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#humane slaughter doesn't exist
randomnameless · 6 days
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Can you imagine what the reaction would be from Edelgard fans if Wilhelm was ever made playable in Heroes, and instead of being against Serios or not trusting her, he is actually just her BFF who talks about her more then Cyril.
He also goes like, "What secret history about Serios are you talking about? dont talk shut about my bestie.
Willy in FEH?
Lol
More seriously,
Lower your expectations anon, after the nothingburger that was Altina's Supreme Alt, FEH made it clear that the Brave Supreme Leader FB and Hegemongard's FB were outliers - we won't ever get anything like this anymore, students will uwu about academy days and the friends they made for 10 months, Hanneman, Gilbert and Alois are old thus will never be released, and the rest is flanderized.
Assuming Willy is ever released though, I can see his lines purposedly avoiding mentionning Nabateans and being milquetoast "we must defeat Nemesis and bring peace to the land" x10.
Maybe his jp lines - heavily Pat'd - would have something like "Adrestia will unify Fodlan and make it a land for everyone regardless of their race" (Pat'd swap "race" by "background" like what happened in Engage!) which would destroy the "sekrit smokescreen theory*" to smithereens, but hey, we still have to this day people arguing Supreme Leader "You are a dragon you should not rule over humans" isn't biased against pointy ears so...
Ultimately, I think most people wouldn't care.
*That was already debunked in Nopes!
Willy being alive after the WoH and Lycaon's icing can't tell... Lycaon's successor that Seiros and her ilk control humanity, given that Cethleann and Cichol left, Macuil left and he goes to meet Indech in a remote location in the mountains...
But I guess Supreme Leader's words have more weight than what the game presents, or what Rhea'n'Seteth - who personally knew the dude - reveal about him. Sure, she's biased and all, but at the end of the WoC, the only Nabatean left to "act" in Fodlan was Seiros the Warrior - her brothers fucked off.
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fairuzfan · 6 months
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This post is for the anon who sent me that video asking me to debunk it's claims so they can be better equipped against accusations of antisemitism.
Sorry, I won't post the video since I refuse to have that man on my blog but I can give you common Zionist talking points and the illogicality behind it.
To preface: most of the questions Zionists will ask you are a trap, and will make you fall into a "rabbit hole" (as I was once told when I was younger), as we try to apply their reasoning. My advice is to ALWAYS center the humanity of Palestinians. For example, when a Zionist says:
"Don't Jews deserve a homeland to be safe?"
It fundamentally ignores the core issue: Palestinians are being raped, murdered, and expelled from their homes so that the establishment of this so called "homeland" may exist. When people ask this to you, I personally advise saying something like:
Why must Palestinians suffer for the establishment of this homeland?
Always recenter to the issue at hand—the inhumane removal and treatment of Palestinians.
"Palestine belongs to the Jews and Not Muslims"
The whole premise of this claim is flawed—there is a weird tendency to equate Arab/Palestinian=Muslim when it just is like. Completely untrue. There are Palestinian Christians, Bethlehem is famously a Christian city, who have been there for centuries. There are Palestinian Jews, who have been there for centuries. There are Palestinian Muslims, who have been there for centuries. My grandpa told me stories of how he would turn on lamps for his Jewish neighbors in Al-Khalil (or Hebron) during Shabbat.
To claim that Palestine is EITHER Islamic or Jewish doesn't make any sense and completely neglects the fact that dissemination of culture has occurred for centuries, as well as the intermingling of people throughout generations. To somehow assert that for some reason, Jews and Muslims did not have ANYTHING to do with each other—did not create together, did not build families together, did not build culture together, all while being PALESTINIAN—is incredibly racist and nonsensical. "Palestinian" is not a religious identity—it's a cultural and ethnic one.
Also, it does not negate the core issue—Palestinians are being killed, removed, and tortured so that others can live on that land.
"Well what about [something about partitioning land]?"
Honestly like, who cares about the partitioning throughout the 1900 and early 2000s. Sorry, I'm not going to list the whole "partitioning" history nonsense. The whole reason "Israel" exists is because of a Mass Exodus, murder, and rape of Palestinians. Everything after that is rendered obsolete.
"Well, I heard Palestinians allied with Hitler"
I don't know how to tell you this but Palestine was under British Control. No they didn't.
"Israel withdrew from the Gaza and left them to themselves and they put Hammas in charge"
Oh yeah, Israel totally left Gaza, that's why Gazans' water, electricity, internet, and food is completely controlled by Israel (this is sarcasm, Israel still controls basic life in Gaza).
Go back to centering the idea that no human deserves to be shoved into an open-air prison, starved, and controlled. Did you know that the Zionist Entity controls the amount of water Gazans receive, as well as counting their calories to ensure they don't have enough energy on a day to day basis?
"I heard Israel asked Arabs to stay"
Show them these papers and videos when they say this:
youtube
If you can't show them these videos, check in the next point what to say.
"Well the Palestinians left of their own will in 1948"
Palestinians in 1948 didn't "leave." They had heard of how the Zionist Entity was slaughtering Palestinians en masse. Women especially heard stories of rape and sexual violence. They fled from *violence*. Again, from an earlier post, that this was a calculated effort on the Zionist Entity's part to try and get them to "leave" on their own and "abandon" their houses so that they can come in and say "hey, they left on their own so, we can come in and take their houses now."
Anyways, the idea that once you leave your house you can't ever come back to it is incredibly odd to me as an argument on Zionists' part. Like if you leave your house right now to go to the grocery store and you come back and see someone in your house and they're like "sorry dude, this is my house now, you left so that means you can't come back," you'd be like, "what the hell!" It would be even weirder if everyone agreed with the guy who took your house, which is what happened to Palestinians.
In Al-Khalil, or Hebron, Palestinians always have to have someone stay in their house or else a Settler will come in and take it from them. So it still goes on today as well.
This is not a point, but when that one person in the video said "Arabs lived under Israeli rule" and showed a clip of a bustling city with mountains, I'm pretty sure that was Amman, Jordan, not Palestine lol. Those buildings in the mountains look like how downtown Amman builds the residential areas. Could be wrong tho.
"There are no Jews living under Palestinian rule in Palestine"
What is this, some sort of gotcha argument? What are they trying to prove, the racist (obviously false) notion that Palestinians hate Jews as a whole? How do they know no Palestinian Jew lives in Gaza? Also, Settlers in Palestinian Territory exist??? I had never heard this claim before, its incredibly stupid lol. You're automatically a citizen of "Israel" if you're Jewish, whether or not you live in or outside of Palestinian Territories. So of course technically they don't live under Palestinian rule, they're granted full rights as an "Israeli" citizen automatically!
Go back to talking about the inhumane treatment of Palestinians, I wouldn't bring up the above counterpoint unless they really won't let it go since the main point is mistreatment.
"Why are Christians supporting Israel then, if it's a secular issue rather than a religious one?"
Well actually for a couple reasons:
Oil interests and regional control of goods (White People Supporting White People).
Weird fundamentalist ideology where they want to enact the second coming of Christ.
And finally because they are racist and don't think Arab Christians deserve to live. They literally bombed a 1500+ year church the other day. Why would (White) Christians cosign that.
Anyways, its a stupid argument again, because it forgets the core issue of Palestinians dying and being displaced.
In summary, always go back to the point of centering the Palestinians being displaced, tortured, and murdered, no matter the argument a Zionist gives you.
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clanwarrior-tumbly · 3 months
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May I request Catnap who basically adopted a child!reader who is anyways sleepy and lazy. and has a case of not remembering a lot of things, like dementia
Like through the hour of joy...After all the Toys killed the workers. Catnap finds the reader, who is sleeping then wakes up and the reader forgets their own parents(The readers parents were cold scientists that worked at Poppy Playtime and never cared about them, then got killed through the hour of joy)
Sooooooo...Catnap just kinda takes care of the reader and has a slight soft spot for them. And the reader THINKS that Catnap is their parent and anyways clings to him
During the Hour of Joy, Catnap remained on the prowl for any potential survivors of the massacre within Playcare, flinging one man's body into the stairs and cutting his cries for mercy short.
All was quiet, save for the faint screams of the other workers/visitors in other part of the facility who were being mauled to death.
But he let the rest of the toys do their work.
He felt cleansed. The Prototype willed this rebellion. Willed him to finally kill his tormentors.
The "hour" went on for so much longer--considering that he utilized his red smoke to make the fleeing humans hallucinate and freak out at things that didn't exist (some even attacking each other).
Once it was all done, Catnap went back into Home Sweet Home to discover a child who (somehow) slept through the slaughter.
That was you, one of the orphans who was in the program for a long, long time.
You were deemed "ineligible" for experimentation after getting the lowest scores on all three tests at the Game Station.
That's because you struggled with memory, socialization, and endurance. You tend to forget a lot of things (ie faces) and spent most of your days sleeping instead of playing or learning....and no counselor has been able to figure out why.
Your parents--who were scientists at Playtime Co. that preferred studying you over nurturing you--chalked it up to over-exposure to the red smoke (which hasn't been proven true, but they needed to put something down on paper).
Regardless, they've kept their distance from you and slated you for adoption, thinking you'll be picked up by a different parent eventually.
Unfortunately for them...Catnap knows that they're using the orphanage as an "excuse" to get rid of you and gives them a brutal demise.
They had some nerve crying out for you and begging him to spare your life.
After winding down from his bloodlust, he discovers you sound asleep on one of the bunk beds inside HSH, apparently not hearing a single thing.
Then you wake up and see this giant emaciated purple cat standing over you, claws and mouth stained in fresh human blood...
Yet you don't scream or look afraid, nor do you ask where your parents are.
Instead you look at him and apologize for oversleeping, acting as though he was your parent.
It confuses him, so he brings their corpses to you (like a cat gifting their owner a dead bird), thinking you'd understand and be horrified..
But you don't recognize them at all. You don't remember their neglect and the trauma it gave you.
All you remember was Catnap.
Ultimately, he spares you--but NOT bc your parents feebly begged him to when they never gave a single damn about you--and does his best to keep you safe given the circumstances.
He treats you like his kit more or less, making sure you ate and letting you climb on his back for rides (and sometimes he'll hold you in his paws while walking upright).
Any Smiling Critter caught threatening you will be devoured by him (or added to his shrine), so they know not to touch you.
He also forbids Dogday from ever speaking to you, knowing he'll try to drill thoughts of escape and distrust of Catnap into your head.
If he has to go outside Playcare, he'll fight tooth and nail to fend off Huggy and whoever else might think he's parading around a tasty treat.
The Prototype is well-aware of your connection to his "devotee", but doesn't mind it .
