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#reason why she tortured her for all those years is bc it was for fun. like there’s no grand reason to it she just found orin’s reaction and
swordmaid · 17 days
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the yves/orin dynamic I hc is so hhhhhjjmyhhhhhhdhdghh scrumptious to me bc yves was orin’s biggest tormentor. yves constantly berated orin and thought she was useless, and she made her grievance known. like yves constantly preaching abt how orin is so useless and worthless and the only thing that’s significant to her is the blood in her veins and unlike her, she will never gain bhaal’s favour and she’s always going to be a mongrel chasing her heel for a sliver of recognition…! and the fact that yves - besides being bhaal’s bride and chosen - was one of the head priestess of His church meant that she influenced others to think similarly too. orin was also one of the constant victims of yves’ nasty tantrums and when she’s feeling particularly curious and she wants to see how a shapeshifter’s inner organs work mid shifting orin is the first one she takes to experiment on. like yves in her dead three was SO nasty and horrible and her cruelty is so deliberate and calculated. unlike her god yves was not reckless nor chaotic, rather, she was very meticulous and executed everything she did with precision hence why I think she worked well with gortash bc she isn’t unpredictable like orin.
but anyway, yves being so horrible and nasty to orin so when orin FINALLY managed to stage her little coup, it is a very satisfying and vindicating moment. now she gets to see the woman who made her life living hell kneel and break open like an egg, and she WILL watch with a smile in her face. now she has a chance to prove her worth, and to show everyone that yves was wrong abt everything and she IS bhaal’s chosen, and i think yves would actually be proud of her for finally standing up for herself lol.
but then orin makes the fatal mistake of not killing yves 😔
#and I like to hc pre duel or maybe even mid duel yves just admits that she picked on orin bc she was bored#like maybe pre duel… instead of telling orin the truth that she’s an incest nepo baby yves just goaded her and tells her that the only#reason why she tortured her for all those years is bc it was for fun. like there’s no grand reason to it she just found orin’s reaction and#cries amusing.#I also have this hc that leading up to duel yves starts to ‘act’ like her dead three era self again like she’s going like I AM a bhaalspawn#im sooo evil he he ha ha ha but her actual plan is that she’s going to kill every bhaalspawn and then herself bc she’s dismantling#every thing she has done for the absolute plot and she will give the prism to the companions so they end everything once and for all#to her thats the only thing she can do to balance out her scales. and that’s the least she can do for all the horrors she’s inflicted#but then she gets revived right after and she’s like 🧍‍♂️ girl this was NOT part of the plan and withers is like you want to experience the#catharsis of punishment so badly im gonna force you to live instead#and yves is like. well. depression ig….#but anyway back to the main point that is orin and yves dynamic i like thinking abt it in orin’s perspective imagine the underlying fear#when she learns yves is still alive and going back home bc that’s the woman who constantly abused you u know. but this time orin is the one#with power. this time she’s the one with bhaal’s blessing so she won’t be able to touch her…! and when she observes the very woman she’s#out there being treated with kindness and care and being LOVED ..? like HUH? what….! it’s unfair. and revolting. and sickening#that horrible woman deserves neither of those things and the only thing she deserves is the knife thrusted on her chest 1000 times over but#even then that is still too good for her. so orin taunts her. and she shows off how she wears bhaal’s divinity well. and she tries to make#her show off her true nature to her new friends bc this mask she wears is sickening!!! and it works kind of …#anyway dead three era yves being the most horrible person with unethical medical practices is so real to me#shut up about bg3.#bg3 spoilers
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virgincels · 4 months
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SLEIGH BALLS !
ft. leon s. kennedy x gn!reader
tags. GILF LEON!!! incest, big age gap he’s 60+ at the very least, voyeurism
note. ignore that this is sort of xmas themed and sorry if this does not live up to any expectations I think I hyped him up too much LMFAOO still getting out of my writing slump so forgive me if this is very clunky and boring! not edited whatsoever so begging u ignore mistakes i’m . really unhappy this fic but still gonna post it bc idk when i will be able to write ab him again 😭 trust this will be rewritten
tumblr has started to remove fics that use tw non-con, tw incest and any nsfw tags in general. for this reason, as i’d like my fic to appear in the tags so i can have the same reach as other authors, please understand that this fic contains dark content under the cut. reading this comes at your own risk.
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You’re a good kid. Honest. You don’t do drugs, you don’t drink, you don’t stay out late, but what you do partake in is the act of sitting in your bedroom hunched over your desk and mindlessly scrolling. Dad says to let you be, mom is unable to stay out of your business, and she thinks you need to go outside more often. Fresh air is good for you! What she’s trying to say, essentially, stripped down to the simplest of terms, is that you’re a total loser. That her and dad were fucking, partying, shooting up in alleyways, all the shit that normal teenagers are supposed to be doing.
She forcibly packs your bags, all while you trail after her whining about how she can’t touch that— Don’t be so rough with that- No that’s not to throw out- No, Mom! I wear that all the time—
She threatens to take away Christmas presents, which at your age shouldn’t be so wounding, but you shut up right then and there. “Now,” Mom talks to you like you’re a baby still. You appreciate it sometimes, like now, when your body is wilting as she opens up the curtains, fragility is much appreciated. You fear the sunlight might turn your bones to dust. “Me and dad are going away.”
What— For Christmas, mom says. Where— A few states over, none that really concern you, might be a road trip for all you know. When— As soon as you’re gone. How, why, who— Mom doesn’t answer those, she’s exasperated by your rigorous questioning, by the way you wring your hands and slump when you sit. It’s awful, looks like you’ve got a hunchback forming.
“Why would you do this to me, mom?” You paw at her sleeve, she brushes you off. “Will you pick me up before Christmas? I don’t want to stay there, what if he doesn’t like me?”
“Grandpa’s fun,” She tells you, “He’s been asking about you.”
Liar. You’ve met grandpa a handful of times, and that was as a child. He doesn’t visit for any holidays and vice versa. Doesn’t even send a Christmas card, forgets to call his own daughter to wish her a happy birthday. Grandpa clearly enjoys his solitude and you firmly doubt he’d appreciate having a mopey teen around.
Grandpa’s nice. Grandpa’s sweet, he won’t bother you. Grandpa might need help in the mornings, I don’t want him to get hurt, he works too hard. Grandpa’s quiet, don’t worry about it, both of you are. You’ll get along fine!
No one told you grandpa was hot. Mom failed to mention he was a babe at, like, what? Seventy years old? Not quite, but you don’t remember him being this hot. Good grief. He’s not tall, but his bicep is the size of your face, and his hair is shaggy. A dull grey colour, shiny like gunmetal. When he takes your suitcase, his arm flexes and bulges outwards, you start to overheat, brain sizzling as you’re cooked under his cobalt gaze.
There’s an old pick-up outside his expansive farmhouse, a mailbox that’s in desperate need of another layer of paint, a wooden stable off in the distance that you doubt he uses - other than that it’s barren. This is true torture. Mom’s very own version of those camps they send out of control teens to. Your sneakers sink into the mud, as you walk the soles make that icky squishy sound, your socks are soaked for sure. He doesn’t take his boots off, tracks mud into the house and you recoil. Somebody needs to give grandpa etiquette lessons.
“Can you ask him for the wifi password?” You ask mom quietly, playing with your fingers as Grandpa Leon places your suitcase on the bottom step, grumbling about taking it up later, that you should’ve packed lighter.
“Dad, did you set up the router?”
“The what?”
“The router, broadband, so you can use the phone I sent you? For Christmas?” Mom’s frowning, hands on her hips as Leon waves her off.
“I got a landline.” He gestures to the telephone on the desk that sits pushed up against the wall of the entrance hall, you had to squeeze past it into the open-plan lounge. Rustic. Old. The ornaments that sit tucked between nooks and crannies remind you of the shit that gets sold for two cents in a yard sale.
“Dad, that’s not…” She shakes her head, pushes you forward, “Give grandpa a hug.”
Is this bitch serious? How old does she think you are? Nonetheless, you step forward, outstretched arms being met with hands that gently put them back by your side. Leon pats your head, his smile looks more like a grimace, a few of his teeth are fake - you can tell. Thank god they’re not dentures. You don’t know if you could deal with watching him popping them in and out, and what about kissing? The texture must be awful. Not that you’re going to kiss him. Your grandpa. It’s just the thought of course.
“Uh, you’re big now.” Leon notes, squints at you so hard the skin around his eyes gets wrinkled to the point where they sink into his face. Ew. You’re just lucky he doesn’t have that old person smell, and from what you’ve heard, grandpa’s capable of taking care of himself. No diapers, no IV tubes, no hourly medicine, nothing that you were afraid of happening. Putting you in charge of someone’s life would be a bad choice to put it simply. “How old are you? Twelve?”
“Dad, god,” Mom rubs her temples, “Nineteen, okay? Got that?”
