it's her fault for hunting here, because she was hungry, not thinking straight, and stupid.

I have seen this described as Bumble "making a defense of Clear Sky." I will leave it up to you, the reader, to determine if this sounds like Bumble is trying to say he's not guilty of hurting her or if it's the sort of infamous self-blame that domestic violence victims lapse into after a furious thrashing.

When Clear Sky returns to the scene of the crime, he cuts her off while admitting he did assault Bumble, then glares at everyone to challenge a fight.

Gray Wing swoons over him like he always does.

I have heard it said, without examples, that this is normal because this happens all the time in Warrior Cats. That it's a normal thing to be standing next to a domestic abuse victim who is bleeding out and watch her murderer daring all of your friends to do something about it, and admire how brave he is. That, again, without any examples, this is just something that every character does when the Villain of the Week exists in front of them, so it's not even special that it was Gray Wing's first response.

If you believe that, I have a bridge in London to sell you.

Desperation is under all of Gray Wing's feelings which immediately follow. His voice "cracks" when he has to ask if his darling brother did this. He wants to scream when he takes his sweet time answering. He shrinks under Clear Sky's gaze, because he reads that he's "accusing him of betrayal."

But somehow, that FIRST response for him to fawn over his brother is not part of that, because in unquoted books of other arcs a hero has admired a villain?? Context doesn't exist because in some other book the same emotion was described maybe. Incredible.

No mention of how casually he brushes off this sight that makes his eyes show "guilt and horror," either. No talk of how he made a little ""joke"" about how no one greeted him nicely at a tortured woman's deathbed. Almost like he was caught red-handed and the wounds don't actually unsettle him as much as the crowd's reaction.

Even the glare-- Clear Sky is trying to get Gray Wing to do his bidding. He wants him to protect him, be his flying monkey, and control his furious people.

So at the next opportunity, Gray Wing jumps to his defense again. Second time in this exchange.

FIRST he was described as "desperate." Now he takes a deep breath and BRAVELY licks that boot.

Turtle Tail steps forward and posits the obvious truth. Clear Sky is going mad with power, doesn't care who he hurts, and is completely capable of doing something like this to Bumble. This was already done to Misty, and even earlier, Clear Sky stood by and watched as one of his minions savaged Gray Wing in a similar way.

The whoooole crowd can see this. It is Gray Wing, and Gray Wing alone, who prevents there from being any consequences for Clear Sky's actions.

He hypocritically believes that attacking Clear Sky for the murder of Bumble would make them all "no better than he is" when he had no qualms about coming to blows over the exile of Jagged Peak much earlier. "Attacking Clear Sky for Murder" is morally equivalent to "Actually Doing Murder."

This is only for Bumble though, a "foreign" woman he does not like. He did not believe this for Jagged Peak, and he will not believe it later when he watches Clear Sky strangle Rainswept Flower to death. They are worth physical consequences.

He even physically shields him.

"he stepped between Clear Sky and his own cats, not sure which of them he was trying to protect." It's Clear Sky. Bumble's life means nothing to Gray Wing, so he is trying to protect Clear Sky from the fury of the angry mob he has earned by killing her and Misty.

He CANNOT let there be any doubt. Not even from himself. His brother must be protected at all costs. To that end, he is trying to make some kind of opportunity for Clear Sky to escape accountability.

If you are "neutral" in the conflict between victims and their abuser, you have taken the side of the abuser. If you provide opportunities for a perpetrator to escape accountability, you are an enabler. If you allow a suspect to escape the scene of a crime, since every cat in these books seems to be a lawyer the minute anyone wants to react to violence, you could be charged with accessory fleeing and eluding-- a felony.

Before you try to say this is all in the noble pursuit of peace, let's not be dense.

DOTC is not committed to non-violence for any other tyrannical leader. Especially not One Eye, even believing that an underhanded ambush that breaks the terms of a duel Clear Sky set is the good and righteous thing to do. Killing him was the correct action, as it was with Slash in Riverstar's Home. Outside of DOTC this logic is casually applied to Brokenstar, Tigerstar, Scourge, Hawkfrost, Darktail, and Ashfur-- with only Leopardstar and Blackstar being "exempt" for following an evil ringleader.

Gray Wing himself has no moral dilemma about One Eye or Slash, either. Nonviolence is not his goal.

It is Clear Sky, and Clear Sky alone, who the narrative of DOTC will conclude "deserved" a million second chances. That torturing Bumble to death, slaughtering Misty for her land, and countless offscreen cases of attacking natives didn't push him past the "fundamentally evil" threshold into an irredeemable monster, as is the case with Slash and One Eye later in this arc.

The difference between Clear Sky and DOTC's other two tyrants, to me, is obvious. Clear Sky is the POV's brother and a member of the in-group of The Settlers. The lives of his victims, as mostly "foreigners" and entirely women, are worth very little to the notoriously xenophobic and misogynist writing team.

If the moor cats had shredded Clear Sky right here and now, dozens of lives would have been saved. The First Battle wouldn't have happened. Justice would have been served for Bumble, regardless of if the cause of death was 2nd degree murder or negligent homicide. He wouldn't have smacked and beaten any of his other victims.

Gray Wing prevents this, giving Clear Sky an opportunity to tell a lie.

(He even whines about the idea of Wind Runner challenging Clear Sky about boundaries, the whole thing that started this incident in the first place. This is the perfect time to start arguing about boundaries, actually, when he's in the middle of establishing new ones.)

In the past, I'd been too charitable to this exchange. This lie is obscene and anyone who believes it is ignorant. No frills, no bells, you either can't think critically or just didn't want to so Clear Sky can be innocent or Gray Wing can seem "reasonable."

Clear Sky's visibly eager to start his story, "glad of the chance" now that he's had time to concoct a story. He could have explained earlier but didn't, sizing the group up and glaring at his brother to crack a whip, asking if they believed he was capable of it, so he could gauge what he can get away with.

"New part of my territory" = Freshly annexed land he has violently conquered, confirming the patrol's fears of expansion.

"I wanted to give her a warning, just a little cuff" = No one leaves his territory gently. Confirmation he thrashed her, downplay of how severe.

"How was I to know she would faint?" = Bumble is visibly emaciated, and he's blaming her for not being able to stay conscious through the whole beating.

"I could see her paws twitching, and I knew she would come around" = He would not care, Misty's body was unburied for two days.

"So I left" = Leaving Count: 1

Pauses, wincing, because this is another act. Every time he's putting on a little show for other cats, he takes dramatic pauses and plays up his pain and regret. Seen earlier in this book.

"But heard a fox bark" = no barking was heard by the patrol, only a cat's shriek.

"And ran back" = Was apparently so close that he could hear barking the patrol didn't, but so far away that a fox had time to cut her to ribbons, AND this was so long ago the patrol wasn't close enough to hear the fight? Returning Count: 2

"But I was too late" = Wounds inconsistent with fox attack. Leaving Count: 2

"I was going to get help" = There is no medic in proto-SkyClan. When Jagged Peak broke his leg, they had to borrow Dappled Pelt. What help? Who?? Even as he says this, Frost's wound is going completely untreated. If Clear Sky was going to get help, why wasn't he telling Cloud Spots to do something when he got back?

"But then I heard you all arrive" = He left to get help but was still close enough to hear running? Just abandoning his noble quest to get that "help" he apparently has? Returning Count: 3

Not a single part of his story adds up. EVERY aspect of it has a problem, in that it's either deceptively worded to downplay his abuse, doesn't line up with who he is, or just doesn't make logistical sense.

It's not JUST a lie, it's a BAD one.

Even worse, Clear Sky is a known liar at this point. He does this when the truth would not benefit him, like earlier in this book when he fibbed to Thunder about why he abandoned him right in front of Gray Wing's face. The story doesn't make sense and there's not even any reason to give him benefit of the doubt, because he is known to be dishonest.

He's offended when Turtle Tail calls him on being full of baloney, and once again shoots a sharp look over to his flying monkey, expecting Gray Wing to dance on command and defend his honor like always.

But Gray Wing seems to be perfectly capable of being "wise" when it would directly benefit Clear Sky.

I have seen the question begged, "if he's such a bootlicker then why he no verbally bootlick a third time in a single exchange?" and I would tell that person to read the text because it says why. Right there. Here, I've underlined it. So you don't miss it again.

If Gray Wing licks that boot again, THIRD TIME, in front of an angry mob who wants to skin Clear Sky alive, they will lose patience and make the clearing look like Bruce's Eating Dome. So he shuts the fuck up and gives his ungrateful brother the chance to indignantly slip away, even though he desperately wants to cry out and tell him how shiny and lickable those boots are.

"What can I say?" Nothing. "I'll only make things worse" Correct. "If I don't let him leave now there will be a fight" im literally just quoting the text verbatim

He is NOT doing this because he does not believe him, NOR because he doesn't want to defend him. It's because this the best way to protect his brother from consequence.

And then Bumble uses her dying breath to apologize for ever hurting her friend, showing Bumble is still just blaming herself for everything, with Turtle Tail still repeating the same malicious excuses that were used to deny her asylum from domestic abuse.

"I wish you could have found happiness, even though I was unwilling to help you. It sucked to learn that our shared wifebeater started wifebeating you, but we didn't want you in our camp so really this was unavoidable."

I've voiced my ire before, gone on long rants about how angry this exchange makes me and even campaigned for more recognition of the misogyny in this subplot. The fact that the last words Bumble hears are just more excuses from a person who could have done something disgust me, and I think I'm right to feel that it's vile that this sits unexamined in a book for young readers. But it doesn't change what happened.

She senselessly died in intense pain and despair, for the crime of existing. All that's left to say is that I wish Bumble could have found a better friend.

But ultimately, Turtle Tail is another woman in the notoriously misogynistic arc of DOTC. She's just a supporting character for Gray Wing's conflict, and he's got some opinions about what, exactly, is making this so sad.

He doesn't give a fuck that this woman he hates has been murdered after slowly starving to death, for months, since he watched her be dragged back to a domestic abuser. She "stole" his romantic interest for a few months, after all.

It's stressed he "never especially liked Bumble" at her deathbed. It's not JUST "the death of a kittypet," a group of people he is bigoted against. It's about his piece of shit brother.

It's about how HIS REPUTATION HAS BEEN TARNISHED.

"It changes the way my cats think of Clear Sky," THAT HE IS NOW A KNOWN MURDERER, "and that changes everything" IT'S GOING TO BE A LOT HARDER TO DEFEND HIM NOW

This is completely consistent with Gray Wing's behavior into the rest of the chapter, and even the books beyond.

The Immediate Response

Gray Wing explains what happened to the other moor cats. He has to hide his actual belief that Clear Sky didn't actually do anything wrong so that the moor cats don't dismiss him for the biased, brother-obsessed little minion he is. He admits how he really feels about Bumble's death to Turtle Tail at the very end of the chapter-- so what he says here is a lie.

Not a delusion. A lie. He withheld the full truth of his bias when questioned. If he's honest about his conflict of interest, this group will trust his judgement less. He has a goal; to prevent his cats from retaliating.

Wind Runner is, again, the one who is rallying the other cats into action. She's seeing that Clear Sky is murdering innocent cats, possibly even her friend considering how much she knew about Misty, and that this will only escalate. Gray Wing doesn't like that.

So when Tall Shadow starts suggesting the things he agrees with, like how Bumble's life was less valuable anyway so this is no reason to start a fight with his Dear Sweet Brother, and they should all just sit on their butts until no one's angry anymore, he decides she "deserves" his support.

It's a political move.

"After all, she was only a kittypet... omg why are you so mad?? I didnt mean it like that, all im saying is that we should just calm down ugh dont be so sensitive" -Tall Shadow, channeling your racist aunt

If Gray Wing can get the other cats to waste their time on useless half-measures, like more patrols or perhaps writing a strongly-worded letter, he can make them feel like they're doing something when they're actually doing jack shit. Wittingly or unwittingly, this is a measure to stall the inevitable, making them miss their chance to strike while the iron is hot.

He's either an idiot or he's subconsciously acting from a place of loyalty to his brother. Bias resembles the former but is born of the latter, and either way the result is the same.

After this, there's a brief conversation where Tall Shadow makes it clear that there is absolutely no reason to be mistrusting Wind Runner. They both agree "when this is all over" she's a good cat to have around-- they just don't seem want to listen to her now, when she wants something done about the sadistic lunatic next door.

Gray Wing's talk of "working together" is laughable. His idea of "working together" includes the cat who just slaughtered two people for existing on his newly annexed land, who long ago stopped listening to reason. Tall Shadow herself starts preening and announces that her response to all this is that Clear Sky must absolutely be stopped by some cat.......................... so she'll think abt it.

tomorrow maybe. we'll put a pin in it. set a little reminder on her phone or something.

(the genius plan she comes up with in the end is a nonsequitor babble about how rocks don't exist to be sat on, so clear sky should just stop conquering all the land or something. he listens intently and then throws her into a tank of piranhas.)

But anyway, it's time to smooth things over with Turtle Tail, who had been struggling with that uncomfortable truth that the moor cats, and Gray Wing specifically, were also culpable in some way for the slow, painful death of Bumble.

He'll fix that with a big display of affection.

"Don't be mad at me it's nobody's fault :) She wouldn't have been able to cope so it's inevitable she wound up dead :) I'm sorry you're hurting bc i like you, not that i give a damn that your friend was shoved into a blender and shredded alive after starving for months :) Thanks to you I am now ready to lead this clan directly off the side of a cliff." -very endearing conversation i assure you

It works because Turtle Tail is not allowed to maintain her own opinions as a girl in DOTC. Obviously. Her husband licks her ears and tells her that he likes her and that's the end of any examination that they have any responsibility here. god forbid she re-examine her feelings towards the writers' favorite in light of how much of an ass he made of himself at her friend's deathbed.

Just in case it slipped your mind though, once again it is made clear that Gray Wing is reacting with leisure because he does not believe (or care) that Clear Sky killed Bumble. No, not even in the negligent homicide sense, that Clear Sky's actions allowed Bumble to die through beating her unconscious and leaving her alone in an unsafe location. He does not think this was something to blame Clear Sky for.

He believes that the fox did it-- he was lying earlier when he said he "didn't know what to believe." He does. He didn't reveal his bias when he was being questioned, because he wants to prevent the moor cats from fighting Clear Sky over Bumble's death.

Also note the sneaky little turn of language Gray Wing makes there. In denial of Turt's claim that "innocent cats are being slaughtered," Gray's counter is Bumble alone before the pivot. The patrol was originally about Misty's murder and her missing kittens as Clear Sky expanded his borders-- but Misty's apparently not an "innocent cat" who's been slaughtered. She's absent from that category, implied to be part of Clear Sky's hypothetical "good reason" for expansion that Gray Wing needs to get to the bottom of.

Bumble's murder is denied. Misty's is implied to just be collateral damage for the unknown plan. He's unbothered about the death of either one.

Gray Wing: "No one else can get to the bottom of this! theres only ME! I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN STOP CLEAR SKY"

Also Gray Wing: (leaps in front of an angry crowd to defend his brother. cries that he doesn't believe hes capable of such terrible violence. actively prevents anyone else from doing anything about him)

Anyone with a vague awareness of DOTC knows how this ends. Gray Wing is going to lead them astray with his bad judgement, so purposefully delusional about his brother that they will have to dig a mass grave at Fourtrees. Gray Wing thinks he's a *~special boy~* who is the only one who can truly get through to his brother, and maybe he is, but not before dozens of people have to suffer and die for it.

This is enabling. To enable is to directly or indirectly support another's harmful actions, such as addiction or abuse. He did it here, both during and after Bumble's death, giving Clear Sky the cover to escape consequences for his actions and halting any attempts to do anything concrete. Because of him, Clear Sky never pays for what he did to her.

In the book 3, Clear Sky denies all wrongdoing, and in Bumble's last mention in book 4, her torture is described in passive voice. A terrible "happening" which seemingly couldn't have been avoided. No one is held accountable. Not the moor cats for turning her away, not Clear Sky for her killing, and even Tom the Wifebeater is redeemed after being given a chance to live in a clan for not being "soft" like his female victim.

All so sweet, beloved little Gray Wing never has to confront that he let a killer get off scot-free because the uncomplicated childhood memory of his brother as a lovely good boy was wrong. That he was so consumed by spite that he smugly watched Bumble get dragged away from the only people who could have helped her. That he was complicit twice.

Incredible suggestions that I have had to read with my own eyes

fucking ✨Bonus Round✨

"If clear sky fought bumble, why bumble leave no scratches?" I'll let you sit there and think about why the DOMESTIC ABUSE VICTIM did not fight back against a large, violent man who was beating her. I'll give you a minute. I'll play some jeopardy music.

