#he paved that road with good intentions himself but. he also used to remember the ones he started with | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

graves-writer · 1 year

Text

" the road to hell " a SPN inspired 1x1 original roleplay - advanced literate/novella - mxf

! dead dove - dark - taboo !

𝙖𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙨; early 2000s, classic rock, americana vibes, gothic-ish,

𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙨: unconditional love, the desire to be understood, transgression, sacrifice, free will, grief, fate, the strength of the human spirit, souls, self doubt, generational abuse + trauma, disappointment, obession, damnation, "us against the world", soulmates but make it deeper and unconventional, power imbalances, loss of innocence, loss of morality and choices, corruption, family, humanity, moral ambiguity, revenge, philosophy destruction and self-destruction, isolation, loneliness, melancholic reflection, grief, instability, the need for love, unhealthy dynamics and coping mechanisms, hope, codependency, desperation, the value of human life

𝙖 𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙧:

──────────────

𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘦, 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘥𝘴, 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦─

𝘛𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶?

𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘶𝘴 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥, 𝘪𝘵'𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘣𝘦

𝘶𝘴 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥.

──────────────

Amos can't remember a time where he was truly innocent, careless as a child should be. He recalls knowing things he shouldn't have known in those early years, an awareness he wished he could've been spared from.

Burden after burden, they piled on mercilessly upon his shoulders. Weighing him down as he grew up, grew into a man... Or, perhaps a shell of a man.

But suddenly, when he looked into 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 eyes, it was worth it. It was all worth it, and it dawned on him each time he looked at them. William, - - -..

Their world seemed bleak at times, it wasn't easy being born a Cadell. But they found ways to make it a positive, make it all better.

Amos accepted his role, blindly dove right into it. As an older brother, he did everything he could for them, protected their own innocence wherever he could. And 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 was the purpose of his life.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions" a little voice tells him, as he paints the walls a cruel, violent red for them. Everything he does a step closer to that burning, scorching heat─ he can practically 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 it. Because Amos is all too good at paving that road for himself. And another, tiny voice tells him that he'd also be the one to drag them down it, too.

He'd always wanted to protect but he only ruined, ruined, 𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥. With dirty, filthy hands stained with the blood of others and blood from his veins. With green, vivid eyes that lacked that light behind them.

God, he wanted to protect her. That was his purpose. He could've carved a little space for himself into her chest, replace a part of her lungs and become the very thing to make her breathe. It was his purpose after all.

Sometimes the look she gives him almost convinces him that she understands it all. His pain, his hurt, that void that'd always been there in his chest. Been there as long as he remembered, from the very beginning.

But Amos is fucking dark, and they're light in his eyes, no matter what they do. And as he sees it, he can only 𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘯, 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘺.

People like them met early ends, undignified deaths. But he lived to make sure that out of the three, his death would be the only one like that.

𝘈𝘮𝘰𝘴 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘰. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘦'𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦.

The days steadily all fade together, motel to motel, state to state. From one case, to the next, living a life that's never truly a "life."

But it 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩, 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩. 𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘺 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦.

──────────────

𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘺, 𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘥𝘪𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶. 𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦...

𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰. 𝘔𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘺 𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘭.

──────────────

full plot details:

#supernatural #ao3 #roleplay #dean winchester #mature rp #rp #supernatural rp #oc x oc #original character #sam winchester #spn fanfic #spn #fanfic #original work #original rp #original writing #dead dove do not eat

4 notes · View notes

xhatake · 1 year

Note

📔 / obito hehe

send 📔for a journal entry on your muse! || @s4ints

[ his handwiriting is neat, uniform. he uses a dark blue ink on every page, the color rich & stimulating. his journal is left on the corner of his desk, half a dare to anyone trying to snoop ]

It is 3:45am on a Tuesday & sleep evades me. I find myself awake during late stretches of the night more & more often. There is an incessant string of thoughts that follows at my heel, nipping at me like Pakkun did when he was young. We are all getting older now and it's getting more difficult to adjust to the rapid approach of the new future. Not even counting stars is enough to put me to bed.

It won't be long before Naruto is ready to take over the responsibilities of the Hokage. He will usher in an age of peace, the path has been paved. But there is still so much fallout from the wars we have fought. Individually & on the battlefield. Now we can continue to dig through the internal debris, keeping the ruins of our former selves to ourselves in a desperate attempt to remain unknown.

It's infuriating, but to be expected. I knew this wasn't going to be easy, but I didn't expect it to be so hard. It feels wrong to harbor such relentless bitterness for Obito. I knew him in a former life, as the ghost of a memory. As close as he may keep that memory to his chest, it is not entirely his own.

There are a handful of our surviving classmates that remember him. they remember his infectious smile, his half-baked excuses... But they also remember their students dying by his hand. They remember fighting for their lives against his forces. Obito & I are not the only ones who must recover, though it could be a step in the right direction. They know where I began, just as I know them. But there is such a gap in our shared story, so many unfinished chapters that will remain untouched if i can't swallow my pride.

[ this is the only correction on the page, ink smudged down the line of text in an attempt to render it unreadable ]

A few years ago I would rather cross the street than pass Obito on the sidewalk. Every time I saw him dragging himself down the road on his crutches, I felt a bitter responsibility for him. He, a shell, a nostalgic memory contorted & made twisted flesh. He always used to look so angry. He still does, I suppose. The way their brow collapses when something irritates them is like a warning for anyone who throws him a dirty look, the seething answer to the unspoken question. ' what are you doing here. ' Healing, like the rest of us

All faults aside, Obito was trying to save the planet in their own, terrible way. I can't say I entirely blame them. We lost everything to this world we live in; it's not so strange to want it to go away. It's not an idea I'm eager to share, just as I'm sure it's one Obito would stomp into the dirt. There are no prizes for good intentions in our world, especially not for people like us. Those who dip in & out of morality, adapting to what we believe the world may need... different, as that idea may be between the two of us. We are not the same & we never will be again. But perhaps, one day, we can be better. Or maybe I'm just getting old, sentimental.

#s4ints #s4ints; obito #wheezes #these are just some passing observations of his #probably while he's trying to get everything in order about he feels internally abt obito #thats mostly what he journals about anyways #it's hard for him to sort through his feelings without seeing them in front of him #and hes feeling sentimental #a little bit weak #bcs he wants to know obito very desperately even if he's unwilling to set his pride aside to do so #but he's been thinking about this all night #sobs into my hands abt them

2 notes · View notes

withoutcomedy · 2 years

Text

Post 3-5 Songs That Remind You Of Your Muse

Tagged by I stole it from @miseriiicorde

Tagging: @freakythedeadfox (for whatever muse), @missninetails and who ever else wants to do this!

Ghost Rule (ゴーストルール) by Deco27 (ft. Hatsune Miku)

I only know how to lie, I guess I really can’t dodge it this time No law to pardon my crime, no clemency for this evil of mine Things don’t look better today, the mask I wear is crumbling away Lapsing in depravity, I didn’t see what was happening to me Come here, no go away, stay… “I’ve hidden it away” Mayday! If you find out that it’s me, don’t need to hold me close, in fact just leave me be Mayday! If you find out that it’s me, all that I ask is that you simply laugh at me I know I’m nothing more than an empty ghost An empty shell of lies, and it haunts me so

Why it fits: I personally think that Sans just lives in a network of lies, he constantly fools people, he never manages to show his true emotions or his knowledge to any one. While on the one hand he does this to protect everyone else from despairing like him, on the other hand I also think he uses his skill of masking for manipulation. Out of good intentions (mostly), but in the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as you say. An example for this is how he manipulates Frisk / the player the entire time and with little regard on the consequences.

I think he mostly befriends them and wants them to have a good time so they won’t do a G-Run and also so the Monsters can be freed. At least in his subconscious. And he kind of knows, but he also lies to himself about this two.

So yeah you can see how Sans would feel like nothing but “an empty ghost” in his web of lies to others, and himself.

[Avanna] - TimeANDTime by baggagelizard

mistakes are made grievences are brought It's something that can't be forgiven It's not so smart to act like a fool

oh, time and time and time again without learning a single lesson you're lying and hiding without end

so, do you realize just what you've done? and what you have done to everyone? I do not know you very well, but

You can't keep living your life this way it's hurting you and everyone around I want to extend my hand, but it ends in failure

Why it fits: This is an oldie for him, but a goodie. These lyrics describe perfectly how he feels about Frisk if they chose to go down a genocide or no mercy route. It is especially fitting though for a unique relationship my Sans has with @bravest s muse Olivia (formerly a Frisk). It sums them up so well.

Numb by 8 Graves

All I want is to feel a bit We could fall in love, you could slit my wrist I could tell you now that they both 'gonn feel the same I've been wide awake, I've been blacking out I've been locked away, could you let me out? 'Cause I've grown so tired of existing in this cage I remember when I used to feel (it was beautiful) But I guess that's something you can steal (and I lost it all) Now nothing seems to feel too real (unbelievable) What have I been running from? How did I become so numb? I'm so numb I give up

Why it fits: Honestly, I’m not that fond of this music pick, but it fits because yes he deals with apathy from losing every kind of progress he ever makes with every Reset he goes through. It also shows that he doesn’t even care about dying or being hurt anymore, because even that wouldn’t make a difference to him.

#dash games #dash game #headcanon #headcanons #musings #musings: music #((This took me like 3 hours because it is so hard to find fitting songs f or Sans...))

4 notes · View notes

linkspooky · 3 years

Text

The Dragon - Megumi and Geto

Geto and Megumi are both the black wolves, the yang in their relationship with Gojo and Yuji respectively. However they are also parallels to one another. Both of them represent the black yang, both are deeply emotional people, and both are also partners and secondary to the strongest sorcerer of their generation. Geto who was the part of the strongest duo along with Gojo, and also Megumi who was the one who saved, and continues to protect Itadori even after he swallowed Sukuna’s finger. They also tend to be associated with serpents (Megumi - Oboro the snake, Geto summons a dragon). More under the cut.

1. It’s Always the Quiet Ones

Gojo and Yuji are introduced as a teacher and student duo from the start of the manga so their connection between each other is already apparent. Geto and Megumi have never met each other, however, there are already several parallels between them.

Megumi and Geto are characters who are more concerned with “the right thing to do” rather than saving everyone in front of them. Yuji and Geto are very self involved individuals. They’re more focused on themselves. Yuji and Gojo both have this central goal of becoming the strongest, and for different reasons. Gojo because he’s such a staunch individualist whose goal is to be the best version of himself he can be, and Yuji because he needs that strength in order to save people.

Gojo and Yuji are people who think about themselves first and foremost. Megumi and Geto are people very concerned with everyone around them. It’s Megumi and Geto who consider the consequences of their actions and how it will affect others. (Teenage Gojo) and Yuji tend to be quite irresponsible with their power. They want to be strong, but they don’t really think about how they want to use that power to impact the world around them. Because they as people are not overly concerned with the world. Yuji only thinks about saving people immediately in front of him, and Gojo mostly thniks about himself.

It’s that old adage about power and repsonsibility. With great power comes great responsibility. However, the duos Megumi / Yuji and Geto / Gojo are both two halves of the same person. Gojo and Yuji are both the powerhouses of that duo, however it’s Geto and Megumi who are concerned with how to use that power responsibility for others.

There are several parallels betwen Megumi and Geto. Starting with their Curse Techniques. Megumi and Geto both use summoned entities in order to fight for them while Gojo and Yuji are powerhouses who fight their enemies head on. Megumi and Geto summon powerful creatures to do most of the fighting for them.

They both seem to be second strongest after their respective partners. Geto is second strongest after Gojo, and Megumi is second strongest after Yuji. However, at the same time it’s implied that both of them intentionally hold themselves back. That their cursed techniques could be used for much more than they are currently capable of.

A ten shadows loser is capable of overpowering the limitless user with a six eyes. However, it’s implied by Gojo constantly that Megumi is someone who constantly holds himself back, because unlike Gojo his number one priority is not being the strongest.

Geto at the same time is someone who is made out to be not as strong as Satoru Gojo, but at the same time, it seems someone like Getwo is way better at using his body to his full potential than he is. At the same time Getwo also comments that Geto would have won, if he had not ordered his forces to pull back. Geto lost because he’s more concerned with other people, Geto and Megumi are both people who hold themselves back because they prioritize people over themselves.

As awful as Geto is. As wrongheaded. As much of a murderer he is. He’s not a selfish person who can sacrifice his family for the sake of his goal. If only he were a little more selfish, if only he loved people a little less, he probably would not have been broken by the world in the same way he did. One more important parallel between the two of them is unlike Gojo and Yuji, Megumi and Geto seem to be really aware of the harshness and unfairness of the world around them and really affected by it.

Of course, Gojo is aware the Jujutsu world is corrupt too, and he’s affected by it in his own way, but he’s never pushed to a breaking point like Geto was. Gojo simply isn’t as invested in other people as Geto is, it doesn’t make Geto or Gojo better as a person it just makes them different and their priorities different.

Geto and Megumi’s reflections of the world mirror one another. Their reflections of the world always revolve around the sentiment that the world is fundamentally unfair, no matter how just the two of them try to be. Remember, the key word for both of them is righteousness. They are responsible people who try and obsess over doing the right thing.

