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#he was on the news he had a god complex people acted like he could grant miracles etc etc
ziracona · 2 years
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Tempted to read all my whodunnitmafia fic again. So sad one of my greatest creations literally exists for an audience of 1. But it’s so good. Yes it will make me want to write more and there’s no point. But my HEART
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mncxbe · 27 days
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𝑭𝒚𝒐𝒅𝒐𝒓 𝒙 𝒇𝒆𝒎!𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒍 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓
𝑨𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆: reference post; @soullessfyodor here's my take on Fyodor with a guardian angel♡// ღೀ๋࣭ ⭑𝒄𝒘: delulu, Fyodor's a bit manipulative + has a God complex, dubious relationship between them, possibly inaccurate biblical lore
he knows you're there, knows you exist. growing up in a religious family, he's always been told that his guardian angel was watching over him, making sure he was safe from any danger. but trying to interact with you never actually occurred to him
you showed yourself to him for the first time when he was around ten. he'd caught a terrible flu and his already weak body could barely handle it. so you did your job, you healed him and ever since you visited him more and more often
it was against the rules but what could you do? he was a quiet kid, a bit too intelligent for his own good and you just had a feeling that there was something wrong with him
your suspicions were confirmed once he started joining different criminal organizations. you tried to keep him on a straight path but there wasn't much you could do to change his resolve
"Don't worry, my dear angel, I am quite certain that the purity of my soul is untainted." he smiled as he packed his few belongings in a suitcase.
"I'm begging you, Fyodor. Don't go to Japan it's a bad idea–" you protested but he wouldn't have it.
"I'm not keen on using this argument but I am an adult now, angel. I can make my own decisions"
"You're still acting like a kid" you huffed, fluffing your wings, causing a few feathers to fall on the bed covers. Fyodor chuckled, gently seizing your chin "And you're still acting like my mother. There's no need for you to be so concerned for me"
ever since Fyodor moved to Japan to pursue his plans the relationship between you changed. Fyodor became more secretive, but you still didn't give up on your routine– every night, Fyodor played the cello for you or read you a few pages of his book. those were his little ways of showing you his gratitude for always being there for him
after a few months you could sense a deeper change. he barely talked to you about his plans and every time you tried to voice your concerns he deflected
"My, my, angel. I told you before there's no reason to worry about me." smiled the man, motioning you to join him in bed.
"I'm serious, Fyodor. I can't keep covering up for you. You're killing people don't you realize your actions have consequences for me? And for you too" Fyodor simply laughed, pulling you next to him as he traced the outline of your wings with his fingertips "Am I upsetting the higher ups?" You nodded and his grin widened. Cupping your face with his free hand, Fyodor brought you closer to him.
"Why should I care about that, my dear? After all, I am a God myself, aren't I?" Before you could reply Fyodor placed a kiss to the corner of your lips"You know I'm right."
"You shouldn't say such things"
"You've let so many things slide, angel, I'm sure you can excuse some mild blasphemy"
and you did let it slide, and other things too. there were many things he should've been sanctioned for but you swept them under the rug– no matter what atrocious things he did you still believed he was the sweet Fyodor you once knew
it didn't take long until you lost your place among the angels and were sent to hell. call it divine judgement, or karma, but covering Fyodor's endeavours for so long did have a consequence
as a fallen angel you could still come to earth whenever you pleased but for a while you avoided Fyodor. you were mad he was cruel enough to let this happen. all of this could've been avoided if he would've just listened to you
still, it didn't take long for you to return to him. after spending so much time together you couldn't just ignore him. especially not when you could hear him calling out your name through the endless night in hell
"So, my angel, are you getting accustomed to your new home?" he taunted, his lithe fingers dancing along the cello's cords, his music echoing through the dim-lit room.
"Don't you dare joke about that" you hissed "How did you find out in the first place?"
"I figured, since you stopped visiting for a while..." Taking note of your silence Fyodor sighed, putting down his instrument "I do appreciate your sacrifice, angel. Your devotion is truly remarkable"
You scoffed again at his words, feeling your blood boil "You should be ashamed of yourself. You condemned me to a life in hell."
"You could always come and live with me. You're more than welcome in my humble home" he said in a honeyed vocie as he got up from his chair and moved towards you. He kneeled in front of the futon you were laying on and held your hand. "My dear angel, forgive me. If what I doing wasn't this important I would've given up on my goals. But it can't be helped"
You sighed, running your thumb along his knuckles "Such important plans yet you cannot tell me anything about them."
"Of course not" he smiled "Not now at least, but one day will come when I'll tell you everything. Until then, you'll have to trust me."
You remained silent for a while, a heavy tension settling between the two of you before he spoke again. "You lost your God and your status, but I assume you still have your powers."
"You're correct"
"Then stay by my side, look over me like you always have" The man rose to his feet and leaned closer to you, his breath fanning over the shell of your ear "I can give you a purpose. That's what you need, right?"
"So you're asking me to taint my soul even more? To give up on my principles, on everything."
"You were already deemed a sinner, my angel. You've fallen. I'm offering you a way to rise back up– a new god, a new purpose." Striaghtening his back, he bowed, holding a hand in front of you. "So what do you say?"
You weren't stupid– it was obvious what Fyodor was after. He just needed your powers to keep him alive. You were just another tool, another pawn. But it was the best deal you could've asked for, so you hesitantly accepted his hand. Fyodor smiled, helping you up from the couch before he placed a tender kiss to the back of your hand.
"You and I, my dear, are going to accomplish great things together"
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signedeclipse · 11 months
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Hello! I was the one with the cannibalism request. 🫣 I really loved the headcanons you wrote! 😊
I would like to make another headcanon request for Kokushibo, Hantengu and Kaigaku with a reader who's blind. They could see when they were much younger, but now most of their vision is lost, and they have difficulty navigating at night. At first they didn't even recognized the other as a demon but were very accepting when they found out. Now they hate to be away from their demon partner and would rather spend every minute with them. I can also see them utilizing their condition to lure in victims (by asking for help) for their demon to eat.
Thank you in advance and I hope you have a great day! ☺️
Hantengu | Kaigaku | Kokushibo [X Reader]
In which their s/o is blind, and helps them lure humans in for eating.
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Hantengu
Ever since he met you, alone and lost, he felt pity that you had been left to nothing for something out of your control
Of course, you were just like him, so he would protect you if it meant protecting his own ego
But you were so kind, and you didn't say anything cruel or judgemental to him, he could go as far as to say you depend on him
He liked that a lot, it made him feel special
Being apart of him, the clones didn't touch you either, either amused by your lack of sight, feeling pity, overtaken by anger at those who wronged you, or liking having something so new around
Fortunately all their eyes were different, save for Hantengu and Sekido, so it was easy to tell them apart if not for their personalities
In no way was the Upper four weak, but sometimes he was a bit...scared
He noticed how you attracted people to him, and how easy it was for him to kill once secluded
So you did it more so he could kill, instead of his clones
You empowered him and all of his egos, fueled him and made him far more powerful
God forbid someone you're luring try to harm you, they'd be dead before they can even realise what's happening, and left to rot
Him and the clones don't find trash all that delicious
Kaigaku
He found you quite pathetic all things considered
Lost with no one around, stumbling and trying to find some kind of light so you could gather your bearings
Those electric blue eyes of his, they pulled you into a false sense of hope
But through your words, so unknowing of who he was, you convinced him to humour you for awhile, as if playing a game
Kaigaku gets attached similar to how you do, but far more possessive and jealous
In a messed up way he likes that you can't see well because it means you'll only ever know him best
The fact that only he can protect you and keep you safe gives him a superiority complex, but he rarely beats down onto you about it
Your kindness is hard to combat, but he does act like he hates it
In his months as a demon, it was hard to find people to kill without making a scene, and when you saw him starving like that, you convinced yourself you could bring someone back
And with a false story about someone robbing you, three men were lured into your shared home for the slaughter
He kept it clean so you wouldn't get sick- not that you'd really notice- and since then encouraged the behaviour
Once he heard a group of people bullying you for falling in mud after you slipped
It was the only time he decided to make a real mess, leaving trails of organs across the street for all to see
You had to move but he found a better place anyways
Kokushibo
Kokushibo can be very quiet, so when you call out to him or he feels the need to say something, it usually scares you half to death
Once caught your arm moments from hitting him because you felt something on your neck and figured it was an insect- it was his breath
Tends to be unhelpful because he wants you to adapt as much as you can, and to remain independent
But on the rare occasion he'll allow you to cling to his sleeve and step slowly through darkened places
Might let you get minor injuries from walking into things but he would never allow you to gain a scar
The first time you lured someone, it was an accident
He had left without telling you, and in a panic you yelled out for him while falling
A hunter heard this and came to your aid, but Kokushibo had them handled moments before they even touched you
It happened mostly by accident
But if he was ever weakened, upset, or having trouble getting someone from a crowd?
He'll just say he needs a favour, and then leave you stranded in the street until someone comes prancing
If anyone does the opposite of helping and tries to harass you, he'll make sure their death is prolonged
Consider a thousand deep-ish wounds, so they can bleed out till morning
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Authors Note - Honestly so rare for a Kaigaku request which makes me sad cuz ahhh I love him! He's really great and deserves more fanfics... But thank you for coming back Shrew (if i can call you that), your last request was such a hit I think ive written 2-3 extra requests off of it already haha!
Please enjoy and come back soon!
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mitsies · 1 year
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he doesn't remember your name.
jaws snap shut around empty syllables, searching for something memory can't conjure. looking. hungry for the missing piece. but he doesn't know.
he remembers your face, hot and puffy with youth and indignation when he poked fun at you, and burning with life left to live. he remembers your voice and how it sounded when you called for him, or chided him. he remembers your mannerisms, the way your fingers thrummed against your desk, the way your fighting was flighty as if you were barely bound to this plane of existence. he remembers the smell of your blood and how it lingered long after you were gone. he remembers the way you looked at him.
most people observe him with reverence. unabashed, clear reverence. like he’s some god because to them, he very well may be. to them, gojo satoru is the highlight of their lives, the silver lining.
you, however, did none of that. when you'd first arrived on the campus of tokyo's very own jujutsu high, you'd looked.. unimpressed.
gojo had taken offense to that one. you, a new 1st-year student, not acknowledging your own teacher's prowess? how blasphemous. how rude. had anyone taught you manners?
and this offense was made even worse by the fact that you were his very first student. this year marked not only your arrival at the school but his debut as a teacher. you were the only student in your class- numbers of sorcerers were running low, so low. he didn't like that you'd be all alone but for that greeting maybe you deserved it.
how many years ago was it, now? when he'd shown you to your dorm room and you'd slammed the door in his face? okay, maybe that action was warranted- he was a little too excited to meet his very first student, ever. enthusiastic in a way that came off as deranged, maybe even a little insane. you looked at him like he was crazy. he remembers that, too.
you usually slept through lessons. he'd pretend to not notice. you pretended like you didn't get hurt on missions, too stubborn to see shoko. he'd act like he didn't see right through you and would opt to slip you some bandages on the ride home. and you used to act like you hated him. he played along.
(a name comes to mind, but he knows it's not yours. twin black plaits, sharp teeth in a bristling, boisterous grin. a little girl. she is not you but both of your stories end the same.)
gojo remembers your death better than your life. dying was a matter of fact- you knew, he knew. it was bound to happen. he just didn't think it would be so soon. it was almost the end of your 1st year and he was looking into promoting you up a level, too, when he was called down to the morgue.
copper. metal wire. pennies. the smell hit him before reality. a body, smaller in death, lies covered by a white sheet. he hears your voice, scolding him for being embarrassing in public. he hears you but it's just in his head.
you were his first student. you hadn't even graduated.
gojo satoru is no stranger to the cruelties of the world. he's not, truly. he has seen his friends come and go. he has seen lives flicker out like flames of candles, gone just like that. he thought, foolishly, that you'd be safe. that he could protect you. (like the girl with twin plaits. like the boy who stood beside him.)
the world should've been kinder. he should've been better. you, lying motionless on the metal table, have done nothing wrong, nothing to deserve this. (his first student. not his last, never his last. there will be more after you, more bodies to the morgue, more lambs to the slaughter. is this his fault?)
he remembers a day in july. summer heat was beating down on you as you staggered out of a dilapidated apartment complex. gojo was waiting, slouched against the door, arms crossed. he beamed when you exit. "how'd it go?"
you were panting, leaning against the brick wall, hand clutching your chest. your hair is disheveled and he practically heard the thud of your heart. but there is not a single scratch on you and a burst of pride warmed him.