“I was kidding,” Leon huffs, looking to the side in a brooding manner, he wasn’t kidding. He’s a bad liar like mom.
“Okay, just, please,” She has her fists clenched, biting the inside of her cheek, “I’ll be back for you before Christmas Eve, okay?”
“On Christmas Eve? That’s too late.” Grandpa has bad hearing it seems, or the inability to process whatever his child is saying as most men do.
“I said before, dad, before Christmas Eve,” Mom’s eyes almost pop out of her head, “Whatever, I have to go now, just behave for Grandpa, okay?” She does not have to go yet, she just wants to abandon you here, with no wifi— how will you be able to do anything, the panic hasn’t properly set in yet, you’re too busy pressing your hands to the glassy watching forlornly as mom gets into the car and speeds off so fast you hear her tires squeak. She really wanted to get rid of you. Dumping you with an old man who doesn’t even know your name. A hot old man, but you shouldn’t let your judgement be clouded so easily. And you shouldn’t talk about your grandpa like that.
“How you doing in school?” Grandpa’s question is said with so much disinterest you wonder why he tried to sound like he cares in the first place.
“I’m in college.” You say.
“Right.” Leon shrugs in a way that says worth a shot - at communicating with his basically estranged grandchild that is. “How’s college, good grades? Still gotta pay?”
“Yeah.” You nod, to all of it or none. And that’s that.
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Staying with grandpa, you decide, is not the worst thing that could’ve happened to you. Going on vacation with your parents who are in desperate need of a fuck so they can stop arguing sounds worse now that you put it into perspective. The old man is quiet, mom was right about that, and he does his own thing. He let you set up the router, but in the middle of Bumfuck, USA, surrounded by flattened fields, connection isn’t the greatest.
Old photo albums end up being your main source of entertainment. Of your mom as a kid, of grandpa when he was sunflower blond and boyish, with all the beauty of a wild mare, long-faced and tow-headed, although not quite. Much softer, similar to that of raw linen, as if he was born from the rib of spring itself. From its newfound petals and holy lambs. You think it’s too poetic, pretentious even, that it gives grandpa too much credit for being blond and blue-eyed. Beneath Leon’s crushed nose you can see the former pretty boy that he once was. His eyes are the same, and his aged face is more rugged than it is handsome, that doesn’t deter you in the slightest. You think you like him better this way, as grandpa.
Among other things, you learn all sorts about grandpa, he doesn’t speak much, and when he does it’s hard to decipher - just kind of nonsensical grumbling that you can’t really make out. But you’ve done your own research. His bedroom door doesn’t shut fully, you noticed it one night on the way back from the bathroom and decided to take a peek. The setup of his bedroom mirrors the spare room you're sleeping in. His nighttime routine consists of taking a shot of whiskey and trying to get through a book that looks like it’s been sitting on his bedside cabinet for centuries. Leon gets through less than a single page and knocks out, mouth wide open as he snores. Loudly.
He never notices you. Or he pretends not to. Or he’s just senile. It might be wrong, that you know more than you’re letting on. Like what his dick looks like when it’s soft - heavy between his thighs, the skin is wrinkled but not to the point where his dick is unrecognisable. Still looks like a pretty solid dick. You know whether his nipples are pink or brown - brown obviously. Y’know, just the usual, what all grandkids should know about their grandads.
One night, you watch him silently through the gap, the only light that remains glowing is the lamp on his bedside. An ornate looking thing, beaded fringe that lines the shade, out of place in his otherwise barely furnished room. It bathes him in its warmth as he undresses, and you’re struck in the gut by this awful need. His body held up well, surprisingly firm for his age, god forbid he turns around you don’t want to catch sight of anything saggy and unholy. Firm muscle is softened by a layer of fat, making him thicker around the middle. The beer is finally catching up with him.
Grandpa sits back on his bed, with a soft groan he lifts his hips and takes off his boxers. There’s a terrible ache between your legs, throbbing and pulsing and downright nasty. His cock rests heavy on his thigh, the tip is fat and dark, uncut on the fat, you want to put your mouth on it. Never sucked dick before, never been inclined to suck one, but now you think it’s a matter of life and death. You need him down your throat or you’ll die due to neglect.
Why he wanders around the room naked and aimless for a good five minutes mystifies you, a sign of dementia maybe, great jerk off material though, so you don’t complain. Your hand rests on the doorframe as you rub yourself raw, he seems to remember what he was looking for and approaches the vintage chest of drawers, opening the first one to grab his pyjamas. They’re always in the same place, he’s forgetful and old you guess.
As your stomach lurches with the onset of your high, you make the mistake of stepping forward, clasping at the door knob to steady yourself as a wave of pleasure washes over you and leaves your legs shaky. Grandpa looks up, and he blinks at you standing there with your hand in your pants. He’s not quite as stunned as you expected him to be, and while you get ready to wing it back to your room - he half-smiles at you. Like he’s amused.
“You enjoy the show?” Grandpa raises a brow, he pats his lap, and you nod dumbly, legs working on their own as your brain tries to process the fact that he’s not reacting to this badly. “Think I didn’t see you, sweetheart?” Once you near him, he sits you down on his thigh, “You just gotta speak up and ask for things sometimes, then you’ll get ‘em.”
“I don’t… I’m sorry.” You don’t follow, clinging to his shoulders helplessly.
“Been a long time since I’ve done this, you gotta be nice to me, I can’t keep up with you.” Leon kisses the top of your head, that’s the most affectionate he's been since you’ve been here. The most you got out of him was a pat on the back so hard it knocked your organs out of place.
“Grandpa, wait,” The air is stolen from your lungs by a single sharp gasp as he takes your hand in his, the one that was previously down your pants, and sucks on your fingers. His tongue collects the slick that coats them, then he pulls off with a pop, lips wet with your pussy. “Wait, wait,” Your chest tightens, and you’re lightheaded.
“What?” Leon pays you no mind, he lifts your shirt over your head, there’s some struggle as you refuse to lift your arms for a moment. He gets his way, leaning down to take your peaked nipples into his hot mouth.
“It’s wrong.” You push at his head, resist the urge to tangle your fingers in his hair and bring him closer.
“Oh, ‘s wrong now?” Grandpa kisses you, his stubble scratches your cheeks and it feels so right. “Wasn’t wrong when you were getting off to me, was it?”
Spit trickles down your chin, he licks it up, kisses you once more, the excessive dribble finding its way back into your mouth. “That’s ’cause… Well, ‘cause I was…” You stammer, clasping at his chest, fingers tickled by the faint grey hairs that cover the expanse of it.
“‘Cause what?” He gives you more spit-slicked kisses till you shut up, growing dizzier by the second.
“Grandpa…”
His nose wrinkles, “That don’t sound right.” Leon mumbles, under his breath, but ‘cause he’s going deaf it's loud and you hear it. It’s more of an announcement.
“Papa,” You try as he thumbs your pout, the ghost of a smile lines his thin lips. He seems to like that.
Grandpa likes to kiss, he’s starved for affection probably, or he’s just a sentimental old man. You’re impatient and young, he knows that, so when he lays you down, caged by his big arms, Leon makes sure to slow it down even further. Watching you squirm brings him joy, you’ve never seen him smile like that. He kisses every inch of tender flesh, from the top of your head to your ankles.
When he finally parts your thighs to get to your centre, you let out a sigh of relief, body growing lax as he peels your underwear off. Practically glued to your cunt with how much you’ve leaked. Leon traces the shape of your puffy lips, his nose meets your clit first with a light bump. The touch has you reeling, hips lifting up in a jolty motion that makes him chuckle. He uses a single hand to pin you down, splayed over your stomach so he can eat you out without being bothered by your level of sensitivity.
A moment after the nudge of his nose comes his lips, pressing a soft kiss to your swollen bud that has pleasure blooming in your gut. Then his tongue swipes along the seam of your cunt, catching on your clit, he parts your folds with his thumbs, catching every droplet that leaks from your drippy hole. Grandpa sucks on your clit like it’s a piece of hard candy, your thighs clamp shut around his head, he doesn’t seem to mind at all, taking the chance to nestle further into your pussy, tongue digging into your clenching hole all while his nose rubs against your clit.
He’s satisfied only when you are, when you cream on his tongue and he can taste it in the very back of his throat, only then does he pry your thighs apart. Emerging with the bottom half of his face covered in a sheen of your slick like he’s just been diving, you’re pretty sure he gave you carpet burn.
From then on, you begin to sleep in grandpa's room, you sit patiently on his lap while he watches black and white westerns dug up from the depths of who knows where. They’re slow paced and soon enough you find his hand cupping your pussy, grandpa gets you off on his fingers, he kisses your neck - but he doesn’t go any further, never gives you the dick that you crave so badly.