"he's quote 'horrified and guilty' at the wounds which means he didn't make them himself" Clear Sky has a repeated habit of "blacking out" when he butchers women (Rainswept Flower, Willow Tail). He's also a liar and an actor, even according to his own account he'd seen these same wounds before when he came back a second time. Most importantly, what fucking part of "horrified and guilty" implies he didn't make those himself, does a toddler not look "horrified and guilty" when it spills chocolate milk on a couch and its parent sees it? Does that mean the toddler didn't do it? If you wouldn't accept this logic for a toddler why the fuck will you accept it for a suspected murderer?

"Maybe Clear Sky fought the fox off?" He doesn't actually say that, it's just implied during his lie when he says he showed up too late, but it's hypothetically possible. Even if he did fight this fox off, he must have still mauled Bumble because she is covered in claw wounds, even if he doesn't remember it because he "blacked out." There's also still the problems of Bumble being in the middle of the trampled grass, the patrol not hearing the sound of battle, his framing that he just tapped her and she passed out, and him apparently running to get help he does not have. Occam's Razor still suggests the solution is that this fox was scared off when Bumble screamed, with Clear Sky just using the convenient smell to lie his way out of consequences

"How'd Clear Sky get fox scent on him?" Probably from showing up to the crime scene that absolutely reeks and prowling around like an axe murderer, which we saw him do. Bumble had no fox bites and no one heard a fight. did you know that if you stand in a sewer you smell like shit

"Gray Wing just doesn't want to think his dear sweet brother could ever do such a thing :("

"What if the Erins are just so incompetent that they created a crime scene completely inconsistent with the very true and real story that Clear Sky told, it just happens to look like a lie on accident, they unwittingly made him a liar earlier in this book because they forgot the events they previously wrote, and don't know anything about a type of predator that appears in nearly every entry of warrior cats and happens to be one of the most popular animals of all time" what if i tripped and fell and a shawarma with extra tahini sauce fell into my mouth, followed by an apple slice, and 3 litres of water. should i continue my fast or has Allah fed me.

All of this is why I am adamant on saying that Clear Sky killed Bumble by beating her to death. In order for this to have been the cause of a fox, you'd have to take a liar at face value and ignore every other detail. That's what Gray Wing does, described on the page as "desperate to believe in his brother's innocence."

Unfortunately, this will also not be the only time that Gray Wing's obsession with his brother and shockingly horrific judgement will put other cats in danger or get them killed. It's just the most deliberate example, and thus imo the most upsetting.

#warrior cats analysis #Bumble #Bumble wc #Dotc analysis #dawn of the clans #dotc hate #clear sky #skystar #gray wing #dotc #Justice for Bumble #Bumble dotc #Gray Wing The Wise

[ellipsiseffervescent]

I am once again going to talk too much about Rebellion

and how people don’t understand Homura. Here I would like to address the reasons why people call Homura evil/the antagonist, which is usually their reason for disliking Rebellion. My blog has basically morphed into an obsessive discussion on why that movie is my favorite and elevates the story, so I’ve covered a lot of these topics before, but I hope to make things more comprehensive here.

I’ve seen some people call Homura “corrupted” by the part of her that is a witch. Two thoughts on that:

Rebellion goes out of its way to show you that witches are not inherently evil. They have experienced serious pain and are spreading that pain before Madoka’s sacrifice. However, if this meant that witches were inherently evil, then why are Sayaka and Nagisa not? They are still witches- that’s why their witch forms are still a part of them.

Also, in Rebellion, Sayaka warns Madoka’s essence to not fear Homura, as “she’s the one who’s most hurt”.

I think that people misunderstand the theme of what a witch is overall. A witch is an inevitable reality of magical girls because being a girl in a patriarchal/Kyubey system is CRUSHING. The transformation into a witch is a coming-of-age step into womanhood. It comes from the culmination of mistreatments and systemic oppression girls inevitably become overwhelmed by. This isn’t to say that all women are forever overwhelmed, but it is an unpleasant reality that most women become awoken to. Think of the resolution of the Barbie movie, for instance, where (BARBIE SPOILERS) the characters need to “wake up” the others to the suffocating reality of living in a patriarchy. Same principle, honestly.

I also think that people sometimes interpret the Christian imagery in a stereotypical “good vs evil” way than looking at the situation, especially when it comes to Homura’s demon label and Madoka’s sacrifice.

I’ve talked about this a lot so I won’t go into too much detail, but I believe that the series is going out of its way to create its themes around the dark reality of the self-sacrificing nature of girls. For a brief recap:

Making wishes for someone else is considered taboo

Madoka mattered as a girl. Throughout all iterations of pmmm and its sequels, Madoka laments on the tragedy of magical girls vanishing from the world without anyone knowing and says in Rebellion that she would never want to go anywhere where she couldn’t be around her friends and family. Her mom had plans for them when Madoka grew up, her brother remembers her, and it drives Homura insane that she’s the only person who remembers the other timeline. Madoka was always worried that she wasn’t good enough at anything to have a place in the world and I truly have a hard time believing that this series is saying that young girls who don’t feel they have value anywhere else are best served to sacrifice themselves into oblivion. That’s basically been the history of women, forever.

Homura calls herself a demon because, “[Madoka] was sacred as a god and I couldn’t help but pull her from heaven and undermine her.” Throughout the Wraith Cycle, Homura commits herself to honoring Madoka’s sacrifice and new world order, so the phrase “and I couldn’t help but pull her from heaven undermine her” is, I think, more of a reflection of her self-loathing for going against Madoka’s wish and less of a true admission of evil, because I don’t think that Madoka’s erasure from the world was ever an okay thing. I think people get too hung up on “demon-bad” without thinking of the nuances of the imagery. I don’t believe that Madoka’s godhood is inherently good, and I don’t believe Homura’s demonhood is inherently bad. I think that Madoka’s godhood is more an alignment with self-sacrifice, and Homura’s demonhood is an alignment with desire, and I think that too much of either is a bad thing. It’s why they both needed to come together to eviscerate the Kyubeys.

I think that the label of “demon” makes Homura irredeemable to people and I think that people are deeply unforgiving of the not so pretty things that make us human. I’ve seen that a lot of what I assume are younger users are completely unforgiving to girl characters who go through things and make mistakes. I’m not even talking about Azula defenders (though I think there is a nuanced conversation there) but the Catra-type haters. As others have pointed out, ya’ll about women’s wrongs until a girl suffers a time loop to try to save the love of her life (who, lest we forget, begs Homura to shoot her in one timeline) and her friends and almost loses her mind by being the only person to remember the love of her life in the timeline that ya’ll think was the good one. I even hesitate to call it “toxic yuri” until the last movie comes out. Now, this isn’t to say that Homura has made no mistakes. I think the fact that her rewriting of the world to include the Kyubeys is going to be a BIG mistake on her part, and she did pull the identity of Madoka away from the Law of the Cycle against her wishes. But I think that to take everything Homura has done to try to save Madoka and even give Madoka the power to become the Law of the Cycle and say that she is irredeemable or toxic because she is traumatized…. It’s heartbreaking to me.

Moreover, this perception of Homura as irredeemable flies in the face of all this Christian imagery. Throughout the entirety of Rebellion’s ending (and as you’ll see further down) Madoka assures Homura that she loves her no matter what, that she is always there for her. Madoka in her fullness can see in intimate detail what Homura endured for her- literal YEARS of suffering yet never giving up- do you really think Goddess Madoka can’t and shouldn’t forgive Homura? Are the “good” guys in Christianity not all about forgiveness?

And finally, the real reason I made this long ass post: Homura and Rue from Princess Tutu are parallels. For those who don’t know: in Princess Tutu, the character Rue transforms into an “evil” persona- Princess Kraehe, daughter of the Crow. While Rue is convinced that she is now an agent of evil, the main character Ahiru/Duck insists that she is not. Also important to note is Rue may not rewrite the universe, but objectively commits more women’s wrongs than Homura. She rips the shards of emotion from her lover’s breast and tries to sacrifice innocent people’s hearts to her father, but the story does not paint her as condemned or irredeemable. She’s been lied to, groomed, and traumatized. She’s not an evil person, she’s a girl trying to navigate horrible circumstances, like Homura. Rebellion creates these parallels because Homura is forgivable and it wants you to know that.

So anyway, first parallel is the outfit. Demon Homura is SOOOOO inspired by Kraehe it HURTS:

And finally, Rebellion went so hard to reference this scene:

PLEASE put on sound they translate it differently but here she says "homura chan is homura chan"

so yeah if you stuck around thanks! love u muah

#madoka magica #homura akemi #puella magi madoka magica #pmmm homura #pmmm #princess tutu #princess kraehe #Princess Tutu spoilers #support womens wrongs #but actually support them #madoka kaname #madoka magica rebellion #walpurgisnacht rising #walpurgis no kaiten

[scoobydoodean]

Hi! I just wanted to start off by saying that your analyses on the characters are awesome and they really helped further my understanding of the show, so keep up the good work! :D

I was wondering, if you don't mind answering, what did you think of about Dean giving permission for Gadreel/Ezekiel to possess Sam in season 9?

I'm still a bit on the fence about how to feel about it and I thought your particular brand of wisdom might be able to help me out.

Dean had just a few pieces of information at the hospital in 9.01.

Dean knew that Sam had every intention of surviving The Trials in 8.14 and in fact Sam promised he would survive them and show Dean to the light at the end of the tunnel, because Dean was suicidal: "I'm closing the gates. It's a suicide mission for you. [...] I want to slam hell shut, too, okay? But I want to survive it. I want to live, and so should you. You have friends up here, family. I mean, hell, you even got your own room now. You were right, okay? I see light at the end of this tunnel. And I'm sorry you don't – I am. But it's there. And if you come with me, I can take you to it."

Dean observed that Sam became suicidal over the course of The Trials and that this culminated in Sam forsaking his promise and his desire to live and falling into a tailspin where he wanted to die to make himself "pure". Disturbing dialogue from 8.21: "Knights of the Round Table. Had all of King Arthur's knights, and they were all on the quest for the Holy Grail. And I remember looking at this picture of Sir Galahad, and, and, and he was kneeling, and— and light streaming over his face, and— I remember... thinking, uh, I could never go on a quest like that. Because I'm not clean. I mean, I w— I was just a little kid. You think... maybe I knew? I mean, deep down, that— I had... demon blood in me, and about the evil of it, and that I'm— wasn't pure? [...] It doesn't matter anymore. Because these trials... they're purifying me."

Dean pleaded with Sam not to kill himself in 8.23, and Sam agreed, asking, "How do I stop?"

These are the details Dean has prior to Sam falling into a coma. He believes that his brother wanted to commit suicide, but that he did change his mind and decide he wants to live.

Two other notable details:

First, Gadreel earns Dean's trust quickly by risking his ass to help Dean, and then on the phone (after being given the fake name "Ezekiel") Cas, relieved and pleased, vouches for Ezekiel. So Dean has no reason to suspect anything nefarious (and in fact, at this point, Gadreel doesn't have particularly nefarious intentions besides staying in hiding away from other angels).

Second, Dean is not the one who pleads with Sam to live in the dream sequence, getting him to say "Yes". It can't be Dean, because 1) "Dean's" face morphs into Gadreels which is clearly intended to indicate to us that this wasn't Dean speaking 2) If Gadreel was somehow projecting the real Dean into the conversation to give that speech, then Gadreel wouldn't be the one receiving the consent. It would truly be Dean receiving it and not just Gadreel pretending. Those words HAVE to come from Gadreel's mouth for the possession to work—not Dean's. We've seen angels morph into loved ones and mimic their voices perfectly several times.

With all that in mind:

After Gadreel pitches his plan to possess Sam, Dean immediately says it isn't his call to make—it's Sam's. It's after Gadreel shows him Sam falling back into the same suicidality from 8.23—wanting to die so that "no one else can get hurt because of me"—that Dean wavers. Still—at the end of the day, whether Sam agrees to live or not was never Dean's choice, and this is something I often see people get mixed up about. Dean doesn't get to choose whether Sam dies or not. It is still Sam who chooses to live. Sam does this by saying "Yes" to Gadreel. This could not have happened if Sam hadn't changed his mind about living. He doesn't know he's going to be possessed, but he has once again beaten back his suicidality and chosen to live. Sam still had hope in a good future.

Sam chose to live. He did not know he was going to be possessed. That's the issue. However, Dean did not intend to keep Gadreel's possession from Sam after it happened. Dean and Gadreel have this conversation upon leaving the hospital:

DEAN So? How's it look in there? EZEKIEL IN SAM’S BODY Not good. There is much work to be done. DEAN Yeah, but he's gonna wake up, right? EZEKIEL IN SAM’S BODY He will. DEAN So, what he does – what, is he gonna feel you inside, triaging his spleen? EZEKIEL IN SAM’S BODY He will not feel me, no. There is no reason for Sam to know I'm in here at all. DEAN You're joking. No, this is – this is too big. EZEKIEL IN SAM’S BODY And what will he do if you do tell him he is possessed by an angel? DEAN Well, he'll have to understand.

This conversation suggests that Dean's initial thought process was "We perform supernatural life-saving surgery". He just wanted to get Sam to a point where he'd wake up and they could talk. Like any situation with a relative in a coma, that person in a coma can't consent to surgery. The next of kin is the one who gives consent, because their loved one can't. They can only consent to a procedure if awake to do so. So Dean doesn't stop Gadreel from performing life saving surgery, but his intial belief and intent is that they'll put all of this back in Sam's hands when he's awake.

Up to this point, I don't actually have a problem with what Dean's done based on his knowledge. It's here at the end of the episode, where Gadreel convinces Dean to depart from his intial intent and stall, that in my opinion, the "Dean doing something wrong" part starts:

EZEKIEL IN SAM’S BODY And if he does not? Without his acceptance, Sam can eject me at any time, especially with me so weak. And if Sam does eject me, he will die. DEAN Then we keep it a secret for now. Or until Sam's well enough that he doesn't need an angelic pacemaker or I find a way to tell him. I - I... As for him being in a hospital, I'll have to figure something out. EZEKIEL IN SAM’S BODY I can erase it all, if you like. He will not remember any of this.

Dean doesn't feel good about it, but he agrees to keep quiet, because he's scared Sam will yet again make a suicidal play. Dean is riddled with guilt in the following episodes over lying to Sam, and in 9.08, Dean tries to tell Sam he's possessed, but Gadreel takes over Sam's body and stops him. Dean comes clean again in 9.09, only for Gadreel to stop Sam from receiving the news again.

So. Dean's mistake is lying to Sam. He shouldn't have lied to him. Point blank. At the same time, had Dean pushed the issue, would Gadreel have been willing to be expelled? Would he ever have allowed Dean to tell Sam the truth, from the moment he was... installed? Or was Dean screwed from the beginning, and was the idea that he got to choose any of this—any bit of it—really just... an illusion to keep Dean compliant with the possession that was keeping Gadreel under the radar?

Think about it for a second. Why did Gadreel ask Dean's permission? He didn't ever need Dean's permission to do any of this. He didn't need Dean's permission to trick Sam. He didn't need Dean's permission to remove Sam's memory of the hospital. He didn't need Dean's permission to keep the fact that he was possessing Sam a secret. He could have done every bit of this without asking. The problem was, Dean probably would have caught onto the disappearing angel act, and Gadreel would have had to get violent, and for the first part of season 9, Gadreel doesn't want to get violent! He just wants a place to lay low, and sees an opportunity to prove he's a good angel who helps humans—not just the angel who let the serpent into the garden. Getting Dean's "consent" might ease his own conscience about nonconsensual possession or be a way to keep Dean compliant or both, but ultimately, these are more questions worth weighing imo, because Supernatural loves to toy with the illusion that Dean has power in situations where he doesn’t, and in this case, he doesn't... actually have any power at all... does he?

That said, when it comes right down to it, Dean still did something wrong by helping keep the secret—by not trying to tell Sam the truth immediately because he was scared. And well. Okay. So what?

This is a show with characters who have good intentions but still make mistakes. As Cas will say about this later, "You were stupid for the right reasons". We get some great insights into the pitfalls that lead Dean down this path, and it's interesting to watch that happen and then later, see a broken mirror as Sam endeavors to prove through season 10 what Dean is willing to do can't touch what Sam is ultimately willing to do to keep Dean around.

Here's the thing—I don't believe for a single second that Sam wouldn't do the exact same thing in 9.01 had their positions been reversed. Sam and Dean have a conversation along these lines at the end of 9.13 "The Purge":

DEAN All right, you want to be honest? If the situation were reversed and I was dying, you'd do the same thing. SAM No, Dean. I wouldn't. Same circumstances...I wouldn't. 

This genuinely wounds Dean and gets brought up a few times, but then in 9.23 when it's brought up for the last time in another context:

DEAN What happened with you being okay with this? SAM I lied.