"there was no way that was a second-grade curse," you gasped out. he handed you a water bottle and you went to take a sip, only to find it's empty. you glared at him and throw it against his head, where it clanged off his infinity uselessly.
"you're right, very astute observation from my favourite student!"
your eyes bulged out of your head as he continued, "it was a first grade! look at you go, hotshot!"
you were too tired at the moment but he's certain that given the opportunity, you'd have tried your hardest to strangle him. and you had promised, "i'm gonna kill you one day, gojo."
he ignores how you avoid any formalities- it's not like he cares. he ruffled your hair (not twin plaits, not two braids, not her, just you) and walked ahead. "you can wait! as a treat, let's go get dinner. i'll pay."
you had jogged to catch up to his long strides, purposefully slamming into his side as some sort of final act of vengeance. he's sure you expected to hit his infinity, but you stumbled against the fabric of his clothes, the cold touch of his arm. you blinked. he grinned. you were family. you were a younger sibling. as was the bond between a man too young to be a teacher and a child too young to be a soldier. he sees you in his memory, trying hard to not let a twin smile sneak across your face. you failed.
gojo wishes he could see your smile again. you were so young, too young. you were a child. innocent. and innocence deserves to thrive. he remembers your ice cream order. he remembers your laugh. he remembers your handwriting. he remembers you. but he doesn't recall your name.
he sits, now, watching the new first years. he thinks you'd have gotten along with them. (megumi especially. the both of you shared a mutual hatred for him, it seemed. gojo shudders. maybe it's a good thing he didn't have to deal with that.) how old would you be, now? maybe in your early twenties or late teen years. he wishes you got to grow old.
"what're you thinking about?" the smell of smoke. lavender, lilac, blood. it's shoko. she sits down on the bench next to him, following his gaze as one leg crosses over the other. yuuji and nobara scream in the distance. megumi looks like he wants to die. gojo smiles.
"nothing much."
wind blows, hitting his face. his head tips up as if to look at the sky through his blindfold, the one he'd switched to when you'd told him his glasses were ugly and tacky and out of style. he'd taken that one to heart. shoko sighs. "you always have to be cryptic and mysterious, don't you?"
"sure do." he allows calm to take him. he allows the travesty of his heart, your ache, your pain, to replay in his mind over and over. he allows the face without a name to scream out to him, to call for him, to lament, to grieve. in the distance, he hears the first-years laugh. he thinks that he will do anything to protect them, in the ways he failed to protect you.
gojo satoru was no god, especially not when he met you. but now, he will try to be. now, he has to be.
he can't remember your name.
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qqueenofhades · 5 months
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Do you think part of what makes people feel like voting isn’t worth it because things don’t get better under democrats is because we can’t see what would have happened? Like I see a lot of people saying “well biden hasn’t made america much better so there’s no point” but it’s like they don’t understand that under a republican they would actively do everything they could to cause more harm. It’s like they don’t understand that 1. The president can’t do much, and 2. IT WOULD BE WORSE. like they don’t understand the possibilities. Idk people just frustrate me
I'm sorry, as I know you're just relaying what these people think and not claiming so yourself, but the whole "things don't get better under Biden/Democrats" line to which we are subjected so very, miserably often is a lie!!! It is demonstrably a lie! It is peddled by people who deliberately live in their echo-chamber leftist misinformation bubbles and either don't read the news, don't accept anything less than the Magical Socialist Revolution Now, and don't think partial or incremental progress (aka the only kind of progress that exists) is valid. "Biden hasn't single-handedly fixed everything wrong with America and the world after the most damaging presidency ever to exist and 250+ years of flaws, while other countries actually are their own actors with agency making complex choices, so we shouldn't vote for him" is a bullshit lie and I'm tired of it!!!
(Again. Sorry. This is not directed at you. This is just my frustration with this entire ridiculous situation speaking.)
We have had multiple elections now where people voted for Democrats, which resulted in abortion protections, protections for LGBTQ people, the biggest climate legislation ever to pass Congress/be signed into law (the Inflation Reduction Act), vast improvements in the job market, executive actions both large and small, improvements in labor and the economy, a general democratic system, a defense of the rule of law, a warning against fascism, and everything else that Trump trampled on in 4 years and will finish the job of doing if this godforsaken country is either right-wing-zealot or left-wing-zealot enough to put him back into office. (Like, people. Google is free. You're welcome to look up the improvements Biden has actually made, but that would harm your Narrative.) So much of this misinformation is also peddled by people who are proud that they don't have a clue how the American government works and/or deliberately lie about it: see all the claims that it was Biden's fault for not magically stopping a Trump-stacked SCOTUS, selected for the express purpose of overturning Roe, from overturning Roe. Because the president could just unilaterally overturn the Supreme Court with no problems at all if He Really Wanted To, I guess. Even if that is literally not the way it has ever functioned in history.
All the noxious Republicans in state legislatures passing anti-trans/anti-abortion/anti-voting laws ARE NOT SOMETHING BIDEN CAN STOP. If you're going to criticize him for not doing something, for God's sake at least make it for something he can do (like not calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, though I would argue he's already taking a more nuanced approach than the entirety of the American establishment during the War on Terror). And then vote for him when/if he follows it up, not just throw your hands in the air and scream about how you Can't Possibly Sully Yourself (especially when there is some very selective support going on here and a deliberate white-washing of how many orders of magnitude worse absolutely everything else in America and the world would be under Trump. So.)
I'm tired of it. I'm really, really tired of it. I've been trying to cut back on my politics posting because my mental health is bad right now and I often feel like a broken record screaming into the void. But. Yeah. Anyway. Whoof.
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vvatchword · 10 months
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In Defense of BioShock Infinite
Although I had preordered BioShock Infinite with all its bells and whistles, I did not actually play it until January 2023. And lordy, I had me another Experience with a capital E. How the hell a bunch of urban Yanks could capture my experience as a queer democratic-socialist atheist struggling with her roots as a rural evangelical-cum-fascist is kinda magical, honestly. As to the game itself, it didn’t hurt how good it looked—the kickass skyhook gun battles—that novel setting—the complex characters—that delicious historical setting—that bloodthirsty critique of America—and to top it all off, they had pulled yet another Cassandra. Hell, speaking of which—not only was the game fun, it was fucking smart. It was intelligent, memorable, and meaningful in a way I hadn’t experienced in video games for years.
Now, back in 2013, when I had realized that I would be spoiled for Infinite, I left the BioShock fandom. After completing the game, I headed to Tumblr to re-engage, wagging my whole body like an excitable golden retriever, only to discover that BioShock Infinite was remarkably absent, and when mentioned, brutally derided. 
“I hate BioShock Infinite and all my friends do, too,” someone said in the tags under a post. 
I was utterly befuddled and deeply sad. I wanted to talk about BioShock Infinite! I wanted to dig into it, uncover unexpected ideas, learn new things, talk shit, make new friends—the full fandom experience. And instead I kept stumbling into hateful diatribes and super-charged disgust.
Obviously, I first looked at myself and my own judgment. Had I missed some obvious problem or misread some theme or dialogue? This wouldn’t be the first time I’d snapped down on a hook. But the more I thought about it, the angrier I got.
There are two parts of BioShock Infinite that are unquestionably terrible: the fridging of Daisy Fitzroy and the false equivalence of violence between haves and have-nots (lol what are the have-nots supposed to do, ask nicely?). Additionally, one could look at the use of real Native American tragedies as tasteless. Personally, I do not—in the same way that I don’t find it tasteless that real war victims were used as inspiration for Splicer deformities. This is what really happened; this is commentary on events that really happened to real people. 
At this point, I’m sure I don’t have to explain why two of these themes are Unequivocally Bad. 
Anyway, I thought that perhaps these were the reasons BSI had been condemned to Super Hell.
I was wrong.
How Criitcsim Werk
This wasn’t the fandom I’d made friends in over 2010. Hell, this wasn’t the fandom of 2013. This was a fandom made up of Babies. They were making their first coltish stumblings into media criticism and with it, dredging up the same brain-dead bullshit from Tumblr circa 2008.
Suddenly I was brought face to face with people who seemed to think that if a character couldn’t be likable or good that the story itself couldn’t be likable or good; that one bad element means the story is unsalvageable (lol u pussies); the implication that one is bad for liking it; the destructive juvenile insistence that media accurately measures its fans’ moral qualities en masse like an astrological sign. This goes far beyond simple like or dislike and plunges head-first into Puritanism: praying loudly on street-corners instead of quietly in a dark corner where God might hear you.
At one point I had a kid go off about how they wouldn’t take time to understand Booker DeWitt’s perspective because he had (fictionally) taken part in a genocide. (That same person said the Native American element had been employed for shock value, a thought that sometimes keeps me up at night, because it is legitimately one of the dumbest criticisms the game has ever received.) At another point I saw someone acting personally offended that (fictional person) Dr. Suchong’s (fictional) data was being stolen (in a fiction) by a (fictional) racist who would (fictionally) take credit for (fictional person) Suchong’s (fictional) inventions “while calling him slurs”. Sure, a better question would have been, “Why would the creative team opt to do this” rather than assume intentional racism from a Jewish creative director with an in-office multi-ethnic team in the year of our lord 2013, but why not handwave the choice with prurient moral dismay so your audience won’t beat you to death with bats? 
It was as though fans were treating these completely fictional characters as real people whose personal gods had opted to torment them, and that their tormentors merited the kind of censure that psychopaths should receive. As I hope all of you understand, this is fucking madness.
More than once I saw people posting about hating the studio or the creative director in ways that seemed intense, unreasoning, and excessive—notably an “I Hate [Irrational Games creative director] Ken Levine” stamp (rofl the more things change amirite). People get so performatively moralistic about it that I started wondering if I missed something big along the way. Was there some secret Voxophone I missed swearing fealty to baby Hitler or some shit?
Double Standards
At the same time, I was utterly confused. BioShocks 1 and 2 both featured some absolutely ghastly bullshit based on real-life horrors and a thick mix of complicated human beings—many of them victims who have become monsters. The fact they are grounded in historical tragedies is a huge part of their appeal. Hell, I don’t think those games would have had half their meaning without World Wars I and II and the threat of a third.
A gay man who feels so cursed by his orientation that he is incapable of intimacy and systematically destroys his ex-lovers—including the man he loves the most. A Korean who survived Japanese occupation and a Jewish Holocaust survivor repeat the violence and traumas exacted upon them and their people, subjecting a new generation to agonies unthinkable. Chasing the shadows of Bolsheviks, a Russian citizen becomes the brutal tyrant that he loathed. A rich lawyer with an easygoing drawl designs a concentration camp and systematically harvests hundreds, if not thousands of political prisoners, selling them out to medical testing for a quick buck.
But a Native man who destroys his own people and class to ensure his own survival and social acceptability is too far? This character is where people drew the line, so much so that the entire game is disavowed? Hell, if you’re just talking about Booker (rather than Comstock), he doesn’t have anywhere near the largest bodycount. If we were to judge on the metric of human misery alone, Booker wouldn’t even hit the top ten. 
Keep in mind that the most-discussed BioShock game on Tumblr is BioShock 2, and that one of the biggest fandom favorites is Augustus Sinclair—the easy-talkin’ Georgia lawyer who sells your character into horrors past all human comprehension, as he sold hundreds before and after you. Sinclair is a motherfucker so vile that BioShock 2 gives you no choice but to murder him. But Sinclair is also pleasant; good-looking to some; spends the whole game making sweet love to your ear; is one of the only true positive experiences you experience in a horror story. Unlike DeWitt, a man who is brutal and awful from step one, Sinclair is smooth and sweet. Unlike DeWitt, Sinclair’s victims are faceless, completely fictional, and carry no political or social baggage.
People fuckin’ ship this guy with Subject Delta, his explicit victim. He’s usually described as a squishy cinnamon roll. In most fanfiction, he often gets to escape to the surface and fuck Delta while helping raise Eleanor as Dad 2. It is rare that I find fanfiction that acknowledges his monsterhood in all its glory. In fact, I can only think of two.
