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princesssarisa · 1 year

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Character ask: Hercules and Megara (Disney's "Hercules")

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Hercules

Favorite thing about them: His innocence and likability. While he does have a touch of macho swagger at times – which is more "acting the way he thinks heroes act" than any real arrogance – he's basically just a normal, friendly, slightly goofy, kindhearted teenager who happens to be a musclebound demigod. He's as free of toxic masculinity as any version of Hercules/Herakles can be, and I love the way he blends courage with sweetness and vulnerability, especially in his romance with Meg. (I'm fairly sure that when he mourns Meg's death, he's the first adult, human, non-deformed male Disney hero to ever be shown crying.) His boyhood feelings of being a "freak" and not fitting in are poignant and relatable too, so his quest to rejoin the gods on Olympus, where he thinks he'll "belong," is an engaging one. So is his arc of learning that a "true hero" means something different than being a great, famous fighter, and that his birthplace isn't necessarily "where he belongs."

Least favorite thing about them: Two things. (1) The way he lashes out at Phil when the latter tries to convince him that Meg is a fraud. (2) The earlier moment when he's happy to hear that two little boys are trapped under fallen rocks, because it gives him the chance to prove his heroism by saving them. Even though it's played for laughs, it's still selfish of him. But I suppose that's part of the whole point of his character arc. While he's a good person and genuinely does want to help people, his deeds are always partly driven by the self-serving goal of earning back his godhood, which is why they don't prove him a "true hero." That he only becomes when he shows true selflessness for others – first when he faces near-certain death at the Cyclops's hands to save Thebes from destruction, and ultimately when he chooses to sacrifice his life for Meg.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I often feel like a misfit.

*I tend to be innocent and trusting.

*My greatest strength is my love for others.

Three things I don't have in common with them:

*I don't have godlike physical strength.

*I've never fought a monster.

*I'm female.

Favorite line: The lyrics to "Go the Distance."

brOTP: Phil and Pegasus.

In crossover-land, I also like the idea of him befriending Aladdin (as he did when their spinoff TV series had a crossover – their movies are especially similar in tone out of all the Disney canon, and Hercules's brawn combined with Aladdin's brain really would make them a good team), Ariel (a similarly naïve yet friendly, brave, and likable misfit – and if King Triton is the Triton from Greek mythology, then Ariel and Herc are first cousins once removed!), or Don Bluth's Anastasia (their respective movies have virtually the same plot in different trappings, so he would identify with her.)

OTP: Meg.

nOTP: Hades.

Random headcanon: When he eventually dies, instead of going to the Underworld he finally will rejoin the gods on Olympus, and Meg will be granted immortality to join him there.

Unpopular opinion: Sometimes it seems unpopular to like him. Repeatedly I've seen him either dismissed as a bland protagonist overshadowed by the other characters (especially Hades) or hated for not being 100% selfless and perfect. So even though he does have his fans too, I'll list the fact that I like him as my unpopular opinion.

Song I associate with them: "Go the Distance"

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Favorite pictures of them:

Megara

Favorite thing about them: In the first place, she's a fun character, with her sassy personality and all her clever, funny lines. I also love her complexity and uniqueness among the Disney heroines. A tough, jaded heroine who masks her inner pain with snarky humor? A morally gray heroine who starts out working for the villain and has a redemption arc? Maybe common in other movie genres, but not so common in Disney's animated canon! Family media is filled with the trope of "prickly cynic with a hard past and a hidden heart of gold meets and learns to love an innocent ray of sunshine who sees their inner goodness" – Disney has used that trope many times. But those pairings are usually "male cynic/female innocent," not the reverse, and I love that Hercules gender-flips that standard romance arc! That combined with Meg's playful wit makes her a favorite Disney heroine of mine.

Also, while she's far from the only Disney heroine or hero to temporarily "die" but then be revived near the end, she's one of the very few who explicitly really do die (not just lose consciousness or be put under a spell), in an especially brutal, self-sacrificing way too, and the only one revived by having her spirit physically brought back from the afterlife! That's fascinating stuff for child viewers in our culture where death is so often treated as taboo!

Least favorite thing about them: Well she does spend about 2/3rds of the movie (reluctantly) working for Hades and helping him try to bring Hercules down. But of course her redemption is part of the whole point of her character.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I'm a brunette female.

*I'm sometimes tempted to be cynical and untrusting.

*I like Hercules's innocence and kindness.

Three things I don't have in common:

*I'm not particularly sassy.

*I'm no good at flirting.

*I've never had a romantic partner dump me for someone else.

Favorite line:

In the clutches of Nessus the Centaur:

"I'm a damsel... I'm in distress... I can handle this. Have a nice day!"

Her self-introduction to Hercules:

"Megara. My friends call me Meg, at least they would if I had any friends. So, did they give you a name along with all those rippling pectorals?"

In response to Hercules being happy about the two trapped children:

"You're really choked up about this, aren't you?"

After Hercules escapes from his crazy teenage fangirls:

"It's alright. The sea of raging hormones has ebbed."

When Hades wants her to find out Hercules's weakness, because Pain and Panic couldn't handle him as a baby but Meg can "handle him as a man":

"Hey, I've sworn off manhandling!"

And her understated confession after her self-sacrifice:

"People always do crazy things when they're in love."

brOTP: Phil and Pegasus, once they learn to like her.

In crossover-land, I'd like to see her be friends with Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (another sassy, sexy and tough, dark-haired and purple-clad heroine, but one with a sweetness and idealism that would make her a good foil for Meg's cynicism), or with Dimitri from Anastasia or Flynn Rider from Tangled (two male heroes with wisecracking, morally gray personalities similar to her's, and who have similar character arcs of "self-interest to self-sacrifice" as they fall for their respective love interests).

OTP: Hercules.

nOTP: Hades.

Random headcanon: She's slightly older than Hercules (since he's 18, I'll imagine that she's 20 or 21), and in a reversal of gender expectations, he's a virgin but she's not. She's his first love, after all, and he isn't the type to have sex outside of a real relationship, but she lost her virginity to the earlier boyfriend who jilted her.

Unpopular opinion: I don't think I have one.

Song I associate with them: "I Won't Say I'm In Love"

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Favorite pictures of them:

#character ask #hercules #disney #megara #1997 #animated film #ask game #fictional characters

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bsaka7 · 9 months

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30 for the book asks!

30. give any 3 book recs to ur followers!

i always feel so awkward giving book recommendations because i never really know what kind of books people like or have read and i don't feel like im a particularly insightful reader although i do think i have at least an interest in books which give me something to think about. Anyway. I will try to choose a few different types. Under the cut because nothing I say will be short. And also thank you!!!!!

1. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

I always feel a bit dumb recommending a book that has won a Pulitzer, because well, you'd assume it won a Pulitzer for a reason. This is Whitehead's second novel to win a Pulitzer. However, I found it to be really, really, really worth it. The Nickel Boys is based off a historic reform school in Florida where a number of unmarked graves have been found, and where Black boys were systemically tortured. It's a dual-narrative book, Elwood Curtis, a business owner in NYC, and Elwood Curtis, a high schooler in the 1960s who gets sent to the reform school. In some ways, it's a dialogue between optimism and cynicism. The world can get better with work. The country is founded on genocide; there is no change. It's a short book -- maybe a little over 200 pages -- and it is really, really worth a read. It's quite different than the other novel of his I've read (The Underground Railroad), and I think I slightly prefer it, but they are both really very good.

2. Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe.

This is a book I had to read for one of my senior seminar classes for history in college a few years ago. For some reason, I've been thinking about it on-and-off lately, which is a bit ironic, because although it's an excellent read, I had some qualms about some bits of rhetoric and also the conclusion when I read it for class. The other book in the same vein, that I also think about occasionally is Imperial Reckoning by Caroline Elkins which is about the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya and the British colonial response. Say Nothing is about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, investigating the murder of Jean McConville. I think, having also read a sort of worse book in the same investigative vein (see the other book ask I got LOL), that the sort of issues of sources and interviews and the limits and openings of oral histories is one of the most interesting aspects of the text (at least in a how-history-is-done sense). I can't say how the book reads if you have extremely in-depth knowledge on the subject, which I certainly don't, but I think the complexities it presents (on an individual level and beyond), the impressive research (and complications in that process), and the extreme readability (especially for such a heavy subject) make it an interesting and perhaps even useful popular history. I complain about popular history books a lot (it is what it is), but perhaps this one is worth a read.

3. All Systems Red by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries #1)

One thing about me, which I occasionally try to deny, is that I quite enjoy both fantasy and sci fi (the former a bit more than the latter, though this series is doing something to convince me). I read this for the little bookclub, although it's been a while since we've met, and I think I've read the first four? novellas in the series now. The main character, Murderbot, is a part robot, part human construction serving as a Security Unit. After hacking it's own control unit (governor module), Murderbot wants to watch TV and be left alone. It tries to evade detection...and yet also wants to protect its humans. It's so delightful to sort of experience this awkward prickly robot be forced into realizing that it has connections, that it has things it cares about. I believe Rhu (@traincoded) was the one that said it was tightly plotted, fun scifi and honestly I couldn't agree more. It's fun and yet very engaging and gives you a few things to think about with regards to "humanity" and whatever else you're in the mood for.

#ask game #ask #idk i am not a very good reviewer maybe this will be a little interesting to u at the very least #and thank u for the ask!#see i love books but i am soooo wordy

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rookie-critic · 1 year

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EO (2022, dir. Jerzy Skolimowski) - review by Rookie-Critic

Every now and then I'll get hit with a surprise. Something I wasn't really expecting, normally something I hadn't heard of or hadn't planned to see until just before purchasing the ticket, that comes along and really sticks with me. EO is one of those films. It's this year's entry from Poland for the Best International Feature Film award at the Oscars and a reimagining of a Robert Bresson film from the 60s called Au Hasard Balthazar. EO follows the story of a donkey named, well, EO as it goes through life, with almost all of the film taking place from his point of view. These types of movies have always interested me ever since my dad showed me a French film from 1988 called The Bear, which is a mostly dialogue free film told from the point of view of a bear cub, although it's a bit more of a family film than EO with a story that's got a little more mass appeal. Giving a voice to something that otherwise would not have one in any conventional story is not only commendable, but it is also incredibly challenging. How do you keep a story like this engaging for a feature-length amount of time? Skolimowski manages to accomplish this by focusing more on the idea that we can't really know what EO is actually thinking, and therefore are free to project however we feel about all of these situations our donkey finds himself in onto him, which, in a way, is exactly what the people he interacts with are doing, too, for better and for worse.

The film is presented very coldly, and shot in a way that is both impersonal and fully empathetic at the same time. We're not connecting and empathizing with EO because of any particular thing that he is doing or thinking because he is just acting like a donkey, we're empathizing with him because he is an animal, pure and clean of all fault or wrongdoing. We want the best things to happen to EO because we would want that for any animal (or at least anyone in their right mind would), EO just happens to be the focus of this particular story. I heard another critic say that "the movie isn't so much about the donkey as it is the people around him," and while I think there is truth to that, it seems diminishing to lay that down as a blanket statement, because this film isn't just about the human condition through a lens that is alien to us, it's also about humanity's relationship with animals and how we treat them. Some see animals as true companions, deserving of as much love and care as we would give another human being, some see animals as a totem, a symbol of something, whether that be something good, something selfish, or something filled with hate, and some just see animals as a means to an end, and even that aspect has a complexity all unto itself that is worth exploring, and Skolimowski does. He explores all of these aspects at one point or another during the film, and that brings with it a wildly varied experience. There are times when this movie is absolutely hilarious, and other times where it gets incredibly hard to watch, and sometimes these sequences are happening right next to each other (not to worry, though, right before the credits begin to roll, the film tells us that, throughout the entire filming process, all of the animals' safety was always the top priority).

Regardless of how we as individuals view animals, this film seeks to paint them as being capable of just as much complexity as us humans are. My one criticism of the film is that, due to the nature of the storytelling, there are a couple of narrative jumps that don't quite make sense, but ultimately that's not really what the film's focus is. It does slightly break the immersion into the film's world, but it is quickly re-overtaken by your interest in where EO is going and what will happen to him next. This really crept up on me, and I left the theater last night knowing I had just watched something really special. I'm not sure if it will win the Oscar or not (I venture to say it probably won't), but I'm so glad that its nomination put it on my radar, because it is a truly wonderful film.