Sam never gets the chance to do the exact same thing to Dean, but he has already gone behind Dean's back to try and save his life before. He's used Dean's death to justify doing things Dean begged him not to do on his behalf. He kept the case they were actually on under wraps as he inched toward a plan to turn himself and Dean into Frankenstein's monsters in 3.15 (and really the only reason it didn't work is that Sam got captured by Doc Benton and Dean had to save his ass, and then Sam morosely helped dig the grave). Sam went behind Dean's back directly against his wishes to threaten a crossroad's demon in 3.05. In season 10, he violates Dean's consent by removing the Mark of Cain from Dean's arm using the Book of the Damned, which not only requires an overt human sacrifice of Oskar and gets a woman named Suzie killed in "The Werther Project" because Sam refuses to heed her warnings, but also results in the apocalypse... and all of this was something Dean asked Sam not to do, and Sam did every bit of it to get his brother back, and while standing in the wreckage in 11.01, echoed Dean's line from 9.13, saying, "I would do it again". Dean signed the supernatural possession next-of-kin consent form, and the fallout was Kevin and Sam. Sam violated Dean's consent and tens of thousands of people died and he said he'd do it again while they died around him.

#also i got excited but xoxo 😘 #season 9 #9.01 #gadreel #the flannel business #3.15 #3.05 #11.01 #9.13 #8.14 #9.08 #9.09 #mail

[lilytii]

My thoughts on Ascended vs. Non Ascended Astarion

HEAVY Spoiler Warnings ahead. If you've not completed the game, or if you do not want spoilers, do not read on!

Honestly, I was never planning on making a post like this, and generally I thought most people understood the differences between them. However, I’m seeing a bunch of people twist what both of these mean and are adamantly standing with these twisted meanings, which I feel does them both an injustice. This argument is addressing the romance with Astarion. If you’re just his ally/friend/colleague, most of this won’t matter much.

First and foremost, let me say this: If you like either of these endings, that’s great! I think they’re both tragic in their own right and indeed well written. I do not think anyone should be judged because of what they enjoy, from a fictitious game. I do not think that those who like Ascended need therapy, nor should they be shamed or judged in current relationships. I also do not believe that those who like non ascended route are weak hearted people who cannot handle a hot, evil romance. These are all personal preferences and you shouldn’t feel ashamed.

That being said, I think there are people who are misunderstanding, or refusing to accept what some of these endings mean for the character. I’m going to break things down, piece by piece and come to you with my conclusion. For this I’ll use a few different abbreviations to make things easier.

A.Astarion - Ascended Astarion

S.Astarion - Spawn Astarion

U/A- Unascended

Hopefully this will make things easier to understand and follow. Alright, let’s get into it, and apologies if this is long, this took me days to write and look over all the information I could culminate. I’ve seen many of the same points brought up over and over again, and some who argue various versions of the same argument. Instead of writing long winded responses to one response, I figure I’d write out all of my thoughts in one post and be done with it. There may be points that I miss, forget to address, and I apologize, there’s a lot of ground to cover.

First, let’s go over a few things about What we know about BG3 vampires, the Ascension ritual, and what all of this means.

I think it’s common that everyone knows BG3 is set in Faerun, which is a world setting for the game D&D. The game is running off 5E rules and guidelines, though there are many things that are changed to better suit a video game setting rather than table top. (i.e. short rests are instant, long rests are the only way time and events progress, etc.) That being said, 5e has a set of rules that exist more as guidelines. At the end of the day, everything is up to DM discretion. If the book says “ X works in X way” and the DM says “I don’t like that ruling, so I’m going to change it to work differently for my campaign,” that’s valid as long as everyone agrees and it remains consistent throughout.

That’s the beauty of this game, is everyone runs it a little differently, with their own set of understanding and rules. BG3 works the same, and as the player, you accept and acknowledge that and play to how it is. 

The Vampires seem to be mostly following the lore and rule sets, but there are a few differences here and there. Mostly, the moment you turn into a spawn/vampire, you’re inherently evil. That’s it, end of story, alignment changed. It doesn’t seem to be the case in BG3 though, as you can see some of those who were spawns and recently changed, don’t seem to be fully evil. Astarion tells us of his past and it seemed he wasn’t entirely subscribed to the sudden alignment change. (Not to say that he doesn’t have evil tendencies, he’s very morally gray.) Even Cazador and the notes you find, in his earliest moments as a spawn, seemed to hold an ounce of who he was before he became a full fledged vampire. It seems that from what we see, the corruption is a slow burn, but inevitable, and Vampire spawns seem to have their souls. How do we know they have souls?

Astarion says that he might as well sell ‘what’s left of his soul’ to a devil, than to let Cazador have him again. The Ascension doesn’t just sacrifice these 7000 bodies, they don’t seem to be just ‘animated dead’, oddly enough they have souls that when they’re sacrificed, those souls go to hell to the demon that made the pact. Mephistopheles.

Raphael tells us all about it, and states it’s a rather grim tale, even for his tastes. This ritual is so foul, so diabolical, it has never been performed. The right of profane Ascension .Astarion’s soul, would be sacrificed.  I Think, damning 7000 souls to hell in exchange for power, there’s no coming back from that. I mean, hell, Bhaal himself must be impressed, probably salivating at the amount of death and carnage in one go.

The Ascension gives Astarion a taste of power, he gets some boosts in combat, but the taint on him is already done. He was a pretty gray character before, now? Not so much. That ritual changes him deeply, and it is evident in how he presents himself and how he behaves. He is truly lost, and not a shadow of himself remains.

“He wants this, and he Approves when you let him ascend.”

Ah, Approval, the way to win the man’s heart! Yes, he approves in both scenarios, and he thanks you in both as well, however, context is Everything here.

Astarion, in that moment, is enticed by power and by the promise of safety. He acknowledges he was blinded by it, just as Cazador was. If you are romancing him, you must succeed a persuasion check that’s relatively low depending on your rating with him, and if he’s romanced.

A lot of people dismiss this and say the fact we have to talk him out of it, shows he did not want to stay a spawn and wanted to Ascend. He admits that he was blinded by his want in the moment. He may have wanted to ascend in that moment, because it promised him a life in which the world would bow to him. After all he’s been through, it’s not crazy to say that sure, he was blinded by the promise of now, not thinking of the consequences. How many times have you made an impulse decision because you wanted something now, because all you could see was the promise of a good time, without thinking of any repercussions? It’s human.

He goes on to say:

 “But you saw something else in me- Someone else I could be. Someone who could break the cycle of power and terror that started centuries ago. You saved me back there. I may not have appreciated it at the time, but I do now. Thank you.”

I want to point out his body language. When Astarion is being serious, when he’s lowering the walls and the barriers to who he is, his movements are small. He smiles, his eyes soften, and he makes eye contact. When he says “but I do now,” he nods, affirming that he truly understands and appreciates what you did, stopping him from ascending. And then he gives a humble bow of his head saying ‘Thank you’.

“But Astarion thanks you on both occasions for giving him everything.”

As it was stated above, context is key. Yes, When he is turning you into a vampire spawn, A. Astarion does say “You’ve given me everything I ever wanted. Thank you.” I can see the case people would make to say this is what he wanted, and so he is sincerely thankful that we gave it to him. In either case, he’s happy.

I can understand the logic, but allow me to put it into a different perspective, if I may.

A drug addict is going through withdrawl and you have the drug they want. They crave it, they’re only focused on that drug and need the high to get through another day. They don’t address their addiction, they just need to score, so plead for you to give it to them. You cave in, give them their drug and they take it. They tell you “Thank you, this is what I wanted.” Is it sincere? Sure, they are really thankful for it, but did you help them? Was this really what was good for them?

Instead, when they beg you for the drug, you tell them ‘No, this is not the life you would be proud of and I want you to be proud of yourself.” Instead, you take them to rehab, they get clean and stay sober. They’re on the path to turning their lives around and say “You know what, I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but, you helped me. You saved me from going down a horrible path. Thank you.”

That thanks, is also sincere, but the outcomes are vastly different.

A.Astarion thanks you for giving him what he wants. S.Astarion thanks you for giving him what he needs.

 Even in his graveyard scene, he says he’s not giving up, just “Reassessing what I want. What I really want.” And when you ask him later, at the graveyard what he wants, he says “you. I want you”  I emphasize ‘really’ here because he does. This is Astarion being honest and telling you what he really wants.

He does not NEED power over others, he does not NEED to ascend, he needs to believe in himself, to choose a life he can be proud of, to do what he wants without being a slave to all the power that stood before him. 

This is evident if you say “You saved yourself, I just gave you a push.” 

And he responds with:

 “You did more than that. You believed in me- believed I was enough just the way I am. When I look at my future, anything and everything feels possible now. And I get to share it with you, as a partner. An equal. You saved me from myself and let me walk a new path where I can be free. TRULY, HONESTLY, FREE. This is a gift, you know. Thank you. I won’t forget it.”

There’s so much that this speaks to, and it’s so self explanatory, but so many people overlook that to say:

“S.Astarion is weak and is still unable to walk in the sunlight. At least Ascending him he’s free.”

I’ll agree and say his ending with him running away from the sun is tragic and painful, but I think that was the point. It’s gut wrenching. The worst part is honestly, most of the companion dialogue who treat him like ‘Oh well, fuck him I guess.” That, I think we can all be on board saying he did not deserve that. Turning away from power, helping you save the world, and all the companions say is like “welp, it was nice knowing you.” That was dirty.

It feels like so many people think giving up one's soul to walk in the sun is the best decision ever and so worth it. The point of his story feels like “Power, but at what cost?” Sure, he can have all these added benefits, if he just gives away his soul, does the most horrific, dastardly thing possible, and completes the ritual. He no longer is himself, and becomes a slave to power. Power will always be something he chases, so that he will never be used again. You basically tell him he’s weak the way he is and to steal the power he is owed. 

Meanwhile in the U/A route, you tell him that he would not be proud of this life, that you want him to live a life he would be truly proud of. And he says “You’re right, I can be better than him.” But he is NOT above enjoying being the one to deal his death. We don’t even STOP him from Killing Cazador, we know he is owed that, he deserves that. 

S.Astarion says he is free to walk a new path, whatever that path is. In his graveyard scene, he says he’s been dead in the ground long enough, it’s time to start living again. S.Astarion’s story is about finding his autonomy, finding his inner strength, accepting himself and making a new path for himself. Whatever this world has to offer, he’s going to take it and have fun.

When you Ascend him, and tell him that you miss the man he was, he seems actually taken back and says:

 “What do you mean, I was pathetic back then, why would you say that?” 

He sounds hurt. He sounds like maybe the tiniest bit, he regrets losing that man, like he can’t understand why someone would love who he was before he ascended.

He hasn’t gotten the affirmation that he’s enough, in fact, he’s more affirmed that he was weak, pathetic, and that power is what will make him strong. He is perfect now because he’s powerful. That’s such a tragic way of looking at him. By choosing this, he doesn’t accept how strong and capable he is as a spawn, he doesn’t heal and regain control of his life, he’s seen as lesser, as someone who needs an outside power to be strong. Love, belief in himself, it wasn’t enough to save him.

“There is no Equality in S.Astarion xTav/Durge. You have the upper hand, he does not. You will die of old age, he will not. That’s not a good romance at all.”

This complaint is one I see a lot, a LOT on people’s videos, blogs, reddit, etc. Just because he is back to being a spawn and does not have insane vampiric powers gifted by an evil, hellish ritual, does not make you his superior. It’s the way you two treat each other, the way you two view each other, that is what makes you an equal. 

If you look at how A.Astarion talks to you, he talks down to you, looking down his nose, he believes you are beneath him. If he makes you a spawn, you are kept nicely under his thumb. 

If you keep him as a spawn, he does not look at you as if you are his ruler, his master, you are his equal, his lover, his companion. He doesn’t look down at you, but eye to eye. Just because one has different abilities and strength does not mean inequality. Just because one has a longer/shorter life span, does not mean inequality. Look at Shadowheart’s parents, one is an elf, the other, human. Does that negate their love because of their lifespan? Are they doomed and have a terrible love story?

I’m sorry, but this argument doesn’t hold water to me. 

A.Astarion fans love that they can choose to live with him in eternity, as his slave. So many people believe that is better than S. Astarion living his days freely with someone he loves, truly loves, as long as he can. I’ve seen people headcanon their Tav/Durge find a means to either cure Astarion of his Vampirism, or find ways to extend their lives. In one of my D&D games, we had collars that kept us from aging and dying prematurely. Granted, we had to agree to give up spell slots every year or so to a powerful mage so he can create magic items, but it pretty much allowed us to live forever. If Gale can ascend to godhood, I’m sure you can find a way to fix these small power issues.

“A.Astarion is the real Astarion, he goes back to his Act 1 self.”

I’ve seen this argument made to why people like A.Astarion, because they love the man he was in Act 1, and feels like this is who he is. There’s so many talking points here, so much to break down, and many arguments made to ‘affirm’ that this is the real Astarion, and this is where he is most himself. I’m going to break this down as best I can and do my best to be clear and easy to follow. There’s so much to go over and I don’t want to sound like I’m all over the place.

I gotta admit, I half agree with this. He does go back to his Act 1 self, but that's not the ‘true’ Astarion. Act 1. Astarion is the man who manipulated your feelings, who was playing an act. It isn’t until Act 2 that Astarion starts to come to terms with himself and becomes honest with you. Yes, he fell in love with you sometime between those moments, but after you ascend him, you can see that he goes back to those theatrics.  All of the progress he made, all of the growth he made, when he ascends, that’s it, it just hard stops and reverses back to the start. He regresses so hard that he loses himself and becomes a shadow of the man he was, an echo of that man who manipulated his way to get what he wants.

Astarion admits in several ways in different dialogue options that the Ascension would have changed him, it would have made him lose himself, it would have made him different.

Tav: “The ritual would have changed you, I’m glad you resisted it.

S. Astarion: So am I. Fun as all that power would have been…this feels more me.

Tav: “Do you regret turning down all that power?”

S.Astarion: “Perhaps. It would have been terrible fun. But then again, I could feel something slipping away. I came so close to losing myself-to losing everything I’d learned since meeting you.”

He speaks so much about his growth, about his development thus far and if he ascended, he’d lose it all. This speaks volumes to his character and to how he holds himself now. We see Astarion start to believe in himself, knowing his worth, and his U/A route shows that he’s starting to understand that he can do the right thing.

“Astarion says he’s not happy.”

S.Astarion “I am- well, not happy. But this feels right.”

(Graveyard scene,)

Tav: “regretting your choice?”

S.Astarion: “No, I made the right choice. Although I do regret the options I had.”

Tav: “You did the right thing, stopping the Black mass.”

S.Astarion: “I know, that doesn’t mean it stings any less”

 Tav: (when referring to never seeing the sun as the price of freedom) “Do you think you can live with that?”

S.Astarion: “I’ll have to, doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

All the arguments I’ve seen for those who prefer A.Astarion use this to say he’s not happy, that he admits that he would have had more fun if he had power, and that’s what he wanted. He’s lamenting his lack of power and the fact that he’ll belong to the shadows, for sure, but he knows and understands that the decision he made was for the best. This is honestly such a relatable, and real emotion and thought. How many times do we as flawed humans know that doing the right thing, whether it’s for our own benefit or someone else’s, isn’t always the ‘fun’ option. He’s been on a quest for power, saw an ideal in his head, and now understands that going that route wasn’t the best for him, no matter how much fun it might have been in theory.

Astarion knew he made the best choice for him, the best choice to regain control, to be himself, his true self. His options were ‘sell your soul, lose yourself to have power and walk in the sun,  or keep your soul, remain true to yourself and better your life, but be reserved to the life of a spawn, living in the shadows and with hunger.” There was no good options, but there was a good choice.  

I want you to think about who Astarion is, what he’s been telling us this whole time.In the love test, we can choose silly, fun answers to gain his approval and keep things lighthearted, but the real answers exist, and he doesn’t exactly enjoy them being shared.

Astarion is afraid of being someone’s slave, he’s afraid of being helpless and not being able to keep his freedom. This whole time, 200 years he’s been shown that there’s no heroes, gods do not care for anyone, and the strong are the only ones who survive in this world. He’s afraid, he’s terrified but puts on this air of assertion. He stands behind those who are stronger than him and rides their coat tails till he can snatch power for himself. He’s not above backstabbing and manipulation if it gets him what he wants.

Astarion plays with power, as long as it doesn’t threaten to change him. He’s fine with abusing the tadpoles powers, but the moment he realizes that greater power can be unlocked by becoming a half illithid, he wants nothing to do with it. You can peer into his mind and use his fear against him to force him to do this, but thats manipulative in it’s own right. You don’t respect him or his want at that point, all in the name and sake of power.

Astarion’s first line to us is his disgust at the thought of being turned into a mindflayer. He laughs bitterly and says “Of course it would turn me into a monster…what else did I expect?” Power is good if it offers safety and protection, but not at the risk of his own skin. This is said so much throughout and is emphasized by him saying, he knows finishing the right would have ruined him, who he was, and everything he’s learned up to this point.

However, if throughout this game, you show him that there’s strength in one’s self, that there’s power to be had deep within, he starts to understand that and starts to see that he can be the break in the chain. He can be the difference he needs, alongside you.