Literacy Comes in Levels
My problem with the over-the-top hatred of BioShock Infinite is along the same lines as my confusion at Twilight and Harry Potter hate: there is so much worse out there (how much do the haters actually engage with media if they think this is that bad—yes, even considering the shitty creators themselves!), the hatred far outweighs the sin committed (in BioShock’s case, the truly bad bits are not central enough to derail the larger narrative), people don’t seem to hate it so much as they want to be seen hating it, fans want to enforce an unspoken rule hating it (bitches this is poison. Stop this), and there’s something about the hate that stinks of poor reading comprehension.
A great metric for general literacy is the newspaper. In journalism, you’re writing for the lowest-common denominator, which for years here in the USA has been about a fifth-grade reading level (about 10-11 years old, for my non-American readers). The AP posted an article a couple years back about how the general reading comprehension of Americans needs to be dropped to a third-grade one (8-9 years), and baby, I’m here to say it’s true. 
Most of the problem is that the American education system is shitty as fuck. The rest of it is from an extremely American disdain of intellectualism and the arts. People are not taught how to interpret art or literature—a difficult and subtle skill which involves accepting such truths as “multiple contradictory readings can exist and yet be simultaneously correct”, “the author can be a complete tool and still be right about things”, “the author can be a great person and still write horrifyingly incorrect bullshit”, and “worthwhile works can be ridiculously long and it really is your fault for not having an attention span”. 
Media criticism must be learned through trial, error, asking questions, confidently swaggering into a public space to announce your brilliant insight only to have your ass handed to you (usually by your older self ten years later), being willing to admit you swaggered confidently into a public space to state bullshit and then amending your bullshit only to produce more bullshit, and otherwise making a complete and utter cock of yourself. We are taught to fear and flee pain and failure, despite the fact this is how we learn and improve. Because we judge our value by whether or not we are “smart,” we are afraid of displaying that we don’t know something or might be mistaken–better not to try at all than to reveal ourselves to be fools. And yet the best way to learn is to crash up against someone else and be proven wrong!
American parents are terrified of hurting their children to the point that they spare them cognitive dissonance of any kind, disavowing difficult art—without any appreciation for the fact that art is how we provide safe spaces to explore key human experiences, better preparing us to face those difficult subjects when there are real-world consequences (sex, gender and social expression, grief, violence, predation, illness, interacting with people of different ideologies, whatever new issue is pissing off some smooth-brained old motherfucker somewhere). 
If parents and teachers aren’t teaching us how to interpret art, we’re probably never going to develop the skill at all, or crash unsubtly into it in a piecemeal fashion (hello it me). Another unfortunate side effect is that these readers tend to be blitheringly superficial: they are literally intellectually incapable of reading deeper than the uppermost layer of a text. The curtains are always blue.
And let’s not forget the role moral performatism plays in media criticism, which although faaar from new, has reached hilarious levels in the age of social media. What’s important isn’t understanding something, it’s finding something to symbolically burn at the stake so everyone knows God loves us: please keep loving me, please don’t hurt me, please don’t throw me on the fire—for performatism is not for outsiders. We long for human connection so fucking much that it’s more important to destroy what might point out our fallibilities than it is to let ourselves stand in the furnace and burn out the dross.
What do you think the point of BioShock Infinite was?
Emotional Machines
Let’s face it. Human beings give a lot more credence to how something makes them feel than they do its complex invisible reality. We are not logical creatures; we are emotional ones. Our logic is too new a biological mechanism to override something as powerfully stupid as our primal lizard brains.
Knowing this, let’s take BioShock’s most popular characters. The first two are Subject Delta and Jack Wynand, the protagonists of BioShocks 2 and 1, respectively; and why not? They’re the characters we play. In the first two BioShocks, whether or not you kill Little Sisters determines the ending you receive. In other words, Delta and Jack can only be as “wicked” as the players are. 
How do people want to see themselves? As good. What do people want to see around themselves? Good. (What is “good”? Uh, well,,,,,,) What do they want? Simple moral questions with simple moral answers. And in the first two BioShocks, what is moral is obvious: don’t kill little girls. It’s actually kind of insulting once you say it out loud.
In-fandom, Jack and Subject Delta are almost never painted as murderers or monsters, but as victims and heroes; I saw someone musing about putting Subject Delta on a “gentle giants” poll and I nearly choked on my own tongue. I only saw that musing because someone put Subject Delta and Jack in a “Best Fathers” poll. Nobody in-fandom really considers the “evil” or “complicated” endings as canon choices, despite those versions being fully understandable alternate readings, with a story that doesn’t make sense without them. (I don’t believe Burial at Sea is necessarily canon; in fact, I would bet good money that it is a huge middle finger lol, mostly because a number of brain-dead motherfuckers won’t take unhappiness for an answer.)
Most fandom art and writing is gentle, sweet, good: the symbolic healing of the damaged, the salvation of innocents, the turning of new leaves. These things are not just saccharine sweet—they tend to be unrealistically sweet. Now, far be it from me to demand these works cease. There’s a reason they exist. People write them because they need hope and happiness; I have enjoyed them greatly myself and intend to enjoy them in the future. But if y’all get to have your dessert, I demand the right to have my dinner.
The Colours Out of Earth
Let there be media where the opposite can also be true: where everything is unbelievably complicated and unforgivably fucked-up. Let there be characters who slide slurs into their speech without thinking. Let there be characters who destroy themselves in a thousand different ways, not all of them obvious, some of them horrifying. Let there be well-meaning people struggling with all their mights to do what is right only to destroy everyone around them and then completely miss the fact it’s all their faults. Let there be wickedness painted as goodness, superficial appearances accepted over essential and inherent values, denial of change and transformation, failure to accept that what is old must die and what is new must live, human stupidity and short-sightedness and cruelty in all their flavors. Let’s smash it all together and see how it plays out. 
Oh, badly? No shit! But “badly” isn’t the point. How does it play out?
Let there be a world of gradients—a place I can float from color to color, hue to hue, value to value, while attempting to figure out where, why, how, and by whom they transform—to taste concepts in a hundred different ways, test their textures by a hundred different mediums, insert them into a hundred different contexts. I need to understand why I feel the way I do; I need to understand morality in all its hideous, fragmentary glory. For I have been sold to a ideology of blacks and whites, and let me tell you: it prepares you for nothing, and it will always destroy what is most precious about human life.
I can no longer believe in a world where what is lost always returns, because that world does not exist. I have a reflexive need to come to terms with Finality: what I have lost, what I have destroyed, what will never return, what will never be better. I have a reflexive need to understand Transformation: what I am now, what is as of the present, what has risen shambling from the ashes, what turns to gaze upon me in the darkness. I need to understand what is wretched about me as much as I need to heal myself. How can I heal if I can’t understand how I have hurt and been hurt? 
I need to shine a light in the dark. Not to remodel it, not to destroy it—because I also can’t believe in a world where the wicked is destroyed forever—but to behold it, to learn from it, to view my own impact upon it, to accept how it has become a part of me, to learn how to do my best (because that’s all one can do). I must learn to love people more than causes, I must learn to love people rather than the act of winning, I must learn to love people rather than battle. I need to stand in that endless black with the lamp off and my eyes closed, letting the agony roll over me, burning with a fire that throws no light, rolling back and forth from an intense self-loathing to a fury at a society that destroys what is most valuable because it didn’t make them feel the way they wanted.
The Unforgivable
I believe that there are only two differences between Booker DeWitt and his equally cursed cohorts.
In the Hall of Whores: The Unmarked Slate
First, unlike the previous two games, where you enter the world as a tabula rasa and might roleplay as what you perceive as a good person, you are explicitly put into the shoes of a monster, and nothing you do can save you.
With other shitty BioShock characters, you are passively watching other people, and you are able to hold yourself apart. Sure, everyone else is crazy as fuck from using biological Kryptonite, but you’re too smart to end up a crazy fucking asshole like them! Sure, you are now technically a mass murderer, but those fuckers deserved it, damn it! 
“Look at this crazy bastard!” you say, rolling your eyes at the Steinmans and Cohens and Ryans and Fontaines. “It sure is a great thing I’m not a crazy bastard!”
You are able to escape acknowledging that you, too, in certain circumstances, might be the crazy bastard. You are being challenged to stand in the body of a person who has committed unforgivable sins. Imagine if you yourself committed those sins. Imagine what sins you have already committed. Imagine what brutalities you cannot take back. Imagine what horrors you have wreaked just by breathing.
“Ahhhh!” said players, probably. “What do you mean I’m not allowed to be good?”
Because that’s what the game was designed to do. Because “good” is a fucking cop-out and if it’s how you live with yourself wait until you find out you’ve been doing horrifying bullshit all your life without question. You can be evil by association through no fault of your own.
Original Sin
Second, the plight of Native Americans is a sin that non-Natives will always carry, and the socially conscious are aware of this even if they don’t know how to put it into words. The state of affairs being what it is, it is unlikely that First Peoples will ever be treated humanely, much less have their land returned. They must struggle for scraps of what is rightfully theirs while we lounge on their corpses. We cannot help but benefit from their destruction; we are made unwitting partners with our forebears; we steal the fruits of their lands and make mockeries of their faiths and identities. We have destroyed part of what made this world fascinating and unique and most of it can never be returned. Even if everything were to be made right tomorrow, their genocide is a sin that we will carry until we die, because the only reason we could be here at all is because they were killed. 
The obvious solution stands before us, but the powers that be are so much greater than we that we are effectively powerless, and achieving anything less than total restoration smacks of anticlimax. 
This is unbearable.
How can one think of oneself as a good person if one sees the good that must be done, but cannot achieve it? If one’s actions are meaningless? Goodness without action is pretension.
We are all Booker DeWitt. We have all set fire to the tipi. We swept the ashes away, we ignored the sizes of the bones, we built a CVS on their graves, and then we made statues and holidays commemorating Native Americans like the world’s cheapest “Thinking of You” card. We have de-fanged them, transformed them into cardboard cutouts, and set them up as cute little side characters in our sweeping American dream.
Booker is not a man. Booker is America and Americans—and America and Americans are monstrous: one part hypocrisy, two parts incessant violence, three parts constant peacocking, and four parts dumb as a stump.
The Monsters We Make
Outside of the message about “choice,” an enormous part of BioShock’s thematic ensemble is the creation of monsters. How are monsters created? Who or what is responsible for creating them? What do the monsters think made them the ways they are? Can a monster be saved? How? Is it enough to acknowledge you did wrong and want to be a better person?
Maybe most people are aware on some instinctive level of what facing one’s own monsterhood means. No one wants it. It’s not fun. It hurts. It’s embarrassing. It’s destructive. It’s admitting you don’t have it all together and might never, ever—that despite your best actions, you can have it horribly wrong at any point. In an age where we demand moral perfection, it demands vulnerability: you must admit that sometimes you’re the racist, the transphobe, the sexist, the nationalist, the classist, the homophobe, the violent, the wrong, the dumbfuck. 
Human beings are not built to be moral; human beings are built to survive. We so rapidly learn how to deal with our contexts at such young ages that we don’t have the time or capabilities to question why those contexts are the ways they are or why it is demanded we perform the ways we do.
In a very real way, BioShock Infinite demands vulnerability of us. It demands you look in the mirror and see what is monstrous in you—how you have been created—manufactured—a tool, a machine, a trained animal. It asks you to recognize that you can be a monster simply by association. And if we can’t look into the mirror and truly acknowledge that monsterhood, we run very real risks of becoming or enabling those monsters in one way or another.
Worst of all: perhaps monsterhood isn’t optional. Perhaps the monster was inside of us from the very beginning. It’s not a matter of if you become a monster, but when, under what circumstances, by whose hand. What is more, believing the “right” moral stances will not save you. Monsterhood can afflict anyone, in any ideology, any political stance, in any social movement, in any faith. The only element that can save you is to truly love other people, and even then, you can fail, for there can be states where there is no winner and ways to misread how best to treat another person.
Environment and Society: Context Will Not Be Denied
BioShock 1’s original ending is Jack-as-monster, regardless of how many children he saves, regardless of your feelings as player. He passes through the gauntlet of Rapture, but he has supped of its poison. And he wasn’t poisoned when he entered Rapture the second time—he was poisoned the minute he was conceived. He was born of it. He had no hope of ever escaping it—he never could have—he’d never had a choice to begin with.