Mom calls a few times, not as many times as you would like her to call, but now that you and grandpa have bonded, it’s been easier to pass her off. You tell her there’s no need to pick you up, that you’re quite happy to stay with grandpa for the rest of the holidays, you don’t say that you’re ready to move in with grandpa and drop out of college to tend to his soft cock all day. Theoretically, if you did drop out of college, you think everything would be handled, surely by now he would’ve put his will in your name. It doesn’t sound all that bad. It sounds quite ideal actually. Sure, grandpa’s fussy about the thermostat, he might need dentures in a few years, but you’ve settled in so nicely. Like, all you’re trying to say is, grandpa’s a lonely guy - he could use your company till he’s sent off to a nursing home somewhere.
“I don’t want to go home,” You say into Leon’s neck, your hand sneaks downwards as the two of you lay in bed like you have been doing every night. “I wanna stay with you, grandpa.”
Leon’s brows knit together when you lift the waistband of his boxers, squeezing his soft dick in your warm palm. “Hey,” He warns lightly, there’s no real malice to it.
“Grandpa, I want you just once before I leave,” You palm him, he hardens albeit slowly, painfully slowly - he’s doing well though. No Viagra needed. You're so proud of him, he’s come a long way. The first few times you tried this his dick adamantly refuses to do more than hang limp.
“You can take me if you’ll have me.” Leon hums, and you don’t really know what that means. Feels like he speaks in tongues most of the time, that’s okay though. Not his fault, poor old man. You clamber onto his lap, dressed only in a sleep shirt for easy access, he guides his half-hard cock past your folds, the head stretching your little hole so well.
Your back arches so far he has to straighten your spine himself to keep you upright. Leon takes your wrists in one hand, bringing them behind your back and keeping you tied up like a rotisserie chicken. With some difficulty you manage to take him, both from the fact he’s still partly soft, slipping out more than a couple times, and ‘cause you’re so tense you keep pushing him out by mistake.
“Easy, sweetheart. Nice ‘n slow, don’t rush yourself.” Grandpa coos as your cunt stretches impossibly to accommodate his length. The tip rests snug in your cervix, jabbing at it painfully, and if it wasn’t for the thumb on your clit, soothing all discomfort, you’d be complaining. Grandpa’s cock doesn’t get any harder, but it doesn’t get any softer either. You start to think it might be his limit as you swivel your hips, grinding yourself down into him, the base of his cock splitting you open.
You ache to touch him, to lay against his chest and fuck your hips downwards onto him lazily. Grandpa insists on keeping you like this, he begins to rut into you from below, the thumb on your clit follows the same pace. “You’re too little, sweetheart,” Grandpa chides when he feels you tighten, “Going too fast for me.” The knot snaps, unravelling as warmth spreads through your limbs, makes your legs feel like jelly.
Grandpa takes longer, he doesn’t have much left in him, but you milk him dry till his cock is left sputtering. When he lets go of your arms, you allow yourself to slump down on his chest, kneading it with your hands. “That was okay.”
“Just okay?” Leon snorts, he pats your head like he did when you first met him.
“Just okay.” You confirm, hoping he can feel your smile, and that he knows it was more than okay.
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dear miss rhythm I have a question
what would happen if pretty mum had to stop taking birth control for whatever reason? Would Chris' breeding kink be satisfied using condoms? How many condoms would they use in let's say, a month? Lmao
I said pretty mum bc chris is the one with the breeding thing but what about the others?
ohhh, this is a fun one sdhfskjdfh okay so i'll start with the last question just bc it'll be short and quick:
Changbin is used to it after years of being a textbook fuckboy, so i don't think he'll mind much.
Minho has only ever had sex with kitten without a condom, so it'll probably feel a bit weird at first, and obviously he'd much rather not have to use it, but ultimately it's fine.
now...... to pretty mum and Chris....... i have THOUGHTS. many:
let's be real, his breeding kink WON'T be satisfied sdjkfsdkjf i can just imagine his inner wolf being like ">:(( again??? I'm not stuffing my pretty mate full of cum?????? why? this is torture. must breed. otherwise i'm a failure >:(" whereas Chris will sigh to himself.
he'll be able to bypass his inner wolf bullshit by using the Scenting Card. so, if he comes on his pretty girlfriend, then he's scenting her, which means he's just making sure she's safe and claimed and no one would bother her. inner wolfie is satisfied with this for the most part.
they'd be going through a ridiculous amount of condoms. we're talking 20+ per month (we've stated before that they don't really have sex every day, but whenever they do i'm sure it's more than once jksdfhkjdsf so if it you add it all up it's probably more times than days in a month. not all sex is penetrative sex, though, so condoms aren't really needed).
it'd come to the point where pretty mum would be like: "okay we need, like, a system or we alone will pollute all the waterways in the city with this amount of plastic waste", which, coming up with a system is not very romantic, but it's efficient lol
now... overall I think Chris would manage. he's very level headed when it comes to these things, so he'll gladly reach compromises with himself as long as his prettiest is fine, you know? they'll find ways o get creative for sure, and he figures that at some point they'll be able to indulge his kink.
however... the real problem will come if he goes into rut. it's a bit... difficult to control certain urges when you're literally in Breeding Mode.
the fact that he can't knot his mate properly will probably be just as physically painful as not having sex would be. so, i genuinely think they'll reach an agreement to not spend his rut together.
pretty mum doesn't like it, she knows he'll be in pain, she'll be physically uncomfortable knowing he's going through it and she's not there with him, but ultimately, it's for the best.
Chris is genuinely afraid that he won't be able to hold himself back, and he would rather die than impregnate his girlfriend without her consent, you know? so he'd much rather deal with the physical pain for those four days than have to deal with a lifetime of guilt.
this last one will probably apply to Changbin and Minho as well. it's much safer for everyone to spend their rut on their own in a situation like this.
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star-ocean-peahen · 2 years
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so I went through the tag to see if you had posted more for my new favorite bastard man and read this post and. ANGST ANGST ANGST
YESSSSS
I desperately want Link to be like really actually pissed off that the Fae King has even a piece of the Goddess Blood Essence, especially after how she lost Shei. How dare he desecrate his memory! ...That might be one of the only things keeping her going while this is going on; Shei's memory.
I also think it's really funny that it's the Essence of the Skies that he's got... especially with all these Girahim vibes he's got going on lol.
I really like Link's shattering-sound trauma coming into play- I bet that hurts culling the herd of pottery tho :')
Here's an angsty thought: how does Shei's sudden absence affect Link? I bet since the Fae King's already trying to make her feel vulnerable, that doent help any... I'd love if she tried to find strength through Shei, or even vice verca.... <3
It'd be funny if Link and/or Stella were made to do menial tasks/chores like mending and tending the fae nobilty hand and foot, just for Link and Stella to pretend to but really they're sabotaging like. seams to fall apart or for dough not to set right or rinsing dishes in dirty dish water... petty stuff like that- stuff that Shei would probably (definitely) teach them. What, he was locked up in a dungeon for five years, they had to give him something to do!
I really really like the part when Link stands up to the Fae King I'm. Feral.
very cathartic, that part building up to the Fae King's demise, thats god tier.
I think it'd be kinda funny if Stella went to stir up some dissent amongst the fae subjects while Link was busy being yknow. tortured, maybe instill a new ruler to take the Fae King's place before she and Link peace out ajnsfksd
One more nugget of angst tho... I wonder if the Fae King could idk... glimpse anything from the Goddess Blood Essence of the Skies... Maybe a line about Link's "poor little friend" before BITE KILL MAIM!!!
