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druidx · 19 days

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Snippet 2 from Elowyn Investigations

CW: Implied kidnapping, mind/body control, blood This raw, unedited, plot-holey snippet from Elowyn Investigations is to provide context for a later chapter of Her Countenance was Light. Tagging HCWL list: @aquadestinyswriting, @hannahcbrown, @jacqueswriteblrlibrary, @babyblueetbaemonster

"Since it's our night off," Farren said. "Do you want to go out for dinner? Somewhere slightly more genteel than the Pit. My treat?" "I don't know…" I said. "I feel maybe we should be sleeping more." "Ah it'll be fun – quiet night at the Scholar," he said, and looked around. "Oh, looks like it might just be thee and me," he added. None of our usual crowd in sight. "Sorry, but I don't think so," I said, wary of being alone with him and booze. "Alright," he said with a shrug. "Your loss. I'll see you tomorrow then." He threw on his cloak and wandered towards the door, pulling out his baccy pouch as he did. I watched him go, and sighed to myself. I knew it was safer not to. I knew that, right now, I needed safe to counterbalance the events of the past two days, but still, it was difficult to watch him go. Not least because of Withnail's Rule of Two. "He'll be fine," I told myself as I wandered on down to the canteen for my own tea. "He's a big boy, and only going to get dinner. He'll be fine."

–– The next morning I woke as usual. I fetched water, put the coffee on, and wrote some reports until the kettle began to sing. I automatically looked towards the upper bunk, expecting to hear Farren stirr, but he wasn't in it, and it appeared to not to've been slept in. I frowned, poured only the one mug and went back to my reports in silence while I drank the bitter brew. When I had done, I gathered myself, and walked through the squad room on my way to the Garden of Galana. I glanced over at our desk, thinking I might see Farren, somehow, awake before me, but aside from the paper garlands, and stacks of paperwork it was empty. Henson was at her desk though, as was Allmers at his own desk, behind hers. I wandered over. "Morning. Either of you seen Breakwood since last night?" I asked. Henson shook her head. "Sorry, no. Last I saw him was when he left for the pub," she said. "I think I saw him in the Scholar last night," Allmers said. He nodded to the door. "Broughton was with me last night, she might remember. Hey! Vic!" Broughton looked blearily at us, and ambled over. "Could you maybe not be so loud," she said. "I've got a minging hangover." "Yeah, well maybe you should learn to not drink so much," Allmers said, with the sympathy of a brick. "Listen, half-pint's lost her partner. D'you remember seeing him at the Scholar last night?" "Remember?" she scoffed. "Why do you think I've got such a headache. Bastard got me completely wankered last night, challenging me to a drinking contest. Then some gnome bird started chatting him up, and off he went with her." She sounded a little bitter I thought, like maybe she'd been expecting something more for her drinking. I ignored the tiny sliver of jealousy that prodded my heart. I sighed. "Okay, so he's gone off for a one-nighter with some lady. That explains why it looks like he never came back last night." I nodded, trying to be unconcerned. "He'll rock up like a stray cat around noon, I've no doubt. Okay, thanks." Broughton nodded the careful nod of someone who thinks their head might fall off if they move it too much and wandered in the direction of the coffee machine. "I've got to get to the Gardens," I said to Henson, Allmers having turned back to his work. "If he does show up, that's where I'll be." She nodded with a little frown. "Look, I know you're both adults, and it's your day off, but, um, with all that's happened…" "I won't go off with any strange men, or chase leads where there are none. Cross my heart," I said, and drew an x over my chest. She rolled her eyes at me. "Fine then, Little Miss Sarcastic, off you go. Have fun," she said. I grinned and headed out the door. The day had come out fine again, with a fresh breeze coming in from the plains, bringing the smell of grass. I smiled, looking forward to the Feast, and trotted off along the street.

–– [time skip of ~5 hours over preparations for the feast of Galana, description of the feast table and some general world-building & character fluff] ––

I was coming back with them to the main table when I saw him. Farren was wandering up the lawn from the main entrance, towards the feasting tables with an odd aimlessness. "That's strange," I said. "Here, Wick, take my plate back would you?" I added, as I handed it to him. "Okay… Elo? What's up? Oh," he said, catching sight of Farren. "I'll let Mam know." He took the plate, and went back to the table, but Ashbury loitered. "Does this mean you have to go back to work?" He asked, sounding disappointed. I touched his arm. We were around the same age, and in another life we could have been twins. I knew he was sad; we didn't get to spend as much time together as he would like. "I don't know, Ash," I said. "He doesn't seem in a hurry… I won't go without letting you know, I promise," I told him with a squeeze to the arm and went to speak with Farren.

By now my partner had reached the tables and was walking down the far side. He didn't seem to be looking for me, but just wandering up the way, through the revellers, towards the top tables. I couldn't think what he might be doing here besides looking for me, but that didn't seem to be his plan either. An inkling tickled in the back of my mind, my gut telling me something was not right about this situation. I looked around. It would take too long to go around the tables, either way – the quickest was through the middle. I spotted a gap, the occupants of the seats away at the buffet table. I ran over, crawling underneath, and out the other side. He was still wandering, not gotten very far as I pelted across the gap. A few people pointed, shouting at me, but most gave me no mind. I ran along the wrong side of the tables, trying to keep Farren in sight and maybe get ahead of him, until I found a gap in the table. "Here, what are you doing, love?" asked a human lady, as crawled under and I popped up on the other side. "Trying to find my friend," I said. "Sorry!" I stood up, scanning the crowd. There! A gap was forming around him, and as I moved forward to intercept I could see why. Blood covered his chest and face, dripping from his nose maybe, or his mouth – the amount of blood made it difficult to tell. "Farren!" I ran towards him. "Farren what happened to you!" As I drew closer I could see that there were bloody welts on his wrists and scraps of rope still dangling from them. "Oh all-gods!" I swore. "We need to get you to a healer…" I said, reaching out, but he brushed me aside, like he didn't even see me, his lips silently moving. "Farren stop!" I yelled, grabbing his arm. He slowed, glancing down at me, before turning his attention back to the top tables. "Can't," he said, distracted. "She wants me to keep going. I have to complete the mission. I have to do what she wants." "Farren, no. No you don't." I said. I looked around. "Someone, please, help me! This man needs a cleric!" A few people looked in our direction. A burly human and an elf stood up. "Here, lad," the human said. "The girl's right. You look like maybe you should take a seat and let us go fetch you a cleric." "Can't " he said again, this time actually looking at me. "She has a sniper. Gonna take you out, little bug." "What?" I stopped cold, and he walked past me. The man and male elf looked askance at me. I held up a hand, warning them off. I wasn't worried about myself, only – if there was a sniper out there, there were a lot more innocent people, with a chance at being hit, between that bow and me. "Okay, okay. So what's the mission Farren, what does she want you to do?" We'd come a fair way, even wandering as we were, and were maybe two bread-rolls-throw from the top tables. "She wants me to say a word," he said. "Okay…" I frowned, confused, looking back at the elf and man. They shrugged. "What word is that?" I asked. Farren stopped suddenly. "I'm sorry," he said, tears standing in his eyes. He looked at the top table, his arm out-stretched. "Nemoćan!"