This power hungry Astarion is the result of 200 years of abuse and suffering. Astarion starts to understand that there’s consequences to one’s actions, he starts to take responsibility for those actions and understands the difference between running away from it, and meeting them head on.

I’d say that’s a strength in it’s own. He’s finding himself and tackling the hardest things in his life that he turned a blind eye to. A.Astarion does not get that. He doesn’t care about anyone, anything, consequences be damned.

“Tav gaslights Astarion to change himself. Tav ‘knows what’s better’ and choosing not to ascend him not only makes him weak, but shows you don’t think he’s strong enough.” Tav forces Astarion to change.

This is paraphrased from a comment from a prominent A.Astarion fan. The entire comment was such a hot take, that they said, and I quote: Cazador did not inspire him that sex is power. Cazador didn't need sex to control people, he had other power. 

I don’t know if they understand what Astartion was trying to say when he said that Cazador made Astarion use his body to lure things for him. That Cazador had full control over him and made him perform acts of sex against Astarion’s will, otherwise he’d get TORTURED. I could go ON about how disgusting the take is, but I won’t get into that. I’ll address their point and continue.

I believe I’m one of many who don’t like the option of “You don’t need to worry, I’ll protect you.” And Astarion’s own answer of “thanks, that’s sweet, but I don’t want to have to always rely on you.” (or something to that nature.) I refuse to choose it, I understand the sentiment, but that option didn’t feel good. 

Still, despite that line, Astarion doesn’t get the all power he wanted, but that doesn’t make him weak. Tav shows that Astarion is weak in the ways of inner strength, the strength to take off his chains and be himself! He has the strength to choose his own destiny and take it by the hands. So many people look at ‘physical’ strength and weigh that higher over inner strength. Astarion in game, is not a weak fighter. I can tell you, rogues are fucking CRAZY strong! In many of my battles, he’d be the last one standing and has to sometimes be the one to save others. 

Believing that there’s more to Astarion than power, revenge, and sex is NOT gaslighting him at all! Gaslighting someone is forcing another to believe that they’re wrong, despite the fact that they aren’t. It’s projecting onto them your wants and making them feel terrible for not seeing things your way.  

You can gaslight Astarion, want to know how? By forcing him to have sex with you despite him saying it’s uncomfortable for him. By saying “You should enjoy it, and enjoy it with me.” And do you know what happens when you choose that? He ends things, and stands up for himself!

We aren’t manipulating him, changing him, forcing him to be someone he isn’t. He admits to it many times over after  that we believed in him, we saved him and pulled him away from a path that would ruin him. To say that’s changing him, to say it’s gaslighting is absolutely bonkers! In fact, telling him to ascend is affirming that power is better than anything, even if it costs your soul. I don’t know why people refuse to believe that S.Astarion IS the REAL Astarion. And while he isn’t all powerful, he’s fully free to live his life the way he wants to, and intends on it.

“A.Astarion still loves us. Sure it’s not the ‘kind’ love you get with S.Astarion, but it is love and he does care for us. It’s perfect for an evil route”

This is the most common argument for what I’ve seen people saying they like A.Astarion. It’s a different kind of romance, a different kind of love that still has caring, but it isn’t ‘nice’. There’s so many different takes on this that usually accumulate to “He does care, he does love us! It’s a crazy toxic love, but it is still love.”

I get it, I totally understand why so many people are drawn to A.Astarion. The sex scene is spicy, he calls you pet names, and says “You’re mine” and things like “I’ll protect you” “Lovers forever”. At it’s core, it sounds like a crazy, possessive romance perfect for an evil Tav/Durge, especially a Bahhl accepting Durge. I can see the appeal, and really, for an evil character, ruling the world with the lord of vampires sounds amazing! Hell, even for a morally ambiguous or amoral character, this would be fun!

I know there are people who appreciate it for what it is, people who understand that they are A.Astarion’s favorite thing, they are his obedient pet who does his will. Some in their Durge games understand they are using each other, and it’s not a romantic relationship, but that of an evil companionship. “We are awful for each other and do awful things for each other!”

That being said, many people seem to be under the impression that A.Astarion truly cares about you, that he loves you.

“It’s a possessive love, but even then, that’s just a form of love.”

Look, I’ll be honest and be the first to say that a person, especially a hot vampire who calls me “MINE” with such virility, would instantly make me weak in the knees. I love me a strong lover who is a bit selfish in wanting me, there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, who doesn’t want to feel coveted like that? (Ok, I know there are people out there who aren’t cool with that, I’m just saying for those of us who are thirsty! lol)

Still, I can’t say that this context is of that capacity. You’re his object, his favorite and obedient spawn, slave. He pretties it up and calls you consort, which makes you think some form of equal footing, that of a spouse. (Understandably, not all marriages have spouses who view their spouse as an ‘equal’. This is very much like that.) If you’re his spawn, you are surely his slave.

“He calls us Pet, my treasure, consort, lover. He stands up for us against Araj, he does indeed care for us.”

Pet names are cute, and he has used ‘pet’ for us before he ascended. The way he says “Yes my treasure?” Is very baby sweet talk, he even does the elaborate swinging of his shoulders. I don’t think Astarion’s descent to madness is immediate. I think there are still parts of him that is haunted by his trauma, but instead of being able to deal with it, he does the same things he’s always done. He disassociates, he falls back to bad patterns. 

When meeting Araj again, both S. Astarion and A. Astarion have similar dialogues between each other, but also, there are some interesting differences as well. A. Astarion makes a note of ‘Who belongs to who this time’ referring back when she thought Astarion was your subordinate, your ‘obstinate charge’ and you could stick up for him and say he is his own person. Now, he means to correct that and explain that you belong to him, not in a romantic way, but in the way that you are under his charge, you are his spawn/slave.

I get that in that conversation he says “And don’t worry, if anything happens, I’ll protect you.” Can be sweet, if you look at that completely out of context, hell I’d think it’s sweet too. He does say this in a bit of a condescending way though. It’s not the “I love you and I’ll protect you,” it’s the “This is my thing, and I’ll protect it from getting being damaged.” The care that A. Astarion has for you isn’t one of honest love, it isn’t born of concern.

You can see that because S. Astarion has a dialogue that says “Say no, the only thing she is offering is pain, and…I don’t want to see you hurt.” 

Astarion isn’t someone who knows how to express his true feelings, he’s expressed his inability to know how to truly be with someone, but he’s opening up. At this point, this is beyond his graveyard scene, so you’re seeing a man who is awkward when expressing his true feelings. Again, his body language says so much here. He gives a sigh right before saying he doesn’t want to see you hurt, he shies away from you just slightly and his expression grows softer. He’s being vulnerable and sincere, he truly does not want to see you hurt. Not because you’re an item of his that he doesn’t want damaged, but because he truly doesn’t want his lover to be hurt, that would pain him. There’s a lot of dialogue that’s similar for both, so, there’s not much to differentiate between them at that time.

Astarion’s trauma is still trauma, in both iterations. His understanding of consent seems to resonate with both versions at this point. So many people are taking that ‘consent’ is him caring. Just because he understands consent, and still asks you, that doesn’t quite mean a level of caring. Yes you can choose to be his spawn, or not. If you break up with him not as a spawn, he insults you and lets you be. Choose to be his spawn, and there is no getting out of it, you have no consent anymore. You’re his slave. Yes, he calls you his ‘consort’ because he wanted to dress up the word “spawn”. A slave is still a slave, no matter what other pretty title you want to give it. You have consent up until he turns you, then that’s out the window, you can’t leave ever. Hell, he even has a line that says “I should have turned you into a spawn, just to prove that I could.” Yeah, let that sink in.

“A.Astarion says ‘I love you, I’d never hurt you.’ He tells us he loves us on multiple occasions. Once more, he’s got a beating heart now, so he is fully capable of love.”

 =/

A beating heart, a living organ =/= love. I mean, if you break up with him he says “You brought my dead heart back to life, it will keep beating” That is metaphorical, it didn’t mean that he will be brought back to life. So no, having a living, beating heart does not make him more capable of love. He felt real love as a spawn, he sincerely fell for you.

Let’s also talk about Astarion saying “I love you.” He does say it at both routes, but the way he says it, and again, body language says it all.

I’ve seen this video going around about how he says he loves Tav/Durge, and how people claim this is love, that this is proof he cares. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Bov4CwHLukc

Let’s talk about these, shall we?

First of all, notice how Astarion is acting here. This is back to theatrics, the wide arm movements, the flowery words and the poetic gestures. Does this look familiar? Ah yes, this looks very similar to when he used all his ‘favorite lines’ at us. Even when he says “I love you” it feels so practiced, so forced. He even looks down at you afterwards. But people are so convinced that this is romantic love. They are convinced he means this.

I am reminded back to that, force Astarion to sleep with you scene. You tell him “You seemed like you enjoyed it,” and he says he knows that song and dance better than anyone, it was an act. This? This is an act as well. But S.Astarion? Go look at the graveyard scene, go watch how he tells you he loves you.

He looks you directly in the eyes, taking your hand in his, and he’s smiling. That’s no forced smile, when does he ever smile that genuine and at peace? He looks down in thought for a moment and returns to your eyes and says “he loves ‘this’, and he wants it all, with you.” Look at those two “I love yous” side to side and tell me which one really, truly looks sincere. Which looks real.

In act 2, he says that he manipulated you into an alliance, so you’d never hurt him. He used sex to get you to love him so you won’t turn on him, but says you deserve something real, that he wants to be real with you. In his graveyard scene, he’s ready to be fully real with you. And if you do have sex with him, the dev. Notes says “Had_sex_as_equals. You are his equal, and he is yours. Whatever your powers and abilities are doesn’t matter, it’s how you treat each other, as equals.

Astarion’s first line in the video says he was offering you power, offer you to live as his spawn so he can own you, what’s that, if not love? Then says, if that’s not an offer, if you want more, perhaps this isn’t for you.

I’ve seen so many people say “A.Astarion is not for the weak hearted, his kind of love is intense, possessive and hot, not for those goody goodies! He says it himself.”

Nah, he’s telling you that love is a transaction. You gave me power, I’ll give you a bit of it. You become my spawn that will be obedient to me, who will bow to my every whim, and I’ll offer you protection. There, love. This is a man who used his body, who used everything as a transaction. If you get high approval before the party and allowed him to bite you, he offers you sex as thanks. It’s a transaction. 

A.Astarion says “I did try with you, you know. In the only way I know how.” By using a transaction of offering you life of being a spawn. 

And of course, how can we forget the famous line. “Of course I know about *love* (said with absolute disgust by the way) I know how to use it, manipulate it, and I can’t help playing the hand I know. I would have used your love, abused your trust until you were nothing.”

Every argument here says “You hurt his pride, he’s angry! He doesn’t mean that. He was upset and said a lie.” And I can say, ok, I hear you. There’s been times when people break up and say really hurtful things because they were hurt. Things they may not even mean. I’d be fully inclined to believe that if… well, if that were true. Instead, I fully, TRULY believe Astarion is being sincere with us here. I think he knows that we were smart enough to see through his BS, to see that in this state, he’s gone.

They also cut out parts where Astarion says “Oh that was completely different, I’d never hurt you, I love you.” Right after, in the same breath, he says “That’s what you’ve been waiting to hear, isn’t it?”  Like, this man is telling you what you want to hear, it’s not the truth, it’s all a lie. He’s telling you to your face “I’m telling you what you want to hear.”

 He doesn’t know what real love is, he is incapable of love, to him it’s just a game. You can tell this by the insight check you do before he turns you.

“The insight check really means that he doesn’t think highly of himself, that he values Tav/Durge’s opinion and thinks he’s not good enough to be with”

I can understand how this could be one interpretation, and I’d agree with you if this was Act 2. Astarion. I’d fully believe that’s how he thinks a continued romance would be with him, but that’s not what’s going on here.

A.Astarion thinks he’s all powerful and amazing. He’s not the weak man he was back then, he’s better. Knowing you want to be a slave to him, you’re degrading yourself to becoming his slave, his spawn, but…maybe you’re into that. Maybe you want to be his slave, to worship him and be manipulated. Hell, you’ve gone this far for him, he doesn’t seem to have to beg you, you’re willing to do what he wants.

That’s the implication here. Not that he’s not good enough for you, but that you no longer care about yourself, that you want to be stepped on by him. 

A lot of people understand this concept as “Yeah, I made him worse, and I’m willing to throw everything in the trash to be with him! He can pull me by my leash and I will follow!” And then others misunderstand it to mean “Awww my poor boy thinks he’s not good enough for us and thinks we’re degrading ourselves to be his lover.” It’s definitely the former, not the later.

But this is a Sub/Dom relationship!

At the very base core of what that is, he is dominant over you, and you are serving him. To call this a sub/dom relationship is such a disservice to those real relationships out there that exist though!

I know someone close to me, who has been in a sub/dom relationship for 10+ years. She wears a collar with her partner’s name on it and he calls her pet names. This is something they do in their private time, and after all of it, there’s so much after care and tenderness involved to remind them both that they are partners who are equal. They are in a safe place, they have real, romantic love and understand if at any time there’s something they aren’t comfortable with, they can speak up.

A.Astarion just owns you. He doesn’t care, you are his property and that’s that. That’s like calling Cazador Astarion’s lover! The man favored Astarion, and when he disobeyed, he punished him. Granted, I’ll say that Astarion and his spawn’s relationship isn’t violent yet, but I don’t think it wouldn’t get to that point. He says he doesn’t have to, you’ll be wonderfully obedient.

…but what if you aren’t? Do you really think he’ll stand there and listen? If you push back, do you think he will understand? If you speak up and speak your mind, will he just lovingly accept your words? I’m afraid not. To those who think they can ‘change’ him or ‘keep him in line’, the time for that has passed and he’s not going back. I’m sorry.

The writer who spoke up is wrong about A.Astarion and is just one writer, not even the MAIN one! Take their words with a grain of salt.

The amount of people taking the salt out of what the writer said is crazy! I saw the reddit post and people were losing their minds, saying that this writer should have never said anything, that they stole the joy out of their A. Astarion romance, and that all is doomed!

Let me just say this. The writer, other people, no one can take your agency of enjoying a game. Take it for what it is, enjoy it. If you don’t agree, that’s fine, but it does not make the writer wrong. 

The writer is one of many who worked and wrote for Astarion. Just as what happens with every character, what happens with comics, movies, games, etc. You have teams who all work on one part to make it a cohesive whole. Animators have writers, directors, lineart work, flat colors, shaders, sketchers, background artists, all of these different people work on different parts of the same product and at the end, you have a whole piece. They all have to be in sync with each other and understand the source material to make it all work here.

The writer who spoke out may have been one of many, but that does not mean their words were invalid. In fact, after taking their words into consideration and looking back at how the sex scene for A.Astarion and S.Astartion play out, I honestly sat back and thought “...wow, I actually completely understand what you mean!”

First of all, they call it a bad ending. That speaks enough to what has been said and stated over and over again. Astarion does not progress, he does not heal, he gives up his soul for power, losing himself, and becomes a slave to it. Secondly, they said that you failed to see him as anything more than a kink, and reduce your relationship to that. That explains his actions, the way he is back to manipulating you with pretty words of adoration. And so many people are literally falling for it all over again.

In the scene he makes you a spawn, it’s overly provocative (I’ll admit, it’s fucking hot! I mean, from an objective view at least. Knowing what I know, it’s sad, but taking out context and what I know, it’s a very sexy scene) it’s meant to be. This is what you wanted, this is what you think of him. The camera mod that allows you to see different angles is a GODSEND here! You can look into his eyes and they are devoid of life, of feeling. He’s going through the motions, but he’s not even there. He’s not looking at you, he’s looking away, his body is performing, and Tav/Durge is just moaning and enjoying themselves. You wanted this, you got it, and in the end, he delivers.

Vs. the graveyard. It’s so much more chaste since you have clothes on. He’s not biting you, but this is his most honest form. It’s pure love, this isn’t lust, this isn’t him ‘fucking’ you, but being one with you. He’s reclaiming what sex means to him. It’s not a means to an end, it’s not an exchange, it’s not forced, he wants to give you a night of passion because he loves you. This is him connecting sex to love, and not as an act of manipulation.

Again, the camera mod is everything!! He looks into your eyes, his features are genuine. He cups the side of your cheek and kisses you. Then, he pushes you down, and climbs over you, looking into your eyes before sinking into the kiss in a much deeper, passionate way. 

I admit, I’m a degenerate. I can accept that Astarion is hot! I thought his turning scene was erotic, steamy, and I just couldn’t stop watching it. But knowing what I know, I can understand how, if what you’re looking for is real love, a real romantic relationship, that’s not the way to go. I think the camera angles of his graveyard scene show so much more to how passionate and hot that kiss is! Once I understood that this was Astarion, truly himself, taking back sex for himself and pushing Tav/Durge down in that swoop of a kiss, I completely did a 180 and preferred that! 