No matter what choices you make in BioShock Infinite, Elizabeth will always kill you. Why? Because she has seen every world—every context—every limitation—every boon. And there is no way to stop what has been; there is no way to undo what has been done. The minute you have committed to a decision, you have split the universe; there is no telling what kind of person it will make you. In fact, there’s no telling which of your decisions will matter at all. Only Elizabeth can see because she is the unlimited future: your offspring stands before you, judge and jury, and you will have no choice but to accept her verdict, for despite your name, you are incapable of controlling how you are interpreted. 
Elizabeth sits across from you in the boat and stares without blinking. She sees a million million similar Bookers. Some are a little bit taller, some a little bit shorter, some a little heavier or lighter. Some more-resemble one grandparent or another. They have different colored ties. This one blinks when rain hits him in the eyeball. That one took a brutal beating back on the airship and one eye is swollen shut. That one can’t stop shaking; this one is unable to speak at all; one hasn’t yet lost hope, although even he doesn’t realize it.
They all lowered the torch to the tipi.
The baptism determined Comstock; what determined Booker?
Why Booker Is
In BioShock 1, characters are often stand-ins for larger concepts. Thus Ryan stands in as Ayn Rand’s Objectivist Ubermensch; Bill McDonagh as Andrew Ryan’s conscience; Diane McClintock as the citizenry of Rapture; Captain Sullivan as law and order; Frank Fontaine as the truest expression of Objectivism in its distilled form.
Who is Booker? Most importantly: why is he?
Booker is a fictional character with a brutal background based on historical events, alternative and true. Booker might be Lakota; Booker might have undergone forced Anglicization; Booker might have been ripped from his parents; Booker is a product of violence, perhaps literally. Booker is American exceptionalism distilled. Booker is the past in constant judgment of itself, unable to live with itself and unable to die. Booker destroys what is best in him and around him in exchange for belonging. Booker has sold the future to absolve his sins. Booker has sold his daughter because he is a fictional character in a work of fiction who needs to be propelled.
Booker is a shell, a sluice, an environment. Booker is the broken shape you are meant to fill, horrified. His internal shape should torture you as it has tortured him: the messy slaggy soul of a shitty tin soldier.
Does Booker take the baptism and become Comstock? If so, it might be his second one. His last name literally means “the white.” His first name can mean “author.” It is most likely his second name: an attempt to rewrite himself. And when he was unable to rewrite himself the first time, when the cognitive dissonance boiled at the edges of his skull, he found there was only one way to cleanse himself the second: to remake the world entirely. To force transformation on everyone else. To take vengeance on a world that could never love him, never want him—to create a world that has no choice but to love him. If he can’t change the world’s mind, he’ll change the world.
Note what he opts to do: to take the fight to the environment–to the unyielding universe.
Context Is Everything
It is no mistake that BioShock Infinite occurs in 1912: the sinking of the Titanic is often credited with ending an unfettered optimism, a period when the Western world believed technology had brought the human race into a golden age. With World War I—which would follow a mere two years later—came modern warfare and all the horrors thereof, not the least of which was the realization that humans had created a kind of war that could destroy the entire world. World War I also seeded the rise of the United States: much of the wealth of warring Europe—itself fat on the blood of subjugated peoples and stolen lands—would rattle into America’s coffers.
It is also no mistake that BioShock 1 directly follows World War II. With WWII came a heightened terror—that this war is not the last war, that there will never be an end to war, that war will go on expanding and expanding until it has consumed us all. World War III would not be denied: prettily packaged in the ideals of its children, it simply followed the utopians down to their underwater tombs. According to BioShock 1’s original ending, World War III is not a matter of if—it’s a matter of when.
But even more important than the history in the BioShock games are their settings. Mute leviathans, Rapture and Columbia determine all of your behaviors: from where you can exist in space to all of your desires and goals to how you choose to present yourself to how you opt to behave. Isolated in extremism—whether that extremism is the crushing depths of the ocean or the unbearable lightness of the air—most of their power is that they simply cannot be escaped. You can’t outrun them. They are everywhere. They are everything.
Like Lovecraft before it, BioShock acknowledges the greatest horror of all: you cannot escape your context. Your context does not only involve your immediate surroundings. It is also historical; contains zeitgeists from various cultures and subcultures; is filled with pressures both personal and impersonal, human and nonhuman. Many of these forces can hurt you. Many more can destroy you. What you do to survive depends very much on where, when, and with whom you must live.
Human beings are not built to be moral.
The Death of the Future
In the film Operation, Burma!, a soldier asks Errol Flynn: “Who were you before the war?”
“An architect,” says Flynn.
Who were you? Because that “you” doesn’t matter now. That “you” is irrelevant. So you’re an architect. What the war does to you; what these deaths mean to you; your past, your education, your loves and desires and forward motivation, the you that could have been outside war, the you that slogs alone into the brutal future—all completely irrelevant. Your forebears don’t care so long as you can bleed. 
Children are the manufactured tools of their creators—helpless before the enormous strength of their elders and the zeitgeists that enclose them, poisoned by their parents’ insecurities and flaws, utilized like weapons regardless of the cost—often with great love.
Consider something more than the traumatized culture: consider the society filled with traumatized children; consider the traumatized society. Consider channeling children through that trauma over and over and over again, if you can. Poisoned—poisoned—poisoned—all of us poisoned. Poisoned by those who loved us most. Poisoned by the people we trusted. Poisoned by the people who meant to make a better world.
I believe it is notable that creative director Ken Levine is Jewish; I have read from multiple accounts that the European Jewish diaspora was uniquely traumatized from the Holocaust and passed that trauma down upon their own families. I sometimes wonder if he saw that firsthand.
The fathers eat sour grapes; their children’s teeth are set on edge.
Choice: Player Expectations and Entitlement
For players who experienced BioShocks 1 and 2 with their multiple endings (Good, Bad, and “ok bye then I guess” respectively), it must have been jarring to suddenly reckon with being a monster. How often I see players grousing that nothing they do will change their wicked pasts! These players completely miss that the only meaningful choice had already been made, that it had nothing to do with the player at all, and even if they had been there, DeWitt was still unforgivable. The only way to go on was to bow out and allow the future to redefine herself.
Nobody was ready for that shit. 
Like it or not, BioShock 1 had set a precedent. Not everyone’s going to read up on creator intentions. If any keyword came blaring through the noise, it would have been “choice.” Most players only recognize choice by the ability to make it, not the absence of it, and most of them weren’t equipped to recognize that its lack was the point. The meaningless choices were commentary, and they were as much about the player as they were about DeWitt himself. Not every choice will be meaningful, will it? And there will be choices you make that will be momentous, but they will seem very small when you make them.
Because most players had experienced what they thought was a basic moralistic tale in the first two games, and would see Infinite not as reflection upon America’s destructive personality, its obsession with a meaningless Good/Bad duocracy, and the infinite, cyclical nature of violence, they saw Booker’s death as corrupted artsy claptrap.
“I did the good schuut,” they say. “I want the good schuut end. Where happy end??? Where treat :(”
Bitch the future is here. 
Time to die.
It’s Not Me, It’s You
Generally I despise essays that end with, “But the real fault lay with the clueless motherfuckers who played the game!” Often, if enough people complain, there’s something to it; the message has been obscured somehow. Details or explanations weren’t clear or intuitive enough, some mechanism isn’t working somewhere, some character needs to talk more or less, some setting needs to be transformed. O artist: stop whining and get cracking. If everywhere you go smells like shit, it’s time to look under your shoe. 
But sometimes it’s true that a piece of media is on a level folks aren’t equipped for. Think of every literature and art class you’ve ever had, if you’ve been fortunate enough to have one. There’s always someone scoffing in a back row, like here are all these jokers making more of something than they should. Similarly, some of you have been arguing with me this entire time, saying: “I just wanted a video game. I just wanted to shoot something and feel better and instead I get this bullshit ending that makes no sense.”
First of all, smart bullshit (and even fucked-up attempts at smart bullshit! Hi BioShock 2) gets to exist on this Earth along with Gmod and Roblox or Schuut Big Tits 84 (there are 84 tits and you must shoot them all. They explode into smaller tits) or whatever-the-fuck-else you think is a worthwhile gaming experience. Second of all, miserable bullshit also gets to exist, and what did you fucking expect if you played through either BioShocks 1 or 2? When you hear a football player quavering out in the darkness for his mom to pick him up, how’d that make you feel? What did you think was going to happen to Jack after pounding back the entire Plasmid library, the cancer cocktail that explicitly destroys the fuck out of its users? Third of all, if you missed the smart bullshit going on in BioShock 1 and didn’t think BioShock Infinite might be larger in scope in more ways than one, that’s on you. Fourthly, if you were simply satisfied with saving like, 15 kids from a violently-perishing city of thousands and call it good, I mean… is that really where your thoughts end? Are you really that fucking small?
It’s Not You, It’s Me
You ever meet those motherfuckers who talk shit about Shakespeare or modern art? And you’re just left there staring with dead eyes at this poseur who mistakes playing devil’s advocate for intelligence, cheek resting on your fist, thinking about the fanfic you’re writing, wondering who it’s for, remembering that all your smut-writing friends get ten times the viewers, and considering throwing yourself in front of a bus.
Yeah, there’s a personal element to this: the fact that BioShock Infinite is the kind of art I like and long for and want to make myself, the fact that the game was successful and yet the studio was closed, the way its DLC was so rushed that the story plopped out like half-baked mystery meat—realizing that the same forced rush was at 2K’s behest for BioShock 2, as well, and wondering how good art can ever be made in this unforgiving capitalist hellscape. The game was weirdly niche and I’m not 100% sure I’ll ever experience anything quite like it again. And with the whiners in this fandom, the loud ones controlling the narrative, some fresh brain-dead exec in some brain-dead publisher might be like: “We must keep it safer and simpler for these fuckin babby adult!”
Nah bitch nah. Naaaah. Cry some more while I enjoy me my fucking dinner. I’ll eat it while making loud smacking noises and keeping unbroken eye contact. Come here. Let’s look at each other. It’ll be like Lady and the Tramp but we want to punch each other. What truer form of love can there be here in the modern world?
I keep having to remind myself that this response isn’t new. I keep having to remind myself of my place. I keep having to remind myself why I write, why I read, why I like to experience art to begin with. It’s not for the reasons other people do it. Oh, I want the same emotional release as everyone else, I want the same rollicking plots, I adore the same tropes. I seek out everything and anything for a good time; I’ll read Moby Dick today and a smutty 5,000-word abortion with the world’s most suspect grammar tomorrow. I don’t give a shit if it’s low- or high-brow; there are all kinds of ways to have fun and there are all kinds of ways to engage with art, and lord knows I’ve done my share of smooth-brain criticism. The problem is that I’ve always wandered off by myself, sunk into an all-consuming reverie, on tracks that no one else ever seems to be on, and then looked up to talk excitedly about something only to realize I’m alone. And whose fault is that?
By the same token, maybe I haven’t talked enough. Maybe I spend too much time with my mouth shut. Maybe I haven’t stood up enough for things that are worth our time, worth talking up, worth setting on pedestals.
I tell you, BioShock Infinite will stand the test of time. It’s too good for this. It’s too good for you, warts and all. Some of you will grow to understand that; some of you won’t; many of you will shrug and go on with your lives (and this is fine; it is only a video game). But I’ve truly not seen anything like it. I can’t believe a mainstream video game was allowed to be so fucking brutal about the American juggernaut, and what’s more, that it sold like hotcakes. Plus, I can’t think of any works in recent memory that have struck me so close to my own heart. No creative work has made me start beating a monster’s face into a washbasin for ten hours only to lift her by the scalp and see my own eyes looking back.
Look into those eyes. See your own stupid impulses pouring out. Your own stupid excuses, your violences, your sins—your claws, your teeth, your costumes, your hilarious attempts at interpretive dance. The beast doth protest too much.
O, monster—behold thyself—and tremble.
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mocc-tok-flip-flop · 2 months
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The submas brainworm is only getting stronger, so I have drafted a whole-ass comic for a new AU idea! One where Chandelure gets to take center stage and become the main character she was always meant to be~
The gist of the AU is that Chandelure has a ghostly soul-bond with Ingo, which essentially means that his soul is under her protection and he sorta registers as a ghost to other pokemon. Basically protects him from other ghosts trying to put their sticky paws on her trainer and also gives the two of them a bit of an empathetic connection. Not quite telepathy, but able to transmit complex feelings and lets them check how badly they're hurt.