#oc elowyn o'toreguarde #oc farren breakwood #writing #fighting fantasy #titan fighting fantasy #wandering words #oc Clive Allmers #oc Murna Henson #oc Victoria Broughton #also congrats to Vic for being the second trans character in this world? apparently she was conceived as 'derek' in my notes

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aquadestinyswriting · 11 months

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Okay so: obviously I need to know more about the cute glowy, mushroom-consuming lizards.

Do they only occur in the library, or are they found in all parts of the lower mount?

Are they edible?

I assume since one can hang out a dwarf-dame's beard, they're not very big? or is that one just a baby?

Do these critters have a name yet?

I assume that have a flamingo-equse thing going on that makes them fluoresce from the 'shrooms?

How do they stay warm?

Do they have an IRL equivalent in look? ie are they kind of gecko-ish, or more frilled-dragon-ish.

Heya Dru, sorry it took so long to get back to these. Gonna post this for WBW this week because I have now come up with some additional lore for the little critters that I'm gonna call Glowwyrms.

Do they only occur in the library, or are they found in all parts of the lower mount?

They're found in all parts of the lower mount, but are most commonly found in the library simply due to the lack of natural predators down there.

Are they edible?

They are not edible because they secrete a poisonous 'sweat' from their skin when they feel threatened, which helps to deter most predators, but there are creatures that can eat them. They don't generally feel the need to secret it when being handled by dwarves because they've figured out the great, hulking, hairy things don't want to harm them. It is advised to use gloves or an object to move glowwyrms that are threat displaying though, just to be safe; mostly because the poison is a skin irritant that can cause allergic reactions.

I assume since one can hang out a dwarf-dame's beard, they're not very big? or is that one just a baby?

They don't get very big at all. The average adult measures about 4 inches long (10.16 cm) but they can get up to 6 inches in length (15.24 cm). The one Hilde finds initially is just a baby though since it was only about 2 inches long (5.08 cm). They're quite thin as well, which makes it easier to burrow in between the hairs of dwarven beards.

Do these critters have a name yet?

Answered above, but I'll reiterate it here. I decided on the name Glowwyrms for them, their 'scientific name' is Lacerta Candenti (literally 'glowing lizard').

I assume that have a flamingo-equse thing going on that makes them fluoresce from the 'shrooms?

Yeah, pretty much. The phosphenes render the mushrooms poisonous to most other species, but the glowwyrms' metabolism redirects them to the lower layers in the skin, which is why the little fellas are poisonous themselves.

How do they stay warm?

Because the climate within the depths of Fangthane is generally fairly constant, the glowwyrms have adapted to not need a great deal of heat to function. If they do require heat, in the wild they will find an area near a thermal vent in the deepest parts of the mountain, but those living around the city just find a convenient glowstone or fireplace to huddle near. Domesticated glowwyrms will curl up near the nape of the neck of their owner(s).

Do they have an IRL equivalent in look? ie are they kind of gecko-ish, or more frilled-dragon-ish.

They're basically mostly gecko-like in appearance, but they do have a short frill around their necks that is used for threat displays and for attracting mates. Their colouration is more akin to that of a salamander with the more brightly coloured portions being the bits that glow. This makes identifying individuals relatively easy and the dwarves that frequent the main library have names for the glowwyrms they come across.

As a little bit of extra information, the one that hangs around with Hilde is called Fuachd.

#aquadestinyswriting #writeblr asks #worldbuilding #answered ask #titan fighting fantasy #hilde gruksdottir #I love diving into the natural history of this world #thank you for giving me the opportunity to ramble about it

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plutoccult · 6 months

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MY LOVE MINE ALL MINE

pairing: jean kirstein x female reader

description: a few years after the successful peace negotiations, you and jean celebrate his first birthday with your new baby boy, but jean can’t help but look back on what it took to get to this day after dreaming of it as much as he could hope to live without breathing.

word count: 1.2k

also available to read on my ao3 here

author’s note: something short and sweet that’s not soul crushing angst. a shocker on my end, really. BUT, the attack on titan anime has finally ended. it’s like a chapter of my life is over, but a chapter ending only means a new one beginning. i always wanted to write something that depicted some sort of event after the end of the story, so it’s nice to fully bring that vision into fruition. i love writing for jean and i’ll miss him and the rest of the characters so very much, but the writing doesn’t end here for me! more content will come out of me until i get bored of it. i do, however, hope you enjoy this little fluff piece.

when dreaming about what life could be without titans or any worries, jean always knew what the perfect life would be for him. it was always consisted of the same fantasy; sitting out on a balcony with a glass of the finest liquor in hand, wife inside the house, and a newborn baby with the cutest, most innocent smile in his wife’s arms. the ideal daydream used to have a faceless woman, then mikasa took over for a brief second after being struck by her upon their first meeting, but now it’s been the same face for many, many years. since falling head over feet completely, jean could now only picture his future with you bearing his love and his children, and only that would be the perfect life for him. nothing else, just you.

sometimes jean wondered what life would be like if marco were still around. who would have died in his place instead of him that day? who would’ve had to deal with the pain of losing their best friend instead of him? would he live next door to jean’s dream home and babysit the kids whenever? jean liked to imagine marco as the perfect uncle. uncle marco. if only it could all be real. even so, all these years later, he was grateful for the life he had been given.

after years of hell fighting for the greater good, jean was finally able to settle down and live that perfect life he so desperately craved in his youth. he wasn’t very young anymore; small wrinkles began to form, his muscles grew tired far more easily, signs that he was starting to grow old, but not quite just yet. there was still more life to live, so much more he could live for.

today was jean’s birthday, and just like his teenage fantasies, he sat on a balcony with a glass of whiskey just as he imagined. the view of the town he lived in was great, but not the greatest. the only difference between jean’s dreams and his reality that there wasn’t a barrier between him and what he wanted most; you, holding your little baby boy in your arms.

caught in the middle of daydreaming, you emerge from inside the house and join jean on the balcony with your son. you gently grab the baby’s hand and pretend to act like he’s the one waving to jean, which makes him smile.