That kiss is HOT! And it means so much more, which makes it all the more intense. This is Astarion, throwing down his walls, opening up to us, body, soul and heart. And seeing as the dev notes says they had sex, it leaves it to your imagination how that went down, but I am one to believe, it was incredible, earth shatteringly so.

Final thoughts

If you made it this far, Oh my GOD I’m so sorry! Honestly, I appreciate it and thank you all for the time and patience to read my ramblings. I’ve just been sitting here replying to so many others and said “Fuck it, I’ll make a post about my feelings.”

There’s so much I haven’t touched on, so many points that can still be made, and I’m sure I missed over some other parts. Because I’m a maladaptive daydreamer, these thoughts literally assaulted me every chance they got! I couldn’t cook, clean, or even shower without another full stream of ideas that invaded my brain. I had to stop now because I’ve been working on this for 4 days and if I kept going, this would be 30+ pages long and NO ONE wants that.

That being said, look, if you like Ascended, go for it! If you want your character to be degraded and live in that fantasy, that’s ok and you shouldn’t be shamed for it. You shouldn’t be bullied by anyone to think you’re real life relationships are awful, or that you need therapy. Please, have fun and remember to take some time away from it all every now and then.

If you like Spawn, that’s great too! You shouldn’t be made to feel like you’re weak, or you only think Astarion is some good boy. You shouldn’t be told that you’re gaslighting, or anything else that I’ve seen out there.

At the end of the day, these are games, escapism from reality. I encourage you all to write, or maybe play the character in a game, or do what you want to do as long as it brings joy to you.

The point of this post is not to shame anyone or to cause drama. The point of this was to show that the writers did an AMAZING job illustrating these character’s stories. They showed us how gray and lifelike they were, they made their flaws something relatable, but also showed us that there’s always two very different ways things can go.

I wanted to highlight the differences in Astarion’s endings.  In his Ascended ending, he loses himself for the price of power. He fails to see that there’s more to himself than what power can give him. He fails to heal from his trauma, and instead, masks it behind power and control. He continues the cycle of abuse and becomes an entirely new monster. He fails to experience a true, romantic love that he never had and instead returns to using ‘love’ as a form of manipulation. He is deluding himself into what he thinks is happiness, and one day, will have nothing left inside of him. It’s so tragic and yet painfully, beautifully written.

In his spawn ending, he gets healing, he gets to choose his own way through life and live it being free. I wanted to show that while power was enticing, he learns that he’s enough the way he is, even if he won’t have the power of profane ascension (no matter how much terrible fun it would have been). And hey, if you want to play him in a solo campaign (that’s what I’m doing) and find ways for him to gain power without losing who he is, I’m sure that would be awesome! To see Astarion grow, and continue to take responsibility, to see him take back his sexuality, his honor, his autonomy is beautiful, even if it means he had to let go of the thing he thought he wanted, to take hold of the thing he truly wants.

#astarion #astarion ancunin #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #ascended astarion #spawn astarion #spawn #ascended #discussion #bg3 #balders gate 3

[visaviae]

The Great Escape

I've read an unreasonable amount of Worm Fanfiction. About 289 fanfics - all of which I've categorized and rated on this spreadsheet here. A more insane way to put that is that I've read 2.32% of Wormfic, discluding smut.

The Great Escape by ColossalMistake is my favorite Wormfic bar none.

I'm a sucker for some cover art, and it starts off with some awesome cover art by owl_hat, whose stuff you can find here. There's a ton of character just put into the designs - from how ratty Acidbath looks, the joy on String Theory's face, the mundacity of Teacher or the slightly haunting gaze of Glaistig Uaine.

The short of the premise is that after Echidna, after Alexandria, the Birdcage has a breakout, and Eidolon tries to recapture all the villains. The fic does a perfect bead on Eidolon's characterization. He's not evil, but he's not a good person. He's a little arrogant and egotistical - but he's earned the right to be. And at the end of the day, the only thing he cares about is helping people.

I stared those sins dead in the eye every morning, every time I was too slow to save someone or too weak to help in the ways that mattered.

Throughout the fic, he uses dozens of powers. They range from things that he feels are useless, or potent powers but ones that aren't potent enough. He's constantly reminiscing about his glory days, about when he used to be stronger - about when he used to be *better.* Honestly? The powers are interesting enough that I should compile a list of them one day.

The first chapter starts off a little calm. David is ruminating over the events of the Echidna and Alexandria incidents - fresh wounds for him, isolated from some of the only people he can call friends. He's ruined. His allies don't trust him, he's not on speaking terms with Legend, he's put at arms-length by Cauldron to be reserved for the final battle.

“You’re a monster, David, plain and simple. We might have to work with you against the Endbringers, but you don’t have any friends here. Not anymore.”

The Great Escape scratches an itch for an Eidolon headcanon I have - that before his powers started dimming, and even after, he acted something like Scion. Flying around the world, helping as many people as can in as many ways as he could. Becoming less a person, and more the mask - more Eidolon.

Away went David, and out came Eidolon.

The chapter continues into something a little more manic as the news of the Birdcage breakout - well, breaks out. There's this sort of building tension with each name that's been dropped, starting from more niche characters to Black Kaze, to people who had little showings of strength like Gavel, all while surrounded by this sort of *blur* of motion as things are breaking down. Snowstorm, satellite issues, frantic responses.

And then it culminates with a line.

“Confirmation from Dragon, Glaistig Uaine’s free!” An air of finality settled over the room as the last picture slid onto screen. A blonde child, her mouth twisted in the mimicry of a smile. I could have sworn that her eyes were peering into mine, despite the photo being two decades old. “It’s not a breach. It’s…all of them. Loose.” I didn’t spare Young Buck a glance, but his bravado appeared to have fled. As the din in the room rose to a fever pitch, I remained silent. I’d asked for another chance to be useful. A second chance to help as many people as possible before they put me on a shelf, a relic to be laughed at before the end of the world. God had answered. Now it was my turn.

I'll talk briefly about the second chapter, too. It's a lengthy interlude that shows a series of snips from the POV of the escapees. Each of them running through the wilderness, plotting and planning. The standout three are Gavel, Black Kaze, and Glaistig Uaine - showing three facets of insanity. The more sadistic and psychopathic kind from Gavel, the more hallucinatory and manic from Kaze - and once again, the chapter comes to a close with the Faerie Queen. A more deluded, a more inhuman form of madness.

But one that she can most certainly back up.

As it stands, there are three sorts arcs. I'll post a line from each that I think encapsulates it all.

First, there's Eidolon struggling with String Theory - delving into his powers and how he feels like a shadow of what he once was. Put into a position that he's intimately familiar with - high stakes, something that only he can do.

But this time, he's not enough.

Then the weapon shattered, its only shot arcing up into the sky. And I didn’t know how to stop it.

Next, there's Pastor and Gavel. This focuses more on how Cauldron has been treating him, keeping him at arms-length, while still giving him a chance to be *useful,* even if he's not recognized for being useful. But Pastor is the more interesting half. We see a glimpse of the earlier days, when Hero was alive and Cauldron was in its infancy - we see a fascinating OC who perverts something that Eidolon holds sacred. His religious background. In Eidolon's own words, he perverts Christian beliefs - and vilifies *him.*

I looked back at Pastor, still with the smile on his face, not in the least bit upset by my actions. Eidolon, the ideal that I was supposed to be, meant so much to so many different people. In here, the man in green was a monster of biblical proportions.

The third arc is unfinished. It focuses on Amp - an OC who's an incredible foil to Eidolon. She's naive, idealistic. She raises complex questions and presents simple answers contrasted to the more jaded Eidolon. She had built up an image of him in her mind as someone who couldn't do wrong - and seeing what her own hero has become, and how she betters him because of that makes my heart soar.

“It isn’t a question of strength,” I said. Every branch of the Elite, from strategic outposts to nerve centres like this one, I could tear them apart root and stem. “Its a question of practicality.” They would doubtlessly lose, but there would be nothing to fill the subsequent vacuum. So they remained. A cancer propping up the west coast.

I love Worm, and I love Eidolon. This fic pays respect to both in a way that I adore. Please go ahead and read it. 7/7.

#worm #wormblr #eidolon #wormfic

[iheartgod175]

Princess Presto - Divine Retribution

Cue the lights. Cue the thunder. Strike true and tear the sky asunder! Second Style, Divine Retribution, at your service.

Not even a year ago, Chaos disrupted the young Princess Pea’s life by kidnapping her, and then possessing her, forcing her to fight against her beloved father and friends, whom she considers a second family. Though the others assured her that it wasn’t her fault, Princess Pea couldn’t shake away that fear. What if they hated her? What if they were afraid of her, not wanting to call upon her powers again? Such troublesome thoughts were always at the back of her mind, even during training, which resulted in both a weakening of her powers and a cloud of doubt settling over her mind.

An excursion in Major Land would help Princess Pea come to terms with that fateful battle and her inner fears, which culminated in not only a new resolve, but also a new form that blazes with dignity, inner strength and fearlessness. In a show of growth, the swords saved from that fateful battle—Fatal Rose and Divine Lightning—were added to her growing arsenal of weapons, with Divine Lightning being the weapon of choice for her Second Style. With Jeremiah’s words in her heart—what the enemy used for evil, the Holy One has used it for good—she takes to the battlefield, unwavering in her convictions, and unflinching in the face of danger.

White and gold lightning tears the heavens asunder, saving the innocent, smiting the wicked, and leaving all witnesses in awe of its awesome might.

—

…As you can tell from that official intro, I’ve been playing too much HI3rd. XD

After weeks of promising, here’s Princess Presto in all her glory! I loved drawing this picture, and a lot of my coworkers (who are super awesome and give me a lot of art supplies while I’m at work—and I do mean A LOT XD) loved the initial design I came up with. A lot of them said she was kinda scaring them…and considering that the Evil Readers are absolutely terrified when they see her activate this, that actually was the goal I was going for!

The changes really came about when I colored it, though. I know that in the post explaining Second Styles, I initially put down that her suit was going to be white, silver and gold, but I figured that would be boring, and decided to combine some colors, going for a rustic gold instead, and adding a few browns into her costume. The end result looked pretty sweet, and kinda gives her a medieval warrior princess look—which is just the look I was searching for! Also just realized that part of her outfit was inspired by Saber, which kinda makes sense—before and after this story, she makes a name for herself as a powerful magical princess. And her boots, which I kinda threw together at the last minute, were inspired by Sailor Moon. Had to throw a reference to one of my favorite magical girl anime of all time. ^^

My favorite part of her design was her hair, which I admit, I spent way, WAY too much time on, lol XD The placement of the streaks was a bit of a doozy, but it turned out well! Designing Divine Lightning was a bit of a challenge because I didn’t want it to look too cartoony, or a Keyblade knockoff, lol!

And yes, you did read that right; Fatal Rose, which is her other sword that she wielded under the Evil Reader’s possession, is added to her arsenal, too, though it’s not part of her Second Style. I have plans for that sword that’ll be revealed in the following chapters of Darkness Rewrite…which will be coming up in my notes following this post! XD

I hope you love this picture as much as I loved drawing it!

#super why #princess presto #fan art #my art #super forms #pbs kids

[noveratus]

People will say stuff like my character ship dynamics are way too complicated, but I don't know what they mean. All that I want is character A to be a cynical, apparently cold individual who is actually insecure and very fearful so he hides his fears with sarcasm and being mean to character B. Character B is Character A's employee and seemingly very kind, caring and easy going, but in reality he is desperate for people to like him so he will do whatever he can for them to do so, specially character A whomst he has a crush on. They are both paranormal investigators, though character A doesn't really believe the things he investigates, so, one day, he sends character B to investigate one of these paranormal stories. Character B doesn't return, claiming to be sick through text messages, only for people to find out over two weeks later that he had been trapped in his home that entire time with a literal monster that feeds off of fear waiting just outside his house for him to break so that it could eat him, and yet, he somehow survived, so character A starts believing it and allows character B to stay in their office where they start to bond until the monster from before attacks the office, and by the way, the monster is made entirely out of bugs. The two of them think that they will die, so they have a heart to heart that ends with them being rescued and learning a greater secret in their basement that leads character A to grow paranoid, particularly of character B who he knows is hiding something, so character A starts stalking his employees and invading private property until they learn that one of their two coworkers has been replaced by one of these monsters and the boss of everyone, including character A is a monster as well and essentially owns their soul, so if he dies, they die as well. So the evil boss sends character A in a bit of a hero's journey to learn more about the world and meet more monsters that culminates with the remaining employees trying to stop

a world ending scenario where another one of their friends dies and character A nearly dies, so as to not die, he becomes one of the monsters and oops! Now another monster wants to make character B into a monster by making him think that he is trying to save the world, but by doing this character B grows more and more distant from everyone, including character A who has started to realize that he actually has feelings for character B and it culminates with character B not stabbing one of the monsters and being sent to the shadow realm, but wait! Character A saves him, kills the monster that was trying to make character b a monster and they kiss and they get their happily ever after.

Except psyche! Actually, this was evil's boss plan all along and character A just ended thee whole world and became a god! Oopsie! So character A and B travel across the land to try and bring the world back to what it was while the horrors rule supreme, but it is ok! They are gay and happy eventhough the rest of humanity is being tortured until the end of time! Eventually, they reach the evil boss that has been taken over by an eldritch god who likes character A better so character A gets tricked into killing evil boss and taking his place, but don't worry, character B comes in with a knife and stabs character A, also dying in the process and saving the world and they are now apparently trapped in computers???

Is that really too much to ask?

#tma #tmp #the magnus protocol #the magnus archive #tma spoilers #tmp spoilers

[morganofthewildfire]

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

After The Rain - Chapter 11

Gray Eyes

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

masterlist

~1.4k words

CW: mentions of violence and death, allusions to sexual assault

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

1923

“Go,” she hissed to Rowan, but he shook his head. Celaena was beginning to panic. “You can’t be in here.”

Rowan looked around hurriedly, just as the lock clicked. Her heart was pounding as he darted into her closet, the door clicking shut behind him softly just as the door to her bedroom opened.

In a split second, Celaena was back in bed, sitting up like she’d just woken to the sound of the door. She knew who it was before they even appeared. 

“Arobynn?” She asked, rubbing her eyes and pretending like she was still groggy from sleep. Never mind the fact that he’d beaten her to nearly a pulp only that morning; she still had to be somewhat responsive, otherwise he’d get suspicious.

And she couldn’t have him suspicious, not with Rowan hiding in the closet right by her.

She stiffened as Arobynn stepped into her room, shutting the door behind him. The only thing that settled her was the proximity of someone who’d just told her openly minutes before that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill Arobynn should he try to lay a single hand on her. 

Her best friend, apparently. 

“Celaena darling,” he said, sidling over casually toward her bed. 

“It’s the middle of the night,” she said, eyeing him carefully. Especially as he perched on the edge of her bed, far too close to her. She could practically see Rowan bristling from inside the closet. But fortunately he didn’t come out.

She could deal with this herself. After all, she had for over a decade. Even if the unwelcome advances had only escalated as time went on, culminating in -

“I couldn’t sleep,” Arobynn said, clearly a lie. “I’m not happy with how our conversation ended earlier. Especially after all of your time gone. I felt like I didn’t act in a proper manner.” Bullshit. It was all bullshit. “I haven’t even gotten a chance to tell you how sorry I am about poor Samuel’s fate.” 

Celaena’s blood went cold. 

And she couldn’t force out any words, just staying there, silent, until Arobynn continued talking.

“And I didn’t get the chance to tell you that my men took care of Farran,” he said, “he’s out of the picture.” 

Shock raced through her, but she didn’t let it show on her face, not wanting to give him that satisfaction.

“Why did you wait to tell me?” She managed to croak out, and he tilted his head, looking at her a bit pityingly. At least painting that emotion on his face; Celaena wasn’t sure he felt anything at all, at least not for anyone other than himself.

Especially when all he did was shrug with all of the grace of someone who didn’t give a fuck what anyone else thought.

“It simply wasn’t the right time,” Arobynn said, and she blinked.

“And now is?” Her words were tight. She couldn’t help it, too many emotions were going through her for her to be able to easily comprehend them. 

Rourke Farran was a man who had likely the most evil and vile reputation in the entire underground of Rifthold. He owned a pleasure hall called the Vaults in the seediest part of downtown, and had a hand tangled in practically every shady dealing he could reach. 

Celaena was absolutely disgusted by him. 

So when she and Sam were hired to kill him, it was an easy decision. One last job, then they’d have the money to leave. 

But it hadn’t gone as planned.

Celaena had met Samuel Cortland years ago. He’d grown up under Arobynn’s “tutelage” just as much as she had, though he was never his favorite. In fact, he’d resented the special treatment she’d received, and they’d been at odds for years. Sam hadn’t had a skillset as wide as hers either, which was why Celaena was Arobynn’s favorite little pet.

She killed for him, she spied for him, she… did whatever needed to be done. Which sometimes included using the body the gods had given her and she’d worked hard to keep to make people a little looser, a little more eager to spill to her. It was her least favorite part, especially when it escalated to the point where she was treated no better than one of the girls whose poor fate had left them abandoned in a brothel.