Naturally, this means that when Giratina (who was honestly just trying to play around. They were given the tedious task of just opening rifts and looking through all those peep holes made them curious. So when they saw a soul that had a beautiful ghost bond, they became fascinated) snags Ingo and drags him through, Chandelure immediately feels when Giratina's power accidentally tries to overwhelm Ingo's soul and she absolutely loses her shit. Through psychically screaming and using her protective aura to try and bash Giratina, the distortion god acts like a dog that's done something they shouldn't and tries to hide the evidence of their messing around (Ingo getting fucked up via soul and getting not too gently dropped off a mountain).
I have more ideas, especially relating to how Emmet is taking his brother's ace losing her mind and how her actions affect the investigation, but if I keep going down these tracks I'm going to end up with another 90k WIP fic like i did with Naruto. (Though if people wanna see the AU written out...👀... I could absolutely be convinced. I'm very weak...)
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demonioenelespacio · 4 months
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Lately I've been thinking a lot about Crowley, Aziraphale, their feelings and the way season 2 has recontextualised some very popular headcanons from the previous one.
Starting with the first scene of both seasons: Eden and Before.
I think everyone agreed that Crowley fell in love with Aziraphale in Eden. We all know the exact moment, don't we? And I read countless fanfics around the idea that it was love at first sight for Crowley, while it took Aziraphale millennia to fall in love with him.
But then S2...
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His little smile all the time, when he tries to introduce himself… His reaction to "Look at you, you're gorgeous". My man, did you have a crush before they invented them? And my only question is, is this instant interest in the Angel who will be Crowley? Or is he acting like this because he knows who they are, has admired them from afar and finally has an excuse to talk to them?
Regardless of that, the headcanon falls apart. If there's a winner in the oldest crush competition, it's Aziraphale.
And the truth is that all this changes the way I see the Eden scene. We don't know how much Crowley remembers of Before, but, inside, he knows Aziraphale isn't going to attack him right away, the angel is somewhat familiar. Aziraphale gets nervous, but otherwise doesn't react. A demon wants to speak, and, oh, no, it's him. That Angel doesn't exist anymore, what's your name now? This creature is evil, a demon. But he repays him with the same kindness he offered him before.
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Even if I still read Crowley's expression as an absolute fascination with Aziraphale, at this point I don't think we're talking about a love story for either of them. By the time of A Companion to Owls, the two are at a loss as to what to expect from each other and they spend the episode poking at each other's edges.
As far as we know, the last time they met was with Noah. Crowley knows that Aziraphale is not a typical angel, but (in theory) he does nothing against God's order to drown all those humans. Is he really going to do something for Job's children? Why? What is his limit? Aziraphale is aware that Crowley is a demon, but is he really going to do this? Can he trust him not to harm the kids? Crowley was an angel Before; even if the Angel doesn't exist anymore, Crowley's core is the same. He is the same kind being.
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And then you have the Oh moments.
The moment in the church… I know for many people this was the moment when Aziraphale fell in love. For me it was always more complex than that, but with season 2… Now we know Aziraphale was interested Before, and we have two new scenes to give more context: a story before the fight and what happens after the church.
While I'm at it, I'll take this opportunity to say: the fight is because they are idiots. It's not even about holy water! Well, partly yes, but the argument starts with the fraternizing thing.
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Aziraphale has been denying for millennia that they know each other, not because they don't, but to cover their backs. "I'm no nice, don't say I'm nice" insists Crowley every chance he gets to cover his kind acts, unable to overlook "fraternizing."
In case Aziraphale was really covering their friendship with that word, saying "I've got lots of other people to fraternize with" is telling him that they are not so special, that Crowley has more friends.
They fight. But the fight is not that big of a deal. Honestly, to me it has the same energy as the fight when they're saying what to do about Jim. One of them leaves upset, thinks about it, apologizes, and they work together to resolve it in the end. It's a discussion like the one they had about working together to stop the apocalypse. In the book they have conversations that continue after years of not seeing each other; they could have kept talking about this, Crowley making his case, Aziraphale better explaining his objections.
But they don't. The discussion that starts with whether they are friends or not (as if Aziraphale refusing to give him a way to destroy himself if necessary isn't born from not wanting anything to happen to Crowley) is serious enough for both of them to refuse to talk.
In the end Aziraphale gets into trouble and Crowley comes to save him. That's no different from all the other times, it's what they have agreed upon. The Arrangement. But Crowley rescues the books too. And the last time they saw each other before the fight, Crowley was dragged to Hell to be interrogated and, possibly, tortured. His sin? Being slightly kind to a human. At the church, Crowley spends a demonic miracle to save some books. What excuse is he going to give for that? Aziraphale realizes that, whatever happens between them, Crowley is willing to risk punishment for a kind act towards him. Maybe Crowley does feel something for him, cares a little bit about him.
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Because I don't think Aziraphale knows how Crowley feels until then. This Oh moment is not Aziraphale realizing his feelings. He's an angel, he feels love, and now we know he was infatuated from the beginning. Almost every time we see him meet Crowley, he's always amazed.
Is he really not going to be aware of his own feelings? No, I've always bet it's the other way around. Crowley is a mystery to him; I suspect that, just as angels and demons cannot detect each other (except Crowley, as I proposed here), Aziraphale doesn't know if Crowley feels love, of whatever kind, for him.
But he cares. And Aziraphale spends the night trying to say they are friends whenever he can, tentatively, seeing their reaction to the word. And they return to that state of blind trust in each other.
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On the other hand, Crowley's Oh moment…. I don't think it's when he realises he's in love either, sorry. And it's because, to me, they know. They know by then their feelings and each other's. But they've been thinking for so long that it's all too complicated that even when they're on their own side they don't know how to make it simpler.
In the "You go too fast for me, Crowley" scene I always get caught up in what he says before. "Perhaps one day we could go for a picnic. Dine at the Ritz." Options that sound suspiciously like dates, even though he's turning him down again, covering their backs. They eat at the Ritz in the first episode; in the last episode (S1) they go to the park for ice cream as if it's an usual thing for them, just another monday. Even if they're not together-together, they already go on dates do these things.
To be honest, after S1 I always imagined that they weren't going to do anything different. Well, maybe hold hands in public, but everything else? They already act like a married couple (that's why it's possible for them to divorce hahahelp). So seeing them as they were in S2, I don't think they thought they had to change anything. But between Nina talking to Crowley and Aziraphale's enthusiasm in experiencing his own love story with the Ball, they both thought about changing their relationship at the same point.
But as Crowley once wisely said: it's too late. They are idiots, and in the end both Heaven and Hell stopped them.
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swords-of-a-soilder · 3 months
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My QSMP Headcannons vs in game Canon
Feel free to correct me if I get the Canon wrong.
•Tallulah uses hearing aids-this one is actually cannon but people tend to leave it out in art.
•philza uses a walking cane after purgatory- while Phil stated multiple times that the condition of his wings gave him poor balance, even though his wings are somewhat better I imagine the constant back and forth for someone who was never really good a balancing paired with the weight of his new wings probably make it very difficult to stay balance while walking.
•Fit, Tubbo lost limbs in purgatory- correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure Tubbo didn't lose a lib in Canon, and I'm also not sure if the texture of Fit new skin is meant to be read as a prosthetic but I like the idea.
•Richardslyson has a prosthetic leg- this isn't excalty clear whether or not it's canon, we know his model in game has a leg that doesn't connected to his shell but it also important to note that Phil adjusted Richards statue to reflect a prosthetic leg, so you could technically consider it canon.
•Phil is demi-romantic- I know Phil never gave a clear sexual orientation to his in game character, but watching them interact with other love interest he gives the vibe of a demi-romantic person.
•Fit and Phil are divorced on really good terms- the kind were you realize your better as friends, which would also play a part in Phil discovering his is demi-romantic. Obviously in canon they was no clear past relationships established between them.
•Bolas actually does see Phil as a father figured- obviously Cellbit calmed he was joking when he called Phil dad, however Baghera still seems to call him that. I also really just want Cellbit to have a good father figure lmao.
•Rose is Phil's mother- I could go into detail of how the goddess of life birth the angle of death, but I equate it to her being his mother as God is your father but like she's his mother directly. She made him, she raised him, she'll protect him like her like depends on it.
In canon Rose just seems to be the Spawn entity but I like to imagine her as his Spawn entity. That would mean that she spawned him into existence in the hardcore world.
•the federation isn't evil, just misunderstood- I'm not saying they are good, just more morally grey. They do horrible experiment and treat the residents curly in our eyes, but in their eyes this is normal.
They do things thinking the residents don't know any better and therefore their complains are invalid, quite like a narcissist parent.
•the eggs can shape shift- I love the idea of the eggs taking on physical traits of the person (s) that they feel loved by slowly the more fond they become of them.
So the original Chayanne would stay an egg for the first two days then shock his parents by appearing as a little boy with blond hair.
When badly injured they go back to egg form.
•Charlie is in fact part slime and that's how he shape shifted into gegg- technically the qsmp info channel confirmed this in the qsmp full story videos
•Jaiden was a part of project blue bird- again not confirm, but I really like the idea that she was raised by Cucuchroo and that's why she naturally acts kinder to him (but she doesn't remember)
•the island has a respawn entity- following the concept of Rose aiding Phil's spawn, I like to imagine the whole island has a entity that revives players after death, and thus respawning in other demension ie the nether, takes much longer as that a different entity all together.
•the radiation of the blast from purgatory turned Foolish into a shark human hybrid, I mean technically canon since has the speed fins now.
•Forever has a survivor complex- this is up to interpretation of whether or not it's canon but I perceive Forever's behaviour as someone who feels he had to save everyone; He is the president after all.
•Forever likely still has feelings for Phil- or better yet the feelings have developed into genuine love as opposed to obsession, but from observing Missa learnt the best way to love Phil is to respect his wishes.
•Lovejoy is canon in the qsmp and is sponsored by the federation hence why Wilbur often leaves for tours. I'm actually not sure if this is canon or not, I recall Phil joking about it but I don't know if that's the Canon explanation as to how he's allowed to leave the island.
•Missa like Wilbur is sent on sponsored trips by the federation; in which he gather information on other islands, the resources of said island and whether or not their populated
•The codes are corrupted dead eggs- I'm mostly getting this theory from the codes disguising themselves as eggs and codaflipa, but I really like the idea that the codes are eggs that have died in the past with past residents and are restless.
A good backing for this is how Sofia found the eggs to be non organic, which makes me think that in a way they are computer programming, an sentient artificial life.
That does however bring the lore question of how their ghost can return, I think codes are a store of ghost form for them, with the code of their existence being shattered after a while they degraded to code monsters.
This would explain why they kill eggs (they want more company) and how they're able to disguised as them. Codaflipa can only return a few times because it's difficult to keep that form with shattered codes.
Now it is hinted at that the eggs are artificial, Sofia and the details of A1 being hints at that, but there is no Canon confirmation of such to my knowledge
I also know that Etoiles seem to believe the code killed eggs because they were being controlled by the federation, but I don't believe that seeing as the federation went out of their way to get the eggs back.
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Note
Can you write a Story with fm&Leo ?
A First Meeting Situation with him.. and April is a girlfrind of y/n .
Also with fluff / sfw ?
😍💙😁😘
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NICE TO MEET YOU
♡~~♡~~♡~~♡~~♡
Summary: After spending the day with April, the two of you end up in a dangerous situation on your way home, where you are rescued by our leader in blue!
Warnings: Swearing, and very mild depictions of violence
Requested: @tkappi 💕
Female Reader!
Very crackish, but it was like 4 in the morning and I was loopy and giggly, enjoy!
.........................................
You laughed lightly at the joke April told. It was girls' night, something the two of you hadn't done in a while, April had a lot of "personal stuff" going on, so alot of the time she had to bail.
The two of you walked down the dark sidewalk away from the cinema, you had gone to see a new horror movie that had a lot of hype around it, and now the two of you were making fun of the bad acting.
"What about when she started crying in that one scene? You could so tell she was faking it, almost like she wasn't even trying."
April nodded, taking another sip from the soda she'd bought, "I know, it seems like horror films are just getting worse and worse."