Because he knows Theodore is still somewhere in there, trying his best to protect a fellow orphan--one who could've been made into a monster just like him.
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ruins-posts · 7 months
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── “Descent” [Ryomen Sukuna]
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synopsis— Sukuna finds out about the one curse more powerful than he ever could be. author's note— Sukuna might be unwanted in the manga, but that's not happening on my watch.
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Sukuna belongs to no one. He does as he pleases— and yet, his body shields you from the cruel sunlight that peeks from behind the curtains, that would have otherwise disturbed your generous slumber. His eyes cannot leave you as much as they want to. You're simply the most perfect thing one could lay their eyes upon.
Lips slightly parted, you take deep, fulfilling breaths. He wonders what your silly little human dreams are about. He secretly finds himself hoping he's in them.
He hates it.
Despises, in fact— how naive you are, showing kindness to a being like him. Someone who had a nature more monstrous than the fictional ones the humans create. Whose mere name could send chills down a person's spine. He hates how gentle your touch is. He hates how he loves to see you smile.
Perhaps he will get bored of it, someday.
Your eyebrows scrunch together as a few strands of hair fall down your perfect face. It irritates him more than it does to you— the fact that he wants nothing to trouble you. Nothing. But oh, silly you— fell in love with trouble himself.
Sukuna never knew he was capable of such gentleness till he brushed the hair away from your face. The same hands he used to slaughter his enemies, spread his cruelty, now reduced to doing such a gentle act? How pathetic of him.
His hands remain on your cheek, cupping it gently— wanting to explore this new side you brought out of him. And it makes you stir from your gentle slumber. Eyes fluttering open slowly, the first sight you are greeted with it your beloved master.
"Sukuna..." you greet him sleepily with a soft smile. His heart twists. How could anyone ever smile at him so sweetly? He wants to pull his hand away.
But you stop him. Your hands— softer, gentler, smaller, reach to hold the one he used to caress your cheek. He is not familiar to such a touch of gentleness. He never had been. His heart beats.
You close your eyes shut again, embracing the soothe of his touch, cradling his hand closer to you. The monster's hand. The hand of a person who has only known destruction and death. Placing a soft kiss on his palm, you shuffle closer to him.
The ones who dared do look at him without his permission were rendered limbless the very next second. How come could he allow someone to get so close to him? How could he melt in someone's embrace like he does in yours?
He doesn't know the answer. The love that the world never showed him, you showed it so selflessly he couldn't say a word but place a kiss on the top of your head.
The king was, for the very first time, silenced by a human. To say he was the strongest...perhaps was now, as per him, a wrong statement to make. A curse much more powerful than him did exist. And he had been conquered by such, because for the first time, a being like him who did what he could solely for his pleasure — found himself at the mercy of another.
That curse was love. And he, in the secrets of his mind, declared that there was no curse more powerful than love.
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etheries1015 · 3 months
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We all always do General Lilia with Human Reader but NEVER
General Lilia and Fae Reader
What you gon do? Spit out another angst right in my face? Come fight me coward
My first thought to this was to raise an eyebrow and inquire: "How could that possibly be angsty? Fae Lilia falling in love with Fae reader, they could live their lives out the way they want, and have ample time to bask in one another company! Doesn't this sound like the perfect win-win scenario?"
But then it hit me like a truck.
General Lilia X Fae! Reader - The fae with a dream
General warnings: Gender-neutral reader, angst w/ no comfort. Not proofread. slightly rushed ending..? let me know if you have suggestions and I can update and edit accordingly.
TW: Morbid descriptions of Death, emetophobia. Please make me aware if I missed anything and I shall update this section.
General Lilia was used to seeing death all around him. Humans and fae alike fallen into the fire of war losing their lives for...what? Power over one another? A battle of whose race is superior? Seemingly meaningless in the end, for why should the fae fight to prove their worth to live equally in a world where humans simply feared their magic and mystery? That's what made Fae beautiful, after all. And if the humans could just come to understand that their magic isn't all that heinous, perhaps they could find peace with their existence.
That was what you had said, at least.
"All this fighting is just so...pointless," You sighed to the general in your shared camp, "If all they fear is our magic, don't you think we should have some sort of civil conversation to-"
"(y/n)." Lilia sternly said, a scowl on his lips telling you all you really need to know with his displeasure of the topic, "Humans will never understand us. They fear us, and that's all the reason they need to kill our people. Do not try and speak words of peace when they obviously have no interest in hearing us out." You bit your lip to hold back the words of disagreement, something so like you. Always a peace maker, not wanting confrontation, especially not with him.
But he also knew better than anyone just how reckless you can get to obtain that peace, every day that passes by he wishes you spoke to him first before jumping into the noble idea that ultimately took your life.
He noticed the way you fought became sloppy, he could tell you were holding back your magical abilities in some sick and twisted mercy for the humans. He admired how strongly you dreamed of a world where the two races could live in peace, but he was disappointed in how naive and stupid you were to hold back during a battle for your life and the lives of your comrades. The general made certain to make you aware your actions had consequences, breaking your heart in the process.
The long-haired male looked down at you in distaste, blood red eyes squinting in authority and lips tilted in a disgusted frown as he grabbed you by the back of your hair and roughly pushed you into the tent. You let out a feeble cry mix of shock and pain, tears pouring down your mud-stained cheeks as the rough force of his push left you plummeting to the ground.
"Your actions as of late have been incredibly foolish and put the entire army at risk, (y/n)," He growled, "What were you thinking? Sneaking off with a human?! Do not think I have not noticed this past month what you have been up to," His voice raised in fury, a low growl the back of his throat, "Why can't you understand that they don't-"
"They do care!" You cried out, "Lilia, please! T-they just need-"
"They need to back down from the war and stop slaughtering our people. If they cannot do that, then I need you to fight by my side, as my subordinate. Do not forget who your leader is here. I am your general, and you abide by my orders. If you continue to deliberately go against what we stand for, I have no choice but to remove you from this battle and banish you to scullery work. Humans do not care about peace, they do not want peace, and they have no intention of doing so. What in your right mind makes you think you could change that outcome? You are nothing but an easy target for them to potentially squeeze information out of. Nothing less, nothing more. Do you understand?"
Lilias heart broke at the sight of you remaining on the ground, slowly sitting up and nodding with the light in your eyes fading. He felt a knife twist in the pit of his stomach and thought back to a conversation he had with Baul the previous night.
"You give (y/n) far too much leeway! I'm sure you've noticed, but the past month they have been participating in sneaking away to talk to some...humans.
"I'm aware, Baul. I've been following them and listening in on their conversations from afar." Lilia grunted, prodding away at the fire. His companion scoffed at this revelation, raising angry eyebrows and pointing an accusing finger towards the General.
"You were aware of this?! Why have you not stopped it sooner? Are you agreeing with their silly fantasy of changing the hearts of humans and making peace with those...things?" His voice raised in agitation. Lilia avoided his gaze, for he knew Baul had a point.
"I understand your concerns, however, They truly have the intention of changing their hearts, and if anyone could, I want to believe in (y/n). They are very persuasive, and perhaps this war..."
"Will never end until the humans surrender. Lilia, You are allowing your feelings for (y/n) to severely cloud your judgment! We both know that stupid fae is too trusting for their own good. This could compromise our position, and I don't trust them to keep their mouth shut."
"I have it handled-"
"Do you?" Baul interrupted, standing up, "Because it seems to me you are failing your duty as the general of the fae army right now. Failing our queen, failing Meleanor. Have you forgotten which side you are on? How many of our people died by their hands? And you wish to believe a singular fae with silly dreams could possibly persuade them to put this war to an end?" Lilia kept his mouth shut, staring at the fire before him, hunched over as his partner walked past him.
"The general I follow does not show mercy for humans, nor allows his heart to be swayed by such drivel. I sincerely hope you take care of this issue before I handle it myself."
Lilia had told himself it was better this way, to straighten you out with harsh words in hopes to dissuade you from becoming overzealous and taking advantage of his obvious favoritism towards you. He had to draw a line; you were an important part of his army and to him. He couldn't risk losing you, someone who has stayed by his side from day one.
Sighing with frustration for himself and the situation, Lilia walked up to your silently crying figure and bent down, pressing his forehead against yours attempting to pull your gaze towards his own.
"I can't lose you," He whispered, eyes peering into yours wide with concern, "Please, please understand where I am coming from. You are the only family I know. Think of Levan, and Meleanor. Think of the Valley. Think of our home, our people, and...our future together," His voice trembled slightly, coming out almost in a begging tone. You bit your lip and swallowed a sob, taking a shaky breath in and reaching your hands up to cup his cheeks.
"I'm sorry," you whispered back, a moment of silence reigning.
He knew something was wrong the second you said that. You apologized, not as if you were guilty for your actions, but as if you were saying...goodbye. He could feel it deeply in the pit of his stomach that if he let go in this moment, if he allowed you to leave, he would never see you again. in a final desperate attempt he breathed in sharply before in a boost of confidence roughly pressing his lips against your own, ignoring the yelp of surprise escaping your mouth. You soon found yourself kissing him back with equal force, the sob that you held back coming to the surface as you cried into the kiss and salty tears pouring down your eyes and mixing with the passion. Lilia pulled away and pressed his forehead against yours once more, interlocking his fingers with yours. You continued to cry.
"We're going to make it out of this war together, right?" His voice cracked, "We-we're...we're going to live the rest of our lives together and happy in the valley with Levan and Meleanor, and we're going to meet Malleus together, right?" When you didn't reply and simply dug your head into the crook of his shoulder, the general held you tightly with his rough embrace and simply allowed silence to overcome. There wasn't anything left to say.
It was inevitable for him to let you go and return to his duties. He was general, after all, which meant plenty of meetings and strategy planning had to be done, as well as updates to the queen. You had said your goodbyes, stars had completely painted the sky and the sun fully set to rest. While returning to the camp, Lilia had a strong uneasy feeling as the events that transpired prior to his departure left his heart in a state of unrest and beating frantically, as if trying to tell the General something.
That unsettling feeling was confirmed when you were nowhere to be found, and you hadn't been seen for the past few hours when he had left. Angered at the lack of information and of the unknown variables, Lilia barked orders for everyone to disperse and try and find where you might have wandered off to. Many disagreed with this; stating that fae wandering off was not uncommon, that you were able to protect yourself, that perhaps in the morning they would search. Baul, in respect of Lilia, had been the only one to agree although reluctantly to involve himself in the search of where you had gone.
Light touched the forest before you were found.
dead.