If the Fae King weren't yknow. Fae folk idk I feel like zelda theories would try really hard to say he was twili maybe... which ofc have ties to the sheikah and gerudo and bad blood (cough goddess blood cough pun cough) with the Royal Family so 👀👀👀👀👀
not sure if those are all of my thoughts I kinda tried to just. dump my brain in here after re-reading the thing bc I. missed it? somehow??? :(
but!! it was a very fun time! I hope you enjoy my thoughts and I look forward to more of this au! :D
Bonus: Fae King looks so fun to draw
AK;JWBEFIFBwiealRFBAIWELHFBWA,JERFHBAE
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I WAS SO FREAKING HAPPY WHEN I SAW THIS IN MY INBOX THESE GIVE ME LIKE AN ENTIRE DAY'S WORTH OF HAPPY BRAIN CHEMICAL-
yessssss i absolutely picked the essence of the skies for a reason!! paralleling sksw zelda falling into the hands of ghirahim my beloved
hhhhhhhhhhhh link having pottery-related trauma is Something. she doesn't want to smash the pot because that would be Bad, obviously, so why are every one of her instincts screaming at her to do it
akjfkejw maybe hyrule has transitioned away from the use of pots or something maybe the screen shudders every time you smash a pot maybe she flinches but does it anyway because gremlin instincts cannot be ignoredddddddd
ooooooooooooooooooooooh what if the fae king pretends he can hear/sense shei in the piece of GBE but hes lying cuz hes a dirty lying liar
AKJSBFIUWABE;F!!!!!!!!!!!!!!AAAAAAAAAOCHGSHHS!!!!!!!!!!! YOU SOLVED THE PROBLEM THATS WHAT STELLA'S DOING THE WHOLE TIME SHES WORKING SEPARATELY (LIKE IN A BOILER ROOM OR SOMETHING) BUT SABOTAGING EVERYONE AND HHHHHHHHH WAIT WAIT WAIT WHAT IF SHES ALSO HELPING THE OTHER CHILD SERVANTS ESCAPE WITH LIKE SOME MAGIC OR SOMETHING (suddenly got spirited away vibes. no idea where that came from but BRAIN GO BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR)
and. im Thinking. about what the fae are in relation to the zelda lore. because unlike all the other races that pop up which are at least human-based in pysche faerie are so Not Human at all everything they are is human but a little to the left so What. could have happened to cause that. im thinking of stealing something from the fic i got all my info from (Miraculous Ladybug fic called Spellbound) where a bunch of humans tried to use power that didn't belong to them to become something elevated from humanity and their wish got granted but like not in the way they wanted because they ended up gaining the power they wanted but losing their humanity in the process and that would be So Fucking Cool because in Zelda there's mortals and then there's spirits/gods and nothing in between the fae would be like that bridge between them but instead of being a true bridge like this (forgive my absymal drawing)
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they would be a bridge like this
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between both but not anchored to neither and it fits even more because you know who's supposed to be a bridge between things LINK its literally his NAME so link being brought up among the false bridge but becoming the actual one between mortal and immortal is oagh ooagh ooooaaaaaaaaaaaa
(i think thats the longest run-on sentence ive ever written forgive me)
but then i have to figure out how that actually HAPPENED
like which people were they?? what power did they use to try and abandon their humanity?? what motive did they have?? cultists of the goddesses who strayed too far?? greedy outsiders unaware of the scope of hyrule's power?? would they be kokiri who grew up or something?? IS THAT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET LOST IN THE LOST WOODS YOU LITERALLY LOSE YOUR HUMANITY??? i like that last one actually
i appreciate your brain dumps so?? much?? seriously im so happy you're into this au i didn't think anybody would be and now i have a buddy to yell with and its the Best Thing so thank you sm 🥺🥺🥺
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jostenjorts · 3 years
Text
Back at it again with AU Nathan Wesninski and Mary Hatford headcanons feat. baby Nathaniel bc thats their baby
Mary and Nathan met when they were teenagers, just when Nathan was starting to get a name for himself and Mary was bored and he seemed entertaining
They remained in contact for a few years, giving each other tips and new ideas for torturing information out of people
Which eventually lead to them dating and getting the approval from the head of the Hatford family and Kengo Moriyama for them to marry later on
Both heads saw it as a way of having a truce between the families and it worked out well considering neither party was forced into it
Nathan is the one who cooks and runs the kitchen in their home
Mary tried once only to get kicked out and banned from cooking anything besides two minute noodles
The two used to take turns on who was to deal with Nathaniel when he woke up crying only to scissor, paper, rock it
Which only lasted a week before Mary started laying Nathaniel down between them so that neither she or Nathan would have to leave the bed to deal with a crying baby
Annual visits to the Hatford’s in the UK, Nathan hates traveling by plane yet is bribed by Mary every time by her threatening to leave without him and stay with her family longer then planned
He swears its not because he’ll miss her or their son that he tags along and puts up with the plane trip by sleeping the entire trip and playing with Nathaniel to get his mind off it
Mary finds it hilarious and is the reason why Stuart never comes to visit them, only so that she could watch Nathan freak every time the plane leaves the ground
When Nathaniel gets older, Mary is the one to suggest he gets into a sport so that his little body would grow to be strong which would work wonderfully in the future if he chooses to continue the Butcher’s work
This worked perfectly for Nathan, since Kengo had recommended that Nathaniel join Kevin and Riko’s Exy team and one day earn the family money through a sports career
Nathaniel loved it, was quick to befriend Kevin and Riko then eventually Jean when he joined their little trio and made it a quadruple
Lola didn’t last long working for Nathan, Mary didn’t like the woman and was looking for a reasonable excuse to get rid of her
Which came along rather quickly when she saw Lola try to seduce Nathan and then overheard her talk about how attractive Nathaniel would grow to be
Nathan was pleased to say the least, that his wife could be jealous enough to kill someone over him. Though he wished she told him about Lola’s comment regarding their son so that he could of joined in on the fun
Neither Nathan or Mary bothered to start Nathaniel’s training with knives and other tools, having had plans to do so when he was a little older
Only to change their minds when they witnessed Riko being a little shit towards their son and decided Nathaniel needed to grow some balls and teach Riko a lesson
So, when the quadruple were older, Nathaniel was the one in control while Riko was powerless to do anything since the red headed devil had asserted his dominance when they were children
Nathan likes to surprise Mary on random occasions, whether with gifts or by showering her with affection
During those occasions, he dumps Nathaniel on Kengo so that Ichirou has a little friend to play with
Nathaniel and Ichirou grow to be close friends due to them basically growing up with each other and with the path they’re going, they’ll be replacing Kengo and Nathan when their time came
Gives more reason for Riko to hate Nathaniel because his met Kengo and is close friends with Ichirou when Riko hasn’t even met his father or brother
Mary is the first to pick up on her son’s sexual preference and more or less dares Nathan to oppose to it
He dares just to see what she would do and to this day remembers the feel of her pressing a knife to his balls while smiling sweetly at him
All while Nathaniel sat back and watched it happen (totally doesn’t play into him meeting Andrew for the first time and falling for him when Andrew threatens him with a knife)
Nathan separates his work and family, something Mary requested of him back when they first started dating and now its just second nature walking through the back door covered in someones blood, frustrated at the state of his clothes
Only to drop to his knees to hug Nathaniel when he comes running around the corner
Mary is forever satisfied at this, though she burns Nathan’s clothes instead of washing the blood out because too much effort
While Nathan is a successful business man that works besides mr CEO Kengo Moriyama, Mary works in the medical field
She’s the Hatford and Moriyama underground doctor, gets called in to do patch ups and on the rare occasion give someone a new identity through surgical work
and just like that my minds drawn to a blank uwu, I’ll make more hcs when I can think of them <3
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borom1r · 2 years
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i would love to hear your Arkin + Mallick headcanons because I just watched the collector recently and it blew my head clean off and ofc mallick is one of the original saw meow meows
OOOFDJKSHHJ HELL YEA WELCOME 2 THE COLLECTOR BRAINROT ZONE
honestlyyyy it rlly started w how similar their mannerisms are when comparing Arkin in the Collection but now its just. i think th fact that The Collector was pitched as a SAW prequel is so funny bc the Collector is everything John claims to despise, killing w/ no discrimination purely for his own pleasure. but it does open a rlly nice door to "these are in the same universe"
I think they probably met each other like. Twice during extremely awkward family events + even tho Mal is technically older Arkin is already so much more mature. he is ABSOLUTELY the reason Mal has his first drink (Mal probably catches Arkin sneaking wine lol) and then Arkin honestly probably just. forgets that that side of the family even exists? they're so out of touch w/ his life + his mother was basically estranged, they barely reach out to her so Of Course they don't reach out to her delinquent son— why would he put any mental energy to those rich assholes?
Mal on the other hand.. i think remembers Arkin fondly? (even tho Arkin definitely got blamed for breaking Mallick's arm— really it was an accident, he convinced Mal they should go climb trees bc Mal's such an uppity sheltered little asshole at twelve + Mal's parents freaked and claimed Arkin shoved him even though he was trying to grab Mallick n haul him back up) — like he's too nervous to reach out to him + then obviously gets caught up in everything w/ Jigsaw, but shortly after he gets out of the hospital he starts seeing Arkin's face in the news bc people are finally catching on to this OTHER serial killing freak with a similar MO and hes like. Oh God.
but y'know, by the time Arkin is released + BACK in the news, this time for rescuing Elena, it's two years after Hoffman's death and Jigsaw has all but disappeared save for some.. extremely odd, clinical murders of extraordinarily despicable people which are never quite traps but reuse a lot of Jigsaw's messages.... but Mal's been going to this Jigsaw group for a while and it sucked shit at first, but now they've got a new leader and hey, this Lawrence guy is actually kinda cool, and Mal's starting to feel a little better. so he reaches out to Arkin.
which like, "hey haha its Mallick, your cousin you haven't seen since we were teenagers. anyways isn't it SO fucked up that we both got kidnapped and tortured by completely different serial killers? god I hope you're still alive and that guy didn't get you please call me back" is such a bizarre voicemail for Arkin to receive (he tells Elena and she's like "he seems sweet you should call him!"). he does call Mallick back though, and they agree to meet up.
it's definitely a bit of a shock to see his geeky older cousin looking harrowed and missing an arm— he didn't really keep up with all the Jigsaw shit, so he honestly didn't know Mal had been one of the victims until his phonecall n then couldn't be assed to do any research. but they wind up sitting in a starbucks for hours, catching each other up on their lives and laughing about stories from their childhood. most of the stories are things Mal brings up ("hey remember the one time my parents let me stay at your place and your mom let us walk to the gas station and get Bug Juice? they freaked but that was the most fun I had all summer" + Arkin can't help but laugh because oh god, yea, he does remember, and he was like 9 to Mallick's 11 but Mal was so much more nervous, until they got drinks and bomb pops and sat outside the station and Mal couldn't stop grinning)
eventually Arkin invites Mal along to meet Elena and they get on like a house on fire + Arkin couldn't be happier??? his daughter loves Mal too, and Arkin's gone from nearly losing his wife and daughter to having his wife, his kid, his newfound sister in Elena AND reconnecting with his cousin??? AND he got the catharsis of torturing the absolute fuck out of the Collector with Elena. 10/10. he and Elena absolutely pull Mallick aside one day like "So Jigsaw is REALLY dead, right?" n Mal just kinda. ???????? "...yea?" "okay because if he wasn't we could've hunted him down and killed him for you" and Mal just. what the fuck my little cousin is a vigilante now??