It didn’t happen often, but it was never any less debasing. But she couldn’t say no because then she’d get punished by Arobynn. 

That had been her life - selling herself and her skills and hating Samuel Cortland. Until an incident that had changed something between them until they were allies, and then friends, and then more.

It never would’ve lasted, she knew that. It was a product of their situation, and the moment they were able to escape, she was sure they would’ve gone their separate ways soon enough. But that in no way meant she wasn’t horrifyingly distraught by his death.

One last job.

That’s what it was supposed to be. 

But it’d failed, and even though they tried to cut their losses and just run to the train station and get the hell away regardless, they’d been caught. And… Sam had been tortured and killed in the most brutal way possible.

And as for Celaena - she’d been forced to sit there and listen as he died, and after he was gone had had her autonomy taken from her in the most grueling way possible. It was different than all the times before, because at least then, even if she didn’t like to, it was still her choice.

That time it was decidedly not.

After her attacker was done, which could be assumed to be Farran himself, she’d been dumped at Arobynn’s front door like a sack of potatoes. And the first chance she’d gotten - she’d run.

“Would you rather me have waited until tomorrow?” Arobynn asked, disrupting her thoughts, and she clenched her jaw. Evasions, diversions, twisting her own words around until she was left wondering what she’d even said. That was his game.

She was fucking tired of it.

“Anyways,” he continued, “after what happened with poor Sam, and with what happened to you, it would just be an insult to let him keep living.”

With what happened to her. 

She hated how clinical that sounded. How avoidant. He wouldn’t even say it out loud. It was despicable, it was cowardly, especially when Celaena could still feel every touch on her skin.

From the outside, she’d escaped unscathed, which most people would say she was lucky for, that she should praise the gods for letting her be okay. But just because she held no external wounds, didn’t mean she wasn’t scarred.

“So he’s dead?” She asked, her voice flat. Arobynn nodded.

“He is,” he answered, “put in the ground where he belongs.” And where you belonged too, she thought, barely stopping herself from saying it out loud.

She was too vulnerable here; she couldn’t be throwing things out there like that without a plan. Especially with Rowan still hidden in the closet, two inches of thick wood separating him from certain death. No matter what Rowan said, he was in the house of an enemy. Arobynn had dozens of people he could call to restrain him, Rowan just had himself.

And even though they’d collaborated to find Celaena, Maeve and Arobynn were still at odds. Finding Rowan not only in his house, but in his prized possession’s bedroom… it wouldn’t end well for him.

“Another thing as well,” Arobynn said, and Celaena just stared at him. “I hope we can put everything behind us, and move on. You have so much potential, Celaena, I’d hate for you to waste it.” His voice was suffocatingly sugary. “We can do so much together.” He stood up from her bed, heading toward her door. “Think on that, okay?”

But Celaena already had her answer. No, they couldn’t put everything behind them. Not after what had happened to her. Because everyone assumed it was Farran behind it all, but that was what he wanted her to think. Wanted everyone to think.

But she knew better.

Because in that split second her blindfold had slipped… it’d been gray eyes she’d seen.

---

taglist:

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@poisonous00

#rowaelin #rowaelin fanfiction #throne of glass #tog #rowan x aelin #rowaelin au #throne of glass fanfiction #throne of glass au #after the rain

[ashtraythief]

I notice in that, “so you think Sam and Dean want to have sex post?” It says that only one of them realizes how messed up that is. I have to admit I dropped off the last couple of seasons and only watched the finale. Seasons one through five hold my heart, and I’ve re-watched them like a million times. But yeah, I don’t know what they mean… Which Winchester knows how messed up it is? I think maybe Dean, though I do feel like he’s the one that’s most devoted to Sam. I mean, both of them are devoted. Do you know what that line means haha?

Oh, what an interesting question in response to this beautiful post. (I have no idea what OP meant and it seems the account is deactivated, but since you asked, here are my two cents. Which are different from your idea, so this should be interest 😅) My initial gut reaction thought was Sam. Sam knows. Because in the beginning of Supernatural, Sam's the "normal" one. He's the one who wanted a normal, apple pie life, he's the one who went to college, who broke out of their weird isolated family unit. And when he goes back on the road with Dean at the beginning of season one, he firmly plans to go back on the road, even stays in touch with his friends. Dean's the one who wants Sam back, who wants to go back to their original family unit which arguably was isolated from most other people, and didn't give the boys the opportunity to have longer friendships. Dean's totally fine with it, wants it back, while Sam wants his Stanford life. Or so he thinks. What I find really interesting is now that their dad is gone from the equation, Sam no longer wants to leave Dean. I'm not sure when he decides, Scarecrow is definitely a game changer and then of course Dean makes a deal. And here is the big shift. Like Dean's the originally insane one who sells his fucking souls because he can't bear for Sam to die, but once Dean's life and soul is threatened, oh boy. We saw glimpses of Sam's devotion to Dean throughout seasons one and two, like in Faith where he didn't look the gift horse of pastor Roy in the mouth until Dean makes him investigate the deaths. And then season three, my beloved. Sam's descent into madness trying to save Dean. Working with a demon? Sure, why not. Sam's careful (lol). Using an evil, organ-snatching doctor's formula? Let's do it! Yeah, Dean's soul selling was nuts, but Sam is right there with him. And then there's season five, where Dean splits from Sam because they're each other's weakness and the bad guys know it too. Sam's the one here who's protesting, Dean needs to time travel to get out of his head. And I think from then on forward, both of them know and just kinda don't care? Dean has this phase at the beginning of season 6 where he thinks he can have it both, the normal life with Lisa and Ben and hunting with Sam and sure, the breakup is forced by his vampire misstep (honestly, the writers were cowards here, they should have let them break up slowly and painfully because Dean was on the road more than he was at home which is what I think inevitably would have happened if he hadn't gone all aggressive vamp on Ben and made Lisa break up with him), but Dean still chooses Sam. And then they keep choosing each other. No matter what the writers throw at them lol, they overcome it. And I think towards the end, the late season domestic phase post season ten, I think they both know how weird it is, and they just don't care. They're good with who they are. And while the last five season have the weakest myth arcs and I think mostly weak motw eps, Sam and Dean's relationship, the fact that they chose each other again and again and are now settled and domestic and a unit that is happy being a unit which is so earned after all the bullshit, all of this portrayed by J2's insane chemistry, that was the part that made the other crap bearable. And that's what allowed the show to beautifully culminate in Carry On.

#anon ask #spn meta #wincest #adjacent anyway

[nixotinix]

"G3 Jackson" this, "G3 Jackson" that. Well here's my G3 Jackson, only I'm correct (/j)

My prediction/i need this to be canon version of the live action sequel will be under the cut, but SPOILERS if you haven't seen the live action MH movie.

@hydinghoney on here brought up that in the final scene of the live action movie, with that witch lady or whatever, there was a turntable. Turntable means Holt, Holt means Jackson. So, in my G3 interpretation (which is going to be canon and if it isn't I am going to implode), Jackson/Holt are apprenticed to the witch from the final scene. They're pretty good at witchcraft all things considered. So Jackson is sent to MH by said witch and he introduces himself as "witch's apprentice and human ambassador to monster society". He explains that he was sent after hearing about the whole "Komos" thing to make sure everything else was in order, and that he'll be staying for two weeks. So he's lurking around in the background, but what's this? In the moments he's gone, a new student is hitting the scene and making waves: Holt, a fire elemental. (Design pending.) He's not heath's cousin anymore, but he's still half fire elemental because that's cool. So Jackson's poking around the school when he stumbles upon an old spellbook. After reading through it, he finds what he was really looking for. Surprise! Not only was he sent by the witch to take down Draculaura, he was sent by his family to un-stone Komos because oh my gods he needs his mad scientist villain arc. So in some culmination of events, Jackson and Drac end up in a magic duel in the graveyard, and for all intents and purposes, Jackson is kicking ass. Once Draculaura is either thoroughly defeated or she concedes, Jackson casts one more spell, not to finish off Drac, but the spell he found in the spellbook, once that could reverse the effects of a gorgon's gaze. Komos is back and unstoned. Of course our protag team give the usual "how could you" and "I thought we were friends" speech. Neither Komos nor Jackson seem to care, and Jackson starts monologuing their evil plan when Komos cuts him off. Surprise! His family double crossed him, and of course Komos still has his plan of destroying monsters and blah blah blah. And then double surprise! That "how could you" speech kinda resonated and Jackson is like "oh shit, I guess these people are my only friends and they've never tricked me into helping them wipe out an entire society". So he signals to the protag team to get out of the graveyard, after which he pulls out the hug card, grabbing onto Komos as tight as he can. And then casts a spell that sets off an explosion. So now Komos is dead, dead, and 100% dead. The don't have to kill him onscreen but at least elude to it y'know. The protag team ends up going back into the graveyard because, as much as Jackson was working against them, he still saved their lives and at the end of the day he's still a kid. So they go in and get his ass to the infirmary. When he comes to, he's understandably confused as to why the people he'd just nearly tried to kill would help him. They go off on their "you're our friend" and "Komos manipulated us too" speech yada yada. Then they give him a choice: he can either leave monster high and nobody will say a word about his betrayal, or he can stay at monster high to study witchcraft and stay with his newfound friends, but no blowing up any more parts of the school. Thinking about the difference between here or there as well as where Holt would want to stay, he agrees to stay at Monster High. Roll credits.

#monster high #monster high g3 #jackson jekyll #jackson jekyll monster high #monster high live action #monster high redesign #monster high rewrite #monster high spoilers #most of this is from little bits and pieces of scene ideas I've had #that i slapped together with glitter glue and duct tape to make some semblance of a story #but i need them to be in g3 #and they need to have their villain arc #holt's role in the story is much less defined as of writing but if i come up with anything more for him then ill edit and add it #they still have crossfade and jackson's rat pets in case you're wondering #which you probably weren't #but socrates and plato and thales and crossfade can have my entire SOUL #my blorbo!!1! #hee ho ha ho im a funny lil art man #i found some backup lineart pens so im back on the art grind!! #i havent been able to draw anything i remotely like recently but this is the first so yay hands you did something right

[purble-gaymer]

alright @turtleplushi here’s some evil flavored meta knight

so for starters, this au is based on the simple premise of nightmare cursing galaxia before the gsa gets to it. it came to mind sometime back in october (so some style choices are pretty out of date). that was it for a few days, but the reason i mention i'll throw my emotions away is because i started listening to RIProducer about the same time and this song gave me a million more ideas to work with.

it starts pretty much the same as my normal interpretation of early mk and galaxia, being he hates it. he can't stand looking at it, let alone using it, knowing its retrieval resulted in the death of his friend. he drops it on the floor and kicks it under his cot, where it stays for the next month or so. things proceed as normal until he decides to pull it out one day. he picks it up and strangely finds the ruby a lot more enchanting than it used to be.

from that point on, he starts bringing it everywhere. it doesn't talk much at first, slowly building up mk's trust, and eventually during training it drops this:

now, naturally, he doesn't tell anyone about this. everyone thinks he's doing just fine--except jecra, anyway. he can tell something's wrong, and he's starting to think it's not just grief. if he asks mk about anything, the knight's response is a bit more hostile than it used to be. not always, but enough to notice it. surely he's just in the anger stage, right?

a lot of slow corruption and escalation happens in the middle chunk here, and along the way mk's perception and memories start to change. he thinks--no, he's certain the other members of the gsa don't care about him; they never did. they don't care that this war is putting so many people in danger, they don't care to help, they don't care meta knight lost one of his best friends, one of the greatest star warriors they had. what's stopping them from letting him die, from letting jecra die? he can't bear to lose anyone else. after months of spite and rage building up, he abandons his badge and swears to take revenge the gsa.

and, unfortunately, this eventually culminates in him trying to assassinate arthur. it doesn't go as planned. someone was there waiting for him.

after this, he runs and finds jecra, who was already looking for him. aforementioned blood question, meta knight is acting weirdly calm but also weirdly aggressive about this whole thing? jecra draws his sword and breaks the other's mask, and oops! mk has red eyes. super possessed. they have a big fight that ends with jecra disarming mk and shattering the ruby, breaking the curse.

there's some fallout that i never really got around to thinking about very much. dragato's fine, he's not too angry about the being stabbed thing since mk wasn't really in control. arthur's a fair bit more upset, even if his anger is sort of directionless now that the curse is gone and mk's back to normal. meta knight feels awful about the whole thing for a while. galaxia goes back to sitting stationary under his bed where he can't see it.

after a while, they get the ruby replaced, and to meta knight's horror the thing can still talk. it doesn't seem to be evil anymore, but it'll be a while before he's willing to trust it again.

i drew some things related to this, not too much but here's a couple. it was during a time when i was really unhappy with all my finished pieces, so i never posted anything, but i thought they'd be cool to share.

so that's that. i've got an adjacent 'meta knight doesn't escape from nme until way later' au but that one's just for fun cause evil mk is just a fun guy to write/draw (admittedly he is also deeply traumatized but that's a story for another time)

#long post #cw blood #do i put tags on this #kirby au #rhyn's art

[fishedeyelenz]

aggie, Agnes. Baby girl!!!

FAMILY - what is their family like? what is your ocs relationship to them? does your oc have any siblings?

BIRTHDAY CAKE - when is their birthday? do they like celebrating it?

HEAR-NO-EVIL - what is the worse thing your oc could hear from someone?

SEEDLING - what is their most vivid memory from childhood?

BABY BOTTLE - what are their thoughts on children?

PAPERCLIP - a random fact

SHOOTING STAR - if they could make any wish with no repercussions, what wish would they make?

SPARKLING HEART - are they a subtle or a showy lover?

Agnes my beloved

Family- well ya know </3 parents were abusive and neglectful to both her and to her brother Billy, though he took the brunt of it. Grew up being simultaneously a nuisance that should be seen and not heard while also being the example of a golden child who Billy should look up to. Of course that led to even more abuse from Billy, who was extremely jealous of her getting to live in the main part of the house have her birthdays celebrated, and all in all got physically more cared for. And for a period of time after she was born she was very doted over. Billy wanted to see the baby. They didn't let him. In a way he loved her I think, but he quickly grew jealous of her when he noticed how much more love and care she was getting. And it all culminated in him getting revenge on her by ripping her eye out one night. They were both very small children. But that made the animosity his parents had towards Billy even stronger, and Agnes was made out to be a perfect child and victim by them. Thoug that didn't stop them from failing her too though.

She never did get why Billy choose to keep her alive after he killed their parents. Was it out a need for control, revenge or maybe even some twisted form of love she doesn't know. She misses her parents sometimes. When the killings were very fresh she borderline sanctified them. But after she headed off to college she became dissillussioned with that kind of idea of them, and started reavaluating her relationship with her family. Thoughs on them are something that haunt her. At least Lily is family now.

Birthday cake- I think she would have a summer birthday to be honest. June, maybe July. Times when family and friends would come over and celebrate in the garden. Times when Billy could be let out of the attic to attend it. She always ended up with bruises. She doesn't like celebrating them.

Hear no evil- Not anything specific. Just hearing his voice again. Him laughing, screaming, going on and on with his insane ramblings. Whether over the phone or in real life, things wouldn't end good. For both Billy and for her too.

Seedling- It's hard for her to remember anything good from that time, or anything at all in fact. Most of it's forgotten about, or better yet, repressed. The things she remembers are so far removed and vauge she sometimes wonders if that really happened to her of if she dreamed it. However, the image of her dolls heads and limbs and torsos floating in a big tub out in the yard stayed with her. Billy told her she's next. It must've been her birthday.

Baby bottle- she is very awkward around small children as she finds them unpredictable. A part of her is afraid of hurting them as well. She kinda wants to have one one day but also kinda doesn't. On some days she has trouble taking care of herself, but is miles more functional than her brother. Though, she thinks about adopting a teenager sometimes.

Paperclip- Her foster family was kind to her, but sometimes she thinks she was too much of a handful for them.

Shooting star- She was planning to run away from home for months before finally snapped. She wishes she would have stopped being careful for once in her life. She was constantly postponing the day she left until it was too late. She wishes she wasn't such a coward.

Sparkling heart- very very subtle and repressed. Lily had to make the first step on almost anything lmao. But she loves that in her partner. So carefree and confident. She told her once she wishes she was more like her. Lily told her they compliment each other nicely the way they are.

#Aggie Aggie Aggie agoiie my beloved 😭😭 #My one wish is for an official Agnes comic or graphic novel to exist #Jdhdndjxjcdb #Too much to ask for ik 😔 I can name all he ppl who would be interested in it (hi moots and especially you Leslie) #(cause if you remember we talked about it a few months ago </3) #Anyway. Agnes <3333 #Agnes Lenz #Asks

[shoesallinaline]

Tag nine (9) people you’d like to know better

Thanks for tagging me @littlehen!

Last song: Magic to Do, from Pippin -- in typical theater nerd style. 