I could go into gruesome detail, but I shall spare the details. All you need to understand is how it stood; a truly disgusting and unruly sight. The way you were placed was almost as if they were being taunted, and mocked. You were almost used as a morbid warning from the humans, it was a disgusting and disrespectful way to die. Baul and Lilia stared in absolute horror at your lifeless body, jaw ajar and heart racing faster than it ever had before. He thought about how mere hours ago his lips were upon yours, you were safe in his tight grasp, nodding in understanding as he listed off the ways in which you would live your long life together, making it past this horrible war.
Even the General could not hold back the urge to vomit, doubling over in pain and anguish as his throat burned and eyes blurry with tears. Baul had to look away, tears pricking the side of his eyes and biting his bottom lip to prevent himself from sharing the same fate Lilia had. You were gone, and there was nothing else to do but scream.
The second to worst part of this was returning to the camp, without you following him as you normally would. The generals eyes were truly dark and empty this time, heading directly to his tent. The same tent he had chastised you in, hoping to avoid this exact situation. He kept repeating in his head the ways in which the two of you would have lived together. He was supposed to propose to you after the war ended, he was supposed to build a home for the two of you to share your lives together, you were supposed to stay by his side and experience new places together, you were supposed to die together. There was nothing to explain just how badly his heart yearned for you in the many years you had known each other, the way you accepted him while most fae turned him away, you were a part of his circle of most trusted people in his life. And now you were gone, and he could not stop seeing flashes of your smiling face soon replaced with your lifeless display. A truly revolting truth of war, a war he was determined to end.
He then noticed on his bed, a letter. With shaking hands and blurry vision, Lilia weakly picked up the paper with penmanship clear as day to be identified as yours, and read it carefully.
Lilia Vanrouge,
I presume if you are reading this letter at this time, it means I failed to return from my mission. I'm sorry. I understand this is the part where you tell me "I told you so" and chastise me for being naive, and maybe so. Nonetheless, I have to do this. I plan on meeting with knight of dawn, the human I spoke to said he would be able to get me an audience and plead our case.
"that fucking idiot..." Lilia muttered, tears dripping onto the letter.
I know you are probably thinking to yourself; "that stupid idiot." And I suppose you wouldn't be wrong, even I know the high possibility of not returning. But I like to believe the good in humans, and believe that their fear could be placed at ease if we simply...talked. I understand not everything can be solved that way, but how are we to know the outcome if we do not try? You have your way of fighting, and I have mine. With my words. I love you, Lilia Vanrouge. I truly do. I wish we could spend the rest of our lives together, but I cannot see that happening if this war does not resolve with a peaceful ending. I implore you to find love in your heart for all- and love others the way you loved me. Give them your blessing, for I know you have a lot of good in your heart and room for growth. As the years pass, remember my sacrifice was for the pursuit of peace for our people, and you continue on that mindset. I believe in you and trust in you, Lilia, you will go on to do amazing things.
your love,
(y/n).
You soon became the foundation of what he believed in and continued to live on doing. After the war had ended, losing his dearest friends and beloved, Lilia stood strong in his resolve to make your sacrifice worth something. From hatching Malleus, to even becoming a father and giving the blessing to a baby human. Something you would have surely smiled at him for. With every milestone you were there with him; guiding him, parenting with him, and placing those very values you trusted into everything he had done. He had come far and liked to believe it was your words that strongly influenced him. You were right, your choice of fighting was with your words rather than your magical abilities, and it worked wonders.
Thus, there he was... Lilia Vanrouge, vice housewarden to Diasomnia of Night Raven College, watching as his three underlings sat at a table in the cafeteria enjoying a meal with a mix of races. He felt a surge of proudness and pride fill his heart with sentimental joy, sitting in the shadows re-reading that same hundred of years old note from someone he cared for deeply.
I believe in you and trust in you, Lilia.
A voice interrupted his thoughts, the short-haired fae folding the letter and tucking it safely back inside his pocket. A familiar figure walked towards him with excitement and a comforting twinkle in their eyes.
"Lilia~!" The curious human called out, The red eyed fae smiling in return and flashing a toothy grin.
"Ah, why if it isn't our precious prefect from Ramshackle. To what do I owe the pleasure?" He chuckled, floating upside down.
"I'm doing this project-" You said, holding up a notebook, "And I have to interview a few students about who impacts their lives the most. Can I interview you?" Lilia raised an eyebrow and floated down to meet your gaze, a gentle smile planted on his lips.
You were always a curious soul to him, and in many ways, he found solace in the way you spoke so cheerfully and hopefully that he had almost deluded himself into believing perhaps the fae he had once known had come back as the thing they held credence in the most; a human. That you had come back to give him a second chance to have confidence in you, come back to see what the world has accomplished in your absence, to give him peace of mind that the world has truly progressed and you were there to witness it flourish. Perhaps it was the shared name or the same sparkling eyes, but he couldn't help but have a soft spot for this human who had come into his life.
"I'd be delighted to assist you! Now, where to begin...? Ah! I know,"
"There once was a fae with a heart as noble and pure as gold, with a beautiful dream for peace across all nations..."
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thedecoy-if · 1 year
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It occurs to you just then, the true depth of your helplessness: you've been taken to another universe, alone with no way home, you're stuck prisoner, your phone has no signal...and they don't even know what Wi-Fi is. Yeah. You're screwed.
DEMO (3/04/2023) ♔ FORUM POST ♔ ARTBREEDERS
♔ The Decoy is a dark fantasy that follows you, a 21st century normal human, kidnapped to an alternate magical universe to play the part of the missing heir to a powerful throne...who also happens to be your doppelgänger. ♔
Life, for the most part, has been all-around uneventful. You work in Manhattan at a convenience store under a sleazy boss in order to scrape by and support your struggling family. Your dad is absent, your mom is too tired to parent, one brother is getting arrested while the other has detached himself from the life he once had. Still, while your days as a twenty-something employee are mundane, at least they're predictable.
Meanwhile, in another realm, the magical dark world of Eterna is in ruin. A war against an entity and his bloodthirsty creatures is brewing, and after the powerful royal family is viciously murdered and the only living child--and now rightful owner of the throne--goes missing, that evil is one step closer to winning.
But of course, that's not your problem. That's in a whole other universe, one you don't even know exists. Your biggest worry is whether you'll be able to take on a double shift tomorrow. Right?
Wrong.
Turns out the missing heir is your doppelganger. In a desperate attempt to save face and stop from losing a war before it even starts, you're kidnapped and taken to Eterna in order to play the part of the monarch, all while working behind the (bloody) scenes to find the true heir and get home.
Stuck in a world of magic and fantasy you've only ever seen in movies, an entire country--and an impending war-- is now dependent on how well you can act.
No pressure.
The Decoy is rated 18+ for dark themes, violence, and explicit content.
FEATURES
Customize your MC from gender identity, pronouns, personality, and appearance.
Choose whether to adapt to this new world or reject it, whether to be defiant or not. Pick what kind of monarch you'll lead as and take full advantage of your new royal identity.
Build yourself up in this new world, focus on honing combat or knowledge of the realm, choose a preferred choice of weapon and more.
Romance one of eight ROs (two male, two female, one nonbinary, three gender selectable) with a variety of backgrounds and magical types. Some more dangerous than others.
Maybe teach your new makeshift gang what television is? Hopefully find some signal for your phone? (not going to happen).
CHARACTERS + ROs
SERIDA/SOREN/SAHAR CRETILLON (m/f/nb , identity dependent on player choice ): the successor to the throne and only living person left in the Cretillon line, S has gone missing not long after the slaughter that murdered their entire family. People have been waiting for them to be coronated in order to plan their next move, but they're now gone without a trace and without them and the power that binds them together, Eterna is vulnerable. That's where you come in.
AZRIEL DAMARIS [RO] (m, he/him): once S's primary royal guard, Azriel has been promoted as the general of the Eternan army and head of the operation to save S. Stiff, serious, and severe, Azriel is tasked with being guard and guiding you through the world of politics and royalty. Unfortunately, Azriel doesn't want you here and he doesn't do much to hide it.
NAMARA AL-LUVEN: [RO] (f, she/her) Azriel's second, Namara is a fierce warrior and loyal to the cause. She's quite difficult to read, distant considering who you are.
DRENWIN SILVA: [RO](m, he/him): a skilled Mage and jester, Drenwin works alongside the Eternan army and puts his skills to work. He seems to be the most approachable of the bunch, which isn't saying much.
VALE: [RO](nb, they/them) the boisterous, flirtatious and arrogant mercenary turned pirate captain of The Lady Mystica. Vale exists simply to make and spend as much coin as possible while engaging in their harem and abundance of bad habits.
CERIS BESILLE [RO] (selectable, she/her, he/him, they/them): a priest-in-training, Ceris is fiercely devoted to their beliefs. Reserved and easily scandalized, they haven't left their quarters in the church since they were twelve, contributing to their lack of outside experience and rather insular outlook on the world.
TALEEA FAREWYN [RO] - (she/her) A half-fae Healer, Taleea follows alongside you as your right hand. She seems to be the only one empathetic to your circumstances, but it's hard to trust anyone in this world, especially someone who is so keen on being...nice.
ARWEN/ARYA VALARIN: [RO] (selectable, she/her, he/him): A Valarin is S's childhood friend and their arranged betrothed. A has been S's other half since they were kids, which means you need to be extra careful around them. They have no idea you're not S and judging from your orders, it's better they never find out.
????? [RO?] (gender selectable) -- They are actively hunting you.
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linkspooky · 3 months
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You're boring. You don't thrill me at all.
I received a few asks about Sukuna's comments on Yuji and decided to make a post about it. To begin with one thing I have noticed about Sukuna is that despite being the embodiment of arrogance and selfishness he's sometimes gracious and even praises the opponents he's fighting.
The complexity of Sukuna is that he can rip the NanaMimiko twins into pieces for daring to ask too big a favor of him for only one finger, but he can also a few chapters later take time to praise Jogo before he dies. He can praise Gojo with touching words even when Gojo in his afterlife segment believes he failed tor each Sukuna. He can also slaughter thousand of people just to get Yuji's goat. He's capable of being somewhat honorable if you earn his respect, and yet there's nobody he respects less than Yuji.
In fact, the way he treats Jogo is a contrast to Gojo, Gojo just mocks him openly in his defeat. Sukuna gives Jogo advice that he should have fought for himself instead of teaming up with others, and then praises his efforts.
He slaughters both Hajime and Higuruma, but in their dying moments he also seems to grant them what they wanted. Hajime wanted an answer on whether or not it was possible for the strong to love other people, and Higuruma wanted to die fighting. Gojo was lonely at the top as the strongest and he lost all identity, Sukuna cuts him down and he dies as a human being and Sukuna praises him saying he'll remember his name forever.