(it's not THAT deep but for Mallick? yea he absolutely would've locked that Jigsaw fuck's ass in a trunk and tortured the shit out of him too)
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trans-cuchulainn · 3 years
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What are the major details that confused you about the Hound blurb? The major one that stood put to me was the "way of the farmer opposed to the sword" thing which felt very...un-Cú Chulainn. Also, if you don't mind expanding further, which details didn't you question/be confused by?
and also for anon:
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okay so it is like. 2am so there are not going to be any sources here but i can't sleep so here goes!! i will go through this blurb line by line and give youse my thoughts
In 50 BCE,
reasonable. this is roughly the right time period for when the ulster cycle is set. maybe marginally earlier than i'd place cú chulainn, but i'm talking a few years, nothing to get worked up about.
Morrigan, the goddess of war,
fine. normally i'm wary of pantheonising impulses with regard to irish characters (almost none of them can be identified as a god of anything in particular, it doesn't work like that) but tbh the morrigan is like, the most plausible exception to that, so whatever. normally her name has the definite article attached to it because it's kind of a species term as well but whatevs.
has become restless as a long-lasting peace settles over Ireland.
dubious. closest i can think of to peace being reference in any texts is togail bruidne da derga talking about conaire mor's reign being like, prosperous and peaceful and whatever, and even there you've got díberg (plundering/reaving) which is what eventually fucks him over and starts the otherworldly hell spiral situation. that's roughly the right period here but conaire's doom proves you don't have to do much to nudge peace into war, and connacht and ulster are at each other's throats for years before cú chulainn comes on the scene anyway
Deciding the time of peace must end, she chooses Setanta, the nephew of the king of the north, to become her ward.
hmm. i mean. like, this isn't the WEIRDEST choice they could have made. it's still completely made-up, don't get me wrong -- cú chulainn has a lot of different foster parents in different texts and they don't agree with each other but none of them ever mentions the morrígan. but like, they do have a connection of some sort, as evidenced by their conversations. and there's that one moment in the r1 boyhood deeds where little cú chulainn is out on the battlefield and hears her (not sure which name is used here) calling out to him and it like. motivates him to do some deeds or whatever, and i guess you could extrapolate that into some kind of teaching capacity.
so like. could be weirder. if you're gonna pick anyone, you could do worse. still seems weird to me! but not on its own a major issue, i could get past this and consider it a Fun But Unorthodox Creative Decision
(the fact that she tries to seduce him in the táin probably wouldn't get in the way of this considering sleeping with his teachers/foster-mothers is far from unheard of where cú chulainn is concerned)
After a young Setanta slays the demon-hound of Cullan, he becomes known as Cú Cullan—The Hound of Cullan.
weird spelling choices, they could have at least bothered to use the genitive properly. also the hound isn't a demon, it's a ferocious watchdog -- making it sound all Otherworldly and Hellish like this kinda confuses the issue of why he would need to take its place. he needs to take its place because the cattle and people still need protecting because it is a watchdog!! but whatevs, again, it's a brief summary so they can't exactly give us all the details and this is not actively objectionable
As Cú Cullan grows older, it is apparent that an extraordinary power lies within him … and a great darkness.
ugh boring. this makes it sound like he's going to be ~tortured~ and angsty about it. give me an unapologetic murder teen please. is the ríastrad dark? sure i guess, if you're going to be boring about it. it's more like, grotesque neon in my head
When he chooses the quiet life of a farmer over the sword,
this would fucking never happen on like five different levels. obviously like anyone who has ever read anything about cú chulainn can see that this is not in his nature. he is never going to choose a quiet life. this is the kid who tricked his way into taking arms before everyone thought he was ready. also juxtaposed with the "darkness" comment makes it sound like he would Angst his way into this quiet life which. again. have you seen this kid. he is an unapologetic murder teen
the only thing i can think of that might make him temporarily want to walk away is connla's death which... depends where you position that in the timeline really, he does seem a bit fucked up by it and maybe he'd want a holiday although i can see that lasting precisely 5 minutes before someone pissed him off enough for him to murder them. but if he's being raised by the morrígan i can't see him going to train with scáthach so then he'd never meet aífe and therefore connla would never be born so that wouldn't happen. so like. whatever.
but also like. he would not become a farmer. he just wouldn't! it doesn't work! the ireland of the stories is super hierarchical, right? and this blurb has already fucking told us that he's the king's nephew (canon) so we can tell that being a farmer is Not His Place. when we see upper class figures becoming menial labourers in texts, like in cath maige tuired, it's because Things Are Fucked, Shit's Gone Wrong. people don't just decide to change their entire social class on a whim lmfao
if cú chulainn really wanted to turn his back on being a warrior he could probably make recourse to certain other Suitable Professions ... his grandad's a druid so he might have a route into that, though his dad's not so that might fuck things up a bit bc it's one of those things that's usually inherited. he does give "wisdom" in at least one text though and we also know he can write (he carves riddles in ogham in the táin) and he composes verses on various occasions so idk, maybe something in a poetic direction, though again, usually requires two generations of inheritance to be a real poet and not just a lower-class bard. warrior's kinda the main thing he's got open to him tbh. but farming? i'm not a legal expert but as far as i'm aware based on what i have read, that would fuck shit up
more likely an upset cú chulainn would just go off in search of an adventure somewhere conveniently far away until he'd calmed down (alba, or the tyrrhenian sea, or -- if we're going to get early modern about it -- somewhere like india, which frequently gets thrown into the texts with absolutely no cultural context and it's always hilarious)
Morrigan, angry at the betrayal,
of the entire social order, yes,
instigates an invasion of his homeland
i mean. if they intend this to be the táin then.... táin bó regamna does kinda make the morrígan responsible for it? not in the sense of triggering the pillow talk argument that it's in the book of leinster -- it's her getting up to her usual cow-nicking behaviours for shits and giggles. [note to readers: it is probably for more than shits and giggles but did i mention it's 2am]
but all in all, not particularly out of character that she would be at least some way responsible for this so i can vibe with this. echtra nerai also supports the TBR explanation with her fucking around with otherworldly cows and pissing people off so, yeah, whatever. the morrígan engineered this. sure.
and Cú Cullan must challenge fate itself
this is probably a controversial stance but fate feels like a difficult concept to apply to medieval irish texts. like are people sometimes Doomed? yes. there are prophecies, there are gessi, there's all manner of otherworldly fuckery that can trip you up. is that the same thing as fate? no idea. considering cú chulainn comes out alive from the táin though and his doom prophecies don't catch up to him for like, at least another decade, maybe 16 years depending on who you listen to, hard to see how that would apply here
to keep the goddess at bay.
again like she IS causing fuckery in the táin but also it's like... one time. really not the main character. but she or maybe just some crows, hard to say, do get implicated in the death tale so maybe they're doing what people often do and conflating the two? even though there's like 10-16 years in between them?
anyway as you can see i don’t think it’s wholly terrible / i’m not completely thinkshaming it. like, having cú chulainn raised by the morrígan is unorthodox but it could be a fun and creative direction so i don't object to it. making cú chulainn get sad about murder and choose to be a farmer is just fucking laughable tho, and makes me doubt their characterisations in general. so that's offputting and would probably make me think twice about buying it, if that had ever been on the cards.*
and of course sure, their cú chulainn can be a Sad Boy Who Likes Sheep, but that means he's not the cú chulainn of medieval irish lit / irish myth, because that cú chulainn is a feral murder teen who keeps killing his friends and also is way too high social status to ever be a farmer, and whose only relationship to livestock is as the watchdog who kills anyone trying to harm them (which is an important role on a farm! but like. not the same thing as Being A Farmer. mostly because it involves more murder and is essentially just an extension of his role as a warrior. or rather the other way around. he promises to protect mag muirthemne as a watchdog and this like. gets extended into him becoming its sole defender)
this has been my analysis of this blurb i hope you enjoyed it
it's now 2.30am i should try and sleep now that i've exorcised a few thoughts from my head
*as i mentioned in the tags of my other post, i don't tend to read graphic novels due to disability stuff. they're much harder for me to understand and follow than prose, to the point where some are incomprehensible, so i don't really enjoy them. there are a few i've read, but they tend to be short ones, and i'm usually not reading them in order, just admiring the art separately from the text. so it's unlikely i would read a graphic novel of this size anyway.