“does baby marco want to say hi to daddy?” you coo while jean looked at the two of you in awe. naming your child after marco was always in the cards, neither of you doubted it for a second when you both expressed wanting children. it was just the most beautiful thing in the world when he was finally born, after all this time of knowing what you wanted.

“here, lemme hold him.” jean offered, extending his arms out for baby marco. you carefully hand him over then sit down and watch as the infant reached his hands out to grab jean’s face, who was gently cradling him in his arms. “he’s getting so big now, i can’t even believe it.”

“i know.” you say with a smile on your face. “by the way, some letters came in the mail for you.”

“from who?” he questioned.

“armin and mikasa, of course. reiner and pieck too.” you began to ramble, listing off the names of all who sent letters for jean on his birthday. “oh, can’t forget connie. and then levi sent something that gabi and falco seemed to have signed—”

“so… pretty much everyone?” jean interrupted with a chuckle.

“queen historia as well.” you end off the list, giggling to yourself for forgetting such an important name. you simply can’t forget the queen, after all. “oopsie.”

“well, i oughta write everyone back as soon as possible.” he said, but you disagreed.

“you can write after cake, okay? i’ll go grab it now.” you say, standing up from your seat so you could head inside of the house.

“i told you i could make it.” jean insisted. “i don’t like making you do the work for me.”

although his words were sweet, you wouldn’t do that to him today out of all days. “make your own birthday cake? please. i’ll be right back.”

jean sat with baby marco close to him while you disappeared into the house for his birthday treat. you come back with a cake that has an array of lit candles, gently setting it down on the table as far away from the baby as possible. you take the baby out of jean’s hands while you sing happy birthday to him and sit across the table, your voice as soothing as the breeze.

when it was time for jean to blow out the candles and make a wish, he simply couldn’t think of anything to wish for. he finally had everything he ever wanted; the love of his life, a family of his own, and most importantly, peace. you both fought like hell a million times over to get here, doing things you regretted all the time. the past you shared together was ridden with sin, but the future didn’t have to be, and right now, the future was bright and golden like daylight.

if there was anything to possibly wish for, it was for things to stay just like this, so jean closed his eyes and blew out the candles and wished just for that. his eyes opened up to the sight of you and your son, and he was so happy to see it right in front of him.

“happy birthday, jean.” you say softly. baby marco beamed with the most innocent grin, his youthful laugh almost bringing jean to tears.

“thank you, my love.” he mustered up the words to say without crying.

jean insisted he cut the cake himself. seeing as you made it, this was the least he could do, and you didn’t argue. he sliced a piece for you first and set it down in front of you, watching as baby marco eyed the cake in complete awe.

jean’s eyes stray away from cutting his own piece as he found himself watching you with the baby. you were trying to eat your cake, but you couldn’t help but laugh at marco trying to get some of it from your fork.

“ah, no, no, no. you can’t have cake.” you coo, booping baby marco on the nose.

it was times like these that made jean so grateful. he captured even the smallest grain of a moment, cherishing every single one with the thought that tomorrow is not always promised, even when you two were free of the burdens of a solider saving humanity. no matter how many times he made a wish on some candies, there was always that “what if?” thought in the back of his brain that this some day would be taken away from him.

you look up and catch jean staring at you as if he were frozen, like he was taking a million pictures with his eyes. “what are you doing?”

“remembering this.” he simply replied, the best way he could put it all into words.

the love you had for each other and the life that’s been given to you would always be yours, all yours, and it would last beyond the very last breath both of you would take. in the end, all of the hardships were worth living to see this day.

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ifyoucandaniel · 3 months

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i know we all love our jason “reads classical literature and makes obscure literature references” todd, and usually damian is the other reader in the family and they either bond over their love for classical literature or try to kill each other. however i would like to take this a step further and say that EVERYone in the batfam are big readers. i come from a big family and all of us read in some way or another so here are my headcanons for the bats:

jason, as we know and love, is a massive classic literature buff. pride and prejudice, the brontë sisters, the iliad (he swears achilles and Patroclus are the greatest love story of all time), etc. he IS pretentious and everyone groans when classic literature is brought up in any debatable capacity. however his all time favorite book is the princess bride and he would die for buttercup. when the whole family starts watching jujutsu kaisen, jason reads the manga just so he can spoil things for damian that never actually happen. the day a new episode comes out jason tells damian panda was actually a spy and kills megumi. damian tries to kill him with his cereal spoon

while damian was with the league talia made sure he was sufficiently educated in classic literature in all their original languages, and he doesn’t mind a good classic. however i think he actually reads a lot of manga and children's classics. he read where the red fern grows and old yeller and cried, but he won’t ever admit it. he loves shonen and shojo manga, he really likes naruto and attack on titan (i can’t really decide what i think he’d like actually)

Dick is a smut slut girly!! he is in a bookclub with babs and steph where they read the sluttiest books to ever make it through publishing. He read ACOTAR and was constantly facetiming babs to rant. they're currently reading haunting adaline. Bruce once asked what the big deal was when the girls were talking to dick about fouth wing in the kitchen and they all looked at him with such offended expressions he never asked again

tim is also a pretentious fucker, but he reads dark academia. he will ride or die for Donna Tarte, his copy of the secret history is always on the desk by the batcomputer and he takes if we were villians on patrol with him. jason fucking hates his books and they're always fighting on who's taste in books is better. jason actually really loved a little life a cried seven times while reading it, but he would rather die than concede

steph is an AO3 girly!! she's part of the slut bookclub with dick and babs, but at heart she's an ao3 girly. she's also written her fair share of bruce wayne x batman fanfics. she once read a superbat fanfiction out loud to the boys and dick was absolutely enthralled, duke was morbidly facinated, damian had never been more disgusted in his life, and jason laughed so hard he almost threw up

duke reads a lot of comics (spiderman is his favorite because i say so and the MCU is their comic world), and he likes X-men and wolverine. he also really likes high fantasy and has read every book brandon sanderson has ever written

Cass like romance novels and ya books. damian acknowledges her taste in books after she defends his stance on harry potter and percy jackson being classics when jason tries to argue that they don't belong in the same category as his books. she read the cruel prince and convinced bruce to get her a snake she named percy. she reads books damian recommends and he would never actually say it out loud, but he secretly loves sharing his books with her and feels a lot closer to her because of her willingness to read what he recommends

bruce isn't typically a reader (he's too busy serving justice and kicking ass) but he will read books that his kids ask him to. he read the entire wheel of time series with duke and would go on patrols with him after just to talk about it. he read the golden compass to dick when he first took him in, and he read all of jane austen's books after jason told him he must be illiterate if he'd never picked up a classic

now what about alfred...

i dont have time to do everyone else and this is super rushed, but I just couldn't stop thinking about dick and babs having a little book club and reading the sluttiest books ever

#batfam #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #stephanie brown #damian wayne #barbra gordon #bruce wayne #duke thomas #batman #batfam headcanons #alfred pennyworth #i feel like i definately could have done more with this but this is just off the top of my head #i feel like i messed up a few of them but you get my point #theyr readers and theyre all besties

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haveyouplayedthisttrpg · 5 days

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Have you played SCION ?