You moved your hand in a 'so, so' gesture, "Eh, there are accouple good ones, but old slasher films just seem better, ya know?"
"I couldn't agree more, (Name)."
The two of you continued the trek towards your shared apartment complex. You lived in the same building, but weren't actual roomates, just neighbors. You'd gotten pretty close the day you moved in, and the rest was history.
April stopped just infront of an alley, and looked back at her confused, "Something wrong?" you asked.
"Hm? Oh, no, lets go this way though. It's a short cut."
You looked down the alley nervously, "Uhm, April, we're in a pretty dodgey part of town. Maybe we shouldn't go walking down dark alleys in the middle of the night."
April laughed, "Don't worry, nothings gonna happen. Even if something does, I have some... friends who'll be more than happy to help out."
"Thats reassuring." you muttered.
The two of you entered the alley, the other end in clear view, "You realize this is how people die in horror movies right?"
"Oh, shush. It's fine, I promise!"
It was not fine.
It was not fucking fine.
Two fucking ninjas jumped infront of you two, you glanced back to see two behind as well.
"I fucking told you so." you muttered,
"Not the time, (Name)!"
You shrugged, looking around for something to use as a weapon. Nothing, great.
One of the ninjas infront of you drew a sword from the sheath off their back and pointed it directly at April, "April O'neil, we have orders to bring you to Karai. Do not resist and it will be easier for everyone."
You looked in between April and the ninja, "April, who the hell did you piss off?"
"Just stay behind me, (Name)."
You scoffed, "Hey, I dunno if you noticed, but there's ninjas behind us too."
"Shit." she mumbled, April raise her hands in a gesture of surrender, "You guys really don't wanna do this. You know, because of my four friends?"
The ninja let out a whistle and the other three began to approach the pair of you. April reached for her watch and began to rapidly press a button on the side, "Hurry up, hurry up, come on you guys..." she started to mumble.
Your eyes began to search for a weapon once again. Your eyes stopped on the metal lid of a trash can, you snatched it up, and held it at the ready.
You felt a hand grab your shoulder, and with all your might you swung the lid around smacking the assailent in the face.
"Ouch! Calm down miss! I'm here to help you, I'm April's friend!"
"OH MY GOD I'M SO SORRY!"
You dropped the trash lid, and began to fret over the bruise growing on his cheek. The turtle looked between you and April, completely flabberghasted at how little you had reacted to him being a giant fucking turtle.
"H-hold that thought please." He said, side stepping you to take care of the other two foot ninjas.
You looked at April, "That's one of your friends?"
April nodded, looking at you strangly, "Yeah. You are taking this really well."
"What? Oh, yeah, well, a giant spaceship thing did appear in the sky afew years ago, so. Your friend being a giant turtle ninja is like, the least strange thing I've seen."
The turtle began to approach you and April once again, sheathing his blades as he did so, "You ladies ok?" he asked.
You nodded, "Uh- yeah, thank you- what's your name?"
"Oh, right. I'm Leonardo. But please, call me Leo, miss...?"
"(Name). I'm (Name). Oh, sorry about your face- that's my bad."
"No, no don't worry about it. Really. You have good reaction time."
"Oh, thank you-"
April cut you off, "Sorry to cut the indroductions short but, Foot Clan?"
Leo nodded, clearing his throat, "Right, did they say anything about why they were here?"
"Just that they had orders to take April to some bitch named Karai." you shrugged.
April snorted at your choice of words, and Leo looked mildly amused, "Hm. Well Maybe it's best I walk you ladies home."
"Good idea." April replied,
And so the three of you set off down the empty streets heading to your apartment complex. After arriving, Leo swore you to secrecy about this incident, then bid you an April a goodnight.
April offered you to sleep over at her's that night, and you agreed. The two of you sat in her kitchen siping coffee and discussing the previous events.
"So, what are your first impressions of Leo?" April asked as she sipped her coffee.
You shrugged, "Honestly? He's kinda hot."
April choked on her coffee, before looking at you and laughing out loud, "What? That's what you took away from that?"
"Hey, don't judge. He is. But on a more serious note, he seems nice. I'd like to get to know him more."
"I'm sure you would." April teased, smirking at you.
You smacked her arm lightly as you blushed, "Shut up."
.........................................
There we go! Sorry for the long wait, @tkappi ! I really like this one.
I took a more chaotic rom-com route for this one, but to be fair, I started at like 4 in thr morning so...
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margaretkart · 7 months
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Book review
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When gods still walked the Earth, a king could pray for a sign and have a white bull rise from the sea to confirm his claim to the throne. But a god's price was high, and when Minos did not keep his promise to the god Poseidon, the god meddled with Minos' wife...and the Minotaur, a child with the head of a bull, was born. The question is, did Poseidon intend his son to be worshiped as a new god, or is he the god's curse on Knossos, a monster that will destroy it? Ariadne was the Minotaur's half-sister, the only one who would touch him and care for him when he was born. She was also high priestess of Dionysus, sworn to interpret his Visions, but one Vision destroys her peace. Dionysus Sees that the bull-head must die or bring disaster upon the realm. Can Ariadne agree to the slaughter of the deformed half-brother who clings to her as the only one who cares for him? Can she protect the Minotaur in defiance of Dionysus' vision and dare the god's wrath? Should she?
My review (Spoilers ahead!!)
So i read this book with low expectations at first because I am always suspicious how a retelling can hold up the original myths. This one was a pleasant surprise especially for me who loves a Dionysus/ Ariadne story.
The myth changes a crucial part by having Ariadne meeting Dionysus very early on in the story to be his priestess, before even Asterius is born. So the story has them showing their relationship blossom over the years, instead of meeting her on Naxos.
Dionysus appears both in a terrifying presence to the humans as he's showing his more soft side when it comes to Ariadne. He both shows anger and joy and he has his own character development over the book which was refreshing showing his complexity. The thing that worried me was his use of powers like the vision that he could share with his priestess but thankfully it was used well.
Ariadne has agency and a personality relatable as a protagonist. She's a kind soul who wants the best for her people, but she also gets shy, angry, frustated when she's facing a challenge. Amidst all of this she finds courage to stand up to herself without needing to be "badass" warrior, but by showing her soft nature and that kindness is not weakness. She's also a good sister to Asterius (Minotaur), she treats him as her brother to the very end when everyone saw him as a monster.
Her mother Pasiphae is not the villain thankfully. Yes she has moments of acting selfish and egotistical due to her pride but it was a relatable way of showing complex relationships between mother and daughters. King Minos the same he was a complex character that made mang mistakes that resulted to where they putted themselves in.
What i also liked but was worried about it's the lack of love triangle! I expected due to Ariadne meeting Dionysus sooner would result in a cliché love triangle but no! Theseus is being helped to win the Minotaur with Ariadne but he already eyed her sister. It was a suprise approach to no make him the "bad" boy in her life but it was a welcome one 😌.
Dionysus and Ariadne's relationship was the best part of the book. From their first meeting they already had undeniable chemistry, always soft and gentle to eachother with mutual love and respect that only grew stronger the more years they knew eachother.
A solid 8/10 for me!^^ (would love more scenes of them and expand their relationship)
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byclairs · 8 months
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Lucas's arc seemed like he deserved to be put in his place and recognize that he was wrong for believing he could hope for better? And they did not even focus in his character that much. Most people say Mike has a spectacular forced conformity storyline waiting for s5 when we had a forced conformity storyline for Lucas but it was so sloppily written. I thought the forced conformity narrative is suppposed to be written good in any case for poc too, not just for your white character that you send a message with.
it feels like the duffers just don’t care enough to convey a cohesive message for lucas’ arc and/or don’t know how because on the one hand they’ve acknowledged several times the racism he faces both on and outside the show so they can’t even play dumb and yet they then constantly downplay what he goes through and so you end up with scenes like the end of s4 where he basically learns to know his place or whatever like..lucas is not in same boat as someone like mike who’s mainly bullied for being a nerd. he’s ostracized in a way that mike and dustin will literally never understand but the show almost never makes any attempt to show how he deals with that yet it’s explicitly talked about in an official book from his perspective (and i know lucas on the line is not technically canon but it’s still tied to netflix/st and if they had someone in the writer’s room who could’ve incorporated even part of the type of material from the book into the show i think it would’ve done wonders to flesh out his story) like i’m sorry if you’re gonna acknowledge that his situation is different than the rest of the party’s then you need to put more care into following through with that because the whole “i thought i wanted to be like you—popular, normal” scene was just..it felt like they were insinuating his main reason for joining basketball was just to be cool when we know it’s a lot more complex than that; he was trying to protect not only himself but his friends too even though they don’t face the same shit he does. and possibly even enjoy something new in the process god forbid. and you would think that he was ditching his friends and other interests for the basketball team when that’s not what happened at all? like he never started acting aloof with them or ignoring them, he was still very much in hellfire and he never turned his back on them he even used his status on the team to lure them away from where eddie was hiding even though everyone was saying he killed chrissy and lucas didn’t know what was going on yet. he never let his desire to fit in turn him into someone unrecognizable who needed to be taught a lesson and that’s why it pisses me off so bad that he was made to feel this deep regret in the end as if he made some huge mistake that he learned from because in reality he’s never been anything short of a loyal friend or strayed from his morals. and to top it all off mike and dustin get off the hook without having reflect on how they hurt lucas because apparently you should never support your friends unless you fully understand and agree with the things they want 👍🏼 idk.
i also think his conflicting feelings about helping his (ex) girlfriend deal with her grief for her canonically racist brother who traumatized and literally almost killed him would’ve been really interesting and important to explore especially since that most likely relates to the reasons he started feeling like it was urgent to fit in more in the first place but. none of that because this boy’s feelings are never taken into account
i also think everyone should read all of this
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soft-persephone · 7 months
Text
Not a Accident
Nick Miller x Black!Female!Reader
WC: 2.2k // Mature: MDNI // Warning: Smut, Light cockwarming, // Slight angst, sad relationship talks // a lil cringy dialog (but we move!) // masterlist
I wrote this with black women in mind, but everyone is welcome to read it!!!
AN: And remember what Amine’ said IN CAROLINE for his tiny desk concert! Look it up if you don’t know what I’m talking about! You’ll love it! ☺️
And no, I didn’t focus on my new girl fic because Doug Renetti broke my heart in Minx….
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Nick walked in the door and sighed
He was beyond tired.
He worked three back to back shifts and all he wanted to do was get back to you before—
“In what world do you get a girl like that?”
“I’m not doing this today, Schmidt.” Nick wants to scream. He wants to yell, or at least do something loudly in some frustrated manner. . But he was too tired.
So he’ll have to settle on just showing his displeasure with his face.
“I worked too hard for too long. I just want to have one simple moment with my girlfriend before she has to leave for the day with her friends.”
“That!” Schmidt dramatically pointed, “is precisely the problem Nick. You just go around working and doing whatever else, when you should be with her.
Schmidt’s voice shifted and his eyes got watery in a way Nick did not feel comfortable with.
“I’m just so proud of you man. You’ve been taking moderately good care of yourself and putting your best foot forward and somehow she’s still here . . . But also, YOU DONT DESERVE HER!”
Nick frowned and pushed past Schmidt to get to his room.
“Have a nice day at work.” He grumbled.
Asshole.
Opening the door of his room, he smiled.
Every ounce of frustration and anger he had rumbling around in him no longer mattered.
You were face down in his bed, sheets crumpled in various directions, half covering your body. You had one hand dangling over the edge while one was tucked underneath the pillow you had your face buried in. A cute purple bonnet covered your hair while you only wore one of his shirts.
He grabbed a few things and cleaned him self up before climbing in alongside you.
He gently grabbed you by the hips and pulled you into his chest so you could both lay side by side. You sleeply cried out but adjusted into the position easily, letting him move you every which way until you were both comfortable against each other.
God, did he really love you.
He inwardly sighed in relief when you didn’t wake up.
He wanted, no he needed, this moment with you.
All he thought about was you being here when he got back from work. How he wanted to hold you tight and bask in your presence, your touch, and your smell, just before you were ripped apart again, and he’d have to wait hours upon hours again before you could both spend some quality time together.
He was being a little dramatic, and he kind of hated it. . . . But maybe he has a right to be. You live on the other side of the country! He has to wait for you to come to LA before you can both act like the distance doesn’t bother either of you!