Megumi refers to Jujutsu sorcerers as merely a cog in the system getting grinded down. Which is exactly what we witness happens to Geto. It’s because the fact that Jujutsu Sorcerers are treated as nothing more than disposable cogs in this great wide system, and they’re treated this way even as children that causes Geto to break to the extent that he does, becoming a broken cog.

Merely doing their duty as a Jujutsu Sorcerer isn’t enough for either of them. Geto begins with believing that what he’s doing he’s doing out of a sense of duty. He begins believing that he’s doing the right thing. They both come to a question of who they are supposed to save as Jujutsu Sorcerers. However, Megumi and Geto both witness a complete innocent suffering. A person that they describe as a good person, a person that they tried to protect, only to fail to protect them and watch that person. For Geto it was Riko, for Megumi it was Tsumiki.

Geto witnessed Rika die just after he promised to protect her as the strongest. Megumi only accepted Gojo’s offer to become a Jujutsu Sorcerer in the future because he thought it would help give him money to take care of Tsumiki. They both try to protect someone, and fail, and it makes their efforts seem pointless. After that point they question what their role in things even is. It left them questioning everything.

The final parallel between Geto and Megumi is that they’re both reasonable and rational on the surface. They’re both people always seeking a reason in things. It’s Geto of all people who is the person to tell Gojo that they can’t just do whatever they want because they’re powerful, they need responsibility, reason to chain their actions to. Geto becomes Gojo’s tether. Megumi is Yuji’s tether. In a way, both Gojo and Yuji were saved by their respective partners. Geto stopped Gojo from killing so many people, and Megumi saved Yuji at the beginning of the manga allowing him to become a cursed sorcerer rather than being executed right away at the start of the manga. However, at the same time both Megumi and Yuji have these deep and dark emotions unaddresssed that they can’t hold back with reasons.

Geto and Megumi carry lots of dark emotions and hurt feelings inside of them, and rather than trying to deal with them they tend to repress them in order to keep appearing as the rational and responsible for one. However, on the flip side of things, it means that they both have a tendency to flip. The thing about repressing these very angry, and hurt emotions is that repressing them does not make them go away. It merely causes them to pile up until the weight becomes unbearable and they break.

Geto and Megumi handle their emotions in the same way, and all of their hurt feelings tend to come from the same place. It’s not that Megumi and Geto hate people. In fact they love people. Megumi and Geto expect people to be much better than theyare. They expect the world to be a good place. ANd, when the world turns out to be not what they expected to be they’re not just disappointed they’re mad.

Megumi believes in good, compassionate people. He feels the world should be kinder to good people, he believes those people should be allowed a little happiness. He wants to protect people like Yuji and his sister because he sees a goodness in them he can’t see in himself. Megumi, always sees the best in the people he meets, that’s why he’s disappointed when he’s faced with the worst of them.

The same way that Megumi belives in good people, Geto believes in his connections to his comrades and to other people. Geto goes about it the wrong way entirely, but what he wants from the bottom of his heart is just a world where jujutsu sorcerers don’t have to be killed as teenagers. He, just like Yuji, wants the world to be a better place then it is currently. It’s just Geto has taken radical action to make that chane, whereas Megumi is fighting small battles one fight at a time.

They’re both characters whose hearts are in the right places. They both have good intentions. However, the unchecked emotions of both characters makes Geto a bomb, and Megumi a land mine waiting to explode. As good as they are, they’re full of dangerous bad feelings. They’re both living embodiments of the phrase “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Geto represents the dangerous person that Megumi could become, while at the same time his partnership with Gojo shows what Megumi can make of himself if he opens himself to others. Geto decided to leave and try to fix the world on his own. Geto decided to try to hold all that weight on his shoulders until he broke, and then he broke away from Gojo. Geto and Gojo were clearly set up as a duo. They were meant to find balance with one another. However, they just couldn’t be together. They were both too busy trying to save the world alone, they didn’t know how to be together, and didn’t know how to be kids.

Megumi and Yuji are another strongest duo. Another second to chance to find the balance between each other that Gojo and Geto couldn’t find. Megumi is seriously off balance, and doesn’t know how to balance saving people with his sense of righteousness but that’s what Yuji is for. The two of them have the potential to break part like Gojo and Geto did, but they also have the potential to find true balance in one another.

#megumi fushigoro #fushigoro megumi #suguru geto #geto suguru #getou suguru #suguru getou #itadori yuji #itafushi #satosugu #jjk meta #jujutsu kaisen meta #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen theory #jujutsu kaisen daily #jjkdaily

1K notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Text

Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 29 - ao3 -

“In the future, you should send your children to the Cloud Recesses for me to teach,” Lan Qiren said. He was sitting with Wen Ruohan on one of the rooftop gardens in the Nightless City, watching the moon and stars from a pavilion placed there for that purpose; their bodies were pressed close together, and it felt as if they were far away from all the things that were familiar. “You and Lao Nie both, and naturally I’ll come visit with you often as well, bringing my nephew. Between the three of us, we might even be able to teach them how to be proper human beings.”

Wen Ruohan laughed in his ear and pressed his lips to his cheek – he had taken to kissing him at random, spontaneous, as if still overwhelmed by the fact that he now had the right to do it.

“I will,” he promised. “I agree, I think they’ll turn out better that way…you would really have me educate your precious little A-Huan?”

“If I’m willing to entrust myself with you, why not him? Anyway, I can teach him music, and with the aid of the other teachers in my sect the sword in the Lan sect style, but you can teach him much more than that. You know how to look at the world and see it for what it is, and then bend it to your will, make it sing to your tune. He’ll be sect leader in the future; he needs to learn that, and you can teach it to him.”

“I can, and I will,” Wen Ruohan said, then thought for a moment and asked, “What does Lao Nie bring to the table?”

“Flexibility, mostly.”

Wen Ruohan barked out a laugh. “He certainly has that.”

He didn’t even sound bitter about it any more.

Lan Qiren smiled.

“In the meantime, I will handle the rest of it,” Wen Ruohan added, and Lan Qiren looked at him in silent question. “Come now, Qiren. Did you really think that I would allow you to remain caged in the Cloud Recesses your whole life?”

Lan Qiren paused. That was the sorest part of his heart, his most painful misery, but he didn’t think Wen Ruohan would bring it up casually. If anything, he was a bit more afraid of what Wen Ruohan might get into his head to do about it – there was very little Wen Ruohan wouldn’t dare.

“Da-ge –” he started warily.

“No, no,” Wen Ruohan said, lightly scolding. “Little Lan, be serious! I already rejected the opportunity to cage you here at the Nightless City, playing only for me, despite how much I longed to do so. I refused to do it – me, refusing myself – because I knew it would only make you sad. Do you really think I would allow other people a privilege that I have denied myself?”

Lan Qiren did not laugh, but he dearly wanted to. It might be the first time he’d ever wanted to laugh about his situation – not even Cangse Sanren had managed that. “Has anyone told you that you are extremely self-absorbed?” he asked instead. “Arrogance is forbidden. Do not be haughty and complacent.”

Wen Ruohan smirked back at him. “All true, little Lan, but don’t forget your favorite: Do not tell lies.”

Self-absorbed, narcissistic and arrogant, Lan Qiren concluded, and there was no helping it. It was clearly a terminal case.

He used his sleeve to hide his laughter.

“What are you planning, exactly?” he asked once he had recovered. “If you harm my sect, whether directly or indirectly by denying them my services, I would be even more upset than if you tried to lock me away in here.”

Wen Ruohan waved a hand dismissively. “Do you think me so incapable? I have already begun making arrangements. Discussion conferences may only be once or twice a year, being as they are tremendously irritating to arrange, but there’s no reason that we of the Great Sects should not recognize our greater duty towards the smaller sects, and not to mention our obligations to protect the mortal world –”

“You know that it exists, then?”

Wen Ruohan ignored him. “The resources of cultivation clans are limited, and the world large. There are many places which would benefit from aid that do not see any simply because they are far away or tucked in inconvenient places, and no sect lives nearby – naturally, it is our duty to fight evil no matter where it is encountered. Lao Nie has already agreed that it is critical that the sect leaders demonstrate our sincerity by fulfilling this duty in person, leading by example.”

Lan Qiren’s heart had already felt as if it were overflowing with warmth, and it felt even more so now, almost squeezed to pain by how much joy was there. More than he had known he could contain.

Bad luck in brothers, he thought to himself - but oh, he had such good luck in friends!

“I see,” he said, thankful that his usual neutral tone concealed how happy he felt. “And naturally, where you and Lao Nie go, Sect Leader Jin cannot be far behind in his eagerness not to lose out, and where three of the five Great Sects lead, naturally the rest cannot be far behind. So I, too, will be obligated to...what? Go out on night-hunts in inconvenient places?”

“The world is too large, and the number of cultivators too few – and at any rate, there’s no point in setting up a full night-hunt which draws in every person from a thousand li for a few paltry fierce corpses or a ghost or two. I propose, instead, that we would send cultivators out alone, in pairs or in small groups, to wander for a few months through the remote places in the world and clean them up. Then, at the next discussion conference, the Great Sects could jointly agree that whoever was most enterprising would receive a reward, and naturally, stories of various exploits could be exchanged – ”

“Ah. Another reason for young men and women to gather and boast of improbable exploits.”

“Think of it as giving them more opportunities to win glory,” Wen Ruohan said. “And stop talking down about ‘young men’; you are a young man. Naturally you are also qualified to go out to do such things. Required, even: if our Great Sects do not set a proper example, who will?”

“Mm. A proper example. Even if I coincidentally happen to spend more time playing music than hunting demons?”

Wen Ruohan’s eyes were bright. “Even so. And naturally, you could always bring along someone more powerful to do the demon-hunting for you…”

“How convenient.”

Wen Ruohan smirked. “Do you doubt that I will be able to make it happen, little Lan?”

“No,” Lan Qiren said, then added, honestly: “I think you could take over the world if you wished.”

“Naturally! But it would be quite irritating, I think, if I had to also ensure that both you and Lao Nie did not disapprove of my methods…” He paused, lips twitching. “By coincidence, while we’re discussing convenience, I was thinking that it would be dangerous to send all those wild and reckless young men out there without proper support. Surely it would be only reasonable to set up a few convenient places here and there, not so far away, to provide them with supplies and a place to rest and recover –”

Convenient places that would fly the Wen sect’s flag and spread its influence, Lan Qiren presumed. Lanling Jin would be furious – using wealth to buy influence was their favorite technique, and they resented other people copying it – and would immediately insist on establishing their own set of “supply stations”, and then the rest of them would have to catch up and make their own. Yet another expense, and the Great Sects would need to do more than most; it would probably wreck havoc with the Lan sect’s annual budget.

On the other hand, well the remote parts of the world really did need the help. One of the Lan sect’s newly recruited guest disciples had been talking about a place not far from his hometown that specialized in making coffin goods; it was, according to him, the most inauspicious place that could possibly be imagined…

Not a place anyone might want to go, unless they truly were intent on traveling.

Lan Qiren smiled once again. He thought he might never stop smiling.

“Indeed,” he said, trying to sound dry and rational. “Very coincidental. No one will doubt that this is nothing but a scheme to expand your reach and power, rather than any personal motive.”

Wen Ruohan did not answer, but instead, matching a smile of his own to Lan Qiren’s, pressed his lips against Lan Qiren’s once more.

After a little while of silence, Lan Qiren cleared his throat and asked, “Do you intend to tell people?”

He was not referring to Wen Ruohan’s plans for the future.

Wen Ruohan understood.

“In time,” he said. “As much as I would love to shout that you are mine and I am yours from the rooftops and perhaps have bulletins be posted to every town -”

Lan Qiren grimaced. It would be one thing if he thought Wen Ruohan was exaggerating for romantic effect, but unfortunately it would be just like him to engage in that level of over-the-top grandstanding.

“– but your position is not yet certain, and my reputation is too questionable. People would make assumptions and spread malicious gossip, and I – I would not harm you to please myself.”

“Sweet-talker.”

“It’s not sweet-talking when it’s true,” Wen Ruohan protested, although he was chuckling. “When you are more renowned as a teacher than a sect leader, when little A-Huan is old enough to have passed the worst stretches of childhood – then we will announce it, and let the rest of the world choke on it if they like. You, me, Lao Nie…hmm. Jin Guangshan will probably think we’re concealing a conspiracy and ask to join in.”

Lan Qiren gagged. “I refuse,” he said. “I don’t care if I’m not physically involved, neither you nor Lao Nie are allowed to even think about it. That man has visited so many prostitutes that one might be forgiven for thinking he believes that the road to immortality is paved with venereal disease.”

“…thank you, that was an image I did not require.” A pause. “Jiang Fengmian –”

“Remember when he punched me in the face in a fight over a girl I didn’t even want?”

“It wasn’t a serious suggestion.” Wen Ruohan chuckled once more and pressed another kiss to his cheek. “Some years ago now, I swore to your Cangse Sanren that I would do right by you. I ought to invite her here and show her that I’ve made good on it.”