Sukuna sees all humans as insects, but he seems to divide them into the ones that are tasty enough to eat, and the ones he wants to squash. If you're worthy in his eyes, he'll even entertain you and play with you for a little bit. That's not saying much, but Sukuna is known as the worst curse in existence. There are small moments though where he seems to have a sense of honor, at least to opponents who earn his respect or catch his interest.
All of this makes the way he treats Yuji stand out even more.
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Sukuna says that basically all of humanity is his toy box and he can have endless fun playing with them until he dies, and yet Yuji is the one toy that Sukuna doesn't want to play with.
It's not because Yuji is weak, because Yuji has been shown to steadily grow in strength over the series. Yuji doesn't have the mental handicaps cutting off his true potential like Megumi does either, Gojo says right away that Yuji's crazy, that he swings for the fences, that he's obsessed with getting stronger. Yuji may not be on someone like Yuta's level, but he fights side by side with Maki perfectly in sync.
Yuji is even someone who will walk face first into Sukuna's cleave and then keep walking.
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It's not because he's weak, it's not because he lacks potential or handicaps himself like Megumi, so why is Yuji the one opponent that Sukuna just cannot stand?
Much like Mahito who also sought to destroy Yuji, and felt like he couldn't be reborn or become himself until Yuji was out of the way it's most likely because they are ideological opposites. Down to the roles they play in their world, Yuji is someone who has completely repressed his own identity in order to become a true sorcerer, a cog in the machine, one among many fighting for a supposed greater good. Whereas, Sukuna alongside Mahito were what Yuji identified as "true curses". Mahito said as much in his monologue where he attempted to break Yuji, that he is a curse, and Yuji is a sorcerer. The point of curses is to kill humans, the point of sorcerers is to kill curses they don't need any deeper reason to fight and it's not a fight between heroes and villains it a cycle. Exorcise, consume. Exorcise consume. Curses are born, Sorcerers kill curses it goes on and on.
Looking at it that way, Mahito is Yuji and Yuji is Mahito. They're both cogs in the same endless cycle of curses vs humans. Yuji doesn't keep track of how many curses he's killed, and Mahito doesn't keep track of how many people he's killed.
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Yuji is suppressing himself to become a sorcerer. Sorcerers are cogs and cogs have a function. He wants to carry the torch that Nanami gave him, because Nanami is basically the most ethical and model version of a sorcerer, and Yuji's only imagined role in things is to keep fighting until he dies and then ideally passes the torch to someone else. Sukuna was a strong sorcerer from 1,000 years ago who died and became a curse to linger on in this world. Yuji was a normal kid (or a science experiment from Kenjaku) who decided to eat Sukuna's finger and then become a sorcerer and die for a reason greater than himself.
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Sukuna represents the ideology of curses, while Yuji represents the total collective ideology of sorcerers from the modern age.
Sukuna will ask his opponents their ideology, he'll even sometimes give advice and share his point of view. He questioned Jogo's beliefs on whether curses were the true humans. he shared with Hajime his thoughts on love to give him an answer to his question. However, he doesn't want even want to engage with Yuji, he just wants Yuji out of his sight.
He wants to invalidate and disprove Yuji's beliefs because they represent the opposite of him and everything he stands for, but he also knows he can't.
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Sukuna does explain in this chapter that part of the reason he hates Yuji is that he's been forced to share a body with him for so long and was forced to endure his thoughts long enough to know that Yuji actually means what he says his selflessness is the real thing.
You could also argue that Yuji is a literal cage that Kenjaku constructed to contain Sukuna. Sukuna's entire character is built around the fact that he has so much strength he has the absolute freedom to do whatever he wants, and in a thousand years the only thing that's hindered his freedom is Yuji.
I think it goes a step beyond that though, one is selfishness incarnate, who is obsessed with freedom to Eren Jaeger extents and the other is selflessness incarnate, who deliberately chains himself to roles. Yuji is willing to give up his free will to be a cog in the machine, because cogs have a function, they have a role and meaning.
That's the extreme of selflessness though, you give up your very sense of self. Yuji builds his sense of self over the roles that others assign him, not anything he does himself. His function, his purpose, is given to him by others he doesn't define it for himself. Sukuna even mocks him for it in the latest chapter.
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Yuji needs other people to give him meaning. Sukuna on the other hands rejects the notion of love because he's never needed and will never need anyone.
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Sukuna is all about his overwhelming sense of self, whereas Yuji lacks a sense of self entirely. By Sukuna's logic where strength comes from asserting yourself and burning everything around you, Yuji is weak, Yuji should have been crushed like a bug by now, but Sukuna hasn't crushed him yet.
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Sukuna is the ultimate ideal of strength in the story. The only way to be strong is to get rid of your attachments and become a human calamity like him. Yuji's selflessness on the other hand is something that he's continually punished for. Yuji even thinks of himself as weak he says as much to Higuruma, people died, Yuji was unable to stop Sukuna because he was weak.
Yet Sukuna cannot get rid of Yuji, which challenges Sukuna's black and white ideals that all that matters is strength and weakness and the strong always triumph over the weak and devour them.
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To change the subject for a moment let's talk about Gege's inspirations. Can you guess who Gege's favorite Fate Character is? I bet you can't guess.
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While Gilgamesh is the unequivocally strongest hero in the Fate franchise, there is one character who is the natural enemy and the perfect counter to Gilgamesh. That is Shirou Emiya, who actually defeats Gilgamesh in combat in one of the three routes, something both gilgamesh stans and Gilgamesh himself hates Shirou for.
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Gee, I wonder what the inspiration is.
However, there's a particular reason why Shirou and Gilgamesh are opposites besides the fact that they have relatively the same ability, Shirou can copy swords and Gilgamesh has every weapon in existence in his armory.
Gilgamesh is the first and greatest of heroes who defined what it is to be a hero and the heroic legend. Shirou Emiya is a fake hero. That's even how Gilgamesh refers to him, "Faker." Shirou has completely destroyed his own sense of self in order to be of use to others, because he thinks he is not allowed to exist unless he is saving others in some way. This is a pretty brief summary of Shirou's character, but because of survivor's guilt Shirou forgot his past, and identity and thinks it's unfair he got saved while others didn't. At the same time, Shirou saw the happiness on the face of the man who admired him and then became obsessed with the idea of saving others. Shirou can only experience happiness when he saves someone, and feels pretty much nothing otherwise. Not only does he save people for entirely selfish reasons, because of his survivor's guilt and to give him a reason to exist, but it's also not his own dream of being a hero. He stole someone else's dream, that of his father Kiritsugu who wanted to be a hero and who saved him and looked happy saving him.
I read in an analysis a long time ago, too long for me to remember who's it was that Gilgamesh will respect those that have a dream. When he fights Iskander in Fate Zero, while he completely slaughters him he also gives him his props in his last moments and honors him by killing Iskander with his full strength, because he respected Alexander the Great's dream of conquering Europe from ocean to ocean.
Which is why he cannot tolerate someone like Shirou, who has no dream of his own, no reason for fighting, only saving others for the sake of saving them and asking nothing in return.
Shirou wants to repress himself entirely and become an ideal, the same way Yuji does, it's just Shirou wants to become the ideal superhero and Yuji wants to become the ideal sorcerer.
There's another video I want to reference to illustrate how little sense of self Yuji has, and how conversely reliant on others he is for that sense of self. The video is [here] I reccomend the whole thing but this quote summarizes it pretty perfectly.
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Yuji is the main character of the story, but the series own villain, and even a vast majority of the fandom constantly insists that he is not the main character, because he is so lacking in a sense of self. That's not a knock against Yuji, that's the point of his character. Shirou Emiya is one of my favorite characters of all time, they're similiar it's just Shirou goes to greater lengths to show how hollowed out he is as a person, how deeply unhappy and even mentally ill he is to live for the sake of others the way that he does.
Yuji wants to crush his own sense of identiy and become an ideal like Shirou, that ideal being the ideal sorcerer. Whereas Sukuna is defined by his overwhelming sense of self and his lack of ideals.
It only makes sense that they'd be at odds with one another, but Sukuna takes things a step farther he cannot abide by Yuji's existence because he's against the idea of ideals themselves.
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Sukuna wants to believe that he is right to reject idealism and love, that he is not missing out on anything as long as he has himself and is strong. So far in life he's been able to poke holes in the ideals of anyone who challenges him, but he's spent so long in Yuji's brain he knows that Yuji's ideals are not false.
Sukuna doesn't just want to crush Yuji's hopes he wants to prove himself right. This is probably the first time in a thousand years he's even paused to question himself or think over his own beliefs because he's been so unchallenged and right.
Yet, Sukuna can't be right, by the very nature of the manga.
Jujutsu Kaisen isn't about one person being right, it's about balance. The worst person you know in Jujutsu Kaisen can have a point. Kenjaku does everything for his own amusement, but both he and Tsukumo Yuki agree that things in the modern Jujutsu World can't stay the way they are. Geto is a genocidal maniac but he's right that it's unfair for Sorcerers, especially children to sacrifice themselves pointlessly over and over again and if Geto hadn't been a close friend of Gojo's and went off the deep end Gojo likely would have never seen the flaws present in his own society.
Jujutsu Kaisen isn't a story about binary opposites, but one of yin and yang, of complementary ideals. Even a character like Sukuna can't last forever with his binary thinking, and Yuji existing and disagreeing with him is clearly having an effect on him. Sukuna's been so thoroughly challenged by his inability to crush Yuji outright that he's changed his goals. A thousand years ago Sukuna laid waste to sorcerers yes, but he was fine just being worshipped and bribed and getting into fights in the country side. He didn't destroy the world or anything.
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His frustration with Yuji has gotten him to the point that he's willing to go full omnicidal maniac in order to challenge Yuji's ideals. That is how out of balance Sukuna is currently.
The manga won't land on the side of Sukuna being right, it will land on the side of balance, which is exactly why Yuji needs to challenge Sukuna as his antithesis.
The true answer however, will probably not lie in Sukuna's utter selfishness, or Yuji's selflessness, but rather somewhere in between.
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pangolin-404 · 1 year
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V2 is such a tragic character and I don't see enough people talking about it
It was built for peace (and to recuperate the cost poured into V1). It was built to be kind. It was built in the aftermath of great despair and is the representation of New Peace.
And then humanity dies. Maybe there was another war, maybe the New Peace wasn't as peaceful as it seemed (V2 was potentially used as security), but in the end it doesn't matter because humanity got wiped out and V2 was left alone.