By White Wolf (1st edition) / Onyx Path Publishing (2nd edition)

Playing humans blessed by or born from the Gods who can eventually ascend to join their ranks. Urban fantasy, but 2e noticeably lacks a masquerade - the fantasy elements are known to the World’s population.

In a world much like ours but not, Priests of a temple of Ra go out for coffee, as followers of Dionysius post pictures of their wine offerings on social media as kids take turns pretending to be Baron Samedi and Quetzalcoatl during recess. The gods of the old world still preside and watch over their people, seeking their worship and answering their prayers but an ancient foe has escaped from their prison. The Titans, the primordial beings of destruction and chaos have returned. The Gods cannot come down to The World and fight back against the evil Titans that plague their followers, less they be victims of fate, changing their legends and fates forever, instead they call out to their descendants. You, a Scion of the gods. You may of been born between your divine parent and a mortal, maybe you were chosen by that god, maybe the god created and bestowed life to you, or perhaps you are the human reincarnation of a forgotten god. As a Scion, you take your divine parent’s place and restore order to The World while also building your own legend, developing divine powers, gaining followers and earning a place in your pantheon. You grow and learn from your humble Origin, to becoming a Hero to mortals, then being recognized as a Demigod and finally achieving the godhead and becoming a God. Can you fight back against the Titans and fate?

#ttrpg #tabletop rpg #poll #poll time #usa #2000s #Scion

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gallusrostromegalus · 1 year

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oh my god I am frothing at the mouth PLEASE tell us about how Unohana is SO WEIRD ACTUALLY

(her reveal is my favorite thing in the whole series and I was obsessed with Bleach for a good long time)

I love Unohana. She's magnificently insane and deliciously fun to write so far.

My take on AEIWAM Unohana is that fundamentally, she just wants to be happy.

Oh, that doesn't sound too nuts. I hear you say.

Yeah, but I also headcanon that she has ADHD. We joke a lot about it on this site, but if you have the good fortune to have functioning dopamine factories, allow me to explain the worst part of it, for me.

There's no passive happiness.

Most people, as I understand it, if left to their own devices without undue stressors like capitalism or any particular stimulation, tend to be able to feel pretty okay most of the time. Which fascinates me because if I am left alone without undue stressors but no stimulation, my malfunctioning dopamine factories will shut down and I will rapidly develop a terrible black depression and paranoia that life is cruel and I will never experience happiness again and also my appetite vanishes and sleep cycle collapses and I will end up mentally and physically distraught, sometimes in less than an hour.

So I've always got to be doing something, or The Horrors get me.

So imagine Unohana, and with a brain that wants to die if she gets bored... living in fantasy magical ancient japan. Not much to do, out in the early days of the soul society, besides being attatcked by monsters, or participating in warfare, or starving to death. the first two, at least, get the blood pumping, but the first is difficult to come by regularly, so as a young woman, the most interesting thing that happens to her on the regular is Mortal Combat.

And how exciting it is! Adrenaline! Dopamine! And on the rare occasions she meets a fellow combat enthusiast, she also gets one of the best things about ADHD- Recognition Responsive Euphoria. You know that great feeling you get at Con or meeting another person with your special interest and you guys just VIBE and it feels like you've been best friends for life in less than five minutes? Yeah, apparently Non-ADHD people don't get that.

So naturally, she develops her skill in combat, not in pursuit of Honor or The Art or something nebulous like, that, but in the simple Pursuit of Happiness. She gets very good at it, and a lot of people die.

But she starts getting... too good at it. The fights don't last, there's nobody willing- let alone able, to meet her on her level and the previous joy she felt fades and fades until she is once again left in the darkness.

Then, a Miracle happens! Some punk stabs her in the lung :)

Man, what an evening for her. Kills a hundred men with barely a stroke and there's no more joy in the world for her when suddenly some barely-legal scarecrow looking bastard with a raggedy sword he pulled out of someone else's corpse appears at the top of the pile of bodies and then goes Ape. Fucking. Shit. on her.

It's the most fun she's had in ages! He's strong and fast and his moves are inefficient but delightfully unpredictable and by the GODS the STAMINA! Alright, she might be 1,000 years his senior but in the soul society age really is just a number and she can't help but be charmed.

So she flirts back by nearly cutting his face off. This DELIGHTS him!

And there it is again, that sudden feeling of intimacy between like-minded individuals, only these two ships aren't passing in the night, there' here to make Titanic 2: Electric Boogaloo. They make eye contact, and know-they're just like me.

True Love is a wonderful thing.

It's also a great opportunity for a surprise thrust and she only sort of manages to block it, and despite the feeling of blood pooling in her lung, she returns the blow full across his chest.

She staggers back, coughing.

He, miraculously, sits up, coughing. He won't die if he can crawl off somewhere to lick his wounds, but he can't continue the fight either.

She stands up, teeth gritted through the pain, and sheathes Minazuki. "What's your name?" She asks. "So I may find you to fight again."

"Don't have one." he wheezes. "But I'll never forget yours."

She's had men spit that as a threat to her before. It sounds very different as a declaration of love.

"Yachiru." she says, trying to not cough up blood. "Unohana Yachiru."

A Year later, there's a problem.

Soul Society has a bit of a problem with lungs. They can make entire fake bodies for shinigami to travel the living world, but individual organs, especially lungs... never seem to transplant well. Perhaps it's the fact they're already dead.

Her left lung is "healed" in the sense that it no longer has extraneous holes in it, but... Godsdammit, she still has all the power but none of the stamina. Barely 10 minutes into a fight and she's wheezing worse than The Old Man. 20 minutes and her hands are starting to shake and she's seeing spots in her eyes because she can't breathe well enough to keep the oxygen in her veins. Her fights usually last seconds so functionally she's still one of the most powerful people in the afterlife but it's a far cry from where she was before.

She can no longer be the 11th division's Kenpachi. Hell, she can no longer be the woman she was before.