Currently watching: I've been watching the latest season of The Righteous Gemstones, which continues to be very funny and demented in all the right ways. It also has a surprising amount of emotion and heart for a show that's so aggressively vulgar.

Currently reading: The King's Pleasure by Alison Weir. It's the culmination of her Six Tudor Queens series, told from Henry VIII's perspective. It's pretty good, though I don't know if the characterization is entirely working for me.

Current obsession: Most of my attention is being occupied by the Good Omens season 2 release at the end of the week (what can I say, sometimes I like basic things). I have an entire watch plan lol.

Tagging nine people seems like a lot, chosen at random: @righteousnerd @thatfairchildgirl @thenameofthegameisfizbin @gayvillains @karn-evil-10 @phanta-friends @oui-oui-madame-baguette @satan-does-my-dishes @arbeaone

#tag games

[denkospice]

Bit of a #lewdtuber #scriptchallenge.I had an idea and I went with it, and it ended up being Must longer than I expected it to be.

But I definitely like it. 🖤

Definitely plan on doing more unhinged yandere scripts like this in the future. It's always fun to imagine just how you can twist different settings and situations.

Script text below~

Yes, yes! Finally!

Do you know just how long you’ve kept me waiting?

My beloved rival, my sworn enemy!

Why the incredulous look on your face? Did you really think that you wouldn’t find me here?

I don’t know if I should be offended, disappointed, or both.

Who else could have orchestrated such a sequence of events as this? The passion, the drama, the excitement?

The betrayal? All culminating in your exquisite suffering?

Who else would have gone through all this trouble for the likes of you, but someone who knows you better than anyone else?

Of course it was me. It was all me from the very beginning. From the very start you’ve been playing right into my hands!

And you loved every second of it.

Now, now, don’t deny it. I’ve been watching you play the part I so diligently crafted for you. You reveled in the roll, admit it! Look around, there’s no one else here. There is only you, and me, as it always has been. As it always should be.

Who else can you admit your darkest secrets, your disgusting desires, your innermost fantasies? 

It’s me. It’s always been me!

That’s why I did all of this. To show you just how much you love this, just how much you need this. To be the stalwart hero that vanquishes all that is evil and impure and is swaddled by the love of those who stupidly adore you.

But they don’t know it’s all an act. They don’t know the darkness behind those eyes.

But I do. I’ve always known. You need this. You want this. The more daring the risks, the higher the stakes, the more you crave it. And so what if a few little things go wrong? So what if a few nobodies disappear to past pages? Because so long as you come out victorious at the end of the story, isn’t that all that matters?

Isn’t that all that has ever mattered?

Of course I am right. Because I know you.

I wrote this story just for you.

Now, my bitter friend. My precious nemesis.

Come, and let us write the next chapter in your fetid tale!

background and image edits done by @EbahZeb on Twitter

#Vtuber Uprising #Vtubers of Tumblr #ENVtuber #eldrituber #monstergirl #eldritchgirl #eldritchhorror #mothgirl #mothvtuber #eldritchmoth #horrorvtuber #lewdtuber #vwriter #vauthor #scriptchallenge #vtuberscripts #voiceacting #voiceactingscripts #miniscripts #zebscripts

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #42: Kamen Rider Decade Part 2

The background of Hiroki’s character arc in Kamen Rider Decade is his relationship with Akari, what he did to achieve it, what he did to defend it, and what he did to take it back. Although Akari’s cousins and friends were Hiroki’s enemies previously, this series is the culmination of his reconciliation with them, because despite whatever may have happened between us in real life, I didn’t want our grudges to continue, at least in my mind.

This portion of this series (alongside Gokaiger) was notable for being interrupted by delays even though certain aspects were already planned up to 3 years prior to the premiere. At any rate, let’s continue with the New Worlds Arc of Decade, an arc that clearly reflected this due to how much I had to write for it.

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger vs. Kamen Rider Decade Easter Teamup Special

In Gokaiger, there was a mini-arc featuring Kamen Rider Fifteen from episodes 7 to 9 (after the international adventure mini-arc). In Decade, this was accompanied by some prelude shorts which shows Fifteen obtaining and subsequently losing his power. These and the Easter Teamup Special form the prelude to the TV Movie Special. This special takes influences from the Super Hero Taisen movies and the teamup preludes that came before the final entries.

All across the land, Power Ranger teams are fighting the Kamen Riders. Eventually, as Decade and his allies confront the Gokaigers, Decade stops the fight after hearing the rumours being spread between both sides and suggests that they gather the other Rangers and Riders together to find out what is going on, a common point of criticism in the Taisen movies where their infighting enables the enemies plans that they don’t realise it until it is too late.

The main enemy of this special is Kamen Rider Wizard, aka Akari Ichigo from an alternate universe; Evil Akari if you will. Representing (Dai-)Shocker, Evil Akari was the one who spread rumours among the Rangers and Riders before teaming up with the Zangyack Armada, the Questers and Bangrey to attack the two groups and kidnap Hiroki. She also has three Dark Riders under her wing, namely Ryuga, Orga and Dark Kabuto. UNIT manages to trace Hiroki’s vortex manipulator and both the Gokaigers and Decade Riders go to rescue Hiroki before the Rangers and Riders team up to defeat Wizard.

Lessons taught: You can drive someone away if you don’t like them, but taking your anger out on someone else isn’t going to help./There is no point in having a dream if you are just going to trample over the dreams of others.

TV Movie Special: All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker

Adapted from the All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker and Blade MISSING ACE movies.

Evil Akari as Wizard is not the only antagonist Rider foreshadowed in this movie. Older drafts for the movie involved an evil Gaim as the other main antagonist Rider, but he was demoted to general status as Kamen Rider Sorcerer took his place. This movie was also intended to be set in London, with the attached poster reflecting such.

And before you ask, yes, I am aware that we already have a Gaim in this series, plus Sunset Shimmer will be featured as Wizard in the second arc of the series. Four Riders set to debut in the remainder of the series make cameos in this movie; they are Fourze (Jee Gun), Wizard (Sunset Shimmer, who detransforms to reveal herself so as to not confuse her with Evil Akari), OOO (he was played by the same guy as evil Gaim in this movie due to remnants of old plans for the remainder of the series) and Ghost (whose identity isn’t revealed until the Age of Riders movies).

Decade and his friends end up in a parallel world where all Riders except one have been killed at the hands of Dai-Shocker; the remaining Rider is that world’s counterpart of Hiroki’s past incarnation - let’s call him Takeru Tenkuuji, aka Kamen Rider Blade. If the reference isn’t obvious to you now, you’ll get it later.

Evil Wizard and Sorcerer are assisted by their mentors, Solaniou Flumanteki aka Kamen Rider Wiseman, played by Peter Capaldi (and look, I made Sou Fueki’s name from Japanese into Greek) and Yūni Yamishima aka Kamen Rider Eternal, played by Tetsuya Iwanaga who is better known for playing our lord and saviour Kuroto Dan (and if you think Mitsuru Matsuoka, who played Katsumi Daidou, would have been a better fit then I refer you to the song HARD WORKER by SOPHIA).

The movie follows Takeru’s last stand against Dai-Shocker as he fights to take back a treasure that was stolen from him; that treasure was, in fact, Evil Akari, who never loved him back. Narutaki tries to get Hiroki to see the parallels between his and Takeru’s backstories despite Hiroki simple-mindedly believing that Takeru is doing this to save the world from Dai-Shocker.

Evil Akari was set to marry Sorcerer (as stated, Evil Gaim was in his place in older drafts), but Takeru crashes the wedding with a machine gun and shoots the place up. Hiroki, who was originally following Takeru, is brought to the scene by Sorcerer to see what he is defending. Then the people who Takeru shot dead get back up as they are revealed to be Necro-Overs. Takeru is also revealed to be a Joker Undead who maintained control over himself after sealing all 52 Undead; after being defeated by the Dai-Shocker Riders, Takeru uses all four Category King cards in the Rouse Absorber to fuse with all 52 Undead and become Jashin-14. After Jashin-14 is defeated by the Dai-Shocker Riders, they are then in turn defeated with the help of the Riders from Hiroki’s universe.

Decade’s Final Form Ride isn’t to a giant Decade Beltmorpher however; due to J not being adapted for my version of Decade (his Jumbo Formation playing a part in the original movie), Decade is gigantified into Complete Form Jumbo Formation as he destroys the Dai-Shocker base with the Final Dimension Kick.

Fun fact about the (Dai-)Shocker Combatmen from the original movie; they were shown performing Nazi salutes and hitting buildings as missiles. An old idea I had was to have them shouting “Allahu Akbar” as well as ISIS was the current thing when I was writing the movie. In the end, I ultimately abandoned those ideas as I thought that SJWs would find those elements problematic in current year, plus I thought it was better to focus on Girl Power anyway. Given how Nazi salutes have recently been declared illegal in Australia, I’d say I wasn’t far off.

Aside from Peter Capaldi and Tetsuya Iwanaga, there are a number of guest stars from Super Hero Time series of recent years. Also, Chonny, Dalena, Tom and Joe (datjoedoe) make appearances as the monsters who get defeated by Sunset Shimmer as Wizard. Fun fact: Chonny, Tom and Joe previously appeared in the Series 8 finale two-parter as Hiroki’s Hongmen flunkies.

Uniquely, this movie was going to be more like the Super Hero Taisen movies where the climax of the movie involves a giant villain being defeated by the Power Rangers in a Megazord. To be honest, in a Rider-centric movie like this one, having such a conclusion would be anti-climatic. If only Shinichirō Shirakura and Shōji Yonemura knew this…

The ending theme of this movie is The Next Decade, as with the original.

Lesson taught: Pursuing another bad guy doesn’t make you any less of a bad guy, no matter how you justify your actions.

Episode 10: Complete Evolution X

Adapted from Decade episodes 20 and 21.

The premise of this episode is just the TV Movie Special on a smaller scale. As we begin the New Worlds Arc of this series, Hiroki meets another version of his past incarnation as Kamen Rider Caucasus as he fights to reclaim Akari Ichigo alongside his allies Hercus and Ketaros.

This episode introduces a new class of enemy henchman known as Spermtroopers, easy to defeat yet easy to harvest. I would have created Eggtroopers as well and created a bunch of original monsters made by fusing the two, but that would take time (and money) I did not have.

The three Dark Riders from Gokaiger vs. Decade return as different Dark Riders, namely Dark Drive, Skull and OOO Putotyra Combo.

Foundation X is the new villain group of this arc, working to resurrect Dai-Shocker. Their generals are Patrick Han, aka Wiseman/Kamen Rider Jam (he previously appeared in Series 8); Saehiko Serizawa, aka the Unicorn Dopant; James Mackey, aka the Kyoryu Greeed; and Glemley Blue, aka the Ophiuchus Zodiarts (a Horoscopes-class Zodiarts based off the Perfect Gammaizer from Ghost).

This entire episode takes place in a dream world produced by a hologram projector (a plot point also utilised during Patrick’s previous appearance in Series 8). Charlie the Monkey returns to guide Hiroki (and his friends) out of the dream world while also granting him the K-Touch to allow him to transform into Complete Form.

Lesson learnt: “I am who I am, and no one can blame me for it!”

Episode 11: Friends of Passing-Through Kamen Riders

An original episode.

Hiroki, dressed like Shintaro Goto and riding a Ride Vendor motorcycle, rolls up at the doors of the Kougami Foundation to meet OOO and the other Kougami Riders as they fight Foundation X.

One of Akari’s friends is part of the Kougami Riders; during a talk with Hiroki, she makes him promise that Akari will be looked after as he has been “unnecessarily cruel” to her as a result of her betrayal towards the end of the Time War on Earth.

Hiroki and Kayley also meet with Melanie Yang, aka Kamen Rider Marika, and they bring full circle their meeting from the first episode by having her find Kayley’s past self and head to UNIT HQ, saying Hiroki’s catchphrase to her together. The episode ends with Melanie doing just as Hiroki and Kayley suggested.

Lesson learnt: Forgiveness breaks the cycle of cruelty.

Episode 12: Equestria Girls Gone Wild

Adapted from Decade episode 30.

Towards the end of Gokaiger and Decade, uni got busier and the premieres were quickly catching up with my writing. I was writing Gokaiger’s TV Movie Special up to a week before broadcast, hence why I ripped off several movies for it in the end. Episodes 10 and 11 were moved down a week, but despite this, I wasn’t able to buy enough time to finish off both series. In the end, I cancelled an intended Doctor Who special (to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its return for my version of the RTD era) and paired Gokaiger and Decade’s final episodes together to be broadcast in two-hour blocks on two separate days over a month after Episode 11’s premiere. Also, the reason why this episode is named the way it is is because I was starting to get horny for Equestria Girls on Derpibooru. That’s pretty much it.

Hiroki and his friends end up in the Rider War World, aka Minato-Sugaru Island. Hiroki sees Shugo and Blade’s groups fighting and is disgusted to the point that he just decides to leave, hence the rest of the adapted story has Narutaki in Hiroki’s place. The disappearing AR Worlds as a result of them merging into one is changed to the Riders disappearing due to their bases being transported close to a black hole paradox that formed in the area.

Meanwhile, Hiroki goes further into the island and meets Kamen Riders Fourze, Wizard, Beast and Meteor, representing various groups based on the pony types of My Little Pony; the Kamen Rider Club (Earth ponies), the Antique Shop Omokagedo (unicorns), the Pegasus Gentlemen’s Club (Pegasi) and the Minato-Sugaru Police Special Investigations Department (neither, though it could represent humanity at a stretch).

The climax of Decade’s plot has Hiroki and his newfound comrades on a stakeout outside the Pegasus Gentlemen’s Club, where Dasher Arekawa is having one of his “Friday Night Pegasus Parties” (inspiration link NSFW). It is revealed that Glemley Blue is using the Gentlemen’s Club as a Spermtrooper factory in a plot involving aphrodisiacs, hypnotic fields and psychic contraceptives. Flash Sentry, who was able to resist the hypnotic field, transforms into Beast and gets everyone out before the Riders fight and defeat the Ophiuchus Zodiarts, who summons the Gammaizers to fight alongside him and transforms into his Nova Form (resembling the Great Eyezer).

Over the past few episodes, Decade’s use of Complete Form causes him to forcibly detransform in a cloud of purple smoke due to the strain it puts on his body. In actuality, this was a result of his negative emotions amplifying to reawaken Evil Death’s power within him before Evil Death proceeds to possess him, becoming the “destroyer of worlds” he tried so hard to debunk. Hiroki’s transformation turns most of Minato-Sugaru Island to dust as he becomes Decade Violent Emotion for the first time.

Lesson learnt: Human or not, they (referring to Hiroki and his comrades) will defend the Earth with everything they have.

Episode 13: The Destroyer of Worlds

Adapted from Decade episodes 1, 31 and Movie War 2010.

The disappearing Riders plot continues from the previous episode as the black hole paradox’s pulling effect accelerates. Tommy Cooper in Kabuto Hyper Form replaces Blade King Form as he attacks Narutaki. Kayley does not get kidnapped like Natsumi was in the original, but Patrick does challenge Angela to battle, which she accepts despite it being a trap.

After Wiseman’s defeat, Firerose disappears with the remaining Riders. Old Major appears and takes what was Wataru Kurenai’s scene with Tsukasa in another world, saying that the complexity of Hiroki’s existence and timeline created the black hole paradox (this would later be partially disproven as this conclusion was purely made by the Riders’ speculations). It is here that all the main Riders are revived from the cards and turned into villains as they attack Gold Drive and Diend as Kamen Rider Ghost watches from afar. As the battle goes on, Decade Violent Emotion suddenly arrives, allowing both Narutaki and Kayley to retreat.

Lesson learnt (by Narutaki): Even if the whole world was an enemy, people will fight to protect those dear to them. “That’s what friends are for.”

As the adaptation shifts to Movie War 2010, we then skip to two days later as the pre-Ghost Heisei Riders fight Decade. Due to my decision not to adapt Showa elements into this series, Tackle’s involvement is cut. Narutaki is informed by Good Death that she is the only one who can defeat Decade due to Evil Death’s influence.

Meanwhile, Patrick has resurrected Dai-Shocker and intends to invade Earth while Decade defeats all the Riders so they don’t have to. As all the Heisei Riders are defeated, Narutaki finally confronts Hiroki and they fight, ending in a scene where they punch each other in the face ala Genm vs. Lazer. Evil Death manages to recomplete himself, but the power of good from Hiroki and Narutaki overwhelms and destroys him.

Kayley meets back up with Hiroki and Narutaki as they realise that Dai-Shocker is attacking, but thanks to them possessing the Kamen Ride cards of all the Riders they defeated, they can remember them, their comrades and their bases back into existence, reversing the damage the black hole paradox caused.

All the Riders are revived at their home bases, but they still need a way to get them to UNIT HQ, so they enlist the help of their new friends on Minato-Sugaru Island to repair his and Narutaki’s vortex manipulators and connect them to open Aurora Curtains. Hiroki also takes the chance to modify the K-Touch to reduce its energy output and alleviate the side effects caused by it.