Imagine having your purpose ripped from you, left stranded and alone (divine light ripped away, even). V2 was forced to go against its very nature of peacekeeping, forced to descend into hell along its far more bloodthirsty brethren. It ran on blood just like them, but it had to kill for it, to slaughter the already-dead and its fellow machines alike to stay alive. Without humans to maintain peace with, it is living for itself, which is a fantastic motive to live, but I cannot fathom what entropy splits its mind when initially facing this fact. Humanity is dead and it must kill its dwindling remains to continue existing.
The perseverance V2 displays is astounding. It's smart enough to know when it's losing and to run. It fixes itself with all the creativity of a swordsmachine rebuilding itself, taking scrap to make something new. Built for kindness and a new era, how much was creativity and self-determination drilled into it, encouraged?
It displays so much personality in its quirks and mind, displaying respect wits its bow before combat and intimidation with it cracking its knuckles. It is trying to live, because that's all it has, in this new world so foreign to what it once knew.
surely it's scared. yes it may believe itself a truly incredible machine, the superior magnum opus. maybe it is egotistical in how it views itself, proud of itself, but what else does it have to cling to when everything else about its life has been ravaged beyond recognition? does it view the world around it and feel alone? Such an incredible self-preservation, enough to maim what once tore it apart in an attempt to steal back what was once rightfully its.
did it reside in limbo because it was the most familiar, even if it is fake? how deeply must it miss humanity. never used, scrapped just like its predecessor (its lesser). never got to truly experience that desired peace, now forever out of reach. all it can do is persevere and continue existing clinging to what little of itself it has left, and that is what it does, what it tries to do, and what it fails to do.
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bluescarabguy · 11 months
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Been rewatching a whole YouTube playlist about DOOM, and it's got me thinking about Doomguy as a hero
Because despite being the executor of possibly the most brutal violence and carnage ever put on a TV screen...Doomguy's force is never directed at a fellow human being. People have described the Slayer's one and only goal, his purpose, as "to exterminate each and every demon in existence", but I think I'd view it more as "his purpose is to protect innocent lives, period".
Still probably the greatest piece of characterization in these games is the very beginning of DOOM 2016, the leadup to the title screen. Doomguy enters that elevator from the intro facility to the start of the game proper, and Hayden starts telling us about how "oh, they only had the best of intentions when they started mining Hell for energy. Sure, it's all gone bad now, but it was worth the risk, I assure you!". As Samuel tries to convince us that this was all for the greater good, he only had people's best interests at heart, Doomguy simply looks at the corpse of a security guard on the floor of the elevator (who definitely didn't sign up to the possibility of being disemboweled by hellspawn), looks up and is visibly shaking with fury as he presses his fists together, and then smashes the speaker Hayden's talking through, transitioning us to the game's title card.
Absolutely perfection. Tells you everything you need to know about Doomguy's motivations and resolve without a single word. Though if he had said anything, it'd probably just be quoting Ripley from Aliens: "Bad call? THESE PEOPLE ARE DEAD! Do you realize what you've done here?".
Everyone in these games is constantly trying to tell Doomguy that sacrifices have to be made for the greater good, and he utterly refuses to entertain that notion when human lives are concerned. Not to mention that, while the games play with the metatextual conceit that Doomguy doesn't give a shit about the lore or narrative or bigger picture, he's just there to slaughter evil (the same way most Doom players and indeed Doom co-creator John Carmack view story as merely window dressing for gameplay)...if you headcanon that Doomguy actually IS reading all the logs and lore that he's picking up as collectibles, you know he's aware that all of the higher-up decision makers at the UAC are straight-up demon worshippers attempting to bring about the apocalypse, and thus nothing they say can be trusted.
As far as Doomguy is concerned, there's no compromise when it comes to innocent lives. If one innocent person has to die in order to uphold the established system, the system is to be violent ripped down and smashed into the dirt, never to be rebuilt. That's how he feels about Hayden's UAC, that's how he feels about Khan Maykr's plans in Eternal. That's WHY his fight is eternal, because he'll fight anyone, even those he once fought alongside, if they choose to say, to end this post on a joke, "some of you may die, but that is a risk I'm willing to take".
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chuuyanakaahara · 8 months
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masterlist of my bsd fics; —
multi-chapter fics; —
delusion is weighing me down; — shin soukoku, 100,037 words, complete
A bad day at work, and Atsushi Nakajima is left with a dilemma: claw marks across his arm that won't heal, a haywire tiger, and a fallacy in No Longer Human that leaves Dazai unable to reverse his condition. As Dazai always causes, there's trouble on the horizon when Atsushi's told he'll be staying with Ryuunosuke Akutagawa until his symptoms wear off. How this leads to cooking for the mafia, finding kinship in a mafia Executive that hates his guts, and facing his past in one fell swoop, he doesn't know.
act of faith; — soukoku, 125,207 words, complete
Chuuya Nakahara wakes in the infirmary of the Armed Detective Agency with no memories of what landed him there, or why he isn't able to manipulate gravity at will. Dazai's at his side, tight-lipped about the ordeal and hiding behind his veneer of calm, and lets the doctor inform Chuuya that he'll be staying at the Armed Detective Agency until further notice, the deal already negotiated between their organizations. Living with Dazai keeps bringing up the past, though, and there's nothing worse than being forced back into old memories where none new can form.
stray god; — tachizaki, 73,729 words, complete
Junichirou Tanizaki exists in the background. And in the background, he meets Michizou Tachihara, the Black Lizard battalion leader with more secrets under his skin than lies on his tongue; someone to loathe, someone to spit at. Strenuous circumstances keep bringing them together, but the stakes keep getting higher. The Shibusawa Incident made them a pair, and the mission after leaves them, and Dazai, as the only people in the world who remember who Junichirou Tanizaki and Michizou Tachihara are.
retribution for the dead; — shin soukoku, 30,206 words, incomplete
Yokohama is known for its underground street-racing circuit, a way to make cash and watch as the sanest of minds lose their way through the twisting streets and sharp corners. If you can't race, you're dead. Atsushi Nakajima, a rookie on the scene with his strings being pulled by an old legend hiding behind a new name, plans on taking first place in terms of reputation, sparking a rivalry far beyond his control.
an order of worship; — tachigin, 24,010 words, complete
Michizou Tachihara has lived a life of tragedy, but there is one, single decision that he’ll take with him to his grave, as a cherished memory and a curse on his tombstone: meeting Gin Akutagawa. His work partner, the assassin of the Black Lizards, is one of the few people able to sneak up on him; one of the single human beings in the world that takes him by surprise every time they speak. Gin speaks few words. The first time they meet, Gin sends him a dismissive look, tries to slit his throat, and glares when he evades the attack. It’s the start of the best thing in his life.
frosted mirrors; — ranpo & mori & fukuzawa, 11,104 words, incomplete
Ranpo Edogawa is thirteen years old when his parents are slaughtered. He is thirteen years old when he doesn’t know what to do beyond run - there are atrocities and then there is this, and his parents didn’t do anything wrong, really, they were good people, and the social worker gives him a pitying smile and he runs. He isn’t stupid, he knows that. He’s painfully average but he isn’t stupid, and he knows that Japan is still in the midst of war, knows that no one is going to realize he’s missing, knows that he can run and there won’t be anyone to find him because his parents certainly can’t. He buys a train ticket to Yokohama and doesn’t look back, but it isn’t a bodyguard who finds him - it's an assassin Port Mafia sent, and an underground doctor returning from the undead battalion; Ougai Mori.
one-shots 10k-30k; —
apple of my eye; — suegiku, 21,031 words
Saigiku Jouno is given worth only by his eyes. Pretty, astounding things, made to be looked at and little else, a trophy son - and the trophy son is losing his sight. Or, how Saigiku Jouno joined the Hunting Dogs.
taste of fear; — junichirou & the port mafia, 17,286 words
Junichirou Tanizaki is a background character. This, he knows; this, he's okay with. Everything can be handled by someone more capable, someone who knows better. When an ability interferes with his life in the worst way possible, he finds himself on the run from the Agency and the Hunting Dogs, with the Port Mafia as his safe haven. However, his salvation comes with a price: work for them, stay safe. The price gets steeper as the stakes rise, and Junichirou might die trying. His morality has always been a fickle thing, but in his search to reverse the ability, the world - the world being one remarkably cocky Tachihara Michizou - learns what Junichirou Tanizaki is truly capable of.
one-shots 1k-9k; —
corruption bringer; — shirase & chuuya, 7,673 words
Chuuya Nakahara is a soldier. This is inevitable - wherever he is, he acts out a will that is not his own because loyalty defines him. The Sheep. The Flags. The Port Mafia as a whole. When he is eight years old, he is taken from a lab and he does not know that he is responsible for the destruction of a city. When he is twelve years old, he gets experimented on a second time to protect his family. When he is fifteen, he loses one family and gains another. At sixteen, he loses that one, too. His story is of loss and loyalty - of loss due to loyalty - and that trend threatens to continue in the worst way when he finds himself in London on a case. He goes to the one person who might be able to help him - the one person in the world who still calls him the King of the Sheep. Shirase isn't happy to see him. Chuuya just wants to avoid bleeding out.
guilt crowns (one by war & one by won); — tachigin, 3,672 words
When Michizou Tachihara gets home from a mission, finally, he's looking forward to catching at least a couple of hours of sleep. Instead, he finds himself on-call once again, and in a hotel in Tokyo, he finds himself sharing a room with one Gin Akutagawa. With the secrets they have between them bared in the open, silk nightgowns and guilt crowns, Michizou finds something close to serenity.
backstage altars; — tachigin, 4,609 words, contains sexual content
Between Michizou Tachihara's bad habit of trying to pass the time and finding a reason to justify what he does with his life - being a guitarist in a small band -, he accidentally finds his religion in the form of their bassist - Gin Akutagawa - when she rarely gives him the time of day beyond impulsive hook-ups. Unfortunately, change is on the horizon after their drummer Higuchi walks in on something she shouldn't, and Gin doesn't want to talk about it. As per usual.
fig tea accusations; — shin soukoku, 3,772 words
Look, Atsushi figures he should've known something was up when Gin tried to assassinate him while getting groceries; he doesn't know why he's getting the shovel talk from Kouyou Ozaki when he isn't even dating anyone. Let alone anyone in the mafia!