"Unless you figure out some new medical miracles, this is as healed as it's going to get." Explains the chief medical officer after yet another frustrating checkup.

"...If that's what it takes." She decides.

The next morning she re-enrolls in the Shinigami Academy, under the name Unohana Retsu. The sole change she makes to her appearence is to braid her hair down the front of her chest because people WILL ask about the scar, and she doesn't want to think about how badly she's letting down that warrior with no name.

Either she needs to learn how to get back to his level, or find a new rival and learn to heal them to actually last the 20 minutes she has, or she'll die.

She studies.

To her vast surprise, bodies are actually fascinating. She'd previously seen that there were lots of interesting organs inside people but now learning what they are and how they work and the fact that the human body is already astonishingly death-resistant compared to most animals AND a carefully balanced meat sculpture minutes away from catastrophic failure at all times delights. She learns about the extreme ways humans can survive and the bizarrely mundane ways they can die, and she starts to form an idea- not an image, not a philosophy per se- but a working theory of how to keep someone alive and moving for as long and far as they will go, and what they need to stay upright.

This idea shines so brightly that it can keep that terrible darkness away.

The century practically flies by, and one night she stays up manually pumping the mechanism on a device used to keep the also-failing lungs of a young boy going after the power goes out. He's been blessed by A God that he's lived as long as he has, but even Gods can fuck up sometimes and she effectively has to breathe for him for twelve hours until the God gets its shit back together and he can breathe under his own power again.

"Hell of a fight you put in, keeping him alive." says one of her colleagues, collapsing beside her out in the 4th division medical garden where all the doctors go to smoke.

Retsu slowly exhales the smoke, fatigued but still coming down from the high of success. She cocks her head. Her body aches and her mind races and her heart thrills, just like- "I guess it was. " she realizes. "Interesting fight, going 12 hours in the ring with a dying child and winning because he walked away at the end." She laughs, and hands him the cigarette to share.

"You weirdo." he colleague laughs. He's far too young to remember when she was Yachiru. Most of them are these days, and it's a weird sort of peaceful anonymity and personal joke. "You weren't fighting the kid. If we were actually allowed to fight patients, I'd've stabbed the Kuchki hypochondriac decades ago." he grumbles, taking his own drag.

She snorts. "Who was I fighting then?"

"Death?" smoke billows out as he laughs, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

She freezes. Oh. Oh. That's why she likes this so much. She's gone from fighting mere men to the one opponent she knows she can win battles with, but never the war, and who will defeat her personally someday.

"Are. Are you crying?" he asks, a little worried.

"I- yes." She laughs, tears streaming down her face. "I just fell in love all over again."

"Ouch." he nods sympathetically, offering her the cigarette back. "Who with?"

"Death's own Angel, apparently." She giggles, feeling positively prepubescent with this crush.

And thus she goes on, for centuries, learning everything there is to know about bodies and minds and how the two keep each other going and the ways she can help. She gets very good at it, and a many more people do not die.

But there is a special, secret place in her heart for that nameless warrior that defeated her in battle, and made her stronger than every before.

Nearly 1,000 years after she stopped being Kenpachi, she is supervising the annual "see if you can kill the captain" tournament. Her colleague Kaname is there, a walking anxiety disorder with undoubtedly real but strangely hard to diagnose phantom pains, but he's still easily in her top 10 coworkers of all time because he made her a new medical record filing system so functional they were actually able to recataloge three millennia of medical records into a usable format in under a decade. He can come twitching into her office any time he likes, especially if it gets her that mass vaccination process for the Rukongai he's been biting The Old Man's heels for.

Then

as suddenly as he had appeared the first time,

He's back.

He's older now and larger, having matured into a spectacular bastard, but there's no mistaking that cutting edge on his reiatsu (which, oh, that has gotten much, much stronger since last time) or that scar running down his face as he turns from where he had just cleft the previous Kenpachi in twain, and stares out into the crowd in the shower of blood, challenging anyone to do something about it. Hell, even when Yamamoto appears to congratulate him on his promotion, Death's own angel's first reaction is to turn to fight the old man without hesitation.

He then promptly picks three different fights with four captains in under five minutes, tells Yamamoto to shove the job up his ass, imply he's had a WILD collection of vocations in the last millennium and furthermore, he has to get home to his daughter.

...Named Yachiru.

Hilariously, Unohana is only having the second weirdest time about this here, because Kaname and Kenpachi are, somehow, even weirder than she is.

#AEIWAM #An Elephant Is Warm And Mushy #Everyone in this fic is a freak and I'm having a great time

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theresattrpgforthat · 2 months

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Hello, do you know of any ttrpgs where the players fight titans (or any other really BIG things), ideally in a fantasy setting? I've come across two kickstarters that looked really promising but both seem to have dropped off, Reach of Titan and Relic :(

I'm looking more for a Shadow of Colossus-style game than Monster Hunter, if possible.

Thanks!

Theme: Shadow of the Colossus

Hello friend, I have three games that I think you might like, and one game that’s inspired by Shadow of the Colossus, but has a different goal.

Titanomachy: Legacy 2nd Edition Quickstart, by UFO Press.

Welcome to Hekaton - a jungle-covered planet where stranded colonists hide from titanic monsters.In Titanomachy, the players are survivors living among the ruins of a colony devastated when colossal titans surged out of the planet's jungle and tore apart their space elevator and advanced infrastructure. Generations down the line, the titan Gigas has just fallen after a monumental battle that devastated your families. Now you know the titans can be stopped, but your families are weaker than ever. How will you build a world where you're safe?

This document gives you a jumping-on point for Legacy: Life Among the Ruins Second Edition, letting you try out the core game rules and pre-generated player options before breaking open the full suite of options available in the main book.

As a standalone game, you don’t need to have Behemoths in Legacy, but if you want a world in which they exist, all you need to do is ensure one person is playing The Order of the Titan.

In Titanomachy, you’ll get a taste of what kind of game that might be, and the online version of it is free! Legacy is a game primarily about surviving the end of the world and the way humanity rebuilds over time, so adding in the Titans is a way of providing a major obstacle to the goals of all of the factions involved. If you want a game that places the Titans as simply a piece in a larger story, this might be the game for you.

Facing The Titan, by Nicolas “Gulix” Ronvel.

“We are the Company. Hunters, warriors, mages, scholars, nobles, barbarians, we have been brought together for one purpose: to put an end to the reign of the Titan. Let us get to know each other and rediscover each other after all these years. Tonight, let us share our experiences so that tomorrow those who survive can tell the stories of those who fall.”