Score: 9/10

Not currently available to watch online anywhere. It's possible that it is still playing in some theaters, so look around.

#EO #Jerzy Skolimowski #Sandra Drzymalska #Lorenzo Zurzolo #Mateusz Kościukiewicz #Mateusz Kosciukiewicz #Isabelle Huppert #film review #movie review #2022 films

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onecornerface · 2 years

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my day on drug policy twitter

I’m on Twitter as Megarittz. Today I tweeted this:

“D.A.R.E. was co-founded by Daryl Gates, who also co-founded the SWAT team. Gates once said publicly that casual drug users should be shot.“

The response has been positive. My tweet has been retweeted by Kassandra Frederique (director of the Drug Policy Alliance, one of the main drug reform organizations in the US) and by the Drug Policy Alliance account itself, as well as by a few journalists. It’s slightly nerve-wracking but also cool.

This is even better than the time Peter Hitchens (who advocates escalating the war on drugs) retweeted me to insinuate that I might be biased in my drug policy views because I use drugs. (i mean yeah okay, fair enough)

I stand by my contention that Twitter is a terrible medium for sharing ideas. I try to make up for my usage of it by tweeting a lot about why Twitter is bad. Also today I posted some tweets about basically how, by forcing us to abbreviate our ideas, Twitter makes it harder for us to respect one another, because appreciating the complexity of one another’s ideas is part of what it means to respect one another.

A few days ago, I also posted some tweets arguing that people generally should not change their minds based on Twitter posts, because changes in mind ought to stem from reasons that are more complex than can be expressed on Twitter-- especially, perhaps, complex political issues. One sad implication of this is that, when someone on Twitter posts a badly wrong defense of drug prohibition or suchlike, and then a bunch of more reasonable respondents swarm them with counterarguments, it might (often) not be rational for the prohibitionist to change their mind as a result-- despite the fact that the prohibitionist has a badly wrong view and the swarm of respondents is correct.

Exclusively talking to people we already agree with isn’t close to ideal either. People end up badly misunderstanding the other side, performatively signaling for their own side, etc. But constructive discussion with people on the other side is hard in the best of circumstances, and almost impossible on Twitter. I don’t have an easy solution here.

I appreciate the hedons generated in my brain by the retweets and comments, though. But of course my tweet about Daryl Gates is also oversimplified, and does not account for the more nuanced (but still terrible) context of when he said it, and what he said later. More caveats could be added on his use of hyperbole, and what he did and didn’t mean by what he said. When I looked into this a bit some months ago, I also have failed to find at least some of the earliest reporting on it, and I’m not sure if the full original quote in context can be found. Gates doubled down on it multiple times afterward though, so I think the gist of it is surely correctly reported. This further complexity is not in my tweet.

I think the bottom line is that Gates used murderous rhetoric, he stood by his rhetoric, and he did so as a police chief in the context of materially propping up a system of violence and coercion against people who use (some types of) drugs. And to this day, police officers here in the USA and in many other countries engage in many unjustified killings and acts of brutality, which many people then defend by saying the victim was on drugs. Some of this defense rests on the understandable (albeit still biased and stereotype-ridden) premise that an intoxicated person’s behavior was so uncontrollable that the police’s actions were needed in self-defense or for public safety. A lot of the defense, however, rests on flagrant dehumanization toward people who use (some types of) drugs, or toward people with (some types of) drug problems.

My tweet also could not contain a discussion on why I think the Gates thing matters, e.g. how DARE (like its sibling, the SWAT team) is emblematic of the dehumanization and brutality of the drug war, and how the discrediting of DARE should lead to rethinking everything else as well. Many people know DARE was bullshit, but they don’t draw enough further inferences-- DARE was part of a massive propaganda machine that has poisoned our epistemology of drugs on every level. We know much less about drugs than we think we do.

There is also the further wrinkle that DARE supposedly underwent significant changes in 2009 (and/or 2001), which some commentators think greatly improved it, but also other reports suggest it was still awful afterwards. (I gathered a few links together here. My thoughts on this are very preliminary and inconclusive.)

Anyway yeah, Daryl Gates sucked. But I did learn (here) that Gates also supported a policy against arresting undocumented immigrants, so that was one non-sucky thing about him. His rationale was mainly that a policy of non-arrest was needed in order for police to secure the trust and cooperation of undocumented immigrants who were crime victims or crime witnesses. I suspect Gates’s argument can actually be extended to strengthen the case for drug decriminalization on similar grounds --albeit, of course, with myriad hard-to-summarize caveats.

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sneverussape · 3 years

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What kind of person do you think lily was? There's a lot said about her in the series, but i have trouble reconciling pure, shining paragon lily with someone who would marry someone that spent years tormenting her friend, 4 on 1.

ooh boy this will be a LOT. i can't even promise it will be coherent but i'll make an attempt to be. (going under a cut to save us all the grief).

first off, i think it's fair to state that one of the biggest drawbacks of lily's character is how she was written. she is a plot device. she exists to boost other characters’ narratives: she's simultaneously the Rich Boy's trophy wife, the self-sacrificing mother of the Boy Who Lived, the best friend slash lost love of the Fallen Hero, and, at the same time, also no one at all. lily is a character with little to no background and character development that she can barely stand on her own two feet without any of the associated (usually male) characters to prop her up. it absolutely sucks but that's how it is. that's how jk wrote her.

given that and working with the scraps that we do have, my opinion of lily is...complex. i try to give her justice by trying to understand her context, the workings of her mind, and the possible pressures she was subjected to, but it can be challenging especially since lack of canon pushes you into a space where you have to put them in Either/Or situations. my opinion of her has also changed as i got older. when i was younger (i read the books waaaay back, as they were getting released in fact) i only saw her as an extra character (i was most interested in snape, if that's not obvious enough, but neither did i think snape was 'obsessed' with her as a lot of hp fans now think). i saw her and snape as good friends who had had a falling out, and that he'd probably had a crush on her at some point, and it got naturally overtaken by guilt etc when she died. then when i reread some chapters containing her, i was quick to put her in the Bad Friend camp. i don't think that now. i think that she, like snape, was a complex human being who made a lot of questionable decisions but shouldn't be entirely vilified for them.

my main thoughts of her that are kind of built on material from canon as well as what jkr has said herself:

- she was not posh. she grew up in cokeworth, in the same town as severus. i don't think she was middle class as a lot of fics portray her. i think the evanses were slightly better off than the snapes but they were all working-class, and living was a day-to-day struggle. the kids spoke in the local accent, their clothes were all worn and patched over, there were no green spaces or public infrastructure for kids to safely play in, and they were all mostly running wild about the town since all their parents had to work. food was something to be thankful for because there was never enough, and sometimes they had to share with their neighbors. that's the kind of setting i think lily and severus grew up in, although severus suffered abuse on top of it all. it's possible that lily did too because of the setting (post-world war 2, poverty, adults dealing with repressed trauma from the war, etc) and it wouldn't even be that surprising if she had been;

- she and petunia got along fairly well up until the point lily found out she was a witch and, as a result, became friends with severus. it's stated in canon that petunia had also wanted to attend hogwarts with them, going as far as writing to dumbledore to allow her admittance. her jealousy upon his rejection had festered and grown into outright hate that she projected onto harry as an adult, but i don't doubt that she continued to love lily even after her death and despite how she treated harry. i think as kids they had stuck together and were very close, but magic had torn them apart. suddenly lily had a world of her own that petunia wasn't welcome in, and that would have hurt. pottermore stated lily attended vernon and petunia's wedding or engagement party but james made a right mess of it. i think lily TRIED to maintain their relationship but external factors always got in the way. i don't doubt she had also loved her sister very much;

- i don't think she had any other friends. she may have had a lot of acquaintances but i think her only real friend, the one who saw her for who she really was, was severus, and i think, at a certain point in their lives, she saw that as a weakness and resented it;

- i think, from the interactions we saw in canon of lily with other people, that lily had a penchant to please people, especially the ones who ranked higher than her in terms of power dynamics - petunia (who was the older sister), professors (sluggy comes to mind, the head of slytherin with a lot of connections), even the marauders whose actions she defended. it's not necessarily a bad thing, but i've always seen it as her being borderline manipulative. i noted that she wasn't the same with severus (based on their conversations, especially the ones in 5th year, before SWM) because he's lower than her in a lot of aspects, being a slytherin and quite likely of a lower social standing. she could boss him around and tell him to piss off and he probably wouldn't have minded. she actually strikes me as someone who could have been in slytherin; a perfect arrangement, save for the fact that she was a muggleborn. i think lily knew her place and the cards she was dealt with more than anyone, but she was also determined not to stay there;

- this brings me to the point as to why she ever went out with james potter in the first place. i think her friendship breakup with severus was inevitable because they were in the middle of a burgeoning war and both of them were being pulled to opposite and opposing ends. as an added complexity, i think she also wanted to be better than being muggleborn lily evans of cokeworth, best friend of the evil greasy slytherin git, and her way out was to associate with housemates who were in the upper echelons of power. like, we don't even know what her life was like in gryffindor tower. ron was poor, but he was also a pureblood, so that may have saved him from ridicule. but what if you were a poor muggleborn, with a northern accent to boot? in the same way severus trained himself to be more posh, lily could have done the same and could have furiously tried to blend in. maintaining a friendship with severus would have ended in heartbreak as there were too many risks and it likely outweighed the gains. this was the wizarding world too which is much much smaller than the muggle world and relied on connections more than anything. openly siding with the marauders would have saved her skin and secured her a future (which, as we all know, was forfeit anyway but whatever);

- jumping to the jily relationship, i honestly think it was also not one that was meant to last. iirc jkr projected a lot onto lily, so i'm surmising jily reflected a lot of her own failed relationships. i think james and lily had a less-than-ideal relationship, one that involved abuse (verbal, emotional, mental, physical, take your pick, but at least one form of it), and i think she may have been unhappy in the last year of her life, living in hiding with none of her own friends (if they even existed) and seeing no one else but james' pals. her only light in that darkness was likely harry as she couldn't even see her own family. i think, during those times, she thought a lot about the home she left behind and, as a consequence, her lost friendship with severus. she probably missed him, and i'm sure she must have been very lonely.

in sum, i don't think she was the Virgin Mary figure a lot of hp fans paint her to be. imho she had her own questionable but utterly human moments, and i just tried to fill in the blanks as to why she would have acted the way she did. i don't think it was easy to be lily evans at all, and majority of the 21 years of her life was likely a struggle.

#lily evans #and the cards she was dealt #i wish we knew more about her tbh #ask #hp #also mentions #snape #of course

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multiplefandomfics · 3 years

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Everything happens for a reason

Pairing: Bucky x reader (Former Steve x reader)

Warnings: cheating, angst, pregnancy, semi-public sex, Steve’s an ass in this one,

Words: 5213

A/N: Well this escalated quickly! When you have too much time at work stuff like this happens :D!

I have no idea how they do a c-section or any medical terms of that field other than the stuff I’ve seen on Grey’s Anatomy so forgive me when the birth is wrongly described.

“Babe? You home?” you called out to your fiance excited to tell him the news. No response, so you ventured further into the dark hallway.

You could see light coming from under the bedroom door. Thinking nothing of it because it was already relatively late, you walked to the room and opened the door.

You had not expected the sight before you though. You’re husband to be in the throes of passion with not one but two women.

Shocked, you slammed the door shut again which caused the threesome to startle.

“Honey? Why are you home already? I thought you were gonna go for a drink with your friends.” he called out to you while ripping the door open again…..

“That’s your excuse to cheat on me? That I was not going to see it? WHAT THE FUCK STEVE! We wanted to get married!” you screamed at him and then threw the engagement ring towards his head.

You stormed past him into the bedroom, grabbed some clothes and necessities from your closet and stuffed them into a suitcase. He tried to reason with you, that he wanted to feel free one last time and could pass up the opportunity of a threesome. Like that was actually an excuse.

Everything he said was ignored and so 5 minutes later you sat in your car and that was when the dam broke. You wanted to cry and yell at the same time. How could you have been so stupid as to think someone as honorable and good looking as Steve Rogers was not gonna follow the temptation of so many willing women at some point? You wiped your tears away and contemplated where you could be going for the night.

After thinking for a while you had figured out that most of your friends were also Steve’s you didn’t know if they were going to take his side or yours.