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yotd2009 · 3 years
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hiiii can u please advise me on where to start with reading arthuriana ? i am fascinated by it and love it very much , but i just read arthurian encyclopedias and such … i would like to read actual texts if that makes sense . thank u :-)
!!!!!! don't worry you make perfect sense and i'd absolutely love to give you a few starter text recommendations, i'm going to link ways to read all of them online bc physical copies are uh. incredibly hard to come by for most texts. also, brace yourself for fifty wildly different variants of each name, usually there's some sort of appendix you can read to know who's who, or you can rely on context clues.
first off i legally have to recommend the byelorussian tristan bc it's. kinda a part of my brand. and my favorite book... ever, even outside of arthurian stuff. it's believed to be one of, if not the last entry in the arthurian canon, and certainly in the tristian canon, and it's so good. it's a retelling of a lost slavic text that was a retelling of tavola ritonda, the italian retelling of the prose tristan. it's really well-written and the only version of the tristan and isolde story where they both get to live, highlights include galehalt basically asking tristan to join his marriage (i say marriage in reference to his relationship with lancelot bc theyre kinda. uh. bfs would be an understatement), palomydes having two swords (it's bc he's That skilled at fighting and also bc he's bisexual) as well as lending one of those swords to tristan, galahad briefly showing up to fight tristan and lancelot, then getting embarrassed that he fought his dad and just? dying or something?? and the worst kei name variant out there (geush.....). overall, i have to recommend this one bc if it had been my starter text i know i would have immediately read every medieval text i could find, and bc it's the text that actually made me like tristan.
also i'd like to note that tavola ritonda, the byelorussian tristan's italian predecessor is pretty good if i remember correctly, i never finished it bc i got busy with school stuff but i know i liked what i did read of it and that a lot of arthurian tumblr would recommend it. if i wasn't on green knight lockdown i'd probably pick it back up right now.
other tristan-related recs include chevrefoil by marie de france, it's incredibly short and makes me kinda sad for unknown reasons, it's also what got me invested in tristan and isolde's relationship, strassburg's tristan, yet another text i started and then dropped bc of school related reasons, i remember i liked what i read of it though, trystan and esyllt, a welsh tristan and isolde text which is. incredibly different from the normal tristan and isolde story, but it's short, lighthearted and fun in the way welsh texts are, and uhhhh the prose tristan which i mentioned earlier, i've read the whole thing and it didn't really stand out to me (albeit its been a while) but it's what most people will point you to if you want to get into tristan and isolde.
stepping away from tristan and isolde, there's culwch and olwen, which is believed to be the first arthurian text, it's kinda short and fun in the way that welsh texts always are, it's about this kid whose stepmother cursed him to only be able to marry the daughter of this giant, who will never let her marry bc there's some curse that says he'll die on her wedding day, so the giant gives this giant list of impossible tasks and arthur, culwch, kei and co. set out to do them and only like. 3. are actually mentioned more than once. it's fun and i like welsh kei.
next are the dutch texts which are. so good. they're so good. they're all right here bc i don't feel like linking each different one. my first rec is lancelot and the hart with the white foot, which, despite being named after lancelot, is really about gawaine. it's short and fun and the remarkable (lancelot x gawaine) fans adore it. next is the roman van walewein which is. absolutely off the rails. basically this magic chessboard shows up in arthur's court and walewein (gawaine) has to go after it, he ends up murdering a bunch of people, there's a talking fox who tries to steal gawaine's armor, gawaine gets thrown in his love-interest-of-the-week's torture dungeon, which has a secret tunnel connecting it to said love interest's rooms which she apparently had the arcitect of drowned (which is treated like a perfectly fine and normal thing by the text btw) where they presumably do bdsm or something, gringolet (gawaine's horse) kills a dragon with his hooves, it's wild. then there's walewein ende keye, kei tries to get rid of gawaine, gawaine goes and proves his honor, kei gets banished, gawine's a bit of an unlikable prick in this one but it's entertaining. and then there's morien, it's about this 13 year old who shows up looking for his deadbeat dad and gawaine and lancelot help him out, gawaine hijacks the plot but it gets back to morien by the end, also they have to rescue arthur. there are more dutch texts but these are just my favorites.
this has gotten longer than i originally intended so uhhh there's lanval by marie de france which is short. guinnevere's homophobic but in a funny way.
then there are the big famous ones and why they're bad starter texts, le morte de arthur and sir gawain and the green knight. le morte's giant and in middle english, if you must read it go for a translation, i've heard good things about this one but i haven't read it, overall it's not that good, especially in comparison with the vulgate and alliterative morte, don't read it unless you're already familiar with med lit and really invested in the characters, it's good for the book of gareth and a few short parts but overall kinda eh. as for sgatgk, it's just not a good first gawaine text bc he's so wildly different than he is in literally everything else, here are a ton of translations, it's best to go into it with the point of view that it was his first quest and looking for the themes and symbolism (gawaine fox motif my beloved) instead of the common approach which is looking for the gay kisses bc you'll get a lot more out of it that way.
i'd also like to anti recommend a solid 3/4s of modern arthuriana, especially anything derived from the *nce and f*ture k*ng by th wh*te or the m*sts of av*lon by m*rion z*mmer br*dley bc jfc those two have done. so much harm. to the genre. "modern" works i'd recommend usually tend more towards victorian poetry, highlights including anything by tennyson that doesn't involve tristan and isolde bc he has bad takes on them, but especially his stuff regarding elayne of astolat/the lady of shallot, bedevere, and gareth and lynnette, as well as everything by william morris but especially sir galahad a christmas mystery and palomydes's quest. you can find pretty much any victorian poem on the camelot project so i'm not going to go looking for them. also i've heard good things about ea robinson's poetry. but despite the few good modern works out there, it's best to get rid of all pop-culture based notions of what arthuriana is before you go into the actual canon.
i feel like i'm going to remember at least three texts i left out like an idiot but this has gotten long enough, if you have anymore questions just ask i absolutely love introducing people to arthuriana.
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bthump · 3 years
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I know this is very nitpicky, but what do you think is the level of awareness Griffith has during the stairwell scene? For a very calculated and rational guy like him, it's hard to imagine that he hasn't even tried to decipher where these strong reckless reactions come from. I mean... even king of denial Guts has reflected a bit on it. Enough to ask Griffith about it. I know yoy mentioned in a recent answer to an ask, that you don't headcanon Griffith as pining, so would you say that you (cont)
Would you say that you imagine that he compartimentalizes his thougts and represses to the point that he doesn't aknowledge at least to a certain extent, that his feeling for Guts are more passionate, than what he feels for other comerades. The fact that he fully realises the depth of those feelings once Guts leaves is clear. But Idk the stairwell scene makes me think that he is at least aware, that he has a bit of a crush, but choses to not give it much importance. Curious about your thoughts 
hmmm. okay first off I just want to say that I can see multiple possibilities, from full on repression and denial, to recognizing his attraction but not acting on it, to knowing he cares for Guts and wants him as a True Friend(TM) but often downplaying that because he believes Guts sees him mainly as a superior officer. But yeah I do prefer the denial and compartmentalization explanation and I want to go into why, because I think it’s fun to talk about lol.
So the big reason I read Griffith as refusing to acknowledge his feelings to himself is because that’s how he deals with all his other inconvenient feelings, like his guilt and fear and the fact that he cares about the Hawks. Like eg when he tells Gennon that he doesn’t feel a single emotion about him whatsoever, or when he tells Casca that he doesn’t feel guilty over the deaths of the Hawks, I don’t think he’s just lying to them, I think he’s convincing himself too, to the point where he really believes it.
It’s sort of hard to explain how I see this working in Griffith’s head bc it feels v intuitive to me but I know that’s not the case for everyone. So yk it’s not that I think he like, eg makes himself forget that he nearly had a breakdown in a river, but I think he doesn’t ask himself why he nearly had a breakdown beyond maybe a shallow ‘sex with gennon was unpleasant and made me uncomfortable for a couple hours but i’m completely fine now’ and doesn’t think about it afterwards if he can help it.
And when he tells Charlotte he doesn’t have any friends and tells Guts he belongs to him during the second duel, I think he’s telling himself lies/rationalizations he genuinely believes there too. In fact, I think his denial of his own feelings is straight up meant to be his tragic flaw, which is why he’s only able to finally acknowledge them in the torture chamber, after it’s caused his downfall.