Facing the Titan is a GM-less, zero-prep roleplaying game, for one-shots games of about 3 hours. It has been designed and playtested for groups of 3 to 5 people. A solo mode is also available. You will play the Company, a group of heroes whose fate is to face the colossal Titan. And to destroy it!

This game divides game play into five distinct phases, starting with the Companions phase, which introduces your characters, and ends in the Clash phase, which is your Companions’ battle with the Titan. The game has a number of various Titans available for you to fight, with six basic Titans and ten extra Titans that were written after this game was Kickstarted. All of the basic titans look to be from a fantasy setting, but some of the extra Titans may allow you to change the setting of the game!

Trail of the Behemoth, by Dan Felder & Seamus Allen.

The world is filled with monsters that tower over the hills; beings that some call gods… And they want to eat you for breakfast.

As a Hunter, you stand between the monsters and humanity. Each hunt you’ll gather clues about your foe’s weaknesses, then engage in a climactic battle against the colossal beast, a monster so big that its body becomes the terrain on which the Hunters climb.

This is a game that is designed to run quickly, with simple rules and easy monster creation. The game comes with five adventures that can be combined for a short campaign, or can be used as standalone one-shots. The combat is designed with a push-you-luck mindset, allowing you take more actions as long as you’re able to accept the risk. Once you kill the monster, your characters can upgrade their gear using pieces of the titan’s corpse to strengthen your weapons or armor.

Autumn of Giants, by Melody Saturn.

Autumn of Giants is a collaborative storytelling game of a group of humans guiding and protecting a Colossus on the way to rest and shelter for the Winter. It tells of a desolate and gentle journey through lonely and beautiful places. And of a small group of people who will do everything they can to protect a friend.

Move from location to location, describing the broad strokes of each environment from the colossus's perspective as a group and then zooming in on individual scenes from the humans' points of view.

Describe how your characters change over the course of the journey, using the shift, carry, and shed options. Face daunting Perils or find respite in Interludes with group scenes between locations.

This game has a much calmer vibe to it, being about shepherding a Colossus rather than fighting it. The locations given are very evocative, which I think would be very helpful when it comes to helping the players describe each place they visit. The game is about change; your characters at the start will not be the same by the time they reach The Sleeping Grounds. This game is also GM-less, which might make it a good fit for a table in which everyone wants the same role.

I’d Also Recommend…

The Wildsea, by Felix Isaacs, which has large creatures to fight but is more about adventuring on the Verdant Ocean.

Hellwhalers, by BrewistTabletopGames, a game of nautical horror inspired by Moby Dick.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #game recommendations #dnd #asks #shadow of the colossus #indie ttrpg

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laurelsofhighever · 1 year

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Unpopular opinion time: I really don’t care for the Titans as a concept. Or rather, I don’t like the way they fit into the worldbuilding of Thedas. It’s a symptom of this ongoing problem BioWare has where everything has to have some grand, shocking twist and an intricate backstory that connects with the intricate backstory of everything else. It’s like a slow power creep to the lore that honestly reminds me most of Supernatural in how desperate it is to outdo itself.

The Dalish Creators aren’t apocryphal characters used to impart moral lessons or explain natural phenomena – they were real, and they weren’t really gods, just super powerful mages who enslaved a bunch of people and used them to build statues!

The Fade isn’t just another, natural layer of existence that only a few can tap into – it was created by Some Guy who decided to fight the Actually Real Elvhen Gods and then had a nap about it for several thousand years!

Lyrium isn’t just a toxic mineral that causes neurological degradation but also happens to enhance magical ability – it’s actually the crystalised blood of an ancient race of giant beings that were hunted to extinction by the Actually Real Elvhen Gods!

The dwarves don’t have Stone Sense because of their specific cultural identity and because their society that’s based underground needs to know how to navigate without the sun – they were literally created by an ancient race of giant beings who decided to make them to the same vague shape as other bipedal mammals for some reason!

(these aren’t the only examples, they do it with everything from character backstories to religious schisms)

It’s like they don’t trust the player to suspend their disbelief in a fantasy world where magic and dragons are real, and the ironic thing is that by dissecting everything instead of just letting these story elements just be, it makes everything about Thedas feel smaller, and less like an intricate, organic world.

In DAO, we’re introduced to many gods – Avvar, Elvhen, Andrastian, as well as the dwarven concept of “the Stone” – and they exist in the role that gods fill in the real world: cultural artifacts that create a shared sense of identity. It makes sense for there to be similarities between the Elvhen Creators and the Avvar pantheon, given the amount of interaction between the two groups before they became isolated by persecution. Similarly, it makes sense that dwarves would have an entirely different theology structured around the material that literally encases them their whole lives and marks them as distinct from the surface-dwelling races. to reduce these belief systems to single, quantifiable truths makes as much sense as trying to claim the Real Zeus was [specific guy] from [specific time period]. It also does such disrespect to the individuals who make up these cultures, and who would have, through history, changed it simply by being part of it.

With the Titans specifically, they weren’t needed. We already had a concept of dwarves that worked well as a framework for the stories being told in the games: insular, rigid caste system, hub of the lyrium trade, collective PTSD from a millennia of fighting darkspawn. It’s cultural background radiation that adds motive and flavour for character actions, and that’s all it needs to be.

We don’t need to know precisely how Stone Sense works, just that it does. We don’t need to know where dwarves – or elves, or qunari, or humans – really come from, it’s enough for the story that they exist within a collective cultural identity. We don’t need to know what lyrium is, we just need to know that bad things happen when characters play with it.

It's fantasy. A wizard did it. The wizard shouldn’t feel the need to pull back his own curtain and then also rip the casing off the mechanism, just to prove how clever he is.

#dragon age meta #bioware critical #let a little ambiguity in guys #just a little mystery #like with chinese painting you want the suggestion of mountains #the imagination fills in the rest

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oldschoolfrp · 3 months

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Yaztromo's Tower, in Darkwood Forest (Russ Nicholson, Titan: The Fighting Fantasy World, by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, Puffin Books, 1986)

#Fighting Fantasy #Russ Nicholson #Titan: The Fighting Fantasy World #dungeon cross section #fantasy art #wizard's tower #fantasy forest #fantasy tower #tower #cross section #Steve Jackson #Steve Jackson UK #Ian Livingstone

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literary-illuminati · 3 months

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2024 Book Review #3 – Monstress Volume One: Awakening by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Monstress is one of about three comics I’ve ever considered myself an unequivocal fan of. I, alas, lost track of things during a hiatus a while back, and got to the point where I barely remembered where I was or what was happening. So, as a palate cleanser between longer books, I’m making it a project for the first chunk of the year to reread this from the start until I’m caught up again.