“You haven’t made good on it.”

“I haven’t?”

“No. Such a promise is fulfilled through the keeping – if you want to do right by me, there is no one singular moment that would qualify, but rather a continuing obligation.” Lan Qiren smiled up at him. “I’m sorry, da-ge. You’ll have to continue to do right by me for the rest of our lives.”

“I will,” Wen Ruohan said, and smiled back. “It would be my pleasure.”

-END-

#mdzs #lan qiren #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #spilled pearls

163 notes · View notes

gojo-x-reader · 3 years

Text

Not So Special Now

Relationship(s): F!Reader x Gojo Satoru

Warnings: canon-typical violence

Tags: fluff (at the end), reader-focused

AO3 Link: here

Words: ~4k

Request: “hello there, i love ur soulmate and marriage life hc 🥺 can you make scenario/hc/drabble whatever u prefer where his fem/gn so is also a sorcerer and gets hurt/injured on a mission? thank you!”

“Are you sure you’ll be fine?” Your boyfriend, Satoru, asked you. His hands were on your biceps, giving it a worried, yet comforting squeeze.

“Yes, Satoru,” you answered, a little annoyed at how he was treating you. It’s been several years since either of you were in high school; this wasn’t your first mission.

“I can’t help but worry, you know. It’s your first ever special grade assignment.”

“Just because I’m not the same rank as you, Mr. Special Grade, doesn’t mean I’m weak. Besides, there are two others going so I’m not doing this alone.”

“I know, I know.” Satoru pressed his lips gently onto your forehead, then gazed into your eyes lovingly. In a rare instance while on the job, his blindfold was replaced with dark sunglasses. You reached up to shift them down, allowing you to gaze into his bright blue eyes. They were breathtaking no matter how many times you saw them. You moved your hands from his glasses to his shoulders, forcing him down so you could reach up to leave a chaste kiss on his lips.

“I’ll see you tonight,” you promised.

The two of you embraced one more time before you joined your other group members for the mission. You turned back and waved at him as the three of you entered the car to be driven to the location for your mission.

“Sure wish Gojo-san was coming with us,” one of them mused. “He could handle this mission single-handedly and we could just stay home.” He sighed deeply, then put in headphones and stared out the window.

“Why isn’t he taking this mission?” your other group member asked. She stared at you, eager to know.

You had just met these two today (not even knowing their names, except that they were both Grade 1 sorcerers like you) and you weren’t sure how well this mission would go. “Well,” you began, “for one, he works best alone. Second, Satoru fights best when he’s away from civilians.”

The girl hummed, then crossed her arms in thought. The three of you awkwardly rode in silence for about five minutes, before the girl grabbed your arm suddenly. “Soooo, how long have you been dating Gojo Satoru?” She asked eagerly. There was something about her that seemed familiar, but you just couldn’t put your finger on it.

You weren’t sure why this was any business of someone you just met, but you decided to indulge her to hopefully make this awkward car ride, well, less awkward.

“Two years, almost three,” you answered. The two of you had known each other since high school, but it wasn’t until almost four years ago that you had reconnected after you moved back to Tokyo, and almost three years ago when you started dating. To this day you still had no clue why he would get a crush on you over all people. There were much prettier girls he had spent more time with, why you?

“Annnnd? A ring soon?” She gushed, gripping your arm harder.

You shrugged. Satoru and you had discussed marriage at some point, but both of you were busy at the moment, especially with Ryomen Sukuna being somewhat revived into the world. While Yuuji was still technically “dead” to others, Satoru had trusted you enough to tell you about how his student had pretty much been revived from the dead. On your days off, you often visited your boyfriend and helped out with Yuuji’s training regime. He was a nice kid, despite his circumstances and being thrown into the jujutsu world suddenly.

The girl let go of your arm and got out her phone, furiously typing to someone. “Oh, my little sister won’t be happy to hear about this.”

“Little sister?”

“Yeah, my sister Momo goes to Kyoto. She’s pretty close with another girl, Kasumi, who I consider almost like another younger sister. She was super excited to meet Gojo-san a week ago. She’s like a superfan of him or something. I like to indulge her sometimes. I think she even made a fan club for Gojo-san or something. Anyways, Momo, even though she’s friends with Kasumi, she often gets annoyed with her talk about Gojo-san.”

You vaguely remember Satoru mentioning a girl from Kyoto that asked him for a picture. It wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence for your boyfriend to be asked to take pictures with, from the jujutsu world or from civilians; he had devastatingly good looks, so you couldn’t blame any of the people who asked for pictures. Besides, you knew his heart belonged to you and you only, so you were fine with others recognizing his allure.

“Oh, Kasumi’s calling me,” the girl said. She answered her phone, only for a younger voice to scream over the speaker. It was loud enough that you could hear it. Your teammate held her phone away from her ear.

“What do you mean he has a girlfriend?”

“Oh, come on Kasumi. You know how handsome he is. Besides, he’s like, what, twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?”

“Twenty-eight, twenty-nine in December,” you confirmed.

“Way too old for you, ma’am,” the girl relayed to Kasumi.

“I don’t like him like that , Sumi-san! I j-just really admire him, okay! W-Who wouldn’t? World’s strongest jujutsu sorcerer in all.”

“Mhm. Anyway, I’ve got a mission today with the said girlfriend of Gojo Satoru. Want me to get you an autograph?” Sumi joked.

“...Could you?”

You let out a tiny laugh. This girl was funny, so you decided to humor her and leaned toward the phone. “One autograph for Kasumi?”

“M-Miwa Kasumi!” the voice on the phone squeaked out. She told you what kanji made up her name as you rummaged for a scrap piece of paper and pen from your bag. You made out the autograph, laughing a bit as you handed it to Sumi.

After you told her you signed an autograph for her, Kasumi said goodbye, hanging up the phone before Sumi could reply goodbye back. She seemed embarrassed about the ordeal.

“You were right, she seems like a good kid.”

“Kasumi is nice. She really balances out how serious my little sister Momo is,” Sumi responded.

For the rest of the car ride, you and Sumi chatted. Apparently, this was also her first Special Grade mission, as well as her first mission after graduating from Kyoto. Their other group member was also from Kyoto; he was two years Sumi’s senior. His name was Takahashi Daisuke. She didn’t know much about him since he tended to keep to himself. But she did know this wasn’t his first Special Grade mission. That relieved you substantially since you were nervous about this mission (as much as you didn’t want to admit to Satoru).

Eventually, the roads transformed from paved to just dirt. The driver turned onto a road on a hill, then began briefing the three of you on your mission. This was a Special Grade, suspected to be awakened by a Sukuna finger. This was just based on speculation, since the last Special Grade to pop up was from a Sukuna finger as well. The Special Grade had taken over an abandoned shrine, supposedly terrorizing the local village just down the hill (which had been evacuated just hours before). As the driver parked the car, the three of you exited the car. The air was crisp, with a distinct chill in the air. You could sense a particularly strong cursed energy in the premises, on par with Satoru’s cursed energy. You shuddered; this was not going to be an easy task.

The driver placed a curtain around the area, the sky darkening. It only made the situation seem even more grave. There was something in your gut telling you to run, not from being scared of the Special Grade, but because something bad was going to happen.

Sumi grabbed a wand from her belt. Her family was a pretty small sorcerer family on her mother’s side, as she had told you in the car. She and her sister have cursed techniques similar to “witches”; hers involved spells while her sister’s involved levitating a broom, among other objects.

Your cursed techniques, however, involved nature. There was a reason why you were selected specifically for this mission; the shrine was in the middle of the forest, the perfect place for you to go wild. Cities like Tokyo were incredibly constraining for you to use your cursed techniques, so you almost exclusively were assigned missions out in the country where nature was plentiful.

Neither you nor Sumi knew what Daisuke’s cursed technique was, but you assumed it was pretty strong considering he had been on missions with Special Grades before.

The mission started off fine. The three of you approached the shrine. It wasn’t particularly impressive, nothing that you would expect to house a Special Grade curse. The stone torii at the entrance was standing tall, unbothered by neither age nor the moss and vines growing on it. The shrine itself, however, was crumbling. One of the pillars holding up the roof was destroyed, so the roof was lopsided. The shimenawa knots were cut in half, the ends completely frayed. Definitely not a good sign.

After crossing the torii , you felt the Special Grade’s presence. It was overwhelming, unlike anything else you had experienced before. It possessed near-equal amounts of cursed energy as Satoru, but unlike your boyfriend, it held malicious intent within its cursed energy. To your left, Sumi was shaking. You held out a shaky hand onto her shoulder and squeezed. While you yourself didn’t feel confident about this mission now, you had a duty as the oldest member of the group here to be strong, for their sake.

The shrine began to shake, then the roof was suddenly blown off. You used your cursed technique to form a barrier of tree roots that erupted from the ground. Slabs of wood hit the roots, then bounced off. After the rain of wood subsided, you controlled the roots back into the ground in their original position.

You finally got a good look at the Special Grade curse. It was humanoid, but only in form. Its flesh was midnight blue, with eyes covering every centimeter of its body. Great, it had no blind spots. The curse had no apparent mouth, yet you were able to hear it let out an intimidating roar.

Daisuke made the first strike. He quickly pointed a handgun at the Special Grade and pulled the trigger. Out came a burst of his own cursed energy instead of a bullet. The blow just grazed the Special Grade enough for it to let out a screech of pain. Interesting, so this was his cursed energy. You wondered if it was limited to guns, or if he could apply it to a bow as well and use his cursed energy for arrows. You’d have to ask him later after this mission was completed.

It was apparent after Daisuke revealed his cursed technique that all of you were primarily distance fighters. There wasn’t much Sumi could do if her cursed technique focused on spells through her wand apparatus and Daisuke seemed to only have a gun on him. So, that meant you had to switch to a melee approach.

You weren’t the biggest fan of hand to hand combat. You weren’t very strong, preferring to assist from a distance. Recently, Satoru has been helping you learn new ways of fighting in close quarters. You decided to take the risk and make an attempt at using this still relatively new technique. You reached out your hands, summoning leaves from the trees. They surrounded your fists like boxing gloves, your cursed energy reinforcing the leaves to be almost as hard as the bark from the trees they came from.

You sprinted toward the Special Grade, preparing to land a blow. As you reared back for a punch, the Special Grade disappeared from in front of you. Then you felt a blow land on your back and you were sent through the forest until a particularly thick tree stopped your projectile body. Luckily, you reacted quickly enough to reinforce your front with cursed energy. If it wasn’t for your quick thinking, you probably would’ve been knocked out immediately.

You picked yourself up from the ground, but the world was spinning. You leaned against a tree to collect your thoughts and rest a bit. The Special Grade was insanely fast and had no blind spots. You were panicking; this was well out of your skillset. Perhaps Daisuke was right; Satoru should’ve joined in on this mission. But you knew that wasn’t possible, as he also had his own Special Grade mission to handle today.

You brought a hand up to your face and gave yourself a hard smack. This was no time to doubt yourself or panic. You had two comrades out there fighting a Special Grade curse alone. There was no doubt that the Special Grade would notice you if you tried to rejoin the fight, at least on the ground. Your best bet would be to get the high ground; there would be fewer eyes on the top half, so the chances of you being noticed would be less than if you arrived by foot.

Okay, you had an idea. Now, to get an idea of how the fight was going. You kneeled down to the ground and placed your hand onto the ground, closing your eyes. You sent a minimal, hardly detectable pulse of cursed energy toward the fight through the ground. From what nature informed you, the fight was mostly one-sided in favor of the Special Grade. Daisuke was pretty beat up, and Sumi wasn’t in good shape either.

You got up then hurriedly began climbing the nearest tree. As you climbed up, you manipulated the bark to form grooves for you to place your hands and feet on. As you reached a decent height, you created a bridge with the overlapping tree branches sturdy enough for your weight. You sprinted across the bridge, ignoring your double vision. You definitely had a concussion, but now was not the time for you to worry about that. You didn’t wanna lose your comrades on this mission. Not again.

You wiped the tears that were threatening to fall from your eyes. In your final year of Tokyo High, your two classmates were killed right before your eyes on a mission. You escaped out of pure luck, but was determined to get stronger to avenge their deaths. If you let those two die… well, then, that meant you hadn’t gotten strong enough to protect anyone else.

Once you were just out of sight range of the cursed spirit, you closed your eyes to sense the battle again. Sumi was sitting on the ground, back to a tree as she watched the fight between Daisuke and the Special Grade. She was barely conscious, and it seemed like she had lost a lot of blood. You had an idea, but in order for it to work, you needed her help.

Using thin vines, you sent a message within her sight: I am still alive. I’m going to trap the Special Grade curse with branches. Use a fire spell on it when it’s bound.

All you could hope was that she was able to read the message and had enough cursed energy to cast the spell. You began moving branches from distant trees close to the Special Grade, as fast as possible without your cursed energy being detected. Once they were close enough, you waited for the right moment.