In the torture chamber we see him remember the face-off with Zodd and acknowledge that it was an irrational thing to do and wonder why Guts is so important to him, and I think part of the reason the monologue works so well is because it’s the first time we see that kind of self-reflection sans lofty rationalization from him, because before he ended up trapped in his own brain for a year with nothing to distract himself in between bouts of torture he didn’t really ask himself these kinds of questions. If he had, things probably would’ve gone better for everyone.
And like, I don’t think this makes Griffith less intelligent, or negates his rationality in other areas of life. I don’t see a contradiction in someone being able to analyze a battlefield or read other people well but avoiding genuine soul searching whenever possible and lying to himself a lot. I think it’s actually pretty realistic - I don’t think very many people fully understand themselves or their feelings, even really self-reflective people, and it’s very easy to rationalize away inconvenient cognitive dissonance. and I include myself in that lol.
Griffith’s life is kind of a contradiction that would really fuck him up to untangle (he sends people to their deaths to achieve a dream for the sake of assuaging his guilt for sending people to their deaths to achieve a dream), so he doesn’t try to untangle it, he avoids the question and hides behind a philosophical ideal. And his feelings for Guts add to that cognitive dissonance because if he values Guts over the dream, that kind of proves his entire defensive life philosophy is bullshit and his whole life plan is built on a precarious house of cards, so it makes sense to me that he’d avoid examining those feelings closely too.
And you can look at Guts too, who does navelgaze a lot and tries to analyze his own feelings and motivations - when he’s faced with a contradiction (I want to become independent of Griffith and do my own thing solely to gain Griffith’s approval) he actually notices it and briefly questions himself... and then he still puts it out of his mind and continues pursuing his contradictory goal anyway, and manages to stay in denial for 3 days even after learning that Griffith ended up in a torture chamber because he left.
Along those same lines, Guts eg realizes that he kills things because it makes him feel better but he doesn’t make the connection between his irrational urge to fight powerful enemies and his childhood trauma the way the readers can, the King didn’t acknowledge his incesty feelings til Griffith shoved them in his face, Count Slug kept denying having human feelings til Puck went on a tirade against him and he couldn’t sacrifice his daughter, Casca lies to herself about her feelings for Griffith for a long time before finally acknowledging she’s in love and then doubles down on her Griffith feelings when her newer feelings for Guts threaten them until she has a breakdown and admits some things to herself (I mean I find that last one disappointing lol, but it’s also a really straightforward example of someone living in denial of romantic feelings and therefore a good comparison point to show that Miura does this on purpose), etc. So I think this interpretation of Griffith is also consistent with how Miura just like, tends to write people.
Like imo Griffith has moments where he comes close to self awareness and could’ve started potentially reflecting on his feelings and coming to better, more accurate conclusions, and those moments definitely include the Zodd conversation (as well as the river scene with Casca, and “do you think I’m cruel?”) but none of those scenes lead to useful self-reflection because they all go wrong. Casca tries but fails to reassure him bc she’s out of her depth, Guts reminds him of his dream, the King interrupts their conversation and Charlotte reorients Griffith towards his goal so he can move on from that moment of irrationality and refrain from thinking about it further for a while. Even after the duel Griffith tries to avoid self-reflection by fucking Charlotte imo (”take all the sad and frightening things and cast them into the fire” ie hey girl wanna repress some shit w/ me?), and imo his previous ability to do that makes it all the more impactful when it doesn’t work this time and he breaks down.
BUT YEAH all that said I don’t think this is the only reasonable reading of Griffith’s awareness of his feelings lol, it’s just the one I like best and consider the most satisfying and interesting and fun to think about. And honestly that’s partly because I love dramatic irony and have a real thing for characters who lie to themselves, so I’m biased in favour of it too. Nothing about Griffith being good at denial contradicts the idea that he could still be aware of an attraction to Guts (in that case he’d probably just write it off as irrelevant and deny the associated internalized-homophobia-related self-loathing lol until it all pours out while he’s projecting at the King), and he could eg be aware that he irrationally cares about Guts above and beyond anyone else and just doesn’t even try to reconcile that with his dream, ie compartmentalization in another way.
But I think the idea that he only fully admits it to himself in the torture chamber is just very narratively satisfying.
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phoenixyfriend · 3 years
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The “Momma Sturmvoraus was Literally Satan” AU
As requested by @spazzbot​. This AU was initially brainstormed on the GG fanworks server almost a year ago. Specifically, on the first day of 2020.
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[ID: a truncated discord message by “Miss Nixy, Gay for RoboLadies” posted 01/01/2020. The message reads “I need to sleep but please for the moment consider:” and ends there.]
So. Let’s get to it.
Satan took a human form because why not see what's going on topside, live like a human, and “Oh shit is this pregnancy? This is pregnancy. Fuck, that's a tiny human. Which is now half demon. Am I supposed to take care it? Wonder if retconing this form into that Valois family was a bad idea. They do have SO much money though, I get to live like a queen. I suppose another child shouldn't hurt, it wasn't that bad. Oh, he's cute, this is actually making sense, why humans do all the sinning. Not counting dear Aaronev's murders, of course, those are just evil, but I did search out the worst of the humans to pair myself to...”
This is literally just "Tarvek and Anevka's mom was low-key Satan on a bored “let's be human for a decade or two to see what happens” jaunt, consequences happen because these kids are LITERALLY half-demon and arguably anti-Christs."
Also it's just Very Funny for Tarvek, ineffectual sexy lamp fashion twunk extraordinaire, to be an antichrist
Jeff thinks he’s pretty. Jeff keeps describing features that don’t entirely make sense. (Jeff’s canon name is Karl Thotep but they spent so long unnamed that the server collectively named them Jeff.)
This is not a crossover with anything, btw. Ambiguously Pop Culture Satan just got bored and went to have babies with a serial killer.
They’re just kids! That are vaguely demonic. So. Moreso than the rest of the Valois.
Sometimes "mom" comes back from the dead and visits Anevka and Tarvek to impart Wisdom and possibly magic lessons The rooms always smell faintly of sulfur after that...
They try to put Anevka in the machine but SHE isn't hurt and the MACHINE just melts
So that's the end of that.
It's very awkward for everyone, but the paperwork isn't too bad. It's very easy to write "incidental fire began during late-fugue experimentation, resulted in fire spreading through six rooms and several casualties, including Prince Aaronev Wilhelm Sturmvoraus."
As per @atagotiak​, “I feel like if we’re going in any way dimensional weirdness with thing, Tarvek got so good at exploring bc he could just clip through walls.”
With image provided by @thisarenotarealblog​:
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Tarvek in Paris: My dead mother keeps showing up in my dreams to tell me I need to seduce my way out of my problems and also she looks like Satan. Tarvek's Voltaire-Appointed Therapist: I still don't know what that means. Just like the last five times. Tarvek: I keep telling her that I can’t seduce Colette, if seduction is that important she should get Anevka to do it.
Like he probably wouldn’t say most of that in front of any Voltaire-approved individual, but still.
Tarvek is still very good at self control but there's a Special Edge to his rants.
(Derailed in the moment to me thinking about Anevka in a sfw-but-concerningly-deadly succubus getup, because... yeah.)
Aaronev dies and goes to hell and his dead wife is just there like "hi! Time to be tortured for eternity!" He wasn't a good husband so. He can't exactly sentimentalize his way out.
“In the sexy way?” “... not for you, no.”
Mostly I just want the BULLSHIT that is "Storm Mom was actually just Satan getting bored and going on vacation as a retconned Valois girl, the kids are half-demons and sometimes it Shows."
To clarify: the Satan bit isn't the retcon. Grandma used to have one daughter. Now there are two. (Seffie and Martellus's mother doesn't remember being an only child, but sometimes...)
Satan retconned a new daughter in, which included a Valid Valois Venusian Vestment, so the blood tests play out.
The subtle signs of wrongness would be fun too. Anevka tends to smile a bit too wide and sharp for a human face. Inexplicable uneasiness, here you can’t point at any specific thing that’s wrong but it’s uncomfortable. Uncanny valley prettiness, almost like the porcelain she became in other timelines. Skin isn’t supposed to be that smooth.
My brain's pre-nap contribution at that point was "Satan's pronouns when not pretending to Human are sin/sinself" which is! Certainly a thing.
Tarvek, at some nebulous future point: I mean, your ancestors were monsters, but my dad was a serial killer and my mom was literally Satan, instead of just figuratively like Lucrezia, so. I mean. I kind of get what you're going through.
Per @firebirdeternal: Tarvek and Anevka growing up with "you're allergic to holy water" and not questioning it until a little later because What.
And then they test it and it's like "yeah, no, there's a rash now. That stung. What the fuck."
It INFURIATES Gil in Paris when Tarvek tells him that's a thing, because there's nothing chemically different about Holy water and regular water. But no, this is somehow happening.