Natasha was not the right idea, she would probably break into his house and kill him in his sleep if she found out he cheated on you like that. And maybe you were in the right mindset to let her do it right now. Wanda and Vision were out of town and Tony would only tell you “I told you so”. That left only one other person in the world you liked enough to see right now. Bucky Barnes. So without further notice you drove to his apartment complex and rang his doorbell at 1am with a packed suitcase in your hand.

“Yes.” you heard a groggy voice through the speakers at the entrance.

“Ehm, hi Bucky. It’s Y/N. Something happened, can I come up?” you were already close to tears again. He must have noticed so he was immediately wide awake and buzzed the door open.

You took the elevator up to the 4th floor and he was already standing in the doorway to his flat only in boxer shorts and a t-shirt.

“Hey, doll. What happened? You look worse for wear.” he looked concerned and let you inside.

“I feel awful for disturbing you in the middle of the night. But I didn’t know where else to go.” you fell into his embrace after he had opened his arms.

“It’s okay darling. Now tell me what happened please.” he inquired.

“Of course. Where do I start?” you frantically searched for words.

“Best if you start at the beginning.” he smiled encouragingly.

“Yes, sure. So tonight I wanted to go for a drink with a few girls from work but didn’t feel alright after work so I rainchecked last minute and went home. But when I stepped into our bedroom, oh Bucky it was terrible, Steve wasn’t alone. There were two naked girls in bed with him.” you had fat tears streaming down your cheeks.

“Impossible. Steve is not a cheater. You sure you saw that right?” The doubt in his voice made you angry.

“I know what I saw Buck!” you got defensive.

“Okay, I believe you. It’s just that I never saw Steve disrespecting someone like that. I’m so sorry for you doll.” he looked genuinely affected by the whole situation and he could understand how Steve could hurt you like this.

“But that’s not the worst part yet… The reason I didn’t feel great and didn’t go out with my friends is… I’m pregnant Bucky and Steve doesn’t know.” you looked downwards.

“Fuck! That is getting more and more complicated. But congratulations doll. You will be a great mom.” he hugged you close. “How about I’ll make you a cup of tea and then you try to sleep a bit.” he suggested.

“Alright. Thank you Bucky. You are my best friend.” he smiled sadly at that statement. He wished you were more than just friends. Maybe now he would have a chance somehow.

Before he could get up though his phone rang.

“It’s him Y/N. You want me to ignore him?”

“No, then he knows I’m here for sure. Tell him you haven’t seen me.”

“Okay, will do.”

“Steve? Do you know how late it is?” Bucky asked with his best impression of a just out of bed voice.

“I’m sorry pal but I need to find Y/N. I did something stupid and she left. Do you know where she is?” you could hear Steve through Bucky’s much too loud phone.

“I’m sorry Steve. I haven’t heard from her. You just woke me up.” he lied.

“Damn! I need to make this up to her. I’m so sorry. If she comes to you, could you tell her I need to speak with her, please? I love her too much to lose her.” you swallowed more tears threatening to escape.

“Sure, buddy. You wanna tell me what happened?” Bucky feigned cluelessness.

“Maybe later Buck. I have to call the rest of our friends.”

“Alright, but don’t do anything stupid.” Bucky said and Steve hung up.

“You heard him, didn’t you?” he asked you.

“Hmm.” you confirmed.

After you had drank your tea he left you the bed and slept on the couch. When you snuggled into the covers they smelled so delicously like Bucky. A mix of soap, coffee and something uniquely Bucky. For one split moment you had thought about asking him to sleep next to you but that would have probably sent mixed signals and you didn’t know what you wanted at the moment.

You woke up feeling cold. Shivering slightly you opened your eyes and noticed that the blanket had fallen off your body onto the floor. Sitting up you rubbed the sleep out of your eyes and the realization of what had happened struck you a moment later.

“Chin up! You are a queen! Don’t let that idiot make you cry again. He’s not worth it!” you told yourself and got up to get some food.

“Good morning, Bucky.” you greeted him while he was standing at the stove making scrambled eggs and bacon.

“Good morning to you too. How did you sleep? And do you want some breakfast?” he asked cheerily.

“I slept like a baby and hell yes I’m so hungry.” confirming his suspicions.

Bucky and you ate together in comfortable silence. Until he spoke up: “So Y/N you know you can stay here however long you like and I don’t mind kicking Stevies ass for what he’s done to you but you should at least tell him that you are with me. I can’t lie to him forever.” he really had a point.

“I know. Thanks again for taking in a stray in the middle of the night. And I know I will have to talk to him eventually. He hurt me so bad but I’m more afraid I will give in again when I see his puppy dog eyes although I can’t trust him anymore.” you looked so lost. Bucky wanted to wrap you up in a blanket and never let you go again.

That week you called in sick. You couldn’t stand the people at work.

And when you came back on monday, guess who was standing outside our office building with a exagerrated flower buquet.

“I’m sorry babe. I shouldn’t have done that to you. You are the best thing that has happened to me. Please don’t leave me.” he begged. You had to admit seeing Captain America beg was a sight for sore eyes.

“Hello Steve. You are correct you shouldn’t have cheated on me and I am deeply disappointed in you. Thank you for apologizing but I won’t come back to you. You have broken my trust and I can’t just give it back to you. I will be over in the next few weeks to get the rest of my stuff out of your apartment and leave my keys. Now I have to go work. Bye Steve. Oh, by the way, you will have to call all our friends and family that the wedding is off. I’m not doing that.” and with those words you turned away from him and clapped yourself menatlly on the shoulder at how confident and sovereign you had handelt that situation.

If you had thought the deal was over there you had definitely celebrated to early.

Of course Steve found out you had been staying with Bucky all along and was mad as hell.

He suddeny stood inside the apartment, however he got in there, and started throwing insults at Bucky and especially you.

“Here you are you little slut! Have already replaced me, hm. How long has this been going on? You preach something of trust and here you are fucking my best friend behind my back! I should have known.” he raged.

“Calm down you idiot. There is nothing going on between Buck and me. He has just been a friend when I was hurt needed one.” you yelled back enraged at the accusations.

“Who do you wanna tell that, Y/N. Do you think I haven’t seen the way you two look at each other?” he was still so angry. You had nevern seen him this full of rage.

“So what it is none of your business anymore anyways.” you knew you couldn’t bring him to believe you anyway. He needed to find a different cause of why you wouldn’t come back to him than the simple reason that he had cheated. He wanted to blame you, not himself.

“Could you please leave now? I don’t feel so good.” you suddenly felt your lunch coming back up to greet you and ran to the bathroom.

The men heard you puking. One knowing the reason the other not.

“What’s going on with her? She sick?” Steve asked Bucky.

That was your clue to burst through the bathroom door.

“I’m pregnat you ass! You cheated on your pregnant fiance!” you yelled and stormed into Bucky’S bedroom, jamming the door shut behind you.

Steve looked aghast at Bucky “did you know?”

“She told me the night she came to me. She had wanted to tell you then. That’s why she didn’t go out with her collegues.”

“Fuck! I destroyed everything, haven’t I?” he asked Bucky in defeat.

“Give her time. She probably won’t want to marry you, maybe not even be your girlfriend again but maybe she will at least let you see your kid.” Bucky stated matter of factly.

“But I wan’t more Bucky. I want her.” he whined.

“Well, you had everything, pal. But you destroyed it. I better go talk to her. You should really leave her alone for a while.” he clapped Steve on the shoulder, maybe a bit harder than necessary and went after you.

“Y/N? He’s gone.” Bucky carefully stuck his head into the room. You were lying on the bed, on your back staring at the ceiling.

“Good.” you muttered. “I couldn’t stand him anymore. I’m afraid Bucky.” you confessed. “I can’t raise a baby on my own and I don’t know if I want Steve involved.”

“I can understand your worry but I don’t see any reason. You are so caring and selfless you will be a great mom. And if you let me I can help you. Kids seem to like me apparently.” he encouraged you and smiled.

“Thank you, Buck. I definitely will need your help. I am going to be a single mom and that’s completely okay.” you smiled at him.

“That’s what I wanna hear. Now, you hungry after everything just came out?”

“Yes. I’d like Pizza please.”

“Alright, princess I will order some.” he stroked your cheek and got up to get the delivery running.

“So he actually cheated on you? I would have never expected that from Steve. He always seems like a gentleman. Unbelievable.” Wanda exclaimed.

“Yeah. Absolutely insane. But congrats on the pregnancy though. You will be a rockin’ mama.” Nat hugged you. “And we will help you with whatever you need.”

“Thanks, girls. You are amazing. You know I want you to be godmothers, right?” you asked.

“Hell yes. We’re in.” Nat squealed and you never heard her squeal.

Weeks ticked by and you really searched for an affordable apartment somewhere close to your workplace. That was harder than you anticipated though.

After 3 months of moving in with Bucky you had still no place of your own and you constantly thought you were overstaying your welcome.

“How are you two doing today?” Bucky asked you as he came home.

“We are fine. Had a lot to eat and listened to some music. By the way my OB was able to find out what we are having. You wanna know?” over the past months Bucky had become more a father to the baby than Steve had been. Steve rarely called or wanted to now anything about you or his baby. Bucky seemed more than content to take up the role of its father.

“Hell yes I wanna know. Tell me!” he ordered exited.

“Alright, drumroll…. It’s a…. girl.” you announced.

“Oh, wow. Great. A mini you not a mini Steve.” he laughed and you had to laugh too.

“Buck?” you asked suddenly.

“Hm?”

“I want you to be in this girls life. As more than just her mommys friend. More as a rolemodel. A…” you stopped to think about your next words carfully. “More like a dad.” and out it was. Now you only had to wait for his reaction.

“You want me to be her father? Hmm. On the one hand I would love to. I feel so close to her already but on the other hand I don’t want to affront Steve. Even after everything he is my friend. Can we talk about what there is between us first? Maybe if we have that settled all will slip in place.” he suggested.

“Maybe you are right. What is there between us in your opinion?”

“Look Y/N, I have always felt a connection between us. Although I would have never acted on it because you were Steve’s girl, it hurt everytime I saw you with him. And when you got engaged I seriously considered moving abroad so I wouldn’t have to see you building a life with him. If I could imagine myself as the man by your and your daughters side? Of course. There is nowhere I’d rather be. And we are practically living together already anyway.” his confession only superficially shocked you. You knew there had always been feelings from your side too. That’s why it had been so easy to confide in him. He took your silence as hesitation and became insecure “I mean if you don’t feel that way I will accept that. I swear I can be just a frien….” he wasn’t able to say more because you had already stopped his rambling with a bruising kiss.

“So you do feel it!” he observed.

“Of course I do you dummy. You have always been there for me. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it was actually you who I should be with.” you apologized.

“The most important thing is that we have that figured out now.” he kissed you again and you melted into it.

“Yes, we do.” you smiled.

Another few months flew by and you had started to stay at home because you were constantly feeling dizzy or nauteous when you moved.

“Bucky come here. Now!” you yelled for your boyfriend one snowy december morning. Alarmed he stormed into the livingroon where you were parked in front of a movie with a cup of hot chocolate and a really big blanket over one of Bucky’s hoodies.

“What’s wrong? You okay?” panicked he jumped onto the couch next to you. “No nothing is wrong. Here- Give me your hand.” he gave you his right hand and you pressed it to the place on your belly were you had just felt her kick. When she did it again he almost jumped out of his skin. “Woah, what was that? Was that a kick?” he asked astonished.

“Of course Buck. What else was it supposed to be?” you laughed.

“She is strong. Damn so cool.”

“And she keeps kicking even more when she hears your voice. Maybe she likes it if you sang to her.” you smiled expectantly.

“Oh, no. No one wants to hear me sing. I have a terrible voice.” he refused.

“Steve told me differently. He said you were in church choir together as boys.” your smirked at him.

“He told you that.” he sighed.

“Oh, yes he did. So come on. Sing something for our daughter.”

“Our daughter?” he asked, you realized what you had said and blushed.

“I like the sound of that.” he grinned from ear to ear and that was the moment you were 100% sure that he was it for you.

“I love you so much.” he whispered and kissed first your protruding belly and then your mouth.

You were speechless. “I love you too Bucky.” you replied.

Your daughter grew everyday. Everytime you went to an ultrasound at your OB Bucky was by your side and although the doctor knew he wasn’t the babys biological dad she said that he was doing so much better than most fathers to be. He took so much pride in your baby girl that you almost burst with love for him.