As Daisuke finally landed a hit with his cursed energy, moving the curse to the center of the shrine remnants, you launched your attack. The branches extended as fast as you could make them move. The hit Daisuke landed had temporarily slowed the Special Grade, enough for your branches to immobilize it. As the branches gripped the curse, Sumi sent a fire spell toward it, just as planned.

The branches (and the cursed spirit) caught on fire. But something was wrong; normally, you could extract cursed energy from a curse with your cursed technique to exorcise, but that wasn’t happening. Was it resisting? You felt a tug on the branches.

Without thinking, you acted on your own. You re-equipped the leaves cursed technique, as you jumped from the trees above. As gravity brought you closer to the Special Grade, you reared back to prepare the punch you had wanted to introduce it to earlier. As your fist landed on the curse, you allowed the leaves to leave your fist, sending it into the curse’s body. The leaves caught on fire before they entered the curse, imploding it.

So, you managed to exorcise the Special grade. But, doing so took all of your cursed energy and you had no more left to cushion your fall. Luckily, you managed to adjust your fall so that you slid on your stomach parallel to the ground instead of falling headfirst. It still hurt, and you definitely broke a few ribs doing that.

You somehow had enough energy to turn yourself onto your back, looking up at the starry night sky as the curtain was released. Your first Special Grade mission. Everyone lived and you exorcised it without Satoru’s help. Ha. He would be so proud of you.

You began to fall into unconsciousness right as you felt familiar arms lift you up.

When you woke up, you were in Shoko’s infirmary. There was a thin blanket covering your bottom half. Suddenly the events came back to you.

You sat up, gasping for air. Where were Sumi and Daisuke?

“You might want to lay back down,” a familiar voice told you. “Shoko healed you, but the pain might still be there.”

You did as the voice said, laying back at the elevated position you woke up in. You look over and blinked a few times, seeing your boyfriend sitting in a chair next to your bed. He was in his work uniform, including his blindfold. You winced as you felt a pain in your chest; Satoru was right, there still was residual pain.

“I exorcised a Special Grade,” you croaked.

“I know. I’m proud of you.” He grabbed your hand and squeezed it, giving you a soft smile, showing off his tiny dimples. His smile quickly turned to a frown as he lectured, “However, what you did was risky and crazy.”

“Aren’t you the one who says that jujutsu sorcerers have to be crazy to survive?” you argued.

“Yes, but there’s a difference between crazy and throwing your life away.”

“You saw that?” you asked, much more awake than you were a few seconds ago.

“I hurried as fast as I could with my own mission to come assist you if you needed. I got there right as you pulled that stunt of yours.”

You pulled your hand from his and placed your face in both of your hands, embarrassed that he saw you launch yourself from several meters high, use up all of your cursed energy, then make a hard landing onto the ground.

“How’s the other two?” you asked, refusing to move your face from your hands.

“Alive and doing well. You’re the most beat-up out of everyone.”

You removed your hands, clasping them together in your lap. “Thank goodness…”

“There wasn’t a Sukuna finger either,” Satoru reported to you. “The villagers’ fear of the shrine must have caused it to grow to a Special Grade. Now, come on. Shoko said you could come home once you woke up.” Satoru stood up, then scooped you up from the bed. You screamed in protest, now wide awake.

“Wha--Put me down!”

“No can do, honey. Doctor’s orders. Nothing strenuous for the next week.”

“Satoru, I don’t think walking counts as strenuous!”

He smiled his signature shit-eating grin, then gave you a kiss on your forehead. No fair, he knew forehead kisses were your weakness. You melted into his arms at how tender his kiss was, now docile and less likely to argue with him.

In a flash, he teleported the two of you to his apartment, setting you on the bed in front of him. After placing you on the bed, he yanked off his blindfold and began rummaging through his dresser, looking for a set of his clothes for you to wear. He tossed the shirt and pants toward you, not even bothering to turn around while you changed. You’d been together for so long (or at least, it felt like a long time) that there wasn’t anything particularly embarrassing about changing in front of each other.

You winced while lifting your hands up to take off your shirt, so Satoru was by your side in an instant, helping you take off your shift without much pain. He even helped you out of your bra and put on his shirt.

“You don’t need me to help you with the pants, do you?” he teased.

“I think I can handle it on my own,” you replied, standing up and shuffling out of your pants. Satoru’s pants were much too long for you, so you had to roll not only the waistband but also the cuffs so that they didn’t constantly drag on the ground. Not like you minded doing that; there was just something about his clothes that was infinitely more comforting than your own, and he knew that more than anyone else.

As you adjusted the pants, Satoru left the bedroom to head toward the kitchen, no doubt to start cooking some of your favorite foods. You laid down on your shared bed, happy to be home. It was a long day (Days? How long were you even unconscious?) and you were glad to have such a caring boyfriend, even if he was being a little annoying about this.

About an hour later, Satoru came into the bedroom with a tray of food. He wouldn’t let you even touch the chopsticks, insisting on feeding you food because he didn’t want you to “strain yourself.” You thought he was just being a little too overprotective, but you allowed him to feed you anyway. The look of satisfaction on his face was just too cute for you to deny him this tiny pleasure.

After dinner, you immediately wanted to go to bed. Satoru quickly ate his portion of dinner then changed out of his work clothes into something much more comfortable to sleep in. He joined you under the covers, using his cursed energy to turn off the lights. You felt his arms gently snake their way around your waist, pressing you into his front. You sighed in contentment; he was warm, but not too warm.

After a few seconds of silence, you piped up, “Satoru?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for taking care of me. I love you.”

He placed a gentle kiss on your neck, just behind your ear. “Anything for you, my love,” he breathed onto your neck. You could feel him smiling gently. “Maybe we should just get married.”

You grumbled something, not even quite sure what you said or even what he said completely. Before sleep overtook you, you mumbled out one last final “I love you,” incredibly happy to be in your boyfriend’s arms at the moment.

#gojo satoru #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #jjk x reader #jjk #jujutsu kaisen

537 notes · View notes

tarysande · 3 years

Text

S6 Thoughts: A Tale of Two Brothers

But wait! There’s more. Thoughts on the overall arc of the series, Heaven and Hell edition:

In S1, Lucifer is “vacationing” on Earth but doesn’t plan to return to Hell. Amenadiel spends that season trying so hard to force Lucifer back to Hell, where he “belongs,” that he himself Falls. We’ve got this role reversal of an angel doing evil things to return the devil (doing ... good things, like solving crimes) to Hell. It’s all very “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

In S2, Lucifer still has no plans to return permanently to Hell, but he’s willing to face it to save Chloe. Of course, this then leads to him experiencing his own forced hell-loop. Amenadiel is also conflicted. Though he’s changed enough that he no longer wants to force Lucifer back to Hell, he’s still uncertain where that leaves either of them. In fact, even when Lucifer pleads with Amenadiel to return him to Hell, Amenadiel refuses. However, when Mum plants the idea of returning to Heaven as a family, Amenadiel clings to that. He’s looking for a purpose. Lucifer, on the other hand, is still very much aboard the Heaven nope train. Here, we also get the foreshadowing of celestial war, and Lucifer’s rejection of Mum’s plan because “In war, there are always casualties.” He would rather sacrifice one--Mum, Uriel--for the many. But it hurts him. If he belongs anywhere, he thinks, it’s Earth ... but, ultimately, that’s shortsighted because we know he doesn’t actually want to be on an Earth that doesn’t have the people he’s coming to care about on it.

S3 is, as we all know, a bit of a mess. But, hey, it’s actually thematically appropriate! Lucifer’s having an identity crisis (wings) that just keeps giving (or taking), and even though subconsciously (we later realize) he gave himself the wings because he was, in fact, making progress reconciling his past and present, his conscious is backsliding like (pun not intended) hell. Much as he wants Earth to be home, he’s got these non-stop reminders of both Heaven and Hell. It makes complete narrative sense that this season reaches the point where he can no longer hide from himself--or from Chloe.

In this season, we also see Amenadiel really start to settle into the idea of staying on Earth, of embracing humanity. He’s shedding the aloofness he once had. He’s learning (we later realize) how to be the kind of God who sheds mysterious ways in favor of boots on the ground. I mean, he doesn’t realize this. But Dad ... well, he has a Plan. Lucifer begins the season with sudden wings. Amenadiel ends it with his wings’ very deliberate return.

In many ways, this season is about Hell on Earth and torture at the hands of an entity far more intentionally and deliberately evil than the actual devil. This is why the catalyst of Cain is so important. He is all the things Lucifer has been accused of being, only he embraces it in ways we’ve seen Lucifer reject and recoil from again and again. This season is torture (lol). It’s Hell. It’s every ugly thing lies beget. And much as we love Lucifer, we’re given an extreme close-up of how his omission of truth is very nearly as devastating as Cain’s outright lies. Of course, this nearly results in Chloe’s death (in more ways than one; you can’t tell me that godforsaken marriage wouldn’t have been like dying), and the devil’s vengeance results in the removal of Lucifer’s choice about the where and when to reveal his true nature to Chloe.

Which brings us to S4, aka The Season of Angst. For Lucifer (and Chloe), anyway. Not so much for Amenadiel, who is set on the path of fatherhood, of responsibility, of partnership and not just commands he expects to be followed. In case we’ve forgotten how much Amenadiel has changed, Remiel “mini-Amen” shows up to remind us. In Linda’s “When angels fall, they also rise” of it, Amenadiel is rising again. He’s not the same as he was, no, but ... we didn’t like old Amenadiel very much, did we? Like Lucifer, Amenadiel is on a journey of learning who he is, the good and the ugly, so he can choose the parts he wants to keep with both eyes open.

Of course, while Amenadiel is rising, Lucifer is falling. In having to deal with Chloe’s reaction to his devil face, Lucifer is put in the uncomfortable position of either growing enough to face his own darkness and self-loathing or retreating, very literally, into who he used to be because it’s comfortable and less frightening than the prospect of change and the unknown. Until it isn’t, right? The more he becomes the devil Eve remembers, the more uncomfortable he becomes. And the more frightening he becomes. Not to Chloe, as he fears, but to himself--though it takes a while to recognize it. If nothing else, we have to hand this to Lucifer’s subconscious: when it wants him to PAY ATTENTION DUMMY, it’s pretty good at getting its point across. If S3 was Hell on Earth starring Cain as the devil, S4 is Hell on Earth starring, well, the devil as the devil with bonus demons. It’s Lucifer’s earthbound iteration of a guilt-induced hell-loop. And at the tragic end, he chooses to return to the place he swore he’d never return, losing everything good in the process, but doing it for selfless reasons. So, that’s new. And it’s why there was still a sliver of hope even when things looked impossibly dark.

S5 begins with Lucifer in Hell--farther from the things he cares about than he has ever been, but also closer to his true calling. Not that he realizes it; this is Lucifer we’re talking about. So, of course it makes sense that as the season goes on, he’ll end up confused by suddenly having everything he always thought he wanted within his grasp. The Lucifer who led a rebellion against his father because he thought he could do better than God? Of course that part of him wants to be handed the job now. No--he wants to earn it. And while some of his reasons are not great, others are. His heartbreak about the injustice and unfairness of life, well ... who hasn’t felt that way? Who hasn’t wanted the power to unilaterally make things better? But that’s not how free will works. That’s not how choice works. While Lucifer wrestles with the necessity of becoming God, Amenadiel recoils from what his S1 self would have seen as his right and his calling. S1 Amenadiel would have made a terrifying and inflexible and absolute and judgmental God. Perhaps even a God closer to our imaginings of Evil than Good.

S6 is about how sometimes personal growth means we grow out of old dreams and acquire new ones. Sometimes, it’s about reimagining those old dreams, rebuilding them with new information. For Amenadiel, that means recognizing that the person he is now is the best man for the Big Job. It means recognizing that Heaven can be (a place) on Earth if he wants it to be. It means he sets aside the pride of “If God wants something done, he sends ME” in favor of delegation and accepting help--and in doing so, helping others (his siblings) discover their callings too. He learns to lead by example, tempered with love and humility.

In Paradise Lost, Milton’s Lucifer famously declares that it is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven. But our Lucifer ... his calling isn’t ruling in Heaven. That’s the old dream of a person who no longer exists. Ironically, Lucifer’s calling is to serve in Hell. Not to serve a distant, ineffable, unfathomable being’s mysterious ways, mind you, but to tangibly serve the humans he has come to love, and who have taught him so much about himself. Who have taught him about love and sacrifice and light and darkness and second chances and hope and faith. When Lucifer chooses to return to Hell, he does so with his eyes open, just as Chloe returns to the LAPD with her eyes open. It’s a lesson that revisits the first episode of the season: Truth and wonder don’t have to be at odds. They can go hand in hand. The mysteries at the heart of pain and suffering and trauma--those are the ones Lucifer wants to solve. Because solving them isn’t about trusting to a higher power (aka the justice system, which is flawed) or designing the perfect torture. It’s about quite literally helping others set themselves free. Finding release. It’s about being a guide, not a judge. And it’s about fulfilling not the temporary desire that merely scratches the itch, but offering the tools necessary to help others determine--choose--their path to the desire they may not even realize is buried beneath the layers of scar tissue within them. And what could be more wonderous than that? Especially when you have a partner who makes you better at your calling, even as you make them better at theirs.