Truth be told it was killing him.
But you don’t talk about it. He doesn’t talk about it. It was an unspoken rule he was sure you both appreciated.
However, whenever you were together, he forgets about all the problems between you two, and he thinks for you it’s quite the same. Being together was just so, easy.
He moved his face to settle on to yours so you were both cheek to cheek. Your perfume radiated off of you in waves. You always smelled of something sweet.
It was sweet but complex and sophisticated and amazing and beautiful. It smelled like you.
You were always so pretty, but when you were sleeping it was something special.
He didn’t have to worry about what other people might think in moments like these or how he looked so stupid or how stupid his thoughts were.
It was only you and him, and that was all that mattered.
But he was also a man.
A very simple one at that.
And he had a very long and tired shift at work. He had done his job with you on his mind during every hour that crawled by, and now you were in front of him.
Every dip and curve of your body was pressed against him, he could run his hand along your soft skin, caress the very warm brown thighs that held the power of his image destruction.
He couldn’t help the furling desire that grew inside of him. The thought of you leaving at some point made him even more desperate.
He looked at the clock and watched as 7:00am crawled closer and closer.
He needed to do something now before you were gone.
You asked him to wake you up at that time, so you’d be able to get ready for an early brunch with your friends. You all flew in together and split a hotel room, but here you were now, in his bed.
There was something about the way you looked in your sleep.
Cuddled on your side, covers pulled up over your nose and the pillows fanned around your face, protecting you against everything in the day had in store for you. Your eyelashes soft and feathery didn’t move an inch as you slept. The sun was starting to cast a warm new throughout the room, dawning you in a dazzling glow.
Nick’s chest swelled with emotion.
Fuck!
He wanted to be close to you. He wanted to spend the rest of the day with you. It’s not like you were here everyday. You fly halfway across the country when you can just to be here, and he can’t help but to accept whatever time you spare to be with him. Hell if this trip wasn’t so sudden he might have taken off work just to be with you.
You just smelled so good.
No matter what type of scent you wore, it was always a sweet one. But your favorite, which was also becoming his favorite, was vanilla. It somehow wedged its way into everything you wore. If was flowery or sexy or spicy or whatever the fuck it was, vanilla was always there.
“Mmh.” Nicks face was pressed against yours. His body was now covering yours too. His knees folded under yours, legs interlocking together, his arms holding you as if you were an oversized teddy bear.
“You smell good.”
“You too.” You hummed back. “…..hate it.”
Nick’s chuckle vibrated in his chest, tickling at your back. “Why? If anything I thought you’d appreciate me taking a shower before I get into bed.”
“Like it better when you smell like cheep beer and whiskey.”
Nick laughed again, his breath tickled your ear.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He moved your leg over his, not even saying anything slick or suggestive or smooth. Just a sudden movement, no start of sweet nothings or jokes or conversation of any kind.
He grinded his hips against yours in a slow stroke.
Your mouth opened in a silent moan. You were still a bit sleepy, but that didn’t stop the throb between your legs.
“Later.” You softly moaned into the pillow. “I gotta get ready.”
“No,” he moved your sleep shorts to the side and sucked at your throat in the way you liked, “now.” He gruffly pouted.
He pulled his sweatpants down and groaned as his cock bobbed out of his sweats. The head already leaking.
Fuck. You brought your hand to your mouth and bit your finger hard.
Nick was always thick, but fuck was he stretching you out. Barely past his head was inside of you but it was already too much.
“No one in New York been fuckin’ you.”
“Mhmm.” You slurred. “Just you…only here.”
“That’s a long time with no dick.”
“S’allright before ah metyou , i'll b’ sallright after.” You horsesed softly. Your voice was still raspy with sleep, but breathy from the way he was slowly stretching you out. Inch by excruciatingly pleasant inch
When Nick was all the way inside of you he craned his neck past your face to give you a kiss. It was firm, but littered with a sleepy edge. As all consuming and desperate as one could manage in such a state. He eventually brought his hand up your chest. Dragging his knuckles from under your shirt to your neck, grabbing firm but softly at your neck to keep you in place.
Your chest burned.
You grew equally desperate for a breath of air as you were for his mouth to stay on yours. From the way he was taking your breath away, to the way he felt so full inside of you, it was too much.
You moaned in his mouth.
Nick wanted to tease you, but fuck… he could only take so much. The feeling of you moaning in his mouth made him twitch inside of you, and you responded with a gush.
You were so warm and wet, and he felt so comfortable.
He didn’t want to move.
“Nick I need to go.” You whined after he finally broke the kiss.
He ignored you, mouthing at your neck, biting down as hard as he could on your collar before nipping at your jaw.
“No.” He mumbled into your skin.
“Niiiick.”
-
“You fucked him.”
“Leave me alone.” You deadpanned.
“Your really did fuck him,” Natalie squealed!”
“Yayyy! You fucked him!” Reesha clapped and giggled.
“You two play, too fucking much.” You muttered. But you still held a smile on your face.
“So what’s the plan on this whole, long distance thing?”
“How come your always flying to him and he never flys to see you?”
“Is he really that broke?”
“Oh my god girl! You ain’t tell me you were fucking a broke nigga!”
“Will you two quit it out already!” You rolled your eyes. Besides, you added with a pout, “I thought we were doing a fun brunch thing!”
“Your fun brunch privileges get revoked when you have them in the same city as the guy you're willing to fly out to for sex.” Natalie gave you a pointed look.
Natalie was your Best friend throughout undergrad, and Reesha was a friend through her husband which you worked with at a Law Firm.
“Well, better him than my husband. You two were getting a little too chummy.”
“Reesha, you know good and well nobody wants your man! They’ve been friends since law school! That’s old news!”
“By the way, Xavier misses you.” Caresia raised an eyebrow at you before taking a sip of her mimosa.
“We’ve all been missing you.” Natalie added.
“I know I know.”
We’re you really spending that much time in LA?
“I want to say I’ve been trying to make it work?”
Your friends sighed over exaggeratedly.
“Girl, you mean you’ve been hopping on all these flights without thinking about it?”
“Oh you must love this guy for real for real…”
“I don’t really like the way you said that, Reesha.” You scoffed half jokingly.
“You shouldnt! We came here not only to have a good time, but to have a real talk with you.”
“Does this guy have a real job?” If you two are serious enough to be long-distance this long, it’s time you start thinking about the facts.”
“He’s a bartender.” You crossed your arms and bit the inside of your cheek to keep a neutral expression.
“Like a regular one or one that’s actually making some money.”
“She ain’t tell you?” Reesha scoffed before chuckling and sipping her mimosa.
“Tell me what?” Natalie turned to look at you.
You didn’t respond, opting to look into your glass and take a long sip through the little straw.
Nick’s made you a better one. And annoyingly won’t tell you how he made it, so you'll suffer through mediocre mimosa’s for the rest of your life if he’s not there.
“Don’t you make that face. What were you supposed to tell me.”
“He has three roommates.”
“Three?!?”
“Told you!”
“Is the dick really that good?” Natalie shook her head and sighed.
“Look, I’m a big girl and I know what I’m getting myself into.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t want another guy like Derik.”
“But Derik might have been an asshole, but at least he was on your level? If you kept setting him straight and puting him in his place each time he stepped out of line, you could have trained yourself up the perfect man! He can actually provide you the life you want. You two could have built a future together!” Reesha pleaded.
“Derik is a grown ass man!” You huffed, “I’m not tryna be a second mother to some nigga! I want to be happy, and Nick makes me happy!” You sighed, but gave them a real look, doing your best to make sure your friends could at least see how you felt if your words weren’t enough.
“I don’t know how or if this is going to end, but I know that right now this is what I want. This is it for me.”
“If you say so,” Natalie relented.
“We just want you to know we’re here for you no matter how this turns out.” Reesha added.
“I know,” you sighed, “I know.”
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batsforbadones · 1 year
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creepypasta headcanons (from a slasher blog? more likely than you think)
I know you all didn’t follow me for Creepypasta content but I didn’t want to make a new account, and I need to get some head canons across. also I picked the tumblerest aesthetic image i could find for each one to really channel that energy.
trying to get a feel for them, be easy plz. I haven’t written for them in years.
Based on the fandom perceptions of the creepypastas rather than real lore.
TW: SUBSTANCE ABUSE/ SA/ ED/ SH JEFF THE KILLER
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-Mega Mall Goth ass beat. Listens compulsively to Marilyn Manson. Had a third wave sexuality experience when KILL4ME was released. -Addicted to Heroin because he thinks it makes him sexier. Has extreme delusions of grandeur. Believes he’s a new age god that is meant to be worshipped- Essentially believes he’s some form of reincarnated Aphrodite. In actuality its more like the modern day Narcissus, or Dorian Gray, suffering constantly with a news cast image of himself that he just sees getting uglier and uglier -”They never get my fucking smile right. I swear they’re editing it- They’re like, fucking editing it-” -Severe Body Dysmorphia. He can’t perceive his body. He can barely perceive his face when he’s in the process of healing. It’s all lacquer to him- Iridescent. He doesn't view this as a bad thing, but on the rare occasion he can perceive his body, he’s disgusted, and mutilates it in an attempt to repurpose what he views as simply “an unfavorable medium” -Very into body mods. He views his smile this way- further perfecting a craft. He has piercings and the ink and the works- Most shops don't blind twice about his appearance, often applauding the look. -Contrary to his living legend, Jeff was neve able to fully burn off his lids. He tried, and just ended up nuking his lashes. He does find that lack of hair to be appealing, though, and often keeps the rest of his body, save for his head, in a similar shape. A lot of it struggles to grow hair because of the scar tissue anyways. -Never got the chance to grow out of his edgy, 14, and deep phase. Curses compulsively. With every breathe the word Fuck, Bastard, Cunt, Bitch, or some other new fun word will come spilling out. -Chronically straight. like, obsessively straight. Very into the most typical looking women because ‘metal is a mans topic’ (he literally only knows 4 Metallica songs) and if he very much has that ‘they’re too easy to manipulate’ -He’s always chronically chasing women he can’t have.
EYELESS JACK
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-Daddy Kink Haver. Proper dominant, educated man. -I think he’d be older. Not Hannibal. This isn't about Hannibal. Jack is more breakable, pliable. He’s demanding and domineering, and he sneers and snaps his teeth like a dog. He bites in bed. He pulls hair. He’s borderline animalistic when he consumes, and yet surgical and steel when he slices. -He doesn’t prepare meals. He eats it raw. He’d find the flavor- the specialty of the meat to be tainted by spices and herbs. He just needs the meat.  -Complex form of OCD. He doesn't need to be clean. He’s not really put together. He’s got a five o’clock shadow, a hoodie that smells like copper, and a bizarre itch in his own kidneys. If he doesn’t remove someone's, he’ll be forced to remove his own- And he only has the left one left.  -Tall. Not wide. Lean. He’s got a cock that drags across the ground. Uncircumcised. And he walks with the tilt to prove it. -And he sweats, and groans, and there’s this sense about him that he’s only living off adrenaline and coke.  -A severe sadist. The kidney eating has little to nothing to do with this. Those are urges in his organs. The choice to get a medical PHD has everything to do with this, though. Watching people writhing on gurneys when they come in for emergency? Gorgeous. Erection driving.  -Also, has a PHD. It’s DOCTOR Eyeless Jack to you. -Goes by Eyeless Jack purely due to a newspaper misprint and a well placed note. He committed an act of enucleation, and instead of the multiple missing kidneys from previous LIVING victims, he’s only known for this? Humans are so weirddddd.