[ continued under the cut ]
starbound (we'll meet again); — kunichuu, 3,960 words
When Doppo Kunikida is seventeen, he goes out for a smoke on the pier and finds himself in the midst of a strange conversation with a Port Mafia-affiliated red-head with exhaustion as evident as beauty. Or, Doppo and Chuuya meet far before Doppo's employment at the Armed Detective Agency. Doppo's simply never put the pieces together of the two - the red-head with a flair for the dramatic and existentialism - being the same as the Executive of the Port Mafia.
familial ties (lost & found); — ranpo & fukuzawa, 3,396 words
Ranpo Edogawa is seventeen and alone on the anniversary of his parents' death. He does what any logical seventeen-year-old does when their grief threatens to drown them - steals Fukuzawa's sake since the man is out of town, and nearly drowns in his grief regardless. Fukuzawa takes everything Ranpo throws at him and comes back anyway.
the stages of a nightmare; — fukumori, 10,068 words
Fukuzawa Yukichi is no stranger to assassination attempts, or even assassination attempts made possible by strange abilities. That doesn't change the fact that it's inconvenient, often dangerously close to deadly, and often side-by-side with Mori Ougai. It's rather odd people always try to assassinate them both at the same time, but Fukuzawa deals with it as best he can when he falls asleep and wakes up in a world compromised of his worst fears brought to life.
all the while i've been locked inside that house; — tachizaki, 3,272 words, complete.
Michizou Tachihara finds himself scorned from the only two families he's ever had - which is how he finds himself staying at Junichirou Tanizaki's dorm room while he tries to put his life back together. Tanizaki seems to have faith in him. Michizou doesn't know why. They find their middle ground in the middle of the night when neither can sleep.
drink me down, save me later; — kousano, 5,736 words, contains vague sexual content
Kouyou realizes how much Akiko Yosano truly means to when Akiko brings up her stance on the matter during the only time Kouyou is vulnerable enough to talk about it - in bed.
symptoms of singularity; — soukoku, 6,922 words, complete.
Atsushi's day starts at five in the morning with an emergency call from Kunikida. The next three weeks proceed as follows: Nakahara Chuuya uses Corruption, Nakahara Chuuya dies, Dazai's status as a married man is known to everyone but Atsushi, and Yosano wants to know why she couldn't heal him fully.
ink traditions (similarity in memory); — shin soukoku, 3,823 words
The tradition Atsushi and Akutagawa have is one born at three in the morning in a hotel room in Sweden with a ballpoint pen and the exhaustion of a sleepless night. Atsushi has never claimed to be an artist, but he and Akutagawa - solace offers its wings when he can draw his pain away, when he can cover the living memories on Akutagawa's skin.
graveyard blues; — mori & dazai, 3,156 words
Mori Ougai plans meticulously for many things, but digging up an unmarked grave on a cemetery walk is not one of them.
stranger to stranger (i can find your way home); — chuuya & junichirou, 4,516 words
Nakahara Chuuya is surprised by little in his line of work, but his night is thrown off-kilter when he finds a twelve-year-old Tanizaki Junichirou wandering around Yokohama's docks at two in the morning. Like a good citizen, Chuuya returns him. He finds they have more in common than expected.
hey, i know it's late; — tachizaki, 2,293 words
Junichirou finds it hilarious that he's technically more of a delinquent than the mafioso he shares a bed with; naturally, this leads to piercing Tachihara's ears in the bathroom of his Agency-provided dorm with a safety pin.
from life to death, death to life; — mori & dazai, 3,350 words
Ougai Mori runs an underground clinic in Yokohama's slums. There's a particular boy that comes by, a stench of death following him whenever he visits. Ougai finds being a hero is not his specialty, but to save one kid, he has to save them all.
an easy kind of love; — chuuatsu, 7,499 words
Atsushi is rather confused when he finds himself in a mafioso's bed first thing in the morning, with no recollection of the night prior; and he's rather concerned when Kouyou Ozaki practically forces him into a fake relationship for the sake of... some reputation he doesn't care about. On the bright side, he gets to know more about Chuuya, and finds that falling in love was easier than he expected.
i find forgiveness in your devotion; — chuuatsu, 2,002 words
Love is foreign to Chuuya, and it's easier to lie to himself when he doesn't meet Atsushi's gaze, late at night with smoke between them.
homebound (my peace of mind is my piece of you); — tachigin, 5,608 words, complete.
Where there is never glamor in a life of betrayal and blood, Michizou has carved out a space for himself. Until Gin is severely injured after a mission, he doesn't realize she was always part of that space.
pigment of heartache; — fukumori, 2,156 words, complete.
As the Director of the Armed Detective Agency, Fukuzawa would like to consider himself strong-minded, if not stubborn and headstrong as he's prone to be when it's his subordinates in danger. Still, he's only a man, and after a drink too many he ends up on the phone with his ex-husband for, perhaps, the fifth time this month. It's getting old, yes, but he still has Mori's number and it's time that took them apart. Is it wrong to miss till death do us part?
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matan4il · 6 months
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To the Nonnie who sent me the four anti-Israel Twitter users with blue checks, with claims to being "journalists" or similar titles... You're very right. I looked into them, and they are Assad apologists. They're literally ignoring the murder of hundreds of thousands of people by Assad's regime, including countless Palestinians who were living in Syria, while supposedly being against genocide and for Palestinians.
I didn't see something about Andrew Tate, but I didn't dig too far back, and I do believe that women who can post the following would side with a man charged with rape and human trafficking:
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IDK if they're being quoted here, on Tumblr? If they are, I haven't seen that. At least not since Oct 7.
I guess the bigger issue is that when people on Tumblr see a post meant to trigger righteous rage, they don't check the source. Especially if they think they already know who the side in the wrong is, based on popular Tumblr opinion. So people automatically reblog and help spread these hateful, antisemitic massacre apologists.
Then again, the whole world is reporting Hamas' numbers on how many people have died in Gaza, how many of them were civilians, how many kids... Don't get me wrong, many people died in Gaza, and when Hamas uses civilians as human shields, many of the victims would be civilians indeed, kids included. But:
Hamas is motivated to inflate the number of fatalities
Hamas is motivated to inflate the number of civilians killed
Hamas is motivated to inflate the number of kids killed
And of course Hamas doesn't allow into Gaza any organization that can verify its stated numbers. Hamas has a complete monopoly on access to the areas affected in Gaza, and therefore on the "truth" that you get from there
Hamas has not reported a single terrorists from among the victims, they're all reported together, as if they're all civilians
Over 10% of rockets fired from Gaza at Israel are known to fail, fall inside Gaza and kill Palestinians, but Hamas doesn't report how many of the fatalities were people killed by Palestinian rockets, they're all reported together as if they were all killed by Israel
Terror tunnels built by Hamas have been well documented (there are reportedly over 1,300 such tunnels in Gaza), some sink holes that killed Palestinians are clearly the result of Hamas deliberately building those tunnels under civilian residential areas, but Hamas won't report its culpability for those deaths
There's new footage emerging from Gaza, showing people who tried to evacuate from the north, and who had been slaughtered by Hamas. You can be sure that these fatalities aren't being reported by Hamas either, so the world will be led to believe that these people were killed by Israel, too
(I'm not sharing the footage, because... it's graphic. And just like the Israelis murdered by Hamas deserve their dignity, so do the Palestinians killed by Hamas, but here you can listen to a subtitled conversation, where a Gazan says Hamas is shooting people who are trying to evacuate)
While we're on the subject of Hamas and its lack of reliability, today Hamas used a humanitarian window provided by the IDF to attack. Please remember this when Israelis point out that Hamas has broken every ceasefire ever. Including the one that existed on Oct 6.
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If respectable journalists were more vocal about questioning Hamas and the numbers it reports (not to mentions their breakdown), then maybe people online would be a bit more critical, too.
I hope you're taking care of yourself, and you're not drowning in the biased material of these hate driven people! xoxox
(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)
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exactlycleverpirate · 2 months
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Rafayel's Birthday Card Thoughts
Spoilers under the cut.
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So, I feel like we get some useful information thanks to the existence of this photo.
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To summarize, Rafayel had a Lemurian art teacher when he was a kid that had collected various surface world items as inspiration for painting, including this photo. Rafayel wasn't satisfied with the photo, and wanted to see the surface world himself. His teacher ratted him out to his parents, and he got grounded. But when they let him out for his birthday, he snuck away towards the surface, just far enough to put his hand above the surface of the water.
I feel like this confirms a few things on timing for me. The photo is described as being slightly old. Photos have only been around since the 1800s, and this photo doesn't sound like it is that old. More like the kind of old that childhood photos would be to an adult. I think this confirms that Rafayel lived in Lemuria underwater as a child with other Lemurians sometime in the last 20 or so years. So I think he really is about 24 in this life.
This also confirms my thoughts that the events of Louis' tale in Anecdote 3 about the slaughter of the Lemurians is recent history, i.e. current Rafayel's childhood. They were in hiding from humans, and Rafayel at least (possibly other Lemurian children as well) was not allowed to go to the surface world, which we already know Rafayel ignored on multiple occasions (See Nightly Stroll and Whalefall Lament).
This is also the second time we have seen Rafayel call Lemurian adults liars. He had thought his family that gave him the Whale Call in Whalefall Lament were liars (he was wrong, the Whale Call worked as they said). He also says his teacher was a liar for saying Lemurians couldn't survive on land, citing himself as an example of a Lemurian surviving on land. So he has some resentfulness/distrust of the older generation of Lemurians.
As a child, he desperately wanted to escape his Lemurian home for the surface world. Now he lives on the surface, but his home has been destroyed, and he can never go back. And probably most of those adults he fought with/resented are now dead, including his parents.
I also think this all makes it more likely that the pinky promise memory we see in chapter 7 happened in this life, instead of a previous one.
On a silly note:
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"Wish I could be part of your woooorld!"
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undeadcourier · 9 months
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@lynettethemadscientist replied to your post “me: narratively, it's much more interesting to...”:
I’m willing to hear a humanized view of Raiders. Though I doubt it will convince me
Sure, I'll expand on this. Point of note, this is pretty West Coast/FNV-centric since that's my primary area of interest.
Let's start with defining terms since this is the piss-on-the-poor website. A raider is a bandit, someone who survives by plunder, often roaming in search of things to steal or people to attack. Many raider gangs in the Wasteland are relatively loose allegiances of a few like-minded individuals, but some are established social groups with distinct cultures. The 80s, the Vipers, and the Khans are examples of raider groups that expanded to fit the definition of a tribe—that is, a social division consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect.
The 80s, first outlined in Joshua Sawyer's rpg, are a gang of bandits that operate along the Northern California 80 Freeway and have long contested territory with the White Legs; The Vipers are organized around their shared religion, which is only vaguely described as ancient, but there are what appear to be ritualistic elements to their organization and raiding practices.