This is a very high concept series – a matriarchal dieselpunk fantasy world vaguely inspired by 1920s/30s East Asia with a strong art deco aesthetic. The world is divided between the Arcanic Courts – kingdoms ruled by the animalistic ‘Ancients’ and populated by the Arcanic descendants of their half-human children – and the Federation – a human nation-state dominated by witch-nuns who derive their influence from being able to render down the corpses of said Arcanics into magically potent ‘lilium’. Also there are insubstantial projections/ghosts of titanic tentacle-ey monsters that wander across the landscape sometimes. And a genocidal war ended in a stalemate a decade ago after a city was destroyed by something that no one on either side understands. Oh an in addition to the anthromorphic animal Ancients there’s also just normal cats, except they’re sapient and capable of speech and also necromancy. The book really throws you into things and a decent chunk of the first volume is just introducing and establishing the rules of the world.

The actual plot follows Maika Halfwold, an Arcanic who can pass for human except for the giant occult tattoo on her chest. The story follows her abandoning her girlfriend and voluntarily getting herself enslaved and brought to the mansion/mad science laboratory of a powerful witch-nun so she can break out, fight her way through it, and interrogate her at gunpoint for information about the giant gaps in her memory of when as a child her mother worked with the witch on an archaeological dig. Things escalate from there due to a shard of an enchanted mask and an eldritch abomination that had been slumbering with Maika’s body who is awoken by it. The balance of the volume is spent with her, an incredibly untrustworthy cat, and a vulpine arcanic child who she more or less accidentally rescued from slavery as they try to escape the manhunt after them.

So there’s a lot here, and I really do love almost all of it. Most obviously, the art is just gorgeous – I mean, I’m an easy sell on dieselpunk/fantasy 20s stuff, but genre trappings aside the detail and use of colour is just incredible, and even the less detailed panels do an amazing job capturing expressions and emotion. Basically every aspect of character and environmental design is just very deliberate as well – aesthetics reflect character, and scenes are full of little background details that help sell and fill in the world. But fundamentally just very pretty, an aesthetic pleasure to behold.

Of course, one of the things a whole page of artistic flourishing is devoted to is a flashback of Maika – a starving enslaved orphan during the war – eating the stomach of another child who’d died before her to keep herself going. This is a book that just about exults in brutality and brokenness – ‘there is more hunger in the world than love’ is basically the tagline of the entire volume. This is a world on the verge of a genocidal total war, rife with slavery and human sacrifice, and it pulls absolutely no punches about depicting that (so, so many dead children). With, like, one-three exceptions everyone is flawed and compromised and betrays something they care about when their backs are against the wall. You really and truly can’t trust anyone.

You can see this clearly with Maika herself. She’s just, genuinely an incredibly unpleasant person to be around. Responds to feeling unsure or anxious by lashing out, all but incapable of showing affection in any legible way, too wrapped up in her own mountains of bullshit to even notice what anyone around her has going on until it’s shoved right in her face, paranoid and suspicious and more comfortable with violence than uncertainty, has 100% gotten people killed multiple times due to lack of ability to get over her own (mountains, abyssal, soul-crushing) trauma – really the list just goes on. In her defence basically everyone is actually out to get her (sadly the paranoia and suspicion do not in any way actually make her more difficult to deceive or betray). Anyway, I obviously love her, and the supporting cast is very nearly as good.

Just, generally this is not a series where suffering is ennobling – fear and shame and trauma and a desperate need to cling onto what power or privilege you can drive people as much or more as sympathy for or solidarity with others going through the same things they have. The fact that the Federation is run by a bunch of genocidal religious fanatics doesn’t mean the Ancients ruling the Arcanic Courts are good, or even necessarily that they care about the lives of their subjects beyond their own power and pleasure. It could easily tip over the edge into monochrome nihilism, but it actually manages to toe the line very well.

Though like, despite everything I just said, it does do the oddly common modern genre fic thing where there’s brutal unsparing depictions of colonial plunder and oppression but also everyone’s an intersectional feminist. Not as much as some, but the race-war is between humans and arcanics with no one seeming to care on whit about intraspecies ethnicity or race, and the setting is matriarchal in the modern implicit glass ceiling way a modern American corporation is patriarchal, not the way a midcentury warlord state or fascist empire is patriarchal (not that this means there aren’t graphic threats of rape or depictions of what’s clearly sex slavery just that being the one holding the lash isn’t really gendered).

So yeah, overall happy to report that the first volume of this still absolutely and entirely holds up – and considered as a work on its own the first volume really coheres far better than I’d realized when I was first reading this in one mad rush. Very much looking forward to continuing on to volume 2.

#book review #monstress #comic #sff #lesbian space atrocities #Marjorie Liu #Sana Takeda

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notes-from-sarah · 7 months

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Jedi Padawans are Not Child Soldiers

In-Universe, Padawans are Squires

Jedi Knights are, well, knights. Like their medieval counterparts, they go where they are sent by their order/liege lord and resolve problems and fight if need be and are accompanied at all times by their squires. In the Star Wars world they are called Padawans, but the role is the same. The squire and knight form a close bond and the knight teaches the squire everything they need to know about being a knight one day. Squires would start at a young age and stay with their knight for many years until being knighted themselves. This is just how the world works. These romantic medieval images of knights and squires are specifically alluded too in the Prequels to solidify the setting of one that's A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. The days of yore of the Prequels contrast with the less romantic time period of the Original Trilogy where evil is in power and the knights are no more.

Out-Universe, Writers Wrote This for Children

First off: In the Prequels we never see a young Padawan in combat. The only places Padawans were killed during the entire Order 66 sequence was at the Temple. No Padawans were in the field. Similarly, at the battle of Geonosis no Padawans were brought to the battle. Not a single Padawan braid or ponytail in sight. We never see a young Padawan put in a battle situation and Anakin was only at Geonosis because he came there against orders.

Then, what about Ahsoka? Ahsoka is a child character in a children's TV show aimed at young children. The convention of such shows is to have child and teen characters for the child audience to relate to. Avatar: The Last Airbender, Teen Titans, Kim Possible, the Winx etc... all feature young characters who go on adventures because the young target audience wants to feel like they can go on adventures too. That's it. The writers aren't creating some sick fantasy version of the Lost Boys of Sudan, they are creating engaging adventure stories for young audiences.

The same can be said about Rebels, Ezra is a teen character in a children's show who joins the rebellion and learns to be a Jedi because that's appealing to a child audience as opposed to him being placed with a responsible foster family and going to high school. Storytelling convention dictates that children's shows star child characters and there's nothing wrong with that. Don't read real world considerations onto storytelling conventions for young people.