After 9 months of carrying her it was finally time to let go. When the contractions started Bucky rushed you to a hospital and although he didn’t want to he called Steve. And Nat and Wanda of course.

The doctor and midwife did their exam of you and the baby quickly before figuring out that something was wrong.

“She is lying sideways. We can’t deliver her naturally. We need to get her by c-section or you will both die.” the OB made clear. You knew things like that could happen. You had mentally prepared for anything but now that it actually came to that you were more than afraid.

“Wo should stay with you? Only one person can.” the doctor informed you.

Steve, who had just entered the room and had heard everything of course assumed immediately that he was gonna be invited into the OR with you.

“I want Bucky to stay with me.” you whined. Steve got pretty angry and almost ripped the door off its hinges when he left. “Bucky I’m afraid.” you whispered to him. Uncaring of Steves abrupt departure.

“I will stay with you, doll. Through everything. You two will get through this.” he encouraged you.

“Thanks Buck. Let’s get this baby into the world.” you said.

“Good attitude.” the doctor approved.

They rushed you into the OR. Bucky never leaving you and holding your hand the whole time. During the procedure itself you were awake but you got a spinal anesthesia to numb everthing from your belly downwards.

“I will keep a pretty ugly scar Buck. Don’t you mind that?” you asked him a little drunk on meds.

“No sweetheart. I love you so much I don’t care about scars. You don’t care about mine either, do you? Scars are just proof of what you have gone through and survived. That’s what you always used to say. Isn’t it?” he quoted you.

“Yes maybe.”

“Plus it will always remind of our beautiful daughter. That’ll be worth it, don’t you think?” he asked.

“Yes, sure. I love you Buck.”

“I love you too and you are doing so great. Isn’t she doc?” he asked the OB.

“Oh, she’s doing great. Everything is perfect.” she answered but by the nervous facial expression she had on her face and the rushing nurses surrounding her Bucky knew that something was wrong.

Suddenly a baby cried. Relief flooded through Bucky. “Look there she is.” he pointed to your right and you rolled your head over and smiled. Then you passed out.

“Y/N? Y/N!!!” Bucky yelled. “What happened?” he asked the doc full of panic.

“She lost a lot of blood but we are giving her donations now. Go see your daughter and we will do everything we can to save her.” she explained to him. But Bucky would not be Bucky if he left your side.

They sewed you up and 3 hours later you awoke in a brightly lit room. Beeping machines by your head. You looked around, complketely confused until you saw the cutes thing you had ever laid eyes on. Your angel of a boyfriend was sitting next to your bed in an armchair, holding your baby daughter to his chest and singing softly to her.

You started weeping immediately. Still high on drugs and hormones.

“Baby what’s wrong? Are you in pain?” he asked worried.

“No, I am just so happy. You two really are a sight for sore eyes. I can’t contain the love in my heart.” you kept crying happy tears.

“Would you give me our baby?” you asked politely.

“Oh, of course honey.” he got up and placed the blanket wrapped burrito into your arms. When you saw her crystal blue eyes and slightly dirty blonde hair you had to hold back new tears.

“What should we call her?” Bucky asked you.

“I always loved Autumn as a girls name or maybe Freya. What do you like better?”

“I love them both. Double name? Or keep one for the next baby?” he suggested.

“You are already thinking about a second child?” you laughed. “Give me a bit of time to recover and then I would love to have another one with you.”

“Sure so Autumn or Freya?” he asked again.

“Let’s go with Freya. It’s such a unique name. And strong as hell. I think it suits her.” you chose.

“Great. I love it. And I love both of you.”

“Has anyone been in here yet?” you asked him.

“Not yet. I wanted you to see your daughter first before the others came barging in. Steve nearly broke down the door when I refused him to come inside. I handled him and security told him if he didn’t calm down he needed to leave and he wouldn’t be allowed back inside.” he broke down the events of the past few hours for you.

“That sounds so not like the Steve I know but seems like that is who he became. I think if you hand me a glass of water for my parched throat first you can let the others inside.” you instructed him.

After downing the entire bottle of liquid the whole party came trampling into the room. Steve pushed the rest rudely out of the way. But instead of asking how you were doing after losing so much blood he just grabbed your daughter out of your hands to look at her. It didn’t take 3 seconds before the infant was crying like crazy. Steve startled and immediately handed her back to you. “Why is she always crying? She’s definitely yours.” he commented. Bucky gotreally angry at that comment while you tried to calm your baby.

“I think you should go, pal. You are irritating her with your attitude.” Bucky suggested nicely.

“Who do you think you are? You are not her father. I am.” he turned beet red.

You finally had enough. Handing Freya over to Nat who took a step back, you sat up a little and faced Steve. “In the past 9 months Bucky has been more a father to her than you could ever be. He was there when I hung puking over the toilet bowl. He brought me the strangest snacks without asking twice about it. He always had the nicest words to say to me no matter how depressed I felt. And where the fucking hell were you that whole time?” you asked him angrily.

That made him stop still. “You left me!” he tried to defend himself weakly.

“GET OUT!” you yelled at him.

He obeyed because he knew he couldn’t say anything to make the situation better.

“Wow, that was intense.” Wanda commented.

“He needed to hear that.” you said.

“Yes, he did. And now to you and your daughter. She is adorable. What’s her name?” Nat changed the topic.

“Thank you Nat. Her name is Freya. I have always loved that name.” you answered.

“That’s a beautiful, strong name. Fitting!” Wanda commented.

“So when will you be able to get out of here?” Nat asked, still holding your baby.

“I don’t know. Haven’t spoken to a doctor yet.”

As if on cue the door opened and your OB entered.

She told you that everything was healing and that you needed to stay for another day and then you and your baby could go home.

Three weeks later you had already accustomed Freya to her crib. You went on walks everyday. Bucky always by your side. Protecting you both like a wolf protects his pack.

Six months ticked by like nothing. Suddenly Freya was already playing with her mobile which was hanging over her bed. She was very attentive. Crawling all over the apartment fast enough that you almost couldn’t catch up.

It was fulfilling to be a mom but also tiring. You needed a day off so as the nice godmothers that your friends were they took her from you for 24 hours. At first you slept in. You would have happily stayed in bed all day but Bucky had other plans.

So you took a shower and put on a nice dress but you forwent the high heels cause you still had swollen feet sometimes and couldn’t walk in them anyways.

“Where are we going Buck?” you smiled.

“You will see, doll.” was his cryptic answer.

He drove out of town until you reached the hills. Parking the car somewhere in the middle of nowhere you got out of the car and he pulled a picnic basket out of the trunk.

“A picnic? That’s so sweet.” you swooned.

“I thought that would be nice.” He seemed somehow really nervous.

When you had found a clearing he put everything down and you two sat and ate. Sandwiches, fruit, cheese, crackers, chocolate covered strawberries. Everything was so delicious. “Thank you for this Bucky. It’s the best date I have ever had.” you complimented.

“It is wonderful. And I would like to ask you something.” he turned so he was kneeling in front of you and pulled a box out of his jacket pocket. You clapped your hand in front of your mouth and tears sprang to your eyes.

“Y/N I have loved you for so long. We have a great life together, a wonderful daughter. I would like this to hold forever. Will you marry me?” he asked.

You threw yourself into his arms and he crumbled underneath you “YES! Of course I will marry you Bucky. I love you so much!” you confirmed.

He put the ring onto your finger and you kissed deeply. The kiss turned heated quickly. You, still lying on top of him, wriggled your hips. He turned you on so much you wanted him right that moment.

“Woa, hold on doll. You sure you want to do this here?” he mumbled against your lips.

“Don’t wanna wait any more. Waited too long.” you mumbled back.

His hands immediately went to the zipper on your back and pulled it down. You sat up so you could wriggle your arms free and pulled the dress over your head, leaving you in your panties and bra. “So beautiful.” he groaned and buried his face in your boobs, nipping and sucking hickies only he would be able to see later.

All the while you frantically ripped at his clothes, pushing the jacket off his shoulders and unbuttoning his shirt. Then you roamed your hands over his muscular chest intensely. Grinding down on his growing erection got you so wet. You hadn’t gotten any action in over a year and you knew he hadn’t either so this was likely going to be over way too soon. You had to savor any moment that it would last.

With his help you got him out of his jeans and you saw that he was not wearing any underwear. “Naughty boy. No underwear?” you commented, smirking.

“More comfy that way. Why don’t you make it even more comfortable and sit on my dick, doll?”

“With pleasure.” you moaned and sank down on his massive cock. “Fuck!” you groaned at the slight discomfort. You felt like an inexperienced virgin again. “Shit. Don’t stop.” he moaned lustfully.

You rocked your hips sensually and he met you with every thrust.

He hit all the amazing spots deep inside you and you felt your high approaching way too fast. “‘m so close, baby.” you moaned with your eyes closed. Just lost in the pleasure of every stroke inside you.

“Me too. Wanna come together. Open your eyes, darling.” he panted.

So you did as he had asked and when your eyes met his baby blues you lost it and came all over him. That in turn triggered his orgasm and he spilled inside you.

Breathing heavily you slid off of him and cuddled into his side while he pulled a blanket over you.

“That was so great.” he said.

“Hmm, and you know what? I’m still not on birth control again. Maybe… we’ll soon have a mini you running around.” you smirked.

“I would like that very much. Life is always better with a sibling.” he kissed your head.

Well and what can I say- 9 months later you gave birth to a healthy, dark haired baby boy which you named Ben. Your family became the most important thing in the world. You didn’t even want to think about a scenario where you hadn’t found out that Steve cheated on you. You were the happiest when you were with Bucky. That’s where you belonged.

#marvel #buckyxreader #steve x reader #fanfic #smut #fluff #angst #multiplefandomfics #pregnancy #notbetad