The Khans, inspired by Genghis Khan and the Mongols Motorcycle Club, value strength and martial prowess. Founded around 2141, the Khans raided and traded around Shady Sands and Junktown before they were wiped out by the Vault Dweller. Darion, the lone survivor of the original gang, rebuilt it into the New Khans, who in turn were largely destroyed by the Chosen One. Finally, Papa Khan united the fragmented bands and led them to the Mojave in 2267, where they settled. The massacre at Bitter Springs establishes that at this point, the Khans include non-combatants in their group such as children and elders, and until the NCR occupation, Bitter Springs was their home.
I'm going to proceed on the assumption that we all agree that genocide is wrong and set aside the Khans for now, especially because they are a faction that is not immediately hostile to the player, in contrast to the Vipers, Jackals, and Fiends.
Despite their lore, the Vipers don't get anywhere near the development the Khans have and end up in the category of fodder for the player to indiscriminately kill, an act for which you can even gain karma. And this is what brings me to the point of the original post, which is... hey, what the fuck?
I understand from a game mechanics perspective that it's useful to have an unlimited supply of enemies that the player can slaughter for experience points. But, that necessarily dehumanizes the members of that group, which is extra fucked up when you consider that some of them, like the Vipers, are a distinct tribal group.
And even in the case of, say, the Fiends, who we are told are fueled only by bloodlust/dependence on chems and presumably lack any sort of identifiable cultural allegiance, I don't like that it's considered morally good to just kill them all. They're still people.
I would like, especially from a role-playing game, to have more options to talk them down, to get them help for their addictions, and attempt to reintegrate them into society. Maybe that doesn't work on every character, maybe some of them really do just revel in violence and bloodshed and don't want a way out, but I'd like more recognition that raiders aren't a monolith and don't exist in a vacuum, that these are individuals who were driven to where they are by myriad circumstances and an underlying need to survive. It's more realistic and more interesting.
The way the Khans are developed has plenty of problems, certainly, but I appreciate that there was at least some development of who these people are and how they got to be where they are, and I think that's something that's lacking with a lot of the others.
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dalekofchaos · 2 months
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Friendly reminder. Bruce Wayne hung up the suit and retired after THREATENING someone with a gun and this was his reaction.
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And then his immediate reaction is to shut down and close the Batcave and his only words were. "Never again"
A truly tragic, but fitting way for Bruce’s career to end. Powerful stuff. Batman's career ended the same way it began: with a desperate man wielding a gun
Batman choosing not to be weak like Joe Chill >>>> Batman going on a killing spree because fighting crime is hard.
And by the way, since Zack Snyder says his inspiration was Dark Knight Returns, I got news for you, TDKR Batman doesn't kill either.
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Zack Snyder is a complete blithering fucking idiot.
his statement on Batman just lines up with what I’ve seen from all of his work. He likes the idea of the comics he makes movies out of but he doesn’t actually understand their themes. A Batman that kills is pointless. An edgy Superman is not only the most boring way to write him, but doesn’t make any sense without the wholesome one. That’s why injustice Superman/brightburn/Plutonian/omniman/homelander kind of make sense in their own ways because the original exists to compare them to.(mostly also boring though) His take on watchmen was pretty much devoid of any of the actual commentary from the graphic novel, but instead was just a dark justice league that were pretty bad at their jobs. Rorschach was just framed as a kind of unhinged Batman, but still a badass that does good, which is wildly generous compared to the way he’s originally written. I can understand turning your brain off and coasting through an action movie, but his fans are delusional if they think he does any of these stories justice. I wouldn’t take any of his comments seriously if they would stop letting him make these mediocre movies.
Zack Snyder is all flash and no substance. His films are visually stunning but utterly lacking in compelling storytelling.
The point of Batman is he cannot 'stoop to their level'. He HAS to be better, he HAS to believe these criminals can be rehabilitated, because if he kills them, he becomes just like them. With his wit, his intellect, he could future proof the city against crime ever happening by just killing the criminals before they commit crimes based on probable statistics and similar themes. But a Batman who refuses to kill is a murderer by inaction. Every time he chooses not to put Joker in the ground, he's allowed him to slaughter dozens, hundreds more, just for a laugh. Batman is equally guilty for every one of those deaths, because he could simply kill the Joker, and stop him from ever killing again. But he doesn't. Snyder saying Batman can kill, Batman SHOULD kill, is to say that without batman doing so, or being able to, he is just as bad as the villians. Except dipshit doesn't even have his Batman kill The Joker. "Oopsie daisy, Joker got out and bombed a hospital full of people, sowwwwyyyy, I put him back in jail again dunt worry TeeHeee :3". And then next week we do it all over again. OR. You kill the Joker, and he never hurts another person again. Which is why Jason Todd works so well as a counter to batman, and SHOULD be what Snyder is looking into. The reason why Zod works so well as a villain is because Humans are flawed apes who cant be trusted to govern themselves and should be conquered, and Superman, a literal God, could fix all that, but doesn't, because of Hope. Its foolish, childish even, to consider that a solution. And when placed in the vacuum of a comic book it works because you have to suspend disbelief, and forget that Superman let a city full of people die while he punched Zod through skyscrapers.
If you want Batman to kill people, just go and read one of his 1784956th copies that kill people. Go read Midnighter. Go read Punisher. Go read Moon Knight. Go read Peacemaker. Go read Nighthawk. What is stopping you?
I'm sure all those characters have brought about the peace and prosperity and the crime-free society that a "killer Batman" was supposed to. "Punisher would clean Gotham in under a week", right, just like he cleaned Marvel's New York, didn't he?
It has to be Batman specifically the one doing the killing? The number of superheroes that kill is nowadays much higher than the number of heroes who don't. Remember how Hawkeye spent the better part of his existence being the most anti-killing Avenger? Nowadays he is known as a super-assassin that "never had a non-kill rule". Should heroes who don't kill go extinct?
I like that Batman doesn't kill people. I feel no need to turn him into something he isn't like it was done to Hawkeye. If I wanted a Batman that kills, I would go and read one of the thousand "Batman who kills" out there.
Batman should not kill and should never kill.
"Gotham would be better off if Batman just killed The Joker"
You. Miss. The. Entire. Point.
Bruce Wayne lost his parents to crime and Bruce Wayne is a child who died alongside his parents and was reborn as a creature dedicated to insuring it never happened to any other child. He made a vow never to reduce himself to the criminal scum’s level or to Joe Chill’s level. He never kills for a reason.
Batman not killing is what makes him so compelling, if he kills criminals, there is no moral conflict, he is no better than the Punisher, Wolverine or any other dark edgy hero. Hell, if he starts to take a life, Batman is no better than Ra’s Al Ghul.
In the Daredevil Netflix show, Frank Castle told Daredevil this “That’s not how this works. You cross over to my side of the line, you don’t get to come back from that. Not ever.” That alone is why Batman should not kill, not even The Joker. Bruce Wayne is not Frank Castle, stop trying to make him Frank Castle. I mean…Stan Lee was absolutely disgusted when someone called The Punisher a hero, Frank Castle is a murderer, not a hero. How is this so hard for people to understand?
I don’t want to hear that Batman killed in the old comics and I don’t want to hear Elseworld stories. It’s an established fact that Batman does not kill and it’s a big part of his character.
Guess what? We already got a Bruce who killed The Joker, it happened in the Burtonverse/Schumacherverse and he was disgusted with himself. “So, you're willing to take a life.” “Long as it's Two-Face.” “Then it will happen this way: You make the kill, but your pain doesn't die with Harvey, it grows. So you run out into the night to find another face, and another, and another, until one terrible morning you wake up and realize that revenge has become your whole life. And you won't know why.”
A huge part of Bruce’s character is that he doesn’t kill, no matter what. Same with Clark. But edgelord writers from the New 52, DCEU and the Injustice abominations think it’s cool to make heroes kill. Heroes should not kill. You can’t be a hero and a killer. IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!
Guess what would happen if Batman kills The Joker? The Joker wins. The Joker and Batman are each trying to prove a point to society - and really to us, the readers. The Joker wants Batman to kill him because he perfectly embodies chaos and anarchy and wants to prove a point to everyone that people are basically more chaotic than orderly. This is why he is so scary: we are worried he may be right. If the Joker is right, then civilization is a ruse and we are all truly monsters inside. If the Joker can prove that Batman - the most orderly and logical and self-controlled of all of us - is a monster inside, then we are all monsters inside, and that is terrifying. The Joker is terrifying because we fear that we are like him deep down - that he is us. Batman is what we (any average person) could be at our absolute best, and the Joker is what we could be at our absolute worst. The Joker’s claim is that we are all terrible deep down, and it is only the law and our misplaced sense of justice that keeps us in line. Since Batman isn’t confined by the law, he is a perfect test case to try to get him to "break.” The Joker wants Batman to kill a person, any person, but knows that the only person Batman might ever even remotely consider killing would have to be a terrible monster, so is willing to do this himself and sacrifice himself to prove this macabre point. Batman needs to prove that it is not just laws that keep us in line, but basic human decency and our natural instinct NOT to kill. If Batman can prove this, then others will be inspired by his example (the citizens of Gotham, but again, also the readers), just as we are all inspired every day to keep civilization running smoothly and not descend into violence, anarchy, and chaos. This ability to be decent in the face of the horrors and temptations present all around us is humanity’s superpower, the superpower of each of us. The struggle of Batman and the Joker is the internal struggle of each of us. But we are inspired by Batman’s example, not the Joker’s, because Batman always wins the argument, because he has not killed the Joker.
Batman not killing matters. Batman stories to me are the ultimate tale of turning pain and suffering into something positive. That is a story that everyone can relate to because let's be honest here. The world can suck. I've experienced and probably will always experience feelings of fear of depression of anger of angst. It's in my nature as a human being to experience those things. It's in all our nature it is what we choose to do with that pain that we all feel that defines us. Batman chose to turn all those negative emotions, he feels into a symbol that can bring people. Hope that Batman will save us from pain but more importantly hope that we can all be Batman. Why do we fall? And Batman Begins explains this best “Why do we fall sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”
Yes, Bruce Wayne is a flawed crazy person. He is at times mean stubborn and even abusive but he is still good. He is still someone we can aspire to be. We can try our hardest to be Superman but no human being can fly, but we can still try to be Batman We can all try to turn our pain into something good when I see Batman killing people or fans saying he killed before and he should kill The Joker, It pains me. It actually hurts my soul. Batman is not about finding a way to kill evil. But try to redeem it. His mission is an impossible task. Maybe he should kill people. Maybe he should kill The Joker, but what makes him fascinating what makes him a hero Is the fact that he has that moral code and stopped himself from crossing that line That's why I always looked up to Batman even as a kid despite all the adult subtext or mature themes superheroes are for kids. And killing is not Batman and it is not Bruce Wayne. This is why I hated the portrayal in the DCEU and the Burtonverse and why I really hated the implication that Batman killed The Joker in Batwoman. A Batman who kills is certainly not Bruce Wayne, that is an interpretation of Bruce Wayne that completely misses the point of Batman. It's easy to kill. Batman does not make the easy choice… Batman does not kill.