#Star Wars #Star Wars: The Clone Wars #Star Wars: Rebels #Prequel Trilogy #Jedi #Padawans

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druidx · 8 months

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Dragan Bloodbeard, Captain of the Oaken Rose

Cap'n Bloodbeard was, to the best of my recollection, some kind of merchant shipman (who may have - on occasion, not often, only when things were tight, you understand - dabbled in a little privateering). He was a big man, larger than life, with a great, flaming beard and covered in both tattoos and scars.

He was the only one who would give Alexis, Richard, Bastet and Victor With A Monocle a ride to the continent of Khull after their seeming victory over the Demon Prince Myurr. Alas, they never made it; the Oaken Rose succumbed during a storm and our ""heroes"" were rescued from their shipwreck by the sorcerers of Atlantis.

While reading back through Alexis Dalliance vs the Evil of Titan to create Bloodbeard, I found this snippet which I thought was funny.

“Hello?” Alexis called [up to the ship]. “Ack! The wee canny one is back lads!” Captain Bloodbeard yelled out. “Hold on to ye purses, lest her silver tongue talk ye out of them.” Alexis flushed as Richard looked down at her. “I didn’t do anything." Richard raised his eyebrows. "Really."

#writing #fighting fantasy #titan fighting fantasy #original character #wandering words #Dragan Bloodbeard #Richard Tetherson #oc Alexis Dalliance #this was part of the first campaign we did in the Fighting Fantasy World of Titan back in 2006 #to note - Richard was a paladin raised on a farm so he had very black & white morals #Alexis is a very bad pickpocket but a very good persuader #Richard disapproved of almost everything Alexis did re: the reallocation of property - and made his feeling known about it #ADvEoT NPC #series ADvEoT

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foxlored · 1 year

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Deconstructing Luz & Hunter and Wittebane Siblings Parallels

Alternatively titled: Luz is actually not a stand-in for Philip and I will fight the show's writers on this myself if I must

Another Owl House mini-essay because this show's been on the mind. As the previous one, expect some mentions of abuse, murder, colonization, and so on (as per canon-typical Belos awfulness). Technically peer reviewed (my discord friends talked about it with me)

Luz & paralleling Philip/Belos

The show does a lot of work to make you see Luz as equivalent to Belos, partly in order to deconstruct that. I don't mind that actually, I think the subversion of the "just as bad as the villain" trope fits the show's themes of deconstructing the fantasy genre, given its similar takes on the idea of a chosen one and so on. However, I don't think these parallels are narrative as much as they are just a manifestation of Luz's anxieties and Belos feeding into that.

Stay with me here: We have a character who abandons the only family member they have left in order to stay in the Demon Realm. They fall in love with a witch, and fall in love with the world they're staying in. They unlearn the initial ideas they had about the world that dehumanize its inhabitants in some way—and are in conflict with Philip/Belos, who wishes to "save their soul" and get them out of there.

Am I talking about Caleb or Luz? That's a trick question, because it's both. It's literally the same character arc! And more importantly here—there's something to suggest that at least Belos sees them in the same way.

"We're human! We're better than this!"

Belos has a very peculiar dynamic with Luz in the fact that he is incredibly bent on trying to "save" her despite all she has done to go against him. He sees her as a potential ally, a human corrupted by the sinfulness of witchkind—and offers her an honestly that is pretty much never given to any other character. Now, compare this to the scene in For the Future where he hallucinates Caleb.

"I tried to save your soul. It's your fault this all happened!"

The mentality is strikingly similar—and while we don't have much content to show the specifics of Philip and Caleb's relationship, what we are given suggests a very real parallel between how he views Caleb and Luz.

What about Hunter?

A fair question, as the show poses Hunter as the Caleb to Luz's Philip—especially with him already being a grimwalker of Caleb. However, it's important to note that a significant part of that parallel is that it's incomplete—Hunter isn't the replacement for Caleb that Belos wants.

Because the cycle of killing and destroying grimwalker upon grimwalker is built off the fact that they cannot match what Caleb was. They... aren't Caleb. Even Hunter, who looked the closest, was just that: the closest. Not an actual replacement. Remember Belos had no qualms about branding him with a sigil, a death sentence on the day of unity.

Speaking of that—

King's Tide, & the curious case of Belos' Manipulation

King's Tide gives us two interesting scenes with Belos attempting to manipulate Luz, then Hunter. Both give a surprising insight into his mentality towards both characters.

Hunter, why are you hurting me? I only wanted to help you!

when trying to elicit hunter's help, belos is very much focused on that emotional relationship he cultivated in order to manipulate hunter. Why are you hurting ME. I only wanted to help YOU. but there's no further depth to it. Its a purely emotional attack. Contrast that both with his earlier scene with Luz, and what occurs in Watching and Dreaming.

And despite our differences, I want to help you, Luz. I can send you home. I have just enough Titan Blood for one more trip. Please. I don't want to see another human life destroyed by this place.

While Belos certainly isn't above using emotional attacks to weaken Luz's resolve—playing on her fears of being complicit in his crime, comparing his self afflicted monsterous form to Eda's curse, he also tries to connect with her on a logical level (at least from his point of view).

When he calls Hunter to stop fighting, it's purely because he knows he can eliminate a percieved threat by playing on his weakness—when he calls Luz to stop, it's because he wants to work with her.

You did do something good. I thought this one was another lost cause. Because of you, we can finish our work as witch-hunters, starting with them!

This exchange from Thanks to Them really encapsulates it all. Hunter is a tool for Belos to use, while Luz... I think the ambiguity in "we" in the above quote is purposeful. At face value, it's we as Belos possessing Hunter, an extension of Caleb—him and his brother together again. But he's addressing Luz, thanking Luz, and I don't think that's necessarily because Belos sees himself in Luz. A wayward human who needs guidance back from the clutches of humans... he sees Caleb in her.

Luz & Hunter, two sides of a Caleb coin

I think the two of them are both supposed to represent different facets of Caleb. They're the two characters who are deeply harmed by his manipulation, and both represent the ways in which Belos views his brother. A lost soul to be saved, family to be controlled; Someone who's loyalty must be maintained by emotional abuse and manipulation.

And I think the show becomes stronger when you look at it through this lens, instead of the forced "they're like siblings so they must be like these other siblings" comparison partially born out of Luz's insecurity.

#dove rambles #dove does analysis #the owl house #toh #toh spoilers #hunter toh #luz noceda #philip wittebane

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