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raeynbowboi · 2 years

Text

Animation Analysis: Centaurworld

When I first saw the trailers, I initially wrote off Centaurworld as a mindless, stupid kid’s show. You know the sort. The kind that talks down to its audience and treats them like they’re braindead morons. Like Teen Titans Go. The entertainment equivalent of dangling keys in front of your baby to distract them. But I’m surprised to find I enjoyed... aspects of it. Wammawink and Horse had a great foil dynamic and their duets were often really compelling character explorations. I also found myself laughing at Glendale and her kleptomania bit a lot. Glendale was easily the funniest character by a wide margin, followed by Wammawink and Horse. The final villain of the Nowhere King and his backstory was also quite engaging. He felt like a tragic mix of Beast and the Little Mermaid, loving his Beauty from afar, and changing to be with her. I found all of these elements to work and be compelling. The music was also really good, having an almost disney-level quality in some of them. The show was also clearly written as a musical, as like a normal musical, there would often be reprised versions, or repetition of instrumentals from one song in another, which makes it less of a show with songs, and more of an animated musical where the music strings together quite nicely. However, there were other aspects that bogged the show down as a whole. I won’t knock the tone, since that’s going to be more subjective, but if you asked me what the actual theme of the story was, the only one I can really point to is Horse changing and having to learn to love and accept who she’s become, and also kinda sorta reads like an allegory for being trans or coming out as gay? You’re noticeably different, but hope not to lose the people you knew before you made that switch. Other than that, the only other theme I really came away with was maybe the juxtaposition of cutesy silly cartoons next to dramatic serious ones, trying to prove that even a silly cutesy cartoon can get dark and complex. But this is sort of where the show falls flat a bit to me, at least. It may have these ideas or themes like togetherness or acceptance, but doesn’t really explore these ideas thoroughly enough to make it clear that’s the moral we’re supposed to take away from the story. Yes, connections and family is certainly important, but why they’re important is never explored. Not in any way that doesn’t come off as comedic. The scene where Durpleton meets Chet certainly does a decent job at demonstrating found family, but it’s immediately undercut by the comedy of Wammawink arriving on a helicopter and Zulius appearing out of nowhere. That’s my other issue with the show. The characters are rather static. Aside from Horse and maybe Wammawink, nobody really changes by the end of the story. Durpleton has an arc about becoming a father, but it comes off more like Stabby developed Stockholm Syndrome, especially because his sudden change into a weird chibi baby form is never explained. Glendale is still a Klepto, Wammawink is still an overbearing hyperprotective guardian, Zulius is completely disregarded as a joke because we never see his backstory and he just... makes up with Sublime effortlessly, to the point where it basically becomes a non-issue. The only character I felt shows some growth is Ched, expect it’s not so much that he grows, as much as we learn his origins. And once we learn his origins, he keeps acting like an obnoxious tool, which fails to redeem his shitty personality. He’s not a Tsundere, he’s just an obnoxious bully who negs Horse at every opportunity. Some of the ending is also slightly contrived. The purple-haired lady (I think she has a name but I swear they NEVER say it in the show, they just call her ‘my lady’ or ‘princess’.) just knows to stab her husband, even though we’re not really sure how much she knows about who he is. We sure did have time for a dumb fandom/con plotline but not time to flesh out and actually explore her relationship with the general. Because we literally never see any part of their actual marriage. If you’re just looking at the flashbacks in sequential order, we see her marry the general, her lead the elk out of the dungeon through the sewers, and then the three of them together in the rift. That is literally all we see of that phase of her life. There is no indication of how she felt, or how she came to learn what was going on. We don’t get to see that change of mind, that ‘aha’ moment, which causes the Last Lullaby to feel weak. It lacks the weight it should have because we barely know who she is as a character. She’s in 4 episodes, and most of her screen time she just kind of... exists. We don’t really know how she feels or what she wants. And that’s sort of where Centaurworld falls flat. It spends so much time being whacky and colorful it forgets to really develop its characters. Which is why I have to sadly put Zulius into the box of bad queer representation. He’s just a joke character. He’s comedic relief. He’s just a bad gay stereotype with no deeper nuance or deeper character. He’s a surface-level cliché, and that’s so disappointing for a show that seems to want to present itself as progressive and open-minded. But being a gay stereotype is 99.9% of his character. Season 2 is also rather aimless until the finale movie. There’s this subplot of Horse needing a win, and to feel like her decision to stay was the right choice, but the main plot surrounding this subplot are kind of boring. The Horse thing is great and makes terrific sense for her character, but the episodes that facilitate this arc are rather uninteresting. Glendale helps a bunch of arctic centaurs with their anxiety, but I can’t really say this feels like any sort of conclusion to an arc. There was never this fixation on Glendale being hyper fragile to the point that she broke under any kind of pressure and would never be the type to lead or inspire others. She had running gags of anxiety and nervous break downs, but they don’t feel resolved by this episode. It just sort of comes off as a weird joke that Glendale has actually managed to turn a bad situation around to her benefit. At the end of the day, Centaurworld was... interesting. I’d be willing to give it a B- if only because there are plenty of shows more boring, soulless, and lacking any form of identity than this one. But character arcs stall out, and some side characters who feel like they should be explored end up sidelined. I would have bumped the show up to a B if it had committed to the major character death. But no, stupid kid show logic dictates we must treat a death scene with the utmost seriousness and then immediately undercut it by going “just kidding”. It’s to the point now when a character acts like they’re dying, I’m just looking at my watch wondering how long they’re going to milk this before playing an Uno Reverse on the whole thing. Centaurworld is honestly a mixed bag. It has good music and the main character is interesting, as well as the villain. But it’s also kinda rushed, and filled with side characters who are either stagnant or underdeveloped, leaving it as a decent and memorable show, but held back by lack of depth and focus on further details. I’m satisfied with giving it a B-. It’s above average. But, I doubt I’ll rewatch it more than once or twice in the future. Kinda like She-Ra. It was fine, but I’m probably not going to go out of my way to rewatch it again and again now that I know how it ends. Would I recommend it to others? Maybe, but they’d have to be people that I know would appreciate the show’s tone and aesthetic.

#centaurworld #spoilers #spoiler tag #season 2 #centaurworld season 2 #horse #wammawink #glendale #zulius #ched #durpleton

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sketching-shark · 3 years

Note

I think we should start a protection squad (although they don’t need it because they can protect themselves) for Sun Wukong and Guanyin

“Begone monkie kid fandom trying to down grade these really interesting characters with interesting personality’s and backstory ( the both of them like seriously Guanyin backstory is so cool) to a villain wile trying to justify your angsty backstory (that are no where near as cool as monkey who fights gods and Person who has 1000 arms and heads to help people in need) for the actual villain”

So who wants to join

Me:*raises my hand*

Ps: sorry if I got Guanyin backstory wrong am not an expert on it.

Haha okay so some critiques on the jttw & associated media western fandom & fandom in general coming up, so please skip this upcoming text wall if you don't want to encounter my undoubtedly ~devastating~ words (i.e. don't like don't read as people love to say, & if I have to be inundated with images of my notp every time I go into the sun wukong tag then I imagine people can be chill with me expressing my opinions & giving people fair warning that I WILL be critiquing common fandom trends, but no need for you to see that if you don’t want to. Cool? Cool.)

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PFFFFFTTT oh man there are many times when I feel like signing up for such a protection squad...when it comes to the current western jttw & Sun Wukong fandom I do feel like I'm often swinging at a rapid pace between "well it's fandom & people are allowed to make the stories they want" & "I am once again begging my fellow monkie kid enthusiasts (& sometimes creators) to do more research into the og classic/show it more respect so you can avoid any potentially offensive/off-the-mark misunderstandings of the status & cultural context of the characters in their country of origin (I promise it's super interesting & I can provide you with links to free pdf copies of the entire Yu translation, i.e. the best one ever created, so feel free to ask!) & maybe also stop constantly stripping away all the nuance of Sun Wukong's character for the sake of either making him an entire asshole so your little meow meow can look completely innocent in comparison and/or making the monkey king's entire life & character revolve around said meow meow."

Like I get that fandom's supposed to be a kind of anything-goes environment, but one thing that honestly seems to be true of a lot of fandoms--and the western one for Sun Wukong & co. is certainly not immune from this--is that there often seems to be a kind of monoculturalization at work in what stories are created & what character interpretations are made popular. Across a multitude of fandoms, you frequently see basically nothing but the exact same tropes being made popular & even being insisted on for the canonical work (especially hasty redemption arcs & enemies to lovers these days), the exact same one-dimensional character types that characters from an original work keep getting shoved into, the exact same story beats, etc. And I get it to an extent, as fandom is generally a space where people just make art and fic for fun & without thinking too hard about it & without any pressure.

This seems to, however, often unfortunately lead to the mentality that it’s your god-given right to do literally whatever you want with literally any cultural figure without even the slightest bit of thought put into their cultural, historical, and even religious context, even (and sometimes especially) when it comes to figures that are really important in a culture outside your own. For such figures--even if you first encounter them in a children’s cartoon--you should be a little more careful with what you do with them than you would with your usual Saturday morning line-up. It of course has to be acknowledged that there exists a whole pile of absolutely ridiculous & cursed pieces of media that are based on Journey to the West & that were produced in mainland China, but for your own education if nothing else I consider it good practice for those of us (myself certainly included) who aren’t part of the culture that produced JTTW to put more thought into how we might want to portray these characters so that at the very least (to pull some things I’ve seen from the jttw western fandom) we’re not turning a goddess of mercy into an evil figure for the sake of Angst(TM), or relegating other important literary figures into the positions of offensive stereotypes, or making broad claims about the source text & original characterizations of various figures that are blatantly untrue, or mocking heavenly deities because of what’s actually your misunderstanding of how immortality works according to Daoist beliefs. Yet while a lot of this is often due to people not even trying to understand the context these figures are coming from, I do want to acknowledge that the journey (lol reference) to understand even a fraction of the original cultural context can be a daunting one, especially since, as I’ve mentioned before, it can be really hard & even next to impossible to find good, accessible, & legitimate explanations in English of how, for example, the relationship between Sun Wukong and the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China & according to the Buddhist beliefs that define the original work.

That is to say, I do think it’s an unfortunate, if unavoidable, part of any introduction of an original text into a culture foreign to its own for there to be sometimes a significant amount of misinterpretation, mistranslations, and false assumptions. There is, however, a big difference between learning from your honest mistakes, & doubling down on them while dismissing all criticism of your misinterpretation into that abstract category of “fandom drama.” The latter attitude is kind of shitty at best and horrifically entitled at worst.

Plus, as I’ve discovered, there is a great deal of interest and joy to be drawn from keeping yourself open to learning aspects of these texts & figures that you weren’t aware of! I can say from my own experience that I’ve always really enjoyed & appreciated it when individuals on this site who come from a Chinese background--and who know much more about the cultural context of JTTW than me--have taken the time to explain its various aspects. It often leaves me feeling like woooooaaaahhhhhHHH!!!! as to how amazingly full of nuanced meaning JTTW is like dang no wonder it’s one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels.

And I guess that right there is the heart of a lot of my own personal frustration and disappointment with the ways that fandoms often approach a literary work or other piece of media...like don’t get me wrong, a lot of the original works a fandom may grow around are just straight-up goofy & everyone’s aware of it & has fun with it, yet the trend of approaching what are often nuanced and multi-layered works in terms of how well they fit and/or can be shoved into pretty cliche ideas of Redemption Arc or Enemies to Lovers or Hero Actually Bad, Villain Actually Good etc...well, it just seems to cheapen and even erase even the possibility of understanding the wonderful complexity or even endearing simplicity that made these works so beloved in the first place. Again, I feel like I need to make it clear that I’m not saying fandom should be a space where people are constantly trying to one-up each other with their hot takes in literary analysis, but it would be nice and even beneficial to allow room for commentary that strives to approach these works in a multi-faceted way, analysis & interpretations that go against the popular fandom beliefs, & criticism of the work or even of fandom trends (yes it is in fact possible to legitimately love something but still be critical of its aspects) instead of immediately attacking people who try to engage in such as just being haters who don’t want anyone to have fun ever (X_X).

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Anyway, I know I didn’t cover even half of the stuff you brought up in the first place anon, but I don’t want any interested parties to this post to suffer too long through my text wall lol. I was asked to try my hand at illustrating Guanyin, but as with you I’m nowhere near as informed as I should be about her, so I want to do more research on her history and religious importance before I attempt a portrait. I’ll try my best, and do plan to pair that illustration with my own outsider’s attempt to summarize her character. From what little I do know I am in full agreement that her backstory is so incredibly amazing...just the fact that she literally eschewed the bliss of Nirvana to help all beings reach it, and even split herself into pieces in the attempt to do so (with Buddha granting her eleven heads and a thousand arms as a result)...man, I can see why she’s such a beloved & respected deity.

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As for what western fandom commonly does with everyone’s favorite god-fighting primate...I can talk about this at length if there’s interest, but for this post I’ll just say that I guess one lesson from all of this is that for all the centuries that have passed since Journey to the West was first completed, literally no one drawing inspiration from the original tale in the west (lol) has come even slightly close to being able to equal or even capture half the extent of the nuance, complexity, religious, historical, and cultural aspects, and humor that define Wu Cheng'en's story of an overpowered monkey who defied even Buddha.

So thank the heavens we'll always have the original.

#journey to the west #jttw #guanyin #sun wukong #monkey king #monkie kid #fandom #fandom critical

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srapsodia · 3 years

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Sorry for jumping in, hope you don't mind, otherwise ignore this.

But I think that (more) canon Vesemir wouldn't be accepting of Jaskier (making Geralt to soft for a Witcher) and Aiden (Cat Witcher).

But I also understand that lost of fic writers don't wanna leave conflict/things unresolved, and getting into the whole complex relationship dynamic between the wolves with histories of abuse and ptsd and maybe character development would take so much longer to wrap up (than wanted for a short fluff oneshot)

((Just do it, life not always packagedable with a neat bow))

I am also of the opinion, bcs this queer fool loves reading about Canon-Typical Homophobia in Witcher Fics that normally gets ignored, that Witcher Keeps were full of toxic masculinity mindsets, and that Vesemir wouldn't be (at least before working it out) okay with his "son" Geralt being one of the Gays

I think if we're talking BC (Before Ciri), then yeah. I don't think Vesemir would respond well to it at first. But I think there's space for him to grow as a character, even then, and become more accepting. And then I think accepting Aiden would take longer than Jaskier.

If this was After Ciri though, like meeting Aiden after Ciri, which means already having gone through the process of meeting Jask and Yennefer (and I think Triss too?), he'd be more open to it. Still reluctant, but already he'd come with a slightly more open frame of mind.

But honestly, yeah I understand why a lot of people would rather not dive into this! It's a LOT. It's so much to unpack, if I wanted to write a story about healing and acceptance and moving past CENTURIES of pain I wouldn't even know where to begin!