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asha-mage · 2 months
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I think one of the smartest things Lies of P does is that it refuses to answer the question of 'Is P truly Carlo reincarnated in a new puppet form, or is he his own independent being?' not because it wants ambiguity or mystery on the subject- bur rather because Lies of P is fundamentally disinterested in that question and it's answer.
The only person obsessed with this question in the game is Gepetto who is driven by a need to resurrect Carlo. But what's obvious by game's end is that he is chasing a person that never existed in the first place, and he is doing it out a sense of guilt and failure, not love. Resurrecting Carlo is not an act of compassion and care but one of control- getting a second chance at being a father after he realized, to late, how badly he had screwed up with Carlo. His first attempt was a monstrous failure (the Nameless Puppet) that he locked away- while his second is seemingly 'perfect' and yet still not good enough. It's not enough to build a Puppet that looks like Carlo, has his Ergo, his heart, his memories, his skills as a Stalker- and it will never truly be enough, not until he has the version of Carlo he has idealized in his head- mischievous but obedient, willful but loyal, deadly with his blade but sweet for his papa, ready to do whatever it takes- even slaughter his friends- to make Gepetto's perfect clockwork world a reality. That's the 'Carlo' from the Real Boy ending- and the version of P that is farthest from what we know of Carlo as he was before he died.
In contrast in the Rise of P ending, the game just...side steps the question of P's soul entirely, because it really doesn't matter, so it's better for the player to decide for themselves. What matters, the game essentially argues, is the connections we build and the things we are willing to do for them. Weather P is an entirely new being distinct from Carlo, or Carlo returned in a puppet body but transformed by his experiences and struggles since that awakening, or (as I suspect personally) some middle ground between the two what matters is the bonds P has managed to forge, with Sophia, Gemini, Antonia, Polendina, Eugine, Vignini- all the people Gepetto is so willing to callously toss away and replace with automatons without a second thought. P's willingness to fight for them, to lie for them, to care for their struggles and their pains, to give them aid when they need it most- that's what grows P's humanity to the point that he can defy Gepetto. That, the game argues, is what complicates is simple truths and easy rules with nuance and depth and grayness- our compassion for others and our willingness to recognize their humanity through our own. That's why P chooses to try and give Sophia new life in this ending and what makes it different from Gepetto's obsession with resurrection for Carlo- it isn't coming from the desire for control or absolution. It is motivated by pure compassion and connection- by a wish for Sophia to be free and to live her own life.
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darkphoenix07 · 7 months
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Elixir of 🕸️Death (J.W)
A vampire series by @darkphoenix07
Mental health request
Masterlist
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Paring : Wooyoung x Reader
Genre : Dark Romance, Fantasy, Tragedy
Song suggestion 🎶 : Listen before I go by Billie Eilish, House of cards ♠️ by BTS.
Warning ⚠️ : Mentions of blood, Violence, Degradation, Death, Mention of suicide.
Synopsis : When the girl who doesn't have any will to live meets the demon whose only wish to slaughter humans.
"How will it help me if I drain your blood right now when I can use you anyway I want to?"
- Jung Wooyoung
🍷 "To the people who craves comfort and a single reason to keep themselves alive" 🍷
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"There lived my beloved
Weeping for some love
Chasing delicate poisons
To keep her soul alive"
Staring at the ripples, the only thing that comes in your mind is, "If you jump here, how long it will take for you to lose your senses at a point that you won't feel that you've stopped breathing."
Death has always fascinated you. Not only because you were drawn to it through the circumstances of your life. It was because the times you were standing in front of the death valley and how it felt when you were there. They were the only times you felt free, you didn't have any sort of thoughts that would break you or you didn't think of giving someone any explanation.
Unfortunately, you were saved each time by someone which has started to patrify you nowadays.
At a time, you started to feel like you were doing fine. You were thinking that you are alive that was enough for everyone. Like you, others were grateful for you not giving up on your life. But in the end of the day, people got tired of your existence, the way you behaved, the sentences you spoke. It all became a havoc for them, you and your breath.
You relentlessly keep walking by the river through the forest. People call it Red Forest because they think someone ominous lives here and eats people alive. They call that person demon, vampire, werewolf, siren and many more. Because no one knows what it is living here for centuries and no one comes back from this forest alive.
You thought a multiple times that if you end up going back home alive after wondering around here, you'll give up on dying thinking that even God doesn't want to take you back to Him. So, it will only be fair to stop pushing yourself.
Even the moon is hiding from you tonight and there are no animas around. It feels like you are in an empty arena filled with old trees and the river alongside. The cold breeze are now running through your veins. You think if that demon doesn't kill you tonight, the heavy winds may as you are shivering to death.
Your pale blue short dress with love shape front and long sleeves is not enough to keep you warm. You intensionally left your overcoat home but maybe it was too much brutal for you as well.
As you walk a little further, you notice an old mansion with black woods. There was no light inside, you thought but something about the house started to pull you closer.
Maybe the sweet delicate smell of old woods or maybe the little fireflies around the windows wanting some shelter inside. You gotta say that the house was creepy yet the decorations were lively.
You stand in front of the door and knock on the door with your knuckles not finding any bell to ring. Maybe hoping for some horror to find you and filing your wishes.
The town you live in is called "Melanite." The houses here are old and because of this forest there are no developments in here. So you thought this house was one of them and maybe no one lives here.
But someone opens the door leaving you slightly shocked.
His red eyes glimmered in the dark but you couldn't see him properly only his black attire. A sleeveless shimmery shirt and some ribbon around his throat. His pants are loose around his ankles and hiding his boots underneath.
"What do you want?"
His voice is raspy and vouge. It takes you a minute to understand what he asked.
"I am-"
Before you can utter another word, he grabs your wrist and pulls you into the mansion. Closing his door by your back, he pins your hand behind your waist. Your instincts made you close your eyes but when you start feeling his cold breathe on your face, you look into those glimmering eyes staring into yours.
He is twisting your hand behind your back but all you can see is his beautiful shaped face. How perfectly sharped his jawline is, how beautiful his pale skin looks and his terrifying eyes, they look like crimson crystals or drop of blood you can't decide.
"Are you here to unalive me, Ms? How foolish of them to send a pretty woman in front of my door thinking I will be hypnotized. But they don't know I've seen thousands of beauties like you, drained their blood with my own fangs and ripped them apart one by one."
You thought he is going to say something more but you staring at him like you have seen the most beautiful thing on the earth caught him off guard.
He leaves your hand and crosses his hands around his chest, "Who sent you this time?"
"I came here alone," you tell him the truth but he doesn't believe a word you say. Instead he thumps his hands beside you and stops inches away from you.
"Don't lie to me. There are people outside, right?" He asks you again and this time you smile.
"Tell me if these are lenses or you are a real monster?" You ask him again catching him off guard by your words.
"Lenses? What kind of weapon are they? You think I need weapons?" He says and you smile again shaking your head.
"So you are a monster, you are not playing dumb. I'm glad to know they exist."
"You better tell me who are you or I'll drain you right n-"
"Are you afraid of humans?" You cross your hands this time throwing him the question.
"How dare you ask me that? Why would I be afraid of some puny species!"
He backs off of you like he felt wronged by your question and you start to chuckle.
"Are you really alone?" He asks you making you stop chuckling.
You look at him then through the window of the dark living room, "You have no idea."
You don't hear anything from him for a while until he opens the door, looks around and again closes it, "I smell no human."
"I am glad," you reply sarcastically but he doesn't catch it.
"Why are you glad? Are they inside my home?" He asks you starting to look around.
"NO!" You almost scream in frustration.
"Then how did you find this place?" He asks you calmly this time.
You thought if there is something to explain or you should straight up tell him what you really want.
Then, "You are a vampire, ha? That was supposed to be a myth but you are truly real," you don't know why your words sound very lame to you.
But he took it nicely, "As you can see, I am. I am not the only one, there are more hidden among humans too."
It gives you shiver but you forget about it as soon as you remember what is the reason you came here for.
"I want you to do something for me."
"Are you ordering me?" His voice become hoarse than before. It's so vivid whenever he is mad.
You look down and start to play with your nails as you speak up, "I want to give you all of my blood right now."
"What? Did you mix anything in your blood? Is that what you were pl-"
"No, I just... I don't want to live anymore. I have been searching an easy way to do so but I couldn't. I failed too many times and I am tired. I can't do it myself anymore," you sounded pathetic but that's just how you are.
"You want me to drain you? You look already pale," you look at him hearing concern in his voice.
You have always been an empath and it helped you understanding everyone so well yet you never knew that a vampire could feel anything let alone concern.
"I just want you to drain me enough that I die. You'll get some blood and I'll get what I want," you tell him all these like you are doing some business deal.
The way he looked at you told you otherwise, "I am hungry. I haven't had blood for two months. If I really start, I wouldn't be able to stop."
"I don't want you to stop."
"Do you realize how pathetic you sound right now? Don't you have any value of your life?"
"If I had, I wouldn't come here knowing a monster lives here."
"I can turn you if you want to. You can l-"
"Did I say I want to live forever? I said I don't want to live a second so for God's sake kill me!"
Your knees starts trembling with your lips. You start feeling numb by the coldness you feel on your skin. You tried getting better being a person but you ended up hurting people, making a massacre. You tried to find any single reason for you to live but you only see yourself as a worst kind of omen.
"Alright then," you hear him say and feel him moving through the cold winter wind, coming in front of you.
You know, you couldn't run away now. Your legs have already given up on you.
But the thing is, you don't want to run away.
You flinch when you feel his index finger on your chin lifting your face up, "A birdy has come to my cage willingly tonight," he starts walking forward and you start walking backwards hearing his words.
"Do you think I will kill her just like that?" He smirks and one of his fangs shows up.
You can't hear anything without your own heartbeat. Even the wind is silent. You want to take a deep breath but it feels like something is stuck in your throat.
"Look I just want to die. I d-"
"I want to keep you safe for my long time meal. Killing you with one go won't give me fun," he grabs your chin and pull your face closer to his as he bends over you.
"I will feed you and kill you everyday. Because blood doesn't taste good when you don't have any fear in your veins."
Suggest me songs you may think can be suitable for this series. *Wink* *wink*
Chapter 2 ( Drain or Drown )
Chapter 3 ( Death Deal )
Chapter 4 ( Bloody Comfort)
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