The group meets back up with Firerose and they fight the Dai-Shocker forces together with the other Kamen Riders. Decade transforms into Strongest Complete Form has the Riders assume their Final Form Rides (or flying forms with the exception of Magica, Shugo and Double who stay on the ground) before having them all assume their respective Final Forms (or super forms for Secondary/other Riders) to defeat the remaining monsters.

When I first watched Decade I was confused as to why the Nine Riders would be fighting Decade, but later I’ve come to realise that this was Shinichirō Shirakura and Shōji Yonemura turning heroes into villains with no appropriate justification. My adaptation made the justification more ambiguous, first keeping the whole thing based around rumours spread by Narutaki (Evil Death by proxy) and Dai-Shocker before killing off the Riders and reviving them so as to justify their vilification of Decade as a kind of mind control, but Faiz and Kabuto in this are not shown to have been killed, so they’re still being assholes based on rumours. Just goes to show how Smart Brain and ZECT are villainous organisations whose Rider equipment was appropriated by heroes for good.

So anyway, UNIT gives Kayley and Firerose their own vortex manipulators as they prepare to go on their own journey with Hiroki and Narutaki.

Age of Riders Genesis: Decade and OOO

Adapted from Movie War Core and Super Movie War Genesis.

Although the titles of the Decade post-series movies highlight two Riders, there are other Riders highlighted in each movie. In this case, the other featured Riders are Shugo, Faiz, Kabuto and Drive. Kayley and Firerose are sidelined for this movie, but they are shown transformed towards the end. Akari Ichigo becomes the third Kamen Rider Duke temporarily before she takes up the role permanently in Soulbound Series 3.

An attempt to reconcile Hiroki with Akari’s cousins goes awry when the Gamma attack the area. Decade and OOO meet each other and team up to fight the Gamma before they are attacked by Kamen Rider Ghost. Later, Hiroki returns to UNIT HQ, where he is kidnapped by the Gamma and brought to where Ghost is. It is then that he learns that Kamen Rider Ghost’s identity is Takeru, his counterpart from the Dai-Shocker World; upon being defeated as Jashin-14, Takeru was able to resurrect himself through the Ghost Driver and Eyecons that he created as a backup plan; with these and his powers as the Joker Undead, Takeru was able to create an army of Gamma as well. Hiroki and Takeru transform and fight, but Narutaki and Akari arrive with OOO and his comrades. They end up fighting the Gammaizers and Hiroki manages to escape.

As Akari and her cousins come to terms with what happened over the past few years, Hiroki does the same, going to the other Riders for advice. Hiroki then goes to confront Akari, transforming into Decade Violent Emotion (he can do so if he focuses his power into his Rider Card) to fight Duke, before detransforming and breaking down over what he did to Akari. Akari forgives him and her cousins apologise for their actions as well. They head out for dinner to try reconciling again, but Ghost has the Renaissance Gamma combine into a giant Gamma to attack.

The group head to Sekigahara, where the giant Gamma appeared, but on the way, the Riders encounter the Gammaizers. Hiroki lets OOO continue on before he, Narutaki, Akari, Veronica (their cousin, aka Kamen Rider Gridon) and Michael (Kamen Rider Mach) transform together to defeat the Gammaizers before continuing on as well. At Sekigahara, OOO, Shugo, Faiz, Kabuto and Drive are fighting the giant Gamma in their strongest (final) forms. Takeru arrives as Hiroki and the others do, asking him why he still loves Akari when all she ever did was step on his heart and eat the remains; Hiroki tells Takeru that he could never understand what it feels like to have a second chance, let alone with someone, and that the Akari of his world never loved him - the only reason why Hiroki helped him back then was because Dai-Shocker was taking over the world.

Decade Strongest Complete Form defeats Ghost empowered by eight Damashii (7 luminaries + Ore). Takeru admits his defeat and Hiroki forgives him, causing them to be granted the power of Toucon Boost Damashii and the project-original Decade Ultimate Complete Form. The latter upgrades the K-Touch with a bigger screen (and more icons on the card) and gives a red form which superimposes Ghost’s Heisei Damashii armor onto the Decade Complete Form undersuit, replacing the Rider emblems (from Kuuga to Ghost including Ninja, Magica and Shugo) with holders for their respective cards and recolouring the magenta elements of the Complete Form helmet into red. For combining 18 (or rather 17 excluding himself) Rider powers into one, this was the strongest of Decade’s forms until Kamen Rider Zi-O. With the giant Gamma split back up by the five Riders in their final forms, Decade and Ghost are joined by OOO Tajadol Combo as they defeat the three Renaissance Gamma.

This movie marks the return of Takeru from All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker, now as Kamen Rider Ghost, who will be featured throughout the Age of Riders trilogy. Arguably, you can say that this movie should have been named after Decade and Ghost, but the movie titles typically refer to the main protagonist Riders. Plus, it also reflects my initial plans for the New Worlds Arc. Hiroki would have “handed over” Akari to OOO, having reflected on his past following All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker and realising that he was no longer worthy of her. The conclusion would involve Hiroki’s friends helping him get over his insecurity and reconcile with Akari.

The ending theme for this movie is Stay the Ride Alive, as used in Movie War 2010.

Lesson taught: As above during the final fight between Hiroki and Takeru.

Age of Riders Ultimax: Decade and Magica

The title of this movie is taken from Movie War Mega Max and Movie War Ultimatum. This movie was initially titled Ultima after an Eleventh/Twelfth Doctor Movie War fanfic I wrote back in 2015/16 (the sequel which I never completed), but I added a letter to the end of it to make it sound better. This movie is also a full crossover with Sea Princesses and gives context to Magica and Hibiki’s backstories. As such, the other featured Riders are Ryuki, Agito and Amazons.

In a parallel world, Yuki Yamaki and his fiancée, Saya Endō, had returned from a Torchwood mission some months prior to prevent the Beta Uprising by ensuring that Elliot Rodger did not survive the Day of Retribution. However, their comrade and the movie’s main antagonist, Alex Schmidt (played by comedian and former OnlyFans collaborator Alex “Shooter” Williamson) deserted them, going back and convincing Elliot not to kill himself. The incels, Chads and Stacies were spurred into fighting and over the years, the Beta Uprising ravaged the world with normies being scattered in the crossfire. Since Yuki Yamaki is a version of Hiroki (at a stretch, he was originally a version of Parker Zhou/Zhuge Liang), his existence was somehow motivating the incels to continue fighting even after the Internet was shut down. This led Alex Schmidt to collaborate with the Chads to kill Yuki and his comrades in both 2018 and 2028, bringing 2028 Yuki back to 2018 and “fixing him up” before pairing him with Hideko Kimihara.

At the same time, Marcela’s guardian, Hibiki (played by Yūki Kubota) sends her on a mission for Takeshi to defend Yuki from the Chads. As she arrives at the wedding venue, Yuki makes a contract with Kyubey and becomes a magical boy, his emotions and desires causing a dimensional hole to open and suck in Hiroki, his comrades and the Salacian Riders, who were about to sign a peace treaty between Dryland and Salacia; Takeru was also sucked in from wherever he was as well. Hiroki realises where he is and what is happening, at which point the past Marcela arrives and thwarts the wedding, allowing him to take the past Yuki, Marcela and Hideko with him as he escapes with his comrades.

HIroki, Kayley, Firerose and Angela elect to take one version of Yuki or Marcela and Takeru is tasked with guarding Hideko while the other Riders attempt to rally as many incels and normies to fight the Chads and Stacies. Despite their best efforts, the past Yuki and Marcela along with Hideko are captured.

The Riders gather to where the past Yuki and Marcela are captured and they begin charging the Chads and Stacies. During the battle, Ghost unlocks Mugen Damashii from his ten Heroic Eyecons while Magica, Hibiki, Ryuki and Knight fight in their final forms. As super-soldiers are created from Yuki and Hideko’s DNA, Yuki falls into despair and becomes the witch Legendorgarc (resembling Kamen Rider Arc’s Legend Arc form). Hiroki notices Yuki trying to fight back and convinces him not to give up, allowing him to cast away his witch form and transform into Kamen Rider Magica for the first time. Hiroki destroys the Progenitor creating the super-soldiers, but as he and his friends are about to leave, they are confronted by past Marcela, who has been brainwashed by the Stacies into fighting past Yuki, also explaining their initial in-series animosity. Past Yuki offers to stay and fight past Marcela while the others leave.

Following this, the Riders storm Torchwood to find a way to escape this world. Hiroki confronts Alex and learns that aside from Yuki and Hideko giving hope to the incels, the idea to marry them just came into his head from another universe as someone, a version of the two are shouting love from the rooftops and that is somehow ringing out into other universes, explaining why I’ve used that plot point numerous times over the years. On top of this, Alex has built a delta wave generator that targets neurodivergent individuals and blows their brains out, but Hiroki reveals that he wiped the calibration data and turned the delta wave to maximum, meaning that Alex would be killing every living thing on Earth if he pulled the lever. Hiroki also reveals that Alex created a paradox when he killed 2018 Yuki and brought 2028 Yuki back in time, but it hadn’t taken effect because he and his friends’ vortex manipulators were holding it back.

In the next ten minutes, Hiroki kills Alex and the Chads, destroys the delta wave generator and prepares a dimensional hole back to his own universe. Hiroki lets the paradox take effect while taking his friends and the past Yuki and Marcela back to his universe, destroying a world devastated by the Beta Uprising. The past Yuki and Marcela are taken a little further back in time and left to allow their timelines to play out. Marcela’s brainwashing would be broken

Later, the Dryland-Salacia peace treaty is signed, but upon leaving Salacia, Hiroki suddenly parts with his friends when a fleet of spaceships attack them…

The ending theme of this movie is FOREST OF ROCKS, as used in Movie War Ultimatum.

Lesson taught: Neurodivergent people have unique abilities that can benefit society and without them, the world wouldn’t be as it is today. Also, Alex and the Chads never thought about the people they had an effect on during the Beta Uprising.

Age of Riders Forever: Decade and Wizard

Calling back to what I said about the first movie, this movie was going to be titled Final and the Riders credited would be Decade and Ghost. Ultimately, I thought this title was boring, so I was inspired by the announcement of Heisei Generations Forever to name it the way it is. Also, the story didn’t focus on Ghost as much compared to the first movie, so it was changed to Wizard due to it putting more focus on the Equestria Girls. The other featured Riders are Gaim, Fourze, Double and Blade.

In Never Land, the supercomputer in the Winter Woods Library has gone into overload. The Flowertots attempt to contact Hiroki on the mainland, but they are unable to as it is under attack.

Hiroki goes to Minato-Sugaru Island alone and asks Twilight Sparkle for time travel. After finding no information about it on the blueprints of the vortex manipulator (since UNIT deleted it in case it fell in the wrong hands), they go to visit Sunset at Omokagedo, where she says that she created the Time Ring after studying Star Swirl’s time travel spells. They then head to the Kamen Rider Club’s base and barricades himself inside with Sci-Twi and Sunset as he modifies his vortex manipulator with the Time Ring and uses his own body to calibrate it. This sends him flying through the Time Vortex and into his past, meeting his past self in various occasions that are covered in Three Kingdoms Series 2 and 3.

Meanwhile, Hiroki’s friends arrive in Cuddlestown and ask Charlie the Monkey for help finding Hiroki. They deduce that Hiroki is headed for Minato-Sugaru Island and thanks to a friend of Bernard the Dog’s, they are able to hitch a ride on a freight ship to the island. A boy named Takuhiro shows up at BOARD headquarters asking for Hiroki when Marco Quesillo gets word of spaceships attacking the area. The Riders fight against helmeted soldiers from the spaceships, which are versions of Hiroki Ichigo from different realities that banded together to form this series’ counterpart to the Citadel of Ricks.

Everyone, including Hiroki is brought to the Citadel and Hiroki is brought before the Council, where he is tried for destroying a universe along with other crimes against time. The Council sentences Hiroki to be dispersed out of time and space, though they offer leniency if he does something for them; detonate a memory bomb near Hiroki and Akari in a time just before they met in the original history and erase the events in time where they met before that point, as those events were manipulated into happening by the Daleks (Hiroki also had something to do with it as well). Hiroki successfully does so, bringing full circle his pre-series debut as Decade near the end of Three Kingdoms Series 3. Although Hiroki escapes capture by the Council, the paradoxes caused by constant contact with his past self destroy his body as his vortex manipulator was focusing the damage on him to minimise the damage to the universe. At the same time, Hiroki’s friends are allowed to be released except for Takuhiro, who is revealed to be a ghost (not like Takeru, though).

Hiroki finds himself floating inside a vortex (it’s actually the Void), looking around at visions of himself in various universes, before being yanked out and brought into the supercomputer on Never Land, where the virtual Fifi Forget-me-not and the avatar of himself he left with her split him into a new timeline and resurrect him into a new body, which is like his old body but also part-fairy and part-Flowertot. The residents of Never Land bow down at the presence of their godly figure, Hiroki, and he leads them to rescue his friends from the Council by teleporting Never Land to the Citadel’s location. At this point in time, Grubby is now a butterfly and we see Hiroki riding him alongside Princess Buttercup on Flutterby as they fly through an oxygen corridor.

Returning to the Citadel, Hiroki slaughters the other versions of himself, including the Council, before finding the source universe where he and Hideko Kimihara are shouting love from the rooftops and killing those versions of them with his Violent Dimension Kick. After setting the Citadel to self-destruct, the Riders fight the Hirokis that survived its destruction along with a large group of monsters. Dasher Arekawa, Trixie and the Humane Six offer to fight as well and Sunset gives them the power to do so while Kayley uses a blue K-Touch she got from Charlie to transform into Diend Complete Form, combining the powers of the first seven Heisei Secondary Riders along with Mach to make eight (instead of seven evil movie Riders and Skull as in the original).

This movie also shows Jee Gun proposing to Sunset Shimmer. They would be in an open relationship when they next appear in Soulbound Series 3.

The ending theme of this movie is Life is Beautiful, as used in Ex-Aid True Ending.

Lesson taught: When the Citadel was formed, the other Hirokis have become less of themselves as they persecuted Hiroki, making him feel that it was a crime to be himself. No matter what, he will always defend the right to be himself and crush those who get in the way of it.

And so this is the end of Kamen Rider Decade, but unlike the Gokaigers and the Power Rangers, you will still be seeing Decade and the Kamen Riders for a while yet, starting from the next instalment when we begin covering Kamen Rider Zi-O. If you thought Decade was more of an ego-fest compared to what came before, then you haven’t seen anything like it.

#kisekae insights #kamen rider #kamen rider decade

[davidhccarter]

Friday Blog:

All the President’s Sin

Good weekend to everyone, noting this post was created today and not Friday, as the description suggests. The other day I was visited by a old High School friend of mine who was wearing a T-Shirt that read “Mo money mo problems” like hip-hop icon and producer P Diddy made famous in the late ‘90s. I decided to expand on that and say “Mo spirit no problems”.

In attempting to make more sense of out of spiritual concepts, I saw a young man on TikTok say that food comes then security and freedom. I meditated on that for a while and came up with the perspective that thoughts are food, the brain (which houses the mind/soul) is security and words are freedom.

Looking at the race for the White House this year I and probably most of us are flabbergasted by the idea of former President Donald Trump running from jail and probably governing from prison, as I saw a Republican politician advocate on TV.

This concept is disconcerting for me and I’m sure a lot of people who’ve worked hard to live as just a life as possible.

It took me a while to see that America is an empire, like the Egyptian, Roman, and Hitler’s “Third Reich” were before and former President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” are colonies or desired colonies our country wants to possess.

We have a Republican form of government like the Romans who had a senate. We practice a very abstract form of democracy like Nazi Germany that serves the Emperor/President and is “elected” like the president, and serves as a barometer or survey of how the country wants its money spent: liberally or conservatively.

Looking back at January 6th., I see that it was the culmination of what Ministers Louis Farrakhan peacefully started at the end of the 20th. Century. I and my best friend attended the first one which was followed by the second in the millennium. I, my best friend, and the other black men there atoned for not living a life that reflected their highest potential. “The Million Man March” (first and second) was followed by “Black Lives Matter”, The Women’s March, the emergence of “Antifa”, Colin Kaepernick’s protest, and finally January 6th. which was made up mostly of white men and violent.

As I meditated on this further I saw that white men were more the only ones who could have attempted what they did armed. Taking a look at

“The Civil Rights Movement”, I see even further that non-violence in order to “reach” the people it wants to benefit-planned or unplanned.

Until next time, remember God loves you and so do I.

#god #high school #friend #t shitrt #hip hop #p diddy #90s #spirit #so #spiritual #perspective #freedom #donald trump #jail #prison #tv #egyptian #roman empire #nazi #germany #january 6 #louis farrakhan #20th century #nonviolence #violence