And sometimes you really do just want a fluffy one shot, and I don't see a problem with that! I don't think it's fair to tell people to just do it, sometimes you really dont have the energy (or the interest!) to focus on that part of the narrative, and that's ok.

How much one decides to engage with it thought WILL obviously affect how the characters are written and the tone of the story. I personally prefer it when their history is kept in mind and it reflects in their dynamics, even if it isn't a central part of the story.

The last bit is definitely a ymmv situation. In my case I hate reading about homophobia in fantasy settings and avoid it whenever i can. But if you want to engage with that, that's totally fine.

#long post #ask #i honestly dont know much about the Cat betrayal situation aside from the bare facts #witcher meta

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evilzoldyck · 4 years

Text

Hell is Other People

Admiring the heavy rock that was tailored perfectly to match your finger in silent awe you gleamed almost as brightly as the diamond which glittered underneath the moonlight.

You could hear the murmurs of your guests and the faint music of the orchestra playing in the background from afar as you stood in your private balcony to revere the ring that symbolised an emblem of eternal faith and affection. To be quite honest with yourself you hadn’t seen it coming, just earlier in the day you’re mulling over which dress to wear for the evening party that your partner scrupulously planned for since months, now that he had proposed to you in front of all your highly esteemed company it all made sense.

This was your engagement party.

Pleading with a resolute ‘yes’ for an answer, the colossal baroque hall erupted into an applause at the sight of the new happily engaged couple. Wiping a few tears of joy and sharing quick loving kisses from your partner he proudly showed you around where his parents eagerly took you in as part of the family. His Mother held you tight as if you were her very own and his Father kissed the back of your hand cordially in response. You’ve never felt so welcomed before, the warmth of having a real family was one that was foreign but comforting for you.

Taking a break from meeting all the guests he had personally invited to witness his ardent declaration of love, you stood alone in the cool breeze to process all the adrenaline in blissfully. To think, engaged during a peaceful warm season, you couldn’t believe you’re going to celebrate your anniversary every year on such a beautiful weather, making a special connotation to the word summer now.

Suddenly feeling an unwanted presence behind you, your face that was once graced with a contented smile had turned into a sour frown. You knew exactly who would turn the most happiest night of your life upside down, trailing after a bloody carpet and reigning chaos until the dawn rises.

The harbinger of death itself, Chrollo Lucilfer.

“So he’s finally proposed,” his dark timbre voice reverberated through the quiet night, startling such a tranquil silence. “I’d congratulate you on your engagement, but I can’t say I’m quite pleased.” There were hundreds of guards your partner employed on duty at the whole premise, guarding every entrance and exit making sure to keep trespassers at bay to keep this party perfect. Though with all the security money could by at your disposal, you weren’t completely surprised someone like him could get through easily, he is the head of the spider after all, capable of going in and out wherever he pleases.

“Chrollo,” you acknowdleged him with an air of indifference, turning around to the slightly to see him dressed in a fine black suit and tie, oddly appropriate for the occasion. “Where are the rest of the troupe? Couldn’t imagine you pulling off a heist on your own.” It was true, there were many treasures such as valuable paintings and ornaments all held in a considerable amount of monetary value scattered along the place, and even then, there were hidden assets stored deep underground that even you had just learned about, or perhaps he’s come for the family’s precious heirloom?

“No need to be so tense, it’s just me tonight.” He suddenly appeared before you, holding the hand in which the engagement ring was secured onto. Smiling bitterly at the glistening jewellery, he showed no movement or even an ounce of intention to take it away from you, rather he looked to be quite pensive as he studied it with a forlorn expression. “I don’t necessarily like to intrude, but it seems that I was uninvited by your charming fiancé.”

Taking your hand away from his cold hands without ever leaving your skeptical eyes off of his lackadaisical form, he reluctantly lets it go. “The feeling still stands.” Glaring at him with a scathing passion. “There is nothing for you to take here, nothing that you have not already seen before. Leave this people alone, they have nothing worthy of you to steal from.”

“You seem to be quite fond of them,” Chrollo commented motionlessly, closing the space even closer. “Perhaps even more than me.” A distasteful tone from him had you nearly shivering in your heels, however you needed to stand your ground you couldn’t let him ruin everything you worked so hard for.

“I’ve let you had your fun, released you from your ties, gave you time for yourself and now what do you do? Run into the arms of another man.” He trapped you in between his body and the stone carved balustrades. “Don’t tell me I’ve been replaced,” he whispered in bitter disbelief before placating himself quickly and placed a gentle hand upon your cheek. “My dearest friend, do I really stand no chance with you? Didn’t you once held me high in the standing of your heart?”

Your throat went completely dry as he bared his unbridled affections for you. “Once,” you answered truthfully. Years before in Meteor City you both shared the same vision, the same utopian perspective of your future filled with comfort through grim determination. However as time progressed he began to stray further away from what you both shared. You watched his avarice grow beyond expectancy, stepping over bodies to get what he desired without a vestige of remorse or empathy. Time turned him to be such a monster, an unrecognisable stranger who’s oddly keeping you alive by his side. “A long time ago, but now I barely remember the traces of where I held you in such position.”

Chrollo smiled sullenly at your response, as if he was expecting the daggers of your tongue into his heart. “You’re too cruel,” he detached the palm of his hand from your soft skin.

“I can’t help but ask after all this time.” He placed a hand against the railing, thoroughly interrogating you closely. “Was it fun, making me chase after you? Did you enjoy the idea of me grovelling for your attention, for you to spare me a simple kiss? I’ve circled the world for your heart and yet it never seems to be enough.”

He kept the bitter quirk on his lips as he continued, “like I’m never enough.”

Gripping onto the hard stone you willed yourself not to let your knees give out. Though he didn’t show it, you could see the raging storm of emotions in his eyes, the pain and betrayal he felt when you left and the sliver of intention to hurt you. You wanted to calm him down, pacify his anger like you did before when you were both younger. However you couldn’t reward his behaviour anymore, you couldn’t be on the same side where history would echo the time in which evil was left untamed

“What is it he has that I couldn’t give you?” He spoke so softly you could feel the sincerity in his words.

“It’s not something you could give me,” your tone as careful and gentle as ever around the capricious being. Unfortunately that set every fibre of his being on fire.

“Do you even love him?”

You took his challenging words as a personal affront to your integrity. “I find it hard to see if that is any of your concern.”

“He’s nearly twice your age.” Chrollo staunchly dismissed. “I see the way you look at me, you look at me with such anger in your eyes, like I’m the lowest being to walk on earth; a vermin with no moral compass.” The warm night air suddenly turned frigid at the sound of his strained voice that was holding back such malice. “And you’re right, but what differentiates me from you is that at least I don’t lie to myself.”

“And the worst thing is that you don’t even seem to realise it do you? You willingly use others for your own interests and discard them once you no longer had use of them. No matter how hard you try to convince yourself, you and I both know your true nature. You’re exactly like me- in fact you might even be worse than me, robbing people blind. I do my work in the dark but you do yours in broad daylight,” Chrollo stated. “I’m not the only monster here.”

“Don’t talk to me of hypocrisy when you value those philosophical books so much,” you angrily countered, noting how much time he spent on the ideas and theories discussed in heavy literatures such as the Leviathan. “Never have I met someone so ridiculously obsessed with Western perspectives on rules and regulations and yet completely disregards them in practice.”

“But isn’t that what’s so appealing about it? Of course I don’t take these words as gospel when there’s so many critiques to each theory. It’s too nuanced and complex to ever rightfully regulate civil society that who could determine what I’m doing is immoral? For Hobbes I’m merely exercising my right of nature as it is ‘the liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will for himself, for the preservation of his own nature,’ you remember right?” He quipped, reminding you of the times he shared his esoteric books with you, engaging in meaningful and intellectual thoughts until the candle burned out.

“I have not consented to the laws of nature and therefore I have yet to surrender my natural rights. Thus the sovereign is illegitimate to me and I’m under no obligation of the state as I have not entered in any form of contract bound by the will and rule of the sovereign. I’m not bound to any laws of this land for I do not conform to the will of others but myself. Plato’s Crito would further support his argument on the laws of consent.”

Scoffing at his misconstrued interpretation you vacantly refuted. “Hobbes also said that if there is reasonable hope in preserving peace to seek and follow it.”

“However I may think it not necessary or the best for my life to be best preserved then I may seek and use all helps and advantages of war.”

“Nevertheless all that is futile for his argument remains that the design of men is the willingness to put restraint upon themselves for a more contented life thereby. We should ultimately consent for the second law of nature requires that we should covenant for peace if others are willing.”

“If others are willing.” He repeated and stressed out the first word. “Do you remember where we lived? No person there would opt for peace, it’s every man for themselves. It is what he hypothetically calls the state of nature, a horrible nasty, brutish and short life, except it’s real. Meteor City is a lawless land and as he states that no contract could be formed in the state of nature. Thus this paradox leaves us in a perpetual natural state of mankind; war.”

“You know there’s more to philosophy than just the Leviathan, Rousseau’s Social Contract and Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government has a lot to say on your so called ‘freedom’. There is no advantage to stay in the state of nature, the natural progress of humanity is the establishment of a common political authority for the sake of improving our way of life.”

“Actually Locke and Hobbes states that the state diminishes our sense of freedom but is justified in doing so, by no means did they implied our freedom would be retained, and that, is what I don’t find an improvement.”

“Rousseau would disagree with you, the state is a necessary condition of our freedom for the sovereign is the construction of all through the general will and so is directly exercised by the citizenry. Therefore, this eliminates the tension between political authority and individual freedom.” You sighed, “Chrollo even if you wanted to retain individual autonomy over yourself you’d surely remember Mill’s first sentence on the harm principle, ‘the only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to attain it.’ In other words, as long as you don’t harm others you can do whatever the fuck you like, but you seem to struggle with that concept of freedom don’t you?”

He suddenly chuckled lightly at your remark. “How are you so quick to mark me wrong as if I had forgotten your favourite book?” You suddenly shifted uncomfortably on your feet as he smirked amusingly at your cornered form. “I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the revered Mary Wollstonecraft, we would often read her passages for hours didn’t we? A Vindication of the Rights of a Woman, well, I guess we’re both hypocrites here.”

“What was her argument? That women were rendered weak, lacked the use of reason, had no special moral value?” He droned on and looked afar as if he was in deep thought before returning his sharp gaze to yours. “You had a lot to say about the sexist social arrangements in today’s society, you argued that women are deprived of their natural rights to acquire virtue through the use reason. How Wollstonecraft would be so disappointed if she could see you right now, the most passionate proponent of her work devoting her energies in pleasing and making herself attractive to men.”

“Stop it.” You hissed as he jabbed at your pride, mocking your own words of the past to further humiliate your contradicting present.

“What were the words you used to quote to me? ‘Have women so little in ambition as to be satisfied with such a condition? Can they supinely dream life away in the lap of pleasure and render themselves conspicuous by practicing the virtues which signify mankind? Surely she has not an immortal soul who can loiter life away merely employed to adorn her person, that she may amuse the languid hours, and soften the carress of a fellow-creature who is willing to be enlivened by her smiles and tricks, when the serious business of life is over.’ Aren’t you becoming the women she is scathing about?”

“What’s so wrong with pleasure? Wanting to be taken care of? The want and human need for companionship and love is not one to be jeered at. Might it just even cross your mind that I chose this life instead of ‘building my faculty.’ Those texts described the social conditioning of women back in the eighteen hundreds, women have more options now and are more than capable to choose. Times have changed.”

“Have they?” Chrollo hummed. “Is the pleasure that you insist on promoting for you, or for him?” He rubbed the silky garment of your dress impassively. “Don’t you wish to be more than a pretty ornament? To have purpose and participate in the natural rights of mankind? ‘Virtue, says reason, must be acquired by rough toils, and useful struggles with worldly cares.’ Sure you are provided with goods and raiment but liberty and virtue are given in exchange. You could build your character by the sense of struggle of living-“

“How can you call that living?!” You exploded abruptly, pausing for a moment to realise that you were shaking all over as you stood in your designer heels before him with glassy eyes. “What we did- to those people, those families, it was never enough for you. I may be what I despised in my youth but I’m better off being an indulgence for others rather than taking account for mass genocide; for what I lack in virtue I make up for my own compassion.”