In the end, Heaven and Hell are what we make of them. One person’s Heaven is another person’s Hell. Love is what matters. In all its many, many forms.

#lucifer on netflix #lucifer morningstar #amenadiel #lucifer meta #chloe decker #lucifer thoughts #lucifer spoilers #lucifer s6 #lucifer s6 spoilers #long text post

52 notes · View notes

kirain · 4 years

Text

Hazbin Hotel and VivziePop Drama

I've been hearing/seeing a lot of drama concerning Hazbin Hotel and it's creator VivziePop, and while I don't know her personally or really care what people think, I do hate slander and the spread of misinformation. Truly nothing in this world upsets me more than when people believe rumours while making no effort to fact check, and that's exactly what's happening right now. That said, I wanted to try and clear up some of the rumours going around about Vivzie and the show, because I think some of them are absolutely outrageous and need to be addressed.

1. Vivzie hired an abuser onto the show.

Now, I’m not here to burn anyone at the stake, especially since I don’t know anything about Chris Niosi (the alleged abuser), who I believe openly admitted to the allegations? Regardless, this is a moot point. He’s not credited anywhere at the end of the episode. So either he was booted before production wrapped up or he had nothing to do with the show in the first place.

2. Vivzie supports bestiality.

Admittedly I thought this one might be true, since she draws so many anthropomorphic animals. In the very least, I figured she was probably a furry, but I haven't seen any evidence supporting this accusation either. Near as I can tell, this rumour started for two reasons. One, because of her famous Zoophobia comic, which revolves around a therapist named Cameron who gets assigned to work with human-like animals. Ironically, poor Cameron suffers from crippling zoophobia, which makes for some pretty decent comedy. I didn't read the whole comic because, quite frankly, it’s not my cup of tea and I just don’t have the time. But from what I saw there are no examples of bestiality anywhere in its contents.

Two, this message, which blew up all over social media:

To me, this just proves that people are more interested in virtue signalling than checking to see if their claims are actually true. Everything about this message is 100% false, which I’ll touch on in my next point.

3. Vivzie is a pedophile and she’s drawn child porn.

This is hands down the worst allegation and holy shit, I really wish people would stop using it to defame someone when they don't have any proof. This is a life-ruining accusation and you're disgusting if you believe it based solely on hearsay. This rumour began to spread when Vivzie allegedly shipped the two underage characters in the above photo and drew them NSFW-style. At the time, one character was 19 while the other was 14, and the relationship was a very illegal student-teacher relationship.

This is WRONG! The characters were not 14 and 19, they were actually 18 and 19, the legal age of consent! Additionally, the relationship wasn't student-teacher. One character is a student and the other is Alumni (a student teacher). This one pisses me off the most because it’s obvious the person who sent that message didn’t even bother to conduct any research. They said, “He’s a teacher, she’s a child.” Both characters are MALE!

Since then, Vivzie has apologised for any NSFW art she drew in the past and stated that it's not a reflection of her art today, and I'm inclined to believe her. Almost every artist has drawn NSFW content at some point in their career, and hers wasn't even distasteful. Other than this one example, there is no evidence anywhere that suggests she’s drawn “child porn”. In fact, she’s never even drawn explicit NSFW.

Please stop spreading this rumour. It’s dangerous and completely incorrect.

4. Vivzie said the "N" word!

No, she didn’t. It was a fabricated tweet. That is all.

5. Vivzie is copyright striking every video that criticises her!

No she isn't. YouTube’s DMCA is automatically striking people who are using full clips without permission. Vivzie has gone public several times, telling people exactly how to avoid getting a copy strike from the algorithm, which is something she absolutely does not have to do. At this point, she doesn't owe you anything. In my opinion, she should just sit back and watch these channels burn.

6. Vivzie copies and traces other artists’ work.

This is another one I’ve seen going around, but I looked into it as thoroughly as I could and failed to find any concrete evidence to support the allegations. As of right now, there are only two examples of Vivzie “copying” or “tracing” other artists’ work, and both of them can be explained. The first is a gif she made with a character from her Zoophobia comic, which looked a lot like the girl from ME!ME!ME!:

Damn, that’s pretty incriminating. She obviously stole-- oh, wait. This gif was part of a ME!ME!ME! MEP (multi editor’s project) and Vivzie didn’t take full credit, despite the fact that it’s not even a direct trace. It’s supposed to look like the original, which she fully cited. The second example comes from a short dance sequence from her Timber video, which seems to have been inspired by several Disney movies. As Vivzie herself stated, that was an homage to the original animations. Lots of artists and shows do this, including the beloved Stephen Universe series.

Regardless, this doesn’t count as stealing character designs or plagiarising someone’s work. It’s meant to be respectful, an admiration of other projects. Other than these two instances, however, there is no evidence of her tracing or stealing other people’s art. From what I’ve discovered, all other designs she’s been accused of “stealing” are characters she bought and paid for. They’re quite literally HER characters.

7. Vivzie supports problematic creators.

I’m getting really tired of guilt by association. Vivzie follows and enjoys some controversial figures, but who cares? We can argue all day about whether or not the accusations against them are true, but it ultimately has nothing to do with the show or Vivzie as a person. I do the exact same thing, to be honest-- follow and listen to people on all sides so I can learn, understand, and form my own opinions. The fact that some people think this is bad, to me, is absolutely mesmerising. Vivzie doesn’t control what the people she follows post, and if they do something overly questionable she publicly criticises and denounces it.

From Vivzie:

Now that that’s been dealt with, I’d like to address some complaints/claims about the actual show.

8. Vaggie is an angry Latina stereotype and a lesbian stereotype. Vivzie is appropriating Hispanic culture and misrepresenting the gay for profit.

First off, I see a lot of people passing around yet more misinformation regarding Vivzie's race. So many people seem to think she's white? Well, I'm here to tell you they're wrong. Very incorrect. Vivzie is in fact Latina, and Vaggie is meant to mirror some of her own personality traits.

Second, who is Vaggie mad at? Context matters, and if we take a look at the episode, we see that Vaggie is literally only mad at two specific people: Angel Dust and Alastor. Why? Well, for starters, it's her girlfriend's dream to run a rehab hotel for sinners, and Angel Dust nearly demolishes that dream single-handedly. Vaggie has every right to be over-the-top vitriolic. Then there's Alastor, a known sadist, narcissist, and murderer who loves trapping people in his nefarious schemes. He invites himself in, effectively takes over the hotel, and pushes both her and Charlie aside. At one point he even sexually assaults her by slapping her butt during his musical number. So yeah, I think her seething ire is totally justified. Keep in mind, however, that when she's around Charlie she's calm, collected, and happy. I wouldn't call that a stereotype.

Thirdly, the lesbian stereotypes. I keep hearing this argument but I really don't see it. Both Vaggie and Charlie have so much personality and trust for each other. Maybe I'm wrong, but the stereotype I know always totes a more butch, tomboyish woman with a ditsy, innocent, naive woman. Charlie is optimistic, but she isn't stupid. She refuses to shake Alastor’s hand because she knows he’s likely trying to screw her over. She’s also not entirely innocent herself and uses words like “fuck” and “shit”. I also wouldn’t call Vaggie butch or tomboyish. She has a cute, girly presentation, complete with a pink ribbon in her hair, lace stockings, and a dress. She's protective of her girlfriend, as I think we all are with our partners, and there's nothing wrong with that. They're flawed characters, as every character is meant to be. This isn't a problem.

9. The show is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, blah, blah, blah.

I’m amazed this is even an argument. The show is supposed to be a dark comedy that takes place in HELL. You know, the place the worst of the worst end up after they die? What were you expecting? Everyone gets a shot or two fired at them, but that doesn't make them bad characters nor does it make the show itself horrible. Take, for example, Katie Killjoy, the news reporter so many people are up in arms about. She says she doesn’t “touch the gays” because she has “standards”. Well, here’s a newsflash of my own: we’re not supposed to like her! She’s an antagonist. Not to mention ten seconds later Charlie insults her and isn’t the least bit slighted by her pretentious attitude. The characters are strong and don’t take shit from anyone, because to some degree they’re all terrible people who can throw down when it’s called for.

Obviously if you don’t like the show or think it’s offensive, I’m probably not going to change your mind. That’s perfectly fine. You’re entitled to your opinions and you don’t have to watch the show. Just stop lying and stop trying to take it away from everybody else. Stop attacking Vivzie and spreading misinformation without checking the facts. I realise a lot of people probably aren’t trying to be vindictive and only want to do something good, but just remember this: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

#hazbin hotel #vivziepop #vivzie #alastor #angel dust #vaggie #charlie #timber #stephen universe #drama #radio demon

13K notes · View notes

hotchley · 3 years

Text

by any other name

So I wrote the fic inspired by this post. It's too long for a drabble. I kinda hate it. It's not been proofread and there's little plot. It's a bit anticlimactic, but it was fun in the moment and I need to go to sleep so... yeah. We're going with it. There's a happy ending!

Trigger Warnings: intrusive thoughts, past child abuse, trauma, trauma responses, implied panic attacks, food mention, blood mention, death mention, slight implication of past dissociative episodes, religion, religious trauma, religious themes

read on ao3!

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Aaron remembers being told that as a young boy, shifting in his seat because the clothes his mother made him wear to church were uncomfortable. It had confused him. He'd spent so long being told hell was for bad things- sometimes he was included in that list- that good seemed to be the exact opposite of that.

He'd tried to ask his mother, but she had silenced him with a look. He didn't even bother looking at his father.

Later he realised what it meant, and found himself agreeing. After all, his father was a terrible man who hurt everyone he touched, but he always said it was with good reason. Aaron hasn't set foot in a church since Haley was buried, yet he still finds himself wishing one of the men who made his life a misery is burning in hell.

He tries to not think about the implications of that too much.

The proverb comes to mind again as he argues with Jack. Not over anything serious- not in the grand scheme of things. But to a seven-year-old boy, navigating life without his mother, it is the most important thing in the world.

They're arguing over shoes.

Jack wants to wear sandals. His father wants him to wear trainers. Hotch had checked the weather forecast that morning- it was going to rain. And he didn't want Jack catching a cold because of it.

But then Jack's bottom lip starts to quiver, and he looks to his father like he's being told his mother is in heaven and Aaron thinks of the meaning behind the words. If he doesn't let this go, then what's to say he'll need to have the next thing go his way. And the thing after that. And the thing after that.

What's to say that when Jack looks back, wondering where everything went wrong and he stopped being his father's son, he will realise it was this moment?

"Okay. Okay, wear the sandals, and then let's get going," Aaron says.

Jack, completely and blissfully unaware- as he should be- of what his father has been thinking, grins, his earlier sadness forgotten. He puts his other shoe on and then runs out the door. Aaron picks up his bag and coat, smiling slightly at the trust Jack has in his ability.

Jack's teacher smiles at them when they get to his classroom. Knowing Aaron is running late, she just takes Jack's things and bids him goodbye. The relief visibly crosses his face as he realises he won't have to make small talk. He goes to tell her about Jack's bag, but she waves him away.

She's seen enough interactions between children to know what's going on. It's why she's so unsurprised when she opens his bag to see his trainers and favourite socks are neatly tucked away for when it does inevitably rain and soak him.

Aaron makes it to work on time. Of course he does.

"Morning Hotch," Anderson says when they get into the elevator together.

He's one of the few people to follow the "no inter-team profiling" rule, so he doesn't notice how some of the tension seems to bleed out of his boss' shoulders once the nickname is used. Doesn't even realise how Hotch gives him a slight smile when his back is turned.

He steps out, and everything is as it should be.

The ghost of his father may be haunting him more than usual, but Aaron spent most of his life being ignored. He knows how to hide. He knows how easy it is to forget about someone when you bury yourself in something else.

So that's exactly what he does. He logs into his computer, and he starts making his way through emails. By the time Emily- always the last to arrive, yet always on time- sits down, taking a few minutes to speak to the others, he's gotten through all the ones that came in last night.

His ear is hurting, but he chooses to ignore it as much as he can. Halfway through his second file, he opens his door. Spencer taps Derek, and a few minutes later, the rest of the team is assembled to collaborate on a profile. It means lots of talking, and the occasional shuffling of papers. It means noise, but not so much that it's unbearable.

Aaron smiles, and it feels like the ghost of his father fades. He is loved. He is cared for. He is worth time and effort.

Despite the nature of their work, he's in a good mood as the day continues.

By lunchtime, the memory of his father is breathing down his neck, criticising everything he does. His posture is crooked. His notes are too messy. His profile isn't good enough, and the killer is going to get away with their crimes.

Just like Michael Hotchner.

He has no idea where the sudden bad day is coming from, but he can't shake it now. He will not waste the day and he will not give in, but it is just one of those days where the pain is so much more than he thinks he can tolerate. He wishes he knew how to cope properly, but he doesn't.

His pen suddenly snaps. He'd been holding it too tightly, and now his hands are covered in red ink. He was annotating. He always annotates in red, but now, as it stains his hands, all he sees is Haley's blood. Foyet's. Elle's. Kate's.