TICCI TOBY
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-A lot quieter than he’s made out to be, only really mumbling out things here and there- however, notably, when he’s loud hes l o u d. -The better descriptor of how he behaves would be self harmingly neurotic. Sometimes other harmingly neurotic. Charmingly, neurotic. His neurosis has very little to do with his tourettes. It has everything to do with his mania. He’s always on an upper, and the way he moves proves it. He’s borderline animalistic with his motions. He doesnt walk anywhere, he either bolts or stomps. He finds urges to burn things a little too frequently- -If you both to get close enough without his mask on, you’ll see that he’s actually mumbling--- all the time. It’s almost like a consistent chitter of his teeth. Like a weird, fucked up rattle.  -One of his main tics is pulling his jaw scar. It’s a hook motion, and he yanks down and it leaves the area constantly raw. He would prefer to not speak, but then again, he isn’t really given the option. -He tweets like a bird. “WooHoo~” -A consistent problem with his schizo-affective ass is that he’s subjective to equally grandiose delusions when having episodes. Like Jeff, he often finds himself gagging on the kitchen floor, struggling to cope with the fact that he’s disgustingly mortal. Like, Jeff is- bad- Toby’s consciously bad. It’s like the second he became aware of Slenderman being-- real- any form of humanity drained from him. It’s not like he had a disorder to blame it on anymore. A real dude was just-- making him act like this. It wasn’t in his head, what was he to do against an eldritch horror? -lays... incredible pipe. Insane levels of pipe. He’s hypersexual with the audacity to have a thing for anal. He’s awful. awful. He can go for hours- -But its not like he feels anything. He struggles to feel anything emotionally to begin with- and physically, literally.  -The act of sex is bizarrely calming to him. Rhythmic. It’s like a hypnotic form of self care for him. He can zone out for hours- It’s not like he becomes aware when he’s rubbed his dick raw- or your internal organs.
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gunterfan1992 · 6 months
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Episode Review: "Destiny"/"The Winter King" (Fionna & Cake, Eps. 5–6)
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Airdate: September 14, 2023
Story by: Anthony Burch, Adam Muto, Hanna K. Nyström, Jack Pendarvis, Kate Tsang
Storyboarded by: Hanna K. Nyström, Anna Syvertsson, Jacob Winkler, Sonja von Marensdorff
Directed by: Ryann Shannon (supervising), Hans Tseng (art)
One of my favorite moments from Adventure Time comes at the very end of season four's "The Lich" when we are introduced to "Farmworld" for the first time. When the episode aired, this reveal was positively huge, adding as it did a brand new reality to the already complex world of Ooo. The show would go on to expand our understanding of Farmworld in the season five premiere "Finn the Human"/"Jake the Dog" and the season seven episode "Crossover," but even with all those episodes, I never could shake the feeling that there was so much more the series could have done with Farmworld. You can thus imagine my surprise when I learned that Fionna and Cake of all people would be journeying to this strangely normal alternate dimension!
"Destiny" picks up with Fionna, Cake, and Simon landing in Farmworld, roughly 10 or so years after the events of "Crossover." Following the destruction of the Farmworld crown, things returned to their (post-apocalyptic) normalcy, and Ice-Finn (or, as the people in Farmworld call him, "The Snow Man") has grown into a strapping Man-Finn who is busy raising three children (his wife, it seems, has died). One of Finn's kids, Jay, overhears Fionna, Cake, and Simon asking around about the Farmworld crown, and so he steals them away to meet his father. Once Man-Finn discovers what it is Simon and Co. seek, however, he bids them to leave. Going against his father's wishes, Jay sneaks Fionna, Cake, and Simon to the crater where the Farmworld Bomb had detonated, where they all discover the charred remnants of the crown. At this point, Jay reveals that previously when visiting the crater, he had discovered one of the crown's jewels. The final act of the episode is a sees Fionna, Cake, Simon, Man-Finn, and Jay square off against the Destiny Gang and Scarab, who we learn has been trailing our heroes this whole time. After securing the jewel from Big D's turncoat daughter, Simon fuses it with Prismo's remote, zapping himself, Fionna and Cake to another reality just as Scarab stabs(?!) Man-Finn in the head.
First and foremost, I must stress that "Destiny" feels very much like an episode of the "original" Adventure Time. This is likely a result of the Farmworld setting: as a world, it is overflowing with an absurdist energy and out-there characters (e.g., Big D!) that I intimately associate with the adventures of Finn and Jake. And let me know emphatically state: This is not a bad thing. Not at all. I love how the producers have been able to weave the Adventure Time "feel" into something new. It is like meeting an old friend after a long time apart (only for that old friend to get stabbed in the head by a space-god).
OK, but seriously… did Farmworld Finn die? I hope note. If he did, that would mean that Jay's actions were directly responsible for his father getting killed. That's pretty dark. And considering all the bad dads in the Oooniverse, it would be nice if one of the good ones was allowed to live a (relatively) happy life.
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Airdate: September 14, 2023
Story by: Anthony Burch, Adam Muto, Hanna K. Nyström, Jack Pendarvis, Kate Tsang
Storyboarded by: Iggy Craig, Graham Falk, Jim Campbell, Lucyola Langi, Nicole Rodriguez
Directed by: Steve Wolfhard (supervising), Hans Tseng (art)
After zapping away from Farmworld, Simon, Fionna, and Cake teleport to a reality ruled by the "Ice Prince"—an alt-universe Simon Petrikov who has somehow managed to avoid the madness that plagued Ice King. Simon quickly tells his fellow Petrikov the group's goals, and the Ice Prince gallantly agrees to help them by duplicating his own crown. Things are going swimmingly until the evil "Candy Queen" swoops in and snatches away both Simon and the Ice Prince. Fionna, Cake, and Ice Prince's guards dart to their rescue, brutally (but humorously) massacring dozens of hideously mutated candy citizens. Fionna and Cake rescue Simon and the Ice Prince, but once Fionna and Ice Prince share a kiss, the awful truth is revealed: Ice Prince is not some gentleman who overcame the madness of the crown through sheer will. No, he was a self-centered "wad" who used magic to deflect his madness onto the poor Candy Queen… who, as we quickly learn, is just an alternate universe version of Princess Bubblegum. Thanks to fairy tale logic, Fionna's kiss breaks Ice Prince's magic spell, which causes his crown to lose power. He subsequently crumbles to dust and everything he has created melts away.
So far, of the episodes we've gotten, I think "The Winter King" has been my favorite, largely because of the way it explores Simon's psychological character.
One thing that made Ice King’s story so tragic was how Simon, in his original form, was fundamentally a good person, buried deep within the mind of an outwardly "evil" wizard. "The Winter King" neatly conveys the opposite of this situation by showing us an Alt-Simon who, while outwardly "good," had long ago squandered his sense of morality for selfish gain. Not to get too analytical, but all of the good/bad talk reminds me of what the psychologist Carl Jung called the "Shadow." Put in simplest terms, the Shadow is a part of the unconscious human psyche in which repressed, rejected, or unrecognized aspects of the Self are contained, far from the light of conscious thought. The Shadow tends to seal away attributes of the Self that we wish to downplay or dismiss, making it "the home of the suppressed monsters of our inner world," in which "the energy of [our] dark side" bubbles (to quote Christopher Vogler). Furthermore, the Shadow exists as the inverse of our conscious Ego (meaning that, as Jung put it, "when one tries desperately to be good and wonderful and perfect, then all the more the shadow develops a definite will to be black and evil and destructive"). And because it is unconscious, the Shadow eludes easy detection. Nevertheless, its contents can often be ascertained by keeping an eye out for psychological “projection,” wherein a person denies their own foibles and instead recognizes those defects in others.
Now consider this topic in relation to "The Winter King." Let us start with Ice King, a hyperbolically crazy and "evil" wizard. I would argue that Ice King is a textbook of Simon's Shadow made manifest: He is everything that Simon consciously does not want to be brought to the surface in its entirety. The tragedy of Simon is that, while he doesn't often talk about it, he knows deep down that Ice King, while corrupted and warped by the crown, was an aspect of himself. In fact, this entire series feels very much like Simon’s journey to fully recognize his own Shadow.* And the fact that he starting to do this despite it being a painful process is, in my opinion, the clearest evidence of his ethical/moral character. Conversely, Alt-Simon is not like this. When presented with his Shadow, he does not choose to begin the painful recognition process. Instead, he projects it onto an innocent person; he builds up an elaborate "nice king" persona while literally condemning someone for his own sins. It is important to note that psychological projection is a pretty normal occurrence and thus not a surefire marker of "evil" or anything like that. What makes this instance of projection so bad is that Alt-Simon does this fully aware that it will cause someone to suffer for crimes they did not commit. Alt-Simon is like the "pious" archbishop who burns the "evil witches" at the stake all because he cannot come to terms with his own inner demons.
Now that is messed up!
But you know what isn't messed up? The voice acting in this episode. I do not say this to be hyperbolic: "The Winter King" may very well be Hynden Walch's finest performance to date. Her take on the Candy Queen is truly horrifying in a decidedly blursed way. So fundamentally different is her performance that at first I thought it was someone else! Also stealing the spotlight in this episode is Brian David Gilbert, erstwhile writer for Polygon and maker of many a wacky YouTube video. Gilbert's Ice Prince exudes the perfect amount of over-the-top flamboyance and faux chivalry. Both Walch and Gilbert get a song apiece in this episode, and both do a stellar job. (As an aside, have we ever had a true-blue PB song? Does the Candy Queen's song count?)
Oh, and as a quick aside: "The Winter King" features a few short scenes set in Fionna's non-magical world that follow Marshall Lee and Gary Prince as the latter tries to bake something that will earn him greater renown. Going into these scenes, I thought I would have found them a bit dull, but they were quite endearing. It's obvious that these scenes are a way for us to explore how Marceline and Bubblegum got to know one another, but from the parallax angle of a genderbent world, and I am here for it!
Final "Destiny" Grade: A
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Final "The Winter King Grade": A
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* My Prediction: Simon will attempt to become the Ice King, only to realize that a full-on transformation is not just necessary but ultimately dangerous. Recognizing one's Shadow does not mean you become synonymous with; it simply means that you know it's there.
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utilitycaster · 9 months
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I know you tend to know a lot of the CR lore and I feel like I've missed something. I've seen a lot of people in the chat of the last episode talking about how the gods of Exandria need prayer and their followers to live and that they're just using their followers and I'm a bit confused because in the history of Exandria video the gods already had their powers when they came to Exandria.
Yeah I think it's been kept very ambiguous in canon and people have extrapolated or overlaid ideas of deities from other works or traditions.
The biggest canon source I think we have on the relationship of deities to their followers' worship is that after Vecna's ascension, Ioun says that he will need more worshippers to "disseminate his power and claim his domains". However, even that is pretty ambiguous, since Vecna is a new deity who was born mortal - essentially, an evil counterpart to the Raven Queen. It's unclear if this is only true of Vecna (and any hypothetical new god) or only true for something like the expansion of one's domains. Otherwise, I at least think - I could be wrong - that the cast has sometimes acted as though the gods rely on the worship of their followers, but Matt is usually noncommittal or "kind of, but it's complicated" in response.
My understanding, and this does involve some personal interpretation, is that the gods are not like Tinkerbell. They do not need you to clap if you believe in them lest they die. They exist, and have powers, regardless of whether they are worshiped. A good case in point is that between the Schism and the start of the Calamity, the Betrayers were completely sealed away with no access to followers, and survived and rapidly began fucking with the world as soon as they were unleashed. This is further backed up with the fact that the gods have frequently and repeatedly ceded ground to mortals - they granted them arcane magic, and when mortals used this to begin to distance themselves from the gods, the gods permitted it. This is also backed up by Sarenrae remaining perfectly capable of full power despite her worship having been vastly diminished post-Calamity until Pike began signficantly reviving her worship.
However, I think it is fair to say that the gods are drastically limited in what they can do on the Material Plane while they themselves are not on the Material Plane. They primarily need to work through their followers. They can send visions and dreams, and grant powers, but they can't simply step in and fix everything with a snap of their fingers. And so, having more followers and worshipers on the material plane means that their capacity to do enact meaningful change in the world is increased.
For what it's worth I've also, as a person with complex feelings about the existence of god but who through reflection and adjustment that is, frankly, ongoing (which I think is normal and appropriate) does have a religious practice, never found any logic in the idea that the gods are simply using their followers. Like, I might be lighting candles on Friday night to the benefit of literally no one, and anything I feel from it is, effectively, a placebo, or something entirely human-made. So why would it be different if some entity who has never spoken to me nor made their existence definitively clear gains power from it? Now consider the world in which I am a cleric. In that case, I am clearly getting something from this.
In short, the relationship between mortals in Exandria and the gods, or at least the Prime Deities, has always to me seemed symbiotic. I think that the idea people get nothing from the act of worship in and of itself is a very limited and small-minded one in the first place, and so while I reject the idea that the gods are reliant on people for sustenance - though they are reliant for a certain degree of agency within the world - the premise that the gods are using their followers with the followers deriving nothing from it is already false and the entire argument dissolves.
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