“How kindly of you,” he nodded absently. “Then perhaps we should test it. Referring back on your comment on Mill’s harm principle, you must know then that the cause of evil not only takes account of a person’s action but also their inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable for the injury.”

“What are you saying?”

“Let’s hypothesise that I would come back on your white wedding day and that I would kill everyone present during the reception, by learning this information, you then would be held responsible for each of their death.” You griped your hand so hard you’re sure that you’ve left specks of bloody crescent moon marks on the palm of your hands.

“I have no obligation of duty towards you, therefore the harm principle does not apply to me for I am not responsible or related for your actions.” You countered at his allusion to the other-regarding actions where a special role of obligation is placed within the liberty principle.

“No unfortunately you’re not,” he agreed. “But him, would you not protect him at all costs? Surely as your soon to be life long partner you would do whatever it takes to promote his health and well-being. If you would simply come back to me before the day of wedding, denounce your engagement and reinstate your affiliation and loyalty towards the troupe everybody gets their happily ever after.” He finally took a step back. “In failing to meet our obligations to others we are actually harming them.”

“I’m tired of your philosophical rhapsodies, if you were to kill others or even yourself I would not hold myself accountable so I suggest you’d best return to whatever matters you currently have and leave us alone.” You’ve grown anxious and wary of the dangerous connotation of his words and with the way he was impishly grinning at you suggested that he saw right through your bluff.

“Its getting late, you should return to your awaiting fiancé before he realises you’ve been gone for too long,” looking back down at the sight of pretty swirls of dresses on the ballroom quietly dwindling down as the night grew longer. “It’s reassuring to see that you haven’t changed at all, I missed our philosophical prattle.”

“I can hardly say the same, discussing Western philosophers on an engagement party is certainly not in the least enlightening, I suggest you turn to the East for matters such as these.”

Chrollo gave a half-suppressed laugh and an amused smile, one that was rare and sincere in which held no trace of malice or cruelty. “Before I forget to tell you, you look beautiful.” You didn’t let your hardened expression change when his comment took you by surprise as he slowly backed away from you and into the shadows.

You heard your name being called out by Thomas where he sighed in relief and ran towards you in a light jog before taking you into his arms. “So this is where you’ve been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he playfully chastised with a turn on his lips. He led you back inside the bright chandelier lit hall to bid your guests farewell for the night, however, you couldn’t help but glance back from your shoulders to see that Chrollo had disappeared.

Though his presence was now absent, his words still rang loudly inside your head. His confrontation of your nature, how the spotlight is too blinding for someone like you and how it’s just a matter of time you would run into the dark once more with your back up against the wall and tangled up in his web seem to be conveyed as a confident prediction rather than insults to your moral character.

Chrollo wasn’t here to steal anything, not even you, he wanted you to come to him on your own accord even if he had to force pieces to make you submit to his will. However, his appearance tonight also wasn’t meant for mere formalities, in fact he made his purpose and intention clear when he first spoke of the day you would finally be wed.

It was a warning.

#this is gonna be the last fic for a while :(#im gonna fuck off for a few weeks since my break is over #chrollo lucilfer #yandere chrollo #chrollo x reader #yandere chrollo x reader #yandere hunter x hunter #yandere x reader #hunter x hunter #yandere #genei ryoudan #yandere genei ryoudan #Phantom Troupe #yandere phantom troupe

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princesssarisa · 2 years

Text

@lachica50 just asked me "How did you discover Wuthering Heights, and if you could recommend it to someone, what would you tell them?"

I first learned of its existence by reading about the 1939 film. I was actually reading an online review of the 1936 Greta Garbo classic Camille, which argued that of all death scenes from the Golden Age of Hollywood, only Cathy's death in the '39 Wuthering Heights comes close to being as moving as the death of Garbo's Marguerite. So from that review I learned that it's about two lovers, Heathcliff and Cathy, and that Cathy dies.

But my real introduction to the book came a few years later when I was assigned to read it in high school. Needless to say, it was far different from the type of love story I expected!

If I were to recommend the book to someone, I would have so much to say! This would probably be the gist of it:

"It's known as one of the great love stories, but it's so much more than that, and it's not a clichéd sentimental love story in the least. It's romantic in the 'capital R' sense: it's dark, stormy, and emotionally blistering. The central character, Heathcliff, is for the most part a 'villain protagonist' who can be very brutal and cruel, yet the book creates sympathy for him without ever excusing his actions. Likewise, his beloved, Catherine Earnshaw, is a very selfish, unlikable girl, but you can still understand her and feel for her, and she's one of the most fascinating, boundary-breaking female characters in literature. As for their love... well, it's an obsessive, stormy dance of death, and the narrative knows it isn't healthy and doesn't idealize it. But at the same time, there's a beauty to their passion... a sublime beauty, in the old-fashioned, 'frightening' sense of the word 'sublime'... and you still understand why so many people call this book the ultimate tragic love story."

"But the story isn't only about Heathcliff and Cathy, even though pop culture tends to give them all its attention. There are other excellent characters too. They're all complex, and they're all deeply flawed, yet very human, and they engage you. Very few of them are 'likable' in the traditional sense, yet you still care about what happens to them."

"Another reason why I'd recommend the book is how thought-provoking it is. I'd say it's one of the most thought-provoking novels ever written. Its structure is unusual: it has two main narrators, a man whose journal provides the framing device and a down-to-earth servant woman who tells the bulk of the story to him. Neither of these narrators are main characters and both are slightly unreliable, or at least biased in some ways and incomplete in their knowledge. As a result, the book raises more questions than it answers. The plot is full of mysteries that are never solved, and it's impossible for us to gain a definitive, perfect understanding of all the characters or the meaning of all that happens, because there are so many possible interpretations. I would argue that this is a good thing, because It means that the book can be discussed forever. You never stop finding new depths within it or new perspectives to view it from."

"Beyond that, well... there's something for everyone in this book. It's best known for its dark, tempestuous Gothic tone, but there's also a surprising amount of understated humor, and a surprisingly happy ending that I won't spoil. There's a sense of always-relevant social commentary too, dealing with issues of race, gender, social class, male-female relationships, parenting, and cycles of abuse. Yet the book also has the quality of a fairy tale or a myth, with hints of the supernatural teased here and there. It's a book that can appeal to a wide range of readers for different reasons. Of course it won't suit all tastes; some readers can't stand the dark, brutal story or the shortage of 'likable' characters. But even if you think it won't suit your tastes, give it a read anyway. You might be surprised. And don't let anyone convince you that it's just a cheap Gothic bodice-ripper for teenagers, even though pop culture sometimes paints it that way! It's a classic for a reason."

@faintingheroine, @dahlia-coccinea, @ariel-seagull-wings, @savagehardyandfreee, @longagoitwastuesday, @theheightsthatwuthered, @wuthering-valleys

#wuthering heights #emily brontë #literature #fiction

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manie-sans-delire-x · 3 years

Text

My thoughts/analysis of We Need to talk about Kevin

From abnormal psych class paper:

The character I chose to analyze and diagnose is Kevin Khatchadourian from the 2011 film, We Need to Talk about Kevin. Brilliantly depicted by star Ezra Miller and various other child actors, Kevin is an angry, emotionally detached boy who struggles in his complex relationship with his mother. We see the unhealthy relationship develop between the two through-out the film as Kevin grows from a baby to a young man, ending in tragedy as Kevin achieves his ultimate revenge against his mother by massacring the rest of their family as well as several classmates in a school shooting.

After carefully noting Kevin’s behavior and the way he and his mother Eva interact when he is a young child, I have decided to diagnose Kevin with reactive attachment disorder (RAD). The diagnostic criteria from the current Diagnostic and Statistical manual (DSM-5) for RAD reads as follows:

A. A consistent pattern of inhibited, emotionally withdrawn behavior toward adult caregivers, manifested by both of the following:

1. The child rarely or minimally seeks comfort when distressed.

2. The child rarely or minimally responds to comfort when distressed.

B. A persistent social or emotional disturbance characterized by at least two of the following:

Minimal social and emotional responsiveness to others

Limited positive affect

Episodes of unexplained irritability, sadness, or fearfulness that are evident even during nonthreatening interactions with adult caregivers.

C. The child has experienced a pattern of extremes of insufficient care as evidenced by at least one of the following:

Social neglect or deprivation in the form of persistent lack of having basic emotional needs for comfort, stimulation, and affection met by caring adults

Repeated changes of primary caregivers that limit opportunities to form stable attachments (e.g., frequent changes in foster care)

Rearing in unusual settings that severely limit opportunities to form selective attachments (e.g., institutions with high child to caregiver ratios)

D. The care in Criterion C is presumed to be responsible for the disturbed behavior in Criterion A (e.g., the disturbances in Criterion A began following the lack of adequate care in Criterion C).

E. The criteria are not met for autism spectrum disorder.

F. The disturbance is evident before age 5 years.

G. The child has a developmental age of at least nine months.

Specify if Persistent: The disorder has been present for more than 12 months.

Specify current severity: Reactive Attachment Disorder is specified as severe when a child exhibits all symptoms of the disorder, with each symptom manifesting at relatively high levels.

Kevin displays behavior that meets both criteria A and B. As a baby he cried constantly, reportedly even when held, showing an inability or unwillingness to be soothed. As a toddler he shows defiance, disinterest in social interaction, and a refusal to engage in play, such as when his mother is attempting to play with a ball with him and he refuses to roll the ball back or respond in any way, instead staring at her with a sullen expression. Kevin also refuses his mother’s pleas to say the word “Mommy”. As a slightly older child, Kevin continues to act defiantly and shows anger, ripping up the paper when his mother attempts to school him, immediately soiling his newly changed diapers on purpose, throwing food against the wall and onto tables, breaking his crayons, making nonsensical noises to irritate his mother, and destroying his mother’s artfully decorated room. When he is taken to the doctor to be examined, he shows no expression, does not speak, and stiffens his body. When his baby sister is born, he purposefully sprinkles water onto the newborn, causing her to cry. It should be noted however that in one instance Kevin seems to relax his cold exterior and accept comfort from his mother, shown by the scene in which he falls ill and cuddles with his mother while she reads him a story. He even apologizes for her having to clean up his throw-up. Unfortunately, as soon as he is feeling well again he is back to being rude and rejecting any attempt of hers to take care of him, refusing her help to change his clothes.

As for criteria C, although Kevin has not experienced extreme abuse or neglect, I believe Kevin suffered from a traumatic birth as it was mentioned that his mother was resisting. His mother Eva did not desire a child, especially not one as difficult as Kevin, so she emotionally neglects him and is cold to him. Eva makes it very clear to him that he is unwanted, telling him straight to his face that she was happy before she gave birth to him and not correcting him when Kevin mentions that Eva does not like him. In one instance, she is accidentally too rough with him and breaks his arm, which Kevin later refers to as being the most honest thing she ever did. Kevin also meets the criteria of D through G, and his symptoms are persistent. I would say Kevin has moderate to severe symptoms as he does exhibit all listed symptoms quite regularly.

I believe Kevin’s psychological problems may also have developed into conduct disorder (CD) as an adolescent and then antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) or psychopathy in adulthood, especially after taking into consideration the mutilation of his sister’s eye and the killing of his sister’s guinea pig, his father, his sister, and several classmates. He shows no guilt or empathy, appears to have shallow emotions besides anger, and shows no evidence of having affection or emotional bonds to anyone. He is also very manipulative; putting on a fake act of normalcy for his father, turning his parents against each other, and navigating the legal system to get his best outcome. However, I know that children with RAD can also be violent and if not treated, behave in a way very similar to conduct disorder in adolescence and ASPD or psychopathy in adulthood. The main reason I chose to focus on RAD over CD or ASPD is because I believe the root of Kevin’s problem is immense pain at being rejected and unloved as a child and that he harbors a deep desire to have that connection but is unable to accept affection. He is so focused on and consumed by his anger towards his mother, while someone with true psychopathy may be more detached and indifferent. I also leaned more towards RAD given that he showed symptoms from such a young age and did not seem to have any problems outside of his issues with his mother, such as acting out in school or engaging in petty, impulsive crime. I do wish that the film showed more of his interaction with his peers. Lastly, I felt RAD was a more accurate choice because of the subtle signs of it that are associated more with RAD than CD, such as stiffening his body when others try to hug him, making nonsensical sounds, and not making eye contact as an infant, although that may not have been intentionally put in the film. Either way, his parents certainly needed to talk to professionals about Kevin when he was a child. Had they done so, perhaps they could have prevented the tragedy of both his life and the pain he inflicted on others.