There are no tissues in his room. So he goes to the bathroom, hoping the team doesn't see what's happened. They don't, but they do hatch a plan.

Again: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The short walk does nothing to clear his head, and every second he spends looking at the file is a second in which he thinks about the pen just suddenly breaking. How did he not realise? How did he not know? This time it was the pen. A thing.

What happens when it's a person? Then what?

He thinks he hears someone call his name. But that's ridiculous. It's too late for lunch, and too early for anything else. If someone needed something, they would've knocked on his door, especially with his ears acting up the way they were.

"Aaron Michael Hotchner," Derek shouts.

He doesn't like using Aaron's full name, but they got him a doughnut from his favourite bakery, and he can't be bothered to walk all the way up to his office. Also, Aaron didn't respond the first three times they called for him, so if anything, the shock will force him away from his desk for a few moments. God only knows how much he needs it.

Aaron doesn't hear Derek's voice.

He hears the echo of his father.

His throat starts to close. His vision starts to blur.

There is nowhere to hide. Not in his office. He used to have spots, just in case, but Jack hates it. Jack cannot stand it, so Aaron got rid of all the things that made it possible. He would never make his son hurt the way his father made him hurt, and maybe to him that is nothing, but when Jack grows up- because he will, in time- he will realise how brave his father has always been.

But that is the future.

In the present, Aaron has nowhere to turn.

The walls are closing in.

The voice is getting louder. It is getting closer. The danger is coming towards him, and he has nowhere to hide. He has nowhere to turn.

"Aaron?" Someone says.

He lets out a sound. He presses his hand to his mouth. He cannot take it back, but he won't make another one. It will only make things worse for him. He learnt that lesson long ago.

"Hotch." A different voice. A safe voice.

He turns in that direction.

He doesn't see it, but Derek Morgan's face is filled with relief and anger and sadness all at once. Because it suddenly makes sense.

"Aaron" has been tainted by the mouth of the man who gave his friend his middle name. That man and his actions are the reason Jack's middle name is Derek, not Aaron. "Hotch" has never passed Michael's lips, and it never will. "Hotch" is the man, who didn't even flinch when a bullet wedged itself in the wall next to his head.

Aaron is the boy that cried himself to sleep, wondering why his father couldn't love him the way he was meant to.

"Hotch. You're safe. Breathe with me," he says.

Hotch does.

When the panic passes, the heat rises to his cheeks, and he silently pleads with Derek to not say a word. He realises now that the other voice was Dave. Dave, who has left the room. He feels like he's failed another father.

The door and blinds are closed. He's lost all sense of time, but he feels grounded, so it isn't too concerning.

"Thank you," he whispers. For everything, goes unsaid.

"You don't need to do that," Derek replies. Because it's not difficult. Not when it's you, are the words unspoken but still communicated.

Aaron manages a weak smile. It will be a silent understanding between them, just like so many other things.

"Would you like a moment?" Derek asks him.

Hotch doesn't trust his voice, so he just nods. Derek leaves him.

Only once he stops hearing the footsteps does he break.

He doesn't scream, even though he wants to. It has been thirty years. His body stopped knowing the touch of that man long ago, and yet every waking moment feels like it is ruled by him. He hates it, but Michael- for better or for worse- made him the man he is today, and there is no way to shake that.

Realistically, he knows that he is responsible for his actions, and that he was only influenced by his father up to a certain point, but when the tears are falling and dampening his trousers- not his shirt, they'll be too obvious- rationale is hard to cling to.

He walks down ten minutes later.

The team has been guarding his doughnut. Of course they have.

Hotch's eyes are red. Nobody comments. But everyone knows. Everyone understands now.

It is an uncomfortable silence, and it is uncomfortable to watch him try and pretend he is perfectly fine, but at least he got his treat, even though it tastes like dust in his mouth.

They get it now. Why he is always so adamant about being called Hotch. Why he hates the use of his first name. Why he so violently objected to the tradition of giving Jack his name as a middle name. Because he doesn't want his son to never be free of him.

Jack will one day give his children their grandfather's name, citing him as the greatest man he's ever known.

Again, that is the future.

In the present moment, Spencer calls him Hotch without a second thought. Dave stops calling him Aaron when he wants to get a point across, realising it only works due to fear. Emily continues to make slight alterations to the nickname that either get her an eye roll or look of horror. JJ and Penelope make sure any notes written to him use Hotch.

Derek doesn't change a thing, because their bond has always been different.

Jack comes home in trainers, understanding how much his father loves him.

It makes Hotch understand that his wishes are valid. His needs matter. His comfort is important to people.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the personalities attached to Hotchner, Hotch and Aaron merge into one.

And then Hotch introduces himself as Aaron.

The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but intentions and actions are very different things that can completely alter the destination someone finds themselves at. And a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, so whether he is Hotch or Aaron, he is a good man, who found a way to defeat their father.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #sad aaron hotchner #tw intrusive thoughts #tw past child abuse #tw trauma #tw trauma response #tw food mention #tw blood mention #tw death mention #tw religion #tw religious trauma #tw religious themes

50 notes · View notes

randomnameless · 2 years

Note

I think people generally overestimate Lyon's agency actually. The one (or two) thing he did relatively freely was order the Stone's seal to be opened and attempt to use DK's power to revive Vigarde and stop earthquakes, and that was when he felt like he was cornered with no other options. Notably he didn't even break the seal himself, he ordered Knoll. But after that he can no longer even be confidently separated from Fomo. Even before that he'd already had his vision of the paths and all...

Well...

Lyon was responsible for supervising the researches on the Sacred Stone, knowing well what was inside :

It burned within with the Demon King’s rage, and we called it the Fire Emblem. Prince Lyon and a team of mages skilled in ancient lore hoped to harness its energies. I remember the joy in Prince Lyon’s eyes when he spoke of using it to save lives.

The thing with the saved child happened before Vigarde's death - from Knoll's supports, he saw the earthquake (that will destroy half of Grado) at the time, or just before Vigarde's death.

Lyon thought he and his friends would be able to control the energies produced by the DK... which was his only mistake.

This is the agency I was talking about, Lyon, feeling inadequate/jealous of Ephraim and Eirika wanted to become someone worthy to their eyes, and played with Fomortiis. They all wanted to be great rulers (save for Ephraim) and all wanted to work and help the people, but feeling like a weakling, Lyon thought he needed something else to be to their level, even if that something was the literal Devil his ancestor sealed.

And it is because of this complex relationship that Ephraim, in his route, completely shatters - he always thought Lyon was the kind and gentle mage friend he had, and never tried to understand him, or saw the jealousy (and it's perfectly normal to be jealous of Ephraim who is supposed to be a super chad in this verse) inside. If Ephraim had been a "better" friend to Lyon, he might have been able to see how much his friend needed him, and to tell him that no, he doesn't need the DK to be strong, he has his own set of qualities Chad!Ephraim didn't possess.

It is a bit different for Eirika, who trusted Lyon even when she had her own doubts, she trusted in his kindness and in his intentions...

The power of the Sacred Stones is too powerful to be used for personal gain. But you, Lyon… I think you’ll be fine. You’re the kindest person I know

But Eirika later comes to learn, in her route, how the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It does not matter what Lyon's intentions were, because to reach his goal, he played with Fire, and was burnt - but also burnt the entire continent. In her route, Eirika witness Joshua's arc, he had good intentions, to understand how the common people live, Joshua wanted to be worthy and then returning to Jehanna to become a good King... but it was ultimately worthless, because Jehanna was destroyed, and Ismaire was killed.

I have learned much, but I’ve lost much more.

Back to Lyon, if we remove his "I will work with Fomortiis because I want to help the people and be worth something in my friend's eyes" agency to put it all on Riev, then, imo, the game loses a lot.

Destroying the stones and all is actually secondary, but the one thing he must have done, alone without Riev Riev'ing in his ears, alone for the themes of the game to work is to work on Fomortiis' stone.

#anon #replies #FE8 #Magvel stuff #Lyon is a complicated character imo #and a complex one he can be sympathetic and also manipulative #well he's a character not a trope #he can both want to help the people but also up his game to be worthy of the twin's friendship #and the drama is how he should have asked for help or even told them #Eirika tells him he cannot do everything on his own #but still he thinks he can and that's the drama #otoh knowing what was inside Grado's stone and thinking they could harness it #he was naive #or maybe Eph's chadness corrupted him

18 notes · View notes

mxvladdy · 3 years

Text

Birthday Boyos

A/N: A quick little fluff piece I thought would be cute for the twins. Hope y’all like!

It was a disaster. A beautiful, glorious disaster. Honestly, you can’t remember the last time you had smiled this hard. Your cheeks burned with fatigue, but damn if you couldn’t stop. How does that old saying go? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. You and the gang could proudly say just that.

The cake was lopsided and the caramel for the apples was burning away on the stove. It had all gone up in smoke, literally. That's fine. At least the cupcakes were still good. Levi groans heavily. “I had one job.” He looks down distastefully at the tar like caramel. “It looks so much easier on my anime…” The goop blorps back up at him offended.

“It’s fine,” You come up behind him to glance at the concoction. You wrinkle your nose at the jiggling glob. “You know Beel will love it regardless. Think of it as adding… a smokey flavor.” He scoffs dismissively but pulls out another pan to try again. You don’t take it personally, the smile you wanted to see was there when you left. Moving from his station you peak out into the hall. You had to check on your “guard”.

“Need some help?” You ask, making a point of firmly shutting the kitchen door behind you.

“Nope,” Mammon gurgles sarcastically from the headlock Beelzebub had him in. His dark skin slowly growing a deep shade of purple. “”M just peachy. H-how bout you Satan?”

“No complaints here.” Came his brother’s dry remark. He looked up at you from the floor, just as disheveled as the second born. Clearly he had been thrown to the floor from the Beel’s back. You nod, hiding a laugh behind a well placed cough. You round on Belphie.

“You not going to help?”

He shrugs from his place on the balcony railing. “I want in too.” He hugs his body pillow nonplus. He was content to just watch his twin decimate his older brothers.

“Well, it’s not much of a surprise if you peak now.” You try to reason. He clearly didn’t care, and neither did his twin.

“I smell cake.” Beel pouts.

“I- I bet big guy.” Mammon crokes hand desperately patting at Beel’s curled bicep to let him up.

“Killing Mammon isn’t going to get you cake any faster.” You say eyeing the a vivid array of colors Mammon was turning. It was starting to get worrying. “Let him up.”

“What?” Beel looks down. “Oh-sorry I forgot.” Mammon collapses next to Satan (who wasn’t even trying to get up) clutching his neck and coughing. “Can I eat now?” The red head throws you the most pathetic look.

“How about this, give us till the end of the day and I’ll make sure you get a second cake all to yourself.” You bargain. Beel’s eyes light up at the thought. “Only,” You add quickly. “Only if you and Belphie can behave.”

“Oi!”

You both ignore sloth’s protest eyes solely on his twin. Beel nods and scoops up Belphie despite his protests. He heads back to their room without a word. Satisfied that you would be left alone at least for a few more hours you turn to the other two still on the ground. “You two going to make it?” You ask, offering a hand to the fallen brothers.

“I think only my pride has been damaged,” Satan says. He dusts himself off with a huff. “I wasn’t expecting him to body check me over food.”

“Really?”

Satan shakes his head. “Well-I thought I would at least get a warning.”

“Lucky you.” You and Satan turn to Mammon. He rubs at his sore throat and throws his cracked sunglasses to the floor. “Why’d you get the soft treatment.”

“Good looks, renowned intellect, a sense of self-preservation…” The blonde starts ticking off his fingers.

“Ok! Ya know what!” Mammon swats at his brother’s hands. You leave the two to bicker after giving them one more look over and a promise to sneak a few cupcakes off for just the two of them as a thank you.

Once back in the kitchens you grab back up your piping bag. “How’re the decorations going Asmo?”

“Fabulously! They are resting now! Want some help with the candy pearls?”

“Yes, please. Did you finish chilling that second cake? I told you we would need it.” You add a little flourish to the cursive letting of the cake. Wasn’t the prettiest but Asmo gave it a thumbs up anyway. Tossing the empty bags and bowls into the sink you look to Levi. “Hey, Levi, if the apples are ready to cool can you check on Lucifer? I think we are all set to get this party started!”

“Hai~”

____________________________________________________________

“Happy Birthday!” The room at large shouts together. Confetti and balloons drop from the ceiling. The latter rattling noisily as they plummet to the ground, the candies inside bouncing on impact.

“Look, Belphie it’s you!” Beel grins around a large mouthful of icing and marbled cake putting a cupcake on his twin’s plate. The little sleeping cow made of icing rest peacefully on its dark chocolate base. The youngest looks delighted at the detailing, his eyes shifting to the dessert table ladened with sleeping bovine.

“Make sure to save some more for me ok?” Beel nods, already eyeing the table bowing with smoked meats and sweetbreads, a present from Barbatos and Diavolo. “Thanks.” Belphie comes up to you. He pulls you close into a one-armed hug looking out at all the festivities. You press a light kiss to his cheek pushing a neatly wrapped gift into his chest. Half eaten cupcake forgotten he turns his full attention to the package. It was lumpy and had some give when he squeezed it. How exciting. Belphie unwraps it slowly, taking his time with the tape and edges of the fragile paper. “Oh…” He gasps holding up his present to eye level.

“Hope you like it,” You grin. “I remember you eyeing it last time we were top-side.” He hugs the corgi pillow close to his chest breathing in deeply. You didn’t know it but your scent lingered in the soft fabric. It added the perfect final touch to this thoughtful gift.

“What did you get Beel?” He asks, pulling at the dog's little pink tongue.

“Luci helped me get him some new weights and I ordered some specialty protein powders from the human realm. They were banned for human consumption, but I found a dealer. I don’t think Beel would have a problem with them. I also still need to give him his birthday kiss.”

Belphie side eyes you then his brother. “Hmph, he seems busy. I want it.”

You laugh but pull him in for another. He was one of the birthday boys after all.

#obey me fandom #obey me belphegor #Obey me beelzebub #mini fic

55 notes · View notes

mamahersh · 3 years

Text

The Road to Hell (is Paved with Good Intentions) Chapter 2

“Season 8 was well underway, and the server’s first conflict is bubbling just under the surface. But BDoubleO can’t worry about that right now because he has an Etho to find so they can work on the Horse Course together. However when Xisuma calls a surprise server meeting on behalf of EvilXisuma, BDubs gets his answers about where Etho’s been in the worst way possible.”

(CW: angst, blood, gore)

Chapter rating: M

Now in Etho’s POV

Chapter 1 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4

Welcome to my first attempt at Ethoslab angst! I wanted an nHo-centric fic with a heavy dose of Etho angst. I have nowhere else to post this, and fair warning I am terrible at characterizations, so everyone will probably be a bit OOC to some extent; but for sure EvilX will be very OOC in how evil he is in this one. The Rating for this and later chapters is a solid M, so be warned about that. If y’all have suggestions or feedback, feel free to come and say hi!

P.S. I got my inspiration for this fic from this fic over here! Give them some love too.

Chapter 2 (below the cut)

The first thing Etho noticed when he awoke was that his mask was still in place on his face.

The second thing he awoke to was a sharp throbbing in his arms and legs. Biting back a hiss of pain, he opened his eyes and looked around to figure out why he was in such pain and sitting upright.

He appeared to be in a dark room, plain stone walls on all sides he could see, and a stone floor. The roof above seemed to be some basalt variant and a darkened redstone lamp was above his head, implying an almost spotlight effect on where he was sitting when turned on. Looking more at himself, he could see that there were spiked cuffs on his wrists, ankles, and neck; spiked in such a way that the spikes were on the insides of the cuffs, so that each movement of those affected body parts dug them further into the spikes and causing him more pain. Admittedly, the ones on his wrists and ankles were already in fairly deep due to how tight his captor had adjusted them. A further perusal of himself, led him to believe at least one of his ribs was broken due to how painful it was to breathe at the moment. He also seemed to be covered in a plethora of bruises and scrapes, indicating either an altercation or a bad fall.

Etho took a moment to collect his thoughts and try to remember what had happened before he had fallen asleep. Last thing he remembered, he had been out on another midnight deal making spree with Xisuma and Evil Xisuma. Admittedly, Xisuma had been acting a bit off since the last server meeting, asking for midnight anything was fairly out of character, and his sudden complete trust in EX was somewhat concerning even in the best of times. But this certainly hadn’t been the best of times. Their midnight haggling had been slowly getting more antagonistic over the last couple of weeks and Etho had been planning on cutting off any further dealings with the Derpcoin pioneers to keep both himself and Iskall’s diamond investment safe. However, last night the haggling had gotten quickly out of hand, EvilXisuma not taking any of his excuses for why Iskall and himself couldn’t actually use Derpcoin in their shops.

The last thing Etho can remember is EvilXisuma yelling and angrily gesturing before there was a sudden pain at the back of his head, and the world going black. ‘Well that explains the headache and sudden displacement from our weekly meeting place,’ thought Etho, idly flexing his fingers and toes to make sure that everything was still working properly. (They were). Didn’t explain the broken ribs and looking (and feeling) like he had been through a wood chipper, but that could be written off as EvilXisuma wanting to rough him up for some reason. Which was weird, because last Etho had checked, EvilXisuma had claimed that he had turned over a new leaf. Not to say anyone trusted him when he said that, particularly Etho, but over the opening couple of months on the server, EvilXisuma had kept true to his word. He had kept to his Derpcoin empire, and kept a ruthless rapport going with his business competition; but he’d never resorted to the violence and underhanded villainy that had characterized his previous attempts at taking over the server before he was banished to the Void. Except for now apparently.

Which led to the next question of why? Why Etho? Why would EvilXisuma desire to kidnap and rough up him? He certainly didn’t have important connections with any businesses this season. He also didn’t have any close partners this season outside of Iskall. Well, ok, he had that deal with Doc recently, and he was building the horse course with BDubs; but neither of those could possibly have anything to do with EvilXisuma’s Derpcoin empire. Plus, the people who were resisting Derpcoin, had nothing to do with him, and cared for him only as Hermits care for their own. (Which was a lot admittedly, but in this case, it didn’t seem like a logical choice. They all cared for each other, and there were far better bargaining chips on the table than him.)

A sudden bang of an iron door behind Etho startled him from his reverie, along with a flash of the overhead light as the redstone activated. Jerking his head to the side to see who it was, caused a stab of pain in his neck and a sudden wet sensation on his neck and shoulder. He instantly jerked back into place, silently hissing at the sudden pain. “Well, well, well,” started a familiar evil voice from behind him. “I see you’re awake!” With a final tap of his boots, EvilXisuma stepped into Etho’s visual range. “I hope you have found your accommodations suitable?”

Etho rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure, I love being tied up on a chair in a dramatically lit room with no explanation as to why.”

Evil Xisuma chuckled, and leaned forward to trail his hand along Etho’s forearm. “I’m glad they did what they were meant to then. Can’t have you too comfortable for my upcoming show, now can I?” With a sudden tightening of his grip on Etho’s forearm, he quickly twisted it and pulled the arm closer to Etho; tearing the skin and one or two of the outer tendons in his wrist due to the spikes in the cuff, causing Etho to yell in pain. Etho bit down on his tongue to cut off his yell, though he couldn’t quite mute his own whimpers of agony as EvilXisuma let go of his arm.

“Th-that…”, Etho managed to hiss out between his teeth. “That w-as compl’tely unnecess’ry.”

EvilXisuma hummed beside him, a long thin sharp bit of metal suddenly in EvilXisuma’s hand. “Perhaps,” he mused, seemingly eyeing the arm he hadn’t touched. Etho’s anxiety spiked as EvilXisuma slowly paced his way around behind and to the other side of Etho’s chair, lightly dragging the piece of metal along Etho’s arms and shoulders as he went. Then, as suddenly as he had clutched Etho’s right arm, he stabbed down with the metal stake into Etho’s left forearm, impaling it to the chair. Etho yelled again, but quickly silenced himself, unwilling to show the sadistic bastard just how much pain he was in. “However, that was entirely necessary, as will be the next 3.” Etho felt his heart stop for a moment as he looked over to see if EvilXisuma was in an uncharacteristically joking mood.

He was completely serious. Oh Lord, he was completely serious.

“Nonononono, n-now come on Evil X, my guy, this is all very unnecessary,” stuttered Etho, fingers rapidly flexing despite the pain both his arms were now in as EvilXisuma pulled another long metal stake out of his inventory.

“Hmm, I disagree Ethoslab. But if you continue to be excessively disagreeable, I shall have to take steps to make you more agreeable.” EvilXisuma lined up the stake on Etho’s upper arm. Then, with a sudden lunge, EvilXisuma pinned Etho’s upper arm to the chair; making it so his entire left arm was basically unusable. Etho yelped and the rest of him squirmed in subdued agony as he tried to block out the new pain in his arm. His yelp morphed into a whine, but he pushed through the pain to try and pay attention to what Xisuma was doing as he moved around the back of the chair.

“W-what do you even accomplish w-with this stunt anyways?”

“What do I accomplish? Currently I’m making sure you won’t get away. It’s imperative you don’t escape during the stream after all.” Most of that went over Etho’s head, pain addled as it was. But what stuck out to him the most was the “stream” part. He had heard of those from some of the other Hermits, BDubs and Doc the only two from the old NHO that had picked up the habit. However, what mattered to him, was that it was a way to show other people something at the same time you were doing it. Meaning that EvilXisuma wanted to accomplish something for someone in real time, and Etho was being used for it.

His thoughts were once again cut off as another spike was jabbed through his other lower arm. This time, he was able to keep his vocalizations to a minimum, only whining in pain as the new wave of agony overtook him. But before he could completely acclimatize himself, the final spike was shoved through his right upper arm. He screamed, and the edges of his vision went dark as his right arm was immobilized completely. His scream petered out, and sat huffing as Evil Xisuma stood in front of him, staring impassively down at him.

“Hmmm, I just don’t know…” mumbled EvilXisuma, continuing to stare at Etho. Etho continued huffing through his mask, though the bad feeling from earlier hadn’t left, and only seemed to be increasing and he began to take more notice of his surroundings. He really didn’t like how EvilXisuma was staring at his face. “It’s so hard to read your expressions with this mask on your face. What do you think? Should I take it off now or later?” Etho did a full body twitch, agony lancing across his arms as he instinctively went to reach for his face to protect his mask.

“You absolute asshole,” Etho hissed, head cringing as far back as he could pull it into the seat to get away from EvilXisuma’s wandering hand that had started for his mask. (This despite the sharp spikes that were actively digging into the back of his neck causing blood to layer into the back of his shirt). “You touch my mask and you won’t like what I do.” EvilXisuma chuckled at that, clearly amused that Etho thought he would be able to do anything to him.

“Oh I’m sure someday you’ll ensure I’m fairly miserable.” EvilXisuma reached forward and slowly began lowering Etho’s mask. However, EvilXisuma was unprepared as Etho twisted his head and snapped up at EvilXisuma’s hand, biting through the protective gauntlet and into the hand beneath. EvilXisuma flinched back, ripping his hand out of Etho’s now exposed mouth. However, as Etho pulled back himself, he began to shake as the fresh pain of deepend wounds on his neck overtook him.

“Th-that’s what you get…” he rasped, energy waning as EvilXisuma continued to stay away. “Try that a-again, and I’ll r-remove a f-finger.” For a moment, EvilXisuma was still, his own mask making it impossible to tell what he was feeling. Then he began to laugh, a deep full bodied laugh. He cackled and wheezed, and Etho grit his teeth, because this would not end well.

“Oh Etho, your sense of humor never ceases to amuse me.” EvilXisuma turned away, and began to fiddle with his communicator. Suddenly, a floating box appeared in the air in front of him, a circular glass piece embedded in the side facing the two of them. Etho gave it a curious glance, but kept his focus otherwise entirely on EvilXisuma, too worried about the backlash to his comment. He knew how this worked, and he knew EvilXisuma was not going to take his threat lightly, despite how he had initially reacted. He watched as EvilXisuma turned back to him, and went back to making considering “hmm”-ing noises. “You know Etho, I don’t know what I want to do first once the livestream is up.” He walked up again in front of Etho and crouched down into a squat. “After all, I was initially planning on just roughing you up a bit, do something memorable to start it off.” He then reached out and trailed a finger along the back of Ehto’s left hand. Etho tried to suppress his instinctual flinch, but it was in vain as the twitch still caused agony to lance up his arm and forced a whimper from between his lips. EvilXisuma smirked at this and continued, “however, you threatening my fingers got me thinking, that maybe I could remove one or two of yours…” He gently trailed down Etho’s middle finger before jumping to the upper arm’s stake and lightly circling it. Etho took a shaky breath, the pain slightly easier to ignore now, perhaps because his mind was starting to block most of it out. “But you’ve been very mouthy, and I’m not feeling particularly generous about your speaking and biting privileges right now.” EvilXisuma had by this point circumnavigated the chair, and was back to standing ominously in front of Etho’s line of sight. “But all this is idle speculation. We shall find out what I’ll do momentarily.”

With that, EvilXisuma stepped off to the side, and began typing frantically into his communicator. At this point, Etho was just distanced enough from himself that he idly wished he had access to his communicator to find out what Evil Xisuma was typing into chat. Then he realized if he had access to his communicator he could call for help. But he didn’t know where he was. But his communicator would have exact coordinates. But he didn’t have his communicator. But if he did, he could let Iskall know he’d be late getting back to the base because some asshole had tied him up in their basement. Which looped him back to his surroundings, which had EvilXisuma suddenly leaning down next to his ear and saying, “Now behave Ethoslab, you’re the star of the show after all.” And then with a surprising lack of further fanfare, a light on the box blinked on, and EvilXisuma began his speech.