Response to tumblr ask:

I agree! I would have loved to see how he interacts at school, what he does when he’s alone and has spare time, and more of his childhood.

I think he had multiple reasons:

1- To make his mother suffer since he obviously has a lot of anger and resentment towards her

2- Because he doesn’t feel much positive emotion and gave up on ever feeling pleasure or enjoyment from regular life. Normal life is incredibly boring for him. He wanted to DO something- real, meaningful, make something happen. He wanted to Live. I very much relate.

3- He enjoys the attention he gets from it.

We talked about this in my forensic psych club- whether we should give interviews and all this attention to violent criminals. Our society is fascinated by them to the point where we make movies and books. People sell and collect memorabilia. They have fan-girls writing love letters and showing up to their court sessions, even fighting each other over them. It’s pretty crazy. But on the other hand, it’s important that we study them. Or is it? There’s a debate about everything.

4- His philosophy and world view.

He is very nihilistic, he doesn’t believe life “means” anything and right/wrong doesn’t exist/is just a matter of opinion or viewpoint. His actions don’t really matter either, nothing does. I used to think exactly like he did when I was a teen, and I still do in a way.

As for your last question, it’s easy to forget one way of thinking when you’re in another. It’s hard to remember how one state was when you’re in a different one. Also, as shitty as outside life can be, life in prison is even shittier. Makes you appreciate the ability of choice and being able to do things, even just to walk around outside or buy an icecream cone. He was also only 15 at the time of the crime, and in the last scene he’s 18. A lot of chemical changes and neural development happens in that time. He matured- his way of thinking about himself, the world, and the others around him changed.

#we need to talk about kevin #analysis #op #forensic psychology

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quazartranslates · 3 years

Text

Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH62

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

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Chapter 62: The Queen’s Inheritance (I)

"Here, this is the ancient lake." A guide brought the two men to a huge underground lake and said, "The buildings near here were built during the first generation of Dragon Ant Queens, and by now most of them have become damaged and collapsed. It’s said that most of them were in the architectural styles of the demon world. Later, with the entry of human beings, some later Dragon Ant Queens were of human origins, and the style gradually moved closer to that of the human world."

Qi Leren and Ning Zhou stood in front of the ruins of ancient buildings, watching the vast underground lake ahead. The rich water vapor formed a dense fog that hovered over the underground lake. With a burst of wind coming from underground caves, the fog was blown away only to reform.

The wonderful thing was that there were a lot of fluorescent plankton floating in the lake, which were a deep fluorescent blue amidst the smokey fog. This huge underground lake was like a night sky with thin clouds, with bright stars in its vast expanse.

"The scenery here is good, yet it seems that there aren’t many people?" Qi Leren asked.

The guide mused: "In the early years, there were still people living here, but I don't know when it started: there were frequent violent conflicts here, and the chaos was even worse than that in the lower city. With the water monster incident, the residents who were here moved."

"Water monster?" Qi Leren looked back at the fluorescent underground lake again. "Is there a water monster in it?"

"Yes, there was a monster attack on the nearby residents, which caused thousands of deaths. It alarmed the Dragon Ant Queen, and she then ordered for all of them to be relocated," the guide said.

Qi Leren whispered to Ning Zhou, "What does a water monster look like?"

Ning Zhou thought about it: "A strange shape."

This is equal to saying nothing. Qi Leren blinked in confusion. On second thought, the monster was also a kind of monster. Of course, there were all kinds of monsters, some of which were serious and some of which were casual.

"Is this monster a devil? Or a demon?" Qi Leren asked again.

Although devils and demons had similar names, there were obvious differences. There were many races with rational minds and human features among devils, but no matter how powerful demons were, their bodies were obviously non-human, and they had no rational and normal cognitive ability.

The guide shook his head and said, "We don't know. The monster appeared once and then disappeared. Maybe the Dragon Ant Queen took the shot to clean it up."

"Then there would be no need to move," Ning Zhou hit the nail on the head.

"That’s also true." The guide smiled bitterly. "We aren’t qualified to know the inside story of this confidential matter."

"Where did Mrs Kathleen say she saw the person she thought was Ashley?" Qi Leren asked.

"In the area over here, please come with me." The guide pointed to a palace-style building complex that had been submerged by the lake, and walked there with the two people.

There was almost no light source from the sun in the Underground Ant City, but the creatures here naturally developed methods to see. Both humans and demons would eat foods that enhanced night vision. In addition, there were fluorescent fungi and vegetation everywhere, and the demand for light here had dropped dramatically over time. If you suddenly returned to the surface, it would be difficult to adapt because of the strong light.

After Qi Leren broke his shell, his eyesight had improved a lot. Along with eating the food suggested by Celia, walking in the dim underground world didn't hinder him now, but occasionally he would stumble on the uneven ground because of carelessness. After all, there wasn’t very good infrastructure in the Nightmare World, and few places had flat cement or asphalt roads except the Twilight Township.

Ning Zhou walked half a step slower than him, which proved to be very important, because when Qi Leren stumbled, he reacted very quickly to catch him with one hand.

He wouldn't say "I'll carry you", but in fact he did.

When the guide looked back and was about to speak, his open mouth got stuck in his face when he saw the hands being held between the two men, and his voice became a cough.

Ning Zhou deadpanned, as if two men walking hand in hand was a matter of course. Qi Leren pretended to look at the scenery: "The scenery here is really good. It would be nice to walk around nearby when we have time."

Ning Zhou also responded to him: "Hmm."

The guide doesn't quite understand what was worth going on a date for in a place where there were water monsters and people often went missing and were killed... He would want to leave, but he strongly wore an awkward but polite smile: "Yes, but pay attention to safety."

Qi Leren had discovered that Ning Zhou was very shy in some aspects, but very "calm" in other aspects. For example, if he thought that two people who were engaged could hold hands, he wouldn’t care about the situation or feel embarrassed to be seen.

But by the same token, he decided that what he couldn't do before getting married was impossible without getting married.

Qi Leren, like an infatuated teenager, was stirring under the influence of hormones. At the same time, he felt that he was a dirty adult compared to the pure Ning Zhou. He had just fallen in love and he had already begun to think about their sex life.

At this moment, Qi Leren was very optimistic and confident that he should be able to push Ning Zhou down. After all, Ning Zhou was so pure, how could he be the more dominant one? But he couldn't be in such a hurry. It wasn’t good to intimidate Ning Zhou. He should start teaching at the primary level. For example, he should find a chance to teach him how to kiss at the right time, in the right place, and with the right atmosphere.

A little excited inside, a little expectant, and a little shy, Qi Leren couldn't help but show an excessively happy smile.

Guide: I don't know why, but I feel like an eyesore, so I should hurry away…

After taking them to their destination, the guide left for his other tasks, leaving only Qi Leren and Ning Zhou walking slowly in the ruins of this palace.

The surrounding buildings had indeed been seriously damaged, but they can vaguely see the distinctive style. For example, there were only a few rows of scattered columns left in this building that were similar to a Greek temple. The height of the complete columns was more than 40 meters, which was already magnificent from a distance. When you looked closer, it would take seven or eight people to hug each column. Standing under the column and looking up, this amazing height was awe-inspiring. Because the foundation had fallen and the lake’s water had risen, the temple had become tilted altogether. The north half had been submerged in the lake and only showed slightly above the water, while the south part had not been swallowed up by the lake water at all.

"The buildings in the underworld are usually much taller than those in the human world," Ning Zhou said.

"Why?" Qi Leren asked.

Ning Zhou looked at the rows of neat but damaged columns in front and said slowly, "Because many demons don't like to maintain human form."

Qi Leren immediately thought of the huge black dragon in the lake of fire. With its size, it could only move in such a huge building. He didn't know if the dragon-shaped devils had some special hobbies, such as collecting gold coins and treasures…

"There are traces of fighting here." Ning Zhou's voice awakened Qi Leren who was still sleepwalking.

Qi Leren quickly recovered and observed it carefully. The damage caused by natural collapse was different from that caused by fighting. Qi Leren was inexperienced, but Ning Zhou could see it at a glance and even recover some details of the battle in his mind. For example, the column in front of him was broken by fighting, and the blood at his foot was left by severe scratches when the person was hit and flew to the ground.

"They were two masters, at least one was injured," Ning Zhou said.

"In my impression, although Mrs Kathleen's subordinate had the seed of slaughter, his strength was average," Qi Leren recalled.

"Someone’s here!" Ning Zhou pulled Qi Leren behind the column.

Both of them were silent, regulating their breathing and heartbeats.

In the distance, there came a group of people's slight footsteps, the sound of cloth dragging on the ground, and even light.

A mysterious group passed through the hall, carrying bone lamps in their hands, and wearing heavy long cloaks with hoods covering their faces. This group of people, with their heads down, recited words like spells in a low voice, and when he listened attentively, he could tell they were hypnotized.

Qi Leren gave himself a quick pinch, and Ning Zhou looked at him with concern. Qi Leren pointed to his lips and pointed to the mysterious cloaked figures, beckoning to be careful of their spells. Seeing that Ning Zhou wasn’t affected, Qi Leren was a little reassured.

The front row of the group consisted of cloaks carrying bone lamps, but the rear was a group of ragged human beings. Their eyes were closed, and everyone's face showed a look of intoxication and a trance-like state, with strange smiles. Like a group of docile sheep, they walked forward under the guidance of the cloaks.

Qi Leren felt bad at once. What were these cloaked people doing?

Ning Zhou suddenly felt something, and his eyes stared straight at one of the people moving forward. The man looked as unarmed and smiling as the people around him, but when Ning Zhou looked at him, he also turned his head, grinned at him with great interest, and then continued walking before the cloaked people found out.

There was no road ahead, and the northern part of this temple had been submerged in the underground lake. If they went further, there would be only the lake water filled with fluorescent algae. However, as if they could not see the road, these people walked towards the lake with their bone lamps and vague spells.

As they approached, the fluorescence on the lake became more and more bright. At once, the stars converged into a dazzling blue, which made people’s eyesight white out!

A wonderful voice sounded in the light, and it was difficult to describe whether it was a song or a spell. It was like a devout prayer of the devout and a desperate cry of the dying, which made Qi Leren shiver all over. In the void, there seemed to be a huge eyeball watching everyone in this land, including the two people hiding behind the column.

Qi Leren's eyes widened, his heart thumped, and his whole body seemed to be petrified under the spell.

Under this strange sound, this group of mysterious cloaked people walked into the blue light, and were quickly swallowed by the light.

The blue light gradually went out, and the fluorescent plants on the lake faded again, but the cloaked and human figures could no longer be seen in the temple. Everything was silent, absurd, and terrifying.

"What was that...?" Qi Leren woke up from the fear of being shocked just now and leaned in Ning Zhou’s direction.

"A cult sacrifice." Ning Zhou was more experienced than he was, so it wasn’t difficult to see what this group of people were going to do. He was more concerned about the person who had smiled at him from the crowd just now. That person had obviously noticed the two people hiding behind the column, but didn’t expose their existence. And he himself, for whatever reason, seemed to be playing the role of cult sacrifice.

"Where did they go?" Qi Leren asked again.

"They should have entered a fixed half-field. You remember that the members of the Slaughter Secret Society entered a half-field enchantment like this for secret ceremonies," Ning Zhou said.

Qi Leren suddenly realized that a similar situation had happened with the Slaughter Secret Society before, but this group of people were even more bizarre. He didn't know what they were.

"Which devil are these people going to sacrifice to?" Qi Leren asked.

"Not sure." Ning Zhou shook his head.

There were too many devils, and this was the Underground Ant City. Besides the worship of the Devil Kings, the worship of lower devils was also endless, and the situation was more complicated than any other place. However, the spells recited by this group of people were a little familiar, like a group of Utopia worshippers that Ning Zhou had once handled. That is, worshippers of the Lord of Power.

"Let’s hurry up and go back to Celia to see if there’s any way to get in. If we delay too long, this group of people will be in danger," Ning Zhou said.

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Editor’s Notes:

Ning Zhou: [taking his job very seriously]

Qi Leren: “Ning Zhou’s a bottom, right? He’s totally a bottom.”

Guide: “Please let me leave before you test your theory.”

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