#ethoslab #etho #hermitcraft #Evil Xisuma #Xisuma #Xisumavoid #hc fanfiction #hc fanfic #blood #gore #mutilation #torture #graphic depictions of violence #help I don't know what to tag this

13 notes · View notes

madsinartime · 3 years

Text

thoughts about tfatws

aka cacw (2021) ;)

this will be kinda long, so more under the cut!

Sam and Bucky

i love their relationship. whether you ship them or see them as bros this show gives you everything you could want. sam and bucky’s character and relationship development are the best parts of the show. sam learns to overcome his insecurities and pick up the shield, bucky learns to forgive himself and move on from the winter soldier. although to be honest, who let the fanfic writers into marvel? the couples’ therapy scene and rolling in the flower field are straight (not) out of ao3.

sam wilson IS captain america. i hope that in future movies he’ll continue to be political and an activist, not just focus on all the avenger threats and forget about the stuff that continues to happen on the ground. sam’s a guy who follows through. let’s see him at marches, rallies, campaigning for something better. the show was a step up in representation about different perspectives than the usual mcu stuff and i hope they continue with that.

bucky! him living with the wilsons’ is canon now. i love that he’s finally got his happy ending :) i hope he’ll be in black panther, at least a lil cameo! i think he is great friends with t’challa shuri and all the dora milaje! maybe a bit of how he became known as white wolf? or earning the title? he definitely trained with the dora, rmb how he threw that pole like a spear :D

Zemo

i kinda like zemo as a character now. he’s definitely still a terrible person but hey. he’s a fun guy. he even got the last laugh with orchestrating blowing up the rest of the super soldiers from prison. i wonder what he’ll do about john walker? US agent is definitely the guy zemo hates. would be a cool subplot in a future movie/show.

Sharon Carter

this is such a step up for her from winter soldier and civil war! she’s a badass shield special agent and it really showed. her fight scene in the shipyard is one of my favourite. making her a villain? i mean i kinda get why she’ll be so jaded from being on the run for years. there are some theories where she’s like a skrull,, but idk. the part where she’s the power broker seemed a bit ?? at first, but here’s what i think:

sharon didn’t get blipped. it was shown in endgame but she could have disappeared and so everyone assumed she was dusted. 5 years seems a bit short to build a criminal empire, plus zemo had heard of the power broker and he was in jail the whole time. in those 5 years maybe the original power broker got blipped, and in the power vacuum (lol) sharon took over. makes sense why zemo would think the power broker was a dude. after everyone returned maybe sharon killed the power broker for real or he’s out there hiding and we’ll see the two go at each other. that could be fun to see. as for leading sam bucky and zemo to dr nagle, sharon was playing the long game. nagle maybe was upset with her/not doing so well and she wanted to get rid of him so no one else could get the formula. or she’s already compiled his notes and decided he was a liability. leading the gang to dr nagle and defending them against the bounty hunters (remember someone had to know and send out the message after killing selby) would put her in sam’s good graces and he would get her pardoned, then she could operate outside of madripoor (maybe getting away from the original power broker). anyway i think it would be cool to see what she gets up to in the future.

The Flag Smashers

hmmm. i liked them at the start of the show. karli was young and radicalised by the life after the blip, and she wanted a better life. which is great. i know the flag smashers’ plot was a bit messed up by the pandemic and the had to rewrite some stuff, and the writer’s did a good job considering. still, i dislike how the entire flag smashers became villainized by just karli’s extreme actions. i think that she could’ve had better character development, like john walker’s, where she was out to do good and then because of the serum she became too extreme and spiraled. the first time people get killed is because of an accident. also at the end the whole thing seemed driven by karli, and rest of them were like uhh what are u doing girl. could have been better, but alright, i guess.

in future movies, i hope that we’ll see the flag smashers again. remember they were a global network (with parallels to hydra, which is like, not cool, marvel) with supporters all over the world. just because the leaders were killed off doesn’t mean the movement would stop.

John Walker

marvel’s stepping up with their villain game, which is awesome. john’s negative character development was great and quite believable, considering the way the american government treats its veterans. john likely has trauma and ptsd and a whole host of other stuff that led to his going crazy, all amplified by the serum. he’s a really good example of ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’. he does want to be a good person, like him saving the truck instead of going after karli showed, but that doesn’t fully redeem him. let your villains be villains marvel. let him go off, azula style. (not sure marvel is the type to let that happen, but it would be awesome to explore john’s psyche like that.)

Lemar Hoskins

*sigh* i feel like marvel let us down with this one. all the progressiveness in this show and they had to kill off the black sidekick to further the white man’s character arc. come on. i have Thoughts about this. see, this could have been an amazing opportunity to explore lemar and john’s characters. john’s spiral off the deep end, lemar having to reconcile his best friend with this guy, who is nothing like the great man he once knew. everone thinks that john is irredeemable, lemar keeps trying to get him to therapy. john goes crazy from the serum, lemar having to fight against his brother. lemar goes to bucky and asks for help, because he thinks it’s like what happened with the winter soldier thing. bucky learns to help someone he disliked because he too can see the similarities and that john does need help. in the end, john goes full evil and has to be taken down by his best friend. the parallels this would have had with the steve/bucky relationship, yall.

lol if u got this far, congrats and thanks for reading my rambles :D just out here Thinking my Thoughts

#the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws #sam wilson #bucky barnes #sharon carter #zemo #the flag smashers #john walker #lemar hoskins

14 notes · View notes

sokkastyles · 3 years

Text

Thanks for asking! I realize I never elaborated on the Jet/Zuko parallels so here goes.

Season one Zuko/Jet are both extremists, though on opposite sides of the war. Zuko will stop at nothing to capture the Avatar. Jet will stop at nothing to rid the world of the Fire Nation. Zuko is the fallen prince, while Jet is the war orphan, both trying to restore what they’ve lost. And both have significant interactions with Katara.

Focusing on book one first, I’ve already written about how Jet manipulates Katara, which makes it worse not only because she did have romantic feelings for him, but because she was totally taken in by his whole freedom fighter thing. He also manipulates Aang and tries to manipulate Sokka, but Katara was the main one who felt betrayed by him. Katara has such a big heart and fighting spirit but at this point in the story she is fairly naive, and it shows here. She probably never considered before this episode that somebody fighting on the right side could be a bad person.

I also looked up the mouth wheat thing because I’ve seen it a lot in anime for similar “tough guy” characters and as that other post I reblogged said, it is a stand-in for cigarettes. I also found out that it’s supposed to represent a banchou, which is a juvenile delinquent gang-leader. And Jet is the leader of a bunch of feral kids, although they are ostensibly revolutionaries. Longshot, Smellerbee, and the Duke do seem like they have good intentions, and they often call Jet out on his behavior.

I also think there’s a comparison/foil with Katara’s interactions with Zuko in book one, which revolve around the necklace and his attempted kidnapping of her. Zuko tries to manipulate Katara using her mother’s necklace but is not very good at it. Not necessarily because he has any moral compunctions but because he’s just not that socially adept. He is most often the victim of his father and sister’s manipulations and the few times he tries to copy them he fails ridiculously, because he is incredibly literal-minded. He’s blunt and often fails to understand things that aren’t directly spelled out. He is not a manipulator.

I’ve also seen people compare Jet flooding the Fire Nation village to Zuko burning down Kyoshi Island, in order to make Zuko look worse, but as I’ve said before, Zuko burning down Kyoshi Island was not intentional, it was something that happened as a result of reckless firebending. That doesn’t make it any less bad, but it seems like it’s been popular recently to add this to the list of things that make Zuko “problematic,” so much so that I actually forgot that scene and was surprised when I rewatched the scene recently and discovered it wasn’t the intentional razing of the village that some people on tumblr make it out to be. Zuko’s fault there was simply not caring about the collateral damage in his pursuit of Aang. He wasn’t intentionally trying to burn down the village. Plus, if we were being honest, all the gaang would cause destruction wherever they went given how much bending they do. That’s not something the show dwells on, though, the way that superhero movies don’t dwell on New York getting destroyed for the hundredth time (unless it’s a deconstruction of the genre).

What Jet does is much more deliberate. He’s aware that what he tricks Katara and Aang into doing will cause the deaths of innocents, and dismisses Smellerbee when she tells him so, and he’s aware that the gaang will not approve of his actions enough to hide it from them. There’s also an interesting elemental parallel/foil, Jet destroys a village with water and Zuko destroys one with fire - foreshadowing that water can also be destructive? Hama, anyone? Robert Frost said it.

I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great, and would suffice.

Anyway.

Book two, the Jet/Zuko parallels/foils are much more explicit, and highlighted by the fact that they actually meet in book two. Zuko’s on redemption road, although he doesn’t know it yet. Jet explicitly states that he wants redemption, although he’s still doing the same things he was doing before. He enlists Zuko in helping him steal stuff because he thinks he’s entitled to it, and I guess you can argue about whether it was justified, since the captain was treating the refugees unfairly, but Jet mostly seems interested in stealing food for himself and his group. To be fair, Prince “ew, poor people” Zuko doesn’t exactly have egalitarian motives, either, which is why helping Jet steal food is a regression in his arc. It’s him donning the Blue Spirit identity (although without the mask) once more because he’s trying to get closer to the material life that he lost. It’s also hilarious that when Jet asks Zuko to do this, Zuko’s dumb ass is like “well, Uncle did tell me to make friends.” Sometimes I wonder who was more naive, book one Katara or book two Zuko. Iroh is like “god, I leave him alone for five minutes and he joins a gang.”

When Jet keeps pressing Zuko about joining the Freedom Fighters, Zuko says no. Again, not for any moral reasons, but because he knows that if Jet keeps pressing, he might find out who Zuko really is. Zuko is honest with Jet when he says “I don’t think you want me in your group.” Not for good reasons, again, but the claim that Zuko somehow manipulated Jet is absolutely wrong. Jet was the one who approached Zuko and made assumptions and got pushy when Zuko said no.

Jet does genuinely want and try to change, but his major temptation is finding out that Iroh is a firebender, which he finds out right after he gets pissed that Zuko rejected him so I do think that was part of his motivation for going after them, considering how pushy Jet acted with the gaang when they rebuffed him. Jet, of course, fails the test, although what happens to him certainly isn’t his fault, even if he did make mistakes. It’s a tragedy that in the end, the choice to turn his life around was taken from him, and he was betrayed by the people who he thought were the good guys. This also highlights the theme that sometimes people on the “good” side can be not nice people, which in turn paves the way for Zuko’s redemption and the wider theme that it is actions that matter the most, not which nation you are from. Separation is an illusion, folks.

Zuko’s test happens first when he attempts to steal Appa, the last time he dons the Blue Spirit mask, and then in “The Crossroads of Destiny.” Unlike Jet, Zuko doesn’t know he’s being tested, he doesn’t know he needs to change, although Iroh keeps telling him he does. The change happens in Zuko without him realizing it.

Katara tries to heal Jet, and Jet dies. Katara almost heals Zuko, and Zuko betrays her. And this time Aang is the one who almost dies, who Katara has to heal. This certainly contributes to Katara’s mistrust of Zuko later on, all three of these events tied together. And all three boys are people she has romantic tension with.

Which brings me to another reason I dislike Jet, or rather, what he is meant to be in Katara’s story. Many people have pointed out that Katara is romantically attracted to Jet, and his superficial resemblance both to the “bad boy” trope, and to Zuko. There’s a reason Zutara shippers make this comparison, although I believe its purpose in the narrative was actually to be anti Zutara and provide support for Kataang, but because the writers really didn’t know how to write Kataang properly, it ends up as the opposite.

Recently I saw a post by a popular blog that was anti Zutara that cited Jet as an example of Katara having “low standards.” And like, I can’t entirely blame the post for its misogyny (Katara is FOURTEEN) because this is what the writers want us to think. Katara’s attraction to Jet is very much playing on the “girl develops a crush on the jerk who doesn’t care about her” stereotype. This is, subtly, one of the ways that the show punishes Katara for not returning Aang’s crush. Interestingly, in this episode Aang doesn’t get jealous of Jet at all, and doesn’t even notice Katara’s attraction, but that’s because Aang in this episode is also still naive and in his early stages of his attraction to Katara, and also thinks Jet is super cool. Sokka instantly hates Jet, though. And Sokka is right, but he also has flavors of the over-protective big brother. I do remember that this episode left a sour taste in my mouth because of the (thankfully downplayed) implications that Katara is a silly girl who falls for the “wrong” types of guys because women don’t know what they want and need a man to help them “discover” their feelings. I also think this is meant to be subtextual in Katara making the hat for Jet which Aang ends up wearing, because Aang is the “good guy” who really does care about Katara, you see? Thanks show, I hate it. To be fair, I blame the writers for this, not Aang. Aang is just having fun hanging out in a treehouse and gets to wear a cool homemade hat. It’s the writers who put this weird misogynistic pressure on Katara.

It’s funny though when people compare Zuko to Jet in order to prove Zutara wrong, because when you compare the two, Zuko is the one who ends up looking better, the one who works hard to repair his damaged relationship with Katara, who genuinely did change. The one whose life she could save after he had done the work to save himself.

#zuko #katara #jet #zutara #anti-kataang #kinda

47 notes · View notes