It gets logged in medical journals as a Valois genetic thing because, well, Mom was like that too, right?
One time they both go into a church for an Adventure and Gil is very annoyed to find that Tarvek is like. Faintly smoking. It smells like burnt hair in here.
Gil: What smells like burnt hairgel? Tarvek: [glares]
Gil decides that it must be something particular to the church, like a fungus or something in the stone, contaminating the air and water so it only LOOKS like the holiness is what's setting off reactions.
It is not.
Tarvek once got into an argument with someone and ate a slab of raw, completely uncooked meat as a power move.
SVV seems to work perfectly. Everyone is fine. We get the ‘you fight like ducks’ moment.
And then Tarvek bursts into flames, and everyone panics because no they fixed this what the fuck is he still infected with Hogfarb’s oh my god... and then everything settles down and he's perfectly fine. Not a scratch on him, no longer turning funny colors. Completely unharmed. He's in a nicely tailored suit and looks faintly stunned
"I just met my dead mom, who's apparently Satan. She told me that after I died the first time just now, I should be harder to kill later, especially with fire, because now there's more demon and less mortal and guys I think I'm going crazy." "Is that a martini?" Tarvek looks down. "Apparently."
Tarvek starts just. Randomly setting things on fire by glaring too hard and has to tone it down. Meanwhile, Agatha and Gil are having crises about how he's somehow getting PRETTIER.
Is he faintly glowing? Maybe!
Gil handles it by angrily sniping at Tarvek about how of COURSE he's an evil little rat with a background like that.
Tarvek just wants a nap and to forget this ever happened. Many people are sworn to secrecy. It's very awkward.
Still, SVV did something, for handwave-y reasons, and so they're linked now. Gil and Agatha both getting tiny flashes of the same shenanigans.
They get none of the powers. They just keep getting Weird Shit.
Other characters with divine influence are like "Did you.... did you make a pact with a demon?" "What no that's our boyfriend."
Tho tbh I wouldn’t be surprised if a Heterodyne did sign a contract with a demon at some point in exchange for like. Materials. A hundred souls sacrificed in exchange for some succubus blood. Thanks!
Tarvek and Othar: Falling out of CW as in canon. Tarvek: WHAT THE HELL SINCE WHEN DO I HAVE WINGS HIDE THIS BEFORE I GET BOOTED FROM THE LINE FOR THE THRONE
IDK where Anevka is during all this. I think she might have decided to go sleep her way through the courts of the Ice Tsars. Vacation, y'know?
Othar after he's decided to make Tarvek his new Heroic Apprentice: AH, my poor afflicted young friend, it's noble of you to go against the dark nature of your tragic heritage like this. Tarvek: I hate you. I wish I could hate you to death. But you have a point. I shouldn't let my father's blood limit what I strive for in life. Othar: I... I thought your mother was... Tarvek: I know what I said.
Tarvek: Also you can't tell ANYONE about that, I can't have them thinking I'm not actually in line for the Storm King's throne.
He does admittedly have to like. Explain things to Grandma.
Terabithia is Tarvek’s maternal grandmother so this is supremely awkward. That said...
Grandma fondly remembers her pregnancy cravings; bone marrow and sulfur.
"Yeah so, my mother, your daughter, was... maybe actually Satan? But retconned into your life?" "Tarvek, darling, please. I figured that out half a century ago."
TARVEK ACCIDENTALLY FINDS HIM HIMSELF WEIRDLY INTENSE AT CONTRACTS
I mean that honestly just Tracks about Tarvek anyways? But like moreso.
He just. Writes something up and there's things getting signed or shook on and then the person tries to break the contract and either suddenly catch fire or are deeply unlucky for a set amount of time.
And Tarvek's just standing there like "how in the FUCK did I do that?"
Severity of infernal punishment depends on the severity of the breach of contract.
Tarvek finds out that Anevka's been convincing rich people to sign their souls over to her. It's a fun challenge. She keeps them in jars.
They can still remotely pilot their bodies but like. They can't TELL anyone what happened.
Satan: I'm going to go make babies and now everyone else has to deal with the consequences.
Anevka's living up to that whole "princess of hell" vibe. Tarvek's just like "nope nope nope I want the storm throne, not the hell throne, BYE MOM."
Satan's just feeling sinself down in hell like "awwww look at my babies go, aren't they adorable?"
Tarvek: Anevka, what... first off, how did you figure it out? Anevka: Well, I temporarily died when father put me in the machine, and... I can't say that hell kicked me out because they were afraid I'd take over, but mother DID say she'd rather I play about with human governments instead of Hell's. Tarvek: Okay, cool cool cool. What after you planning to DO with all these souls? Anevka: They make for some lovely reading lamps, don't they?
(Anevka absolutely sets herself the goal of acquiring new titles that rival her old ones, or even surpass them. She just black widows her way through Europa.)
I just want someone (probably Snackleford) to ascend, take one look at Tarvek, and run SCREAMING.
Tarvek still needed to be anchored to Higgs, because Tarvek is Baby.
Gil is eventually in a relationship with an Eternal God Queen and the Literal Son of Satan.
Family dinners can include ALL the in-laws if you duck down to hell! - You borrow Bill from... probably heaven, maybe purgatory. - You have Lu and Aaronev and Satan already there, though the first two... well. Aaronev and Lu get invited to dinner but they have to eat by themselves at the kiddy table and nobody talks to them or acknowledges their presence. After all, this is hell, and what better punishment for Lu than to be completely ignored, and for Aaronev to see Lu at her worst and be reminded that he gave everything for this horrible, horrible person who isn't even pretending to care about him anymore. - Zanta and Klaus get invited via portal. - Anevka saunters in with a blood-soaked dress and a complaint about militant demon-hunters refusing to let her go shopping for a new pair of shoes. - Zeetha tagged along with the OT3. (She can't wait to see this situation explode.)
Oh God, Satan is actually second place as far as good parenting goes.
Well, actually, fourth. Because Adam and Lilith. But second as far as bio parents go. 1. Zanta 2. Satan 3. Klaus 4/5. Lu and Aaronev N/A. Bill
Someone (Anevka) decides to stir the pot and invites Von Pinn, Terabithia, Bang.
Bang is basically Gil’s older sister, right? Right.
This is Zanta meeting Bang for the first time! Zanta is just: "It's so nice to meet my husband's adopted daughter." Klaus freezes. Bang freezes. Gil is the only one who is just. "Yeah." Meanwhile Zeetha is crying with laughter off to the side because both of them deserve this. (Zanta would legit love Bang though.)
Agatha: Tarvek, I think DuPree is-- Tarvek: Hitting on my sister? I know. Agatha: On your mom, actually. Tarvek: NO!
Also I do love the idea of like. Nobody tells Bang they're inviting her. She just wakes up in Hell like. "Ah. Yes. Fair enough."
Satan: Oh no no no my dear, you're here as a guest. Besides as well as you'd fit you're not one of mine, you've got other things waiting for you. Bang: Okay, but I love the decor. And is that Cheesecake?
Bang’s family has their own evil god in the novels, but! Bang DID pick on Tarvek a lot in Paris. Satan cares more than Anevka does. Bang might get the sexy punishment.
I feel like the fact that no permanent damage was done and it taught Tarvek a lot of things means Satan isn't gonna be all that upset about it.
And let's be real, if there's a character in GG who could look the literal Christian devil in the eye and be like "Yeah I tortured your kid, what're you going to do about it?" it's Bang.
Even Satan doesn't know what to do or think about Othar.
He sure is here! As Anevka’s arm candy! Nobody knows what to do except Anevka herself, who just wants to be Smug.
(What's that scene from Phineas and Ferb that's the mad scientist trapping the platypus within the rules of polite dining at a fine restaurant? Like he can't make a scene because that would be rude?) (That. Othar would dearly love to start a fight, but it's a Family Dinner. You're only allowed to fight verbally at those.)
(Othar isn't even fighting Satan, he just wants to argue with Klaus.) (And maybe fanboy in Bill's direction a bit).
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norangeyyy · 3 years
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I literally l can't think of anything because I'm just not that creative— but ummmm
idk your ocs hanging with the bucci gang?? or la squad ra. Idk I wanna learn more about them, orrr jojo villains.... watching jojo for fun :) (im shit at this oop)
A/N: Sis please— I'm actually in love this idea!! 😖💖 I'm glad to give my girls some attention so here :DDD (I made this an Everyone Survives AU btw bcs i just don't want angst for this one🤧)
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With the Bucci Gang
► Alright, we're gonna start with Hiraeth since she's the only one they know.
► Her first meeting with the gang outside Passione is just like any other, pretty uneventful. But that's because they're in the middle of a mission and it just so happens that they needed a place to stay in for a night and ended at the hotel where she works at.
► Hiraeth, as usual, recognized them immediately thanks to Bucciarati being the popular one in the group. In fact, it was him that she got along with first when they checked in.
► The others followed when Mista requested her to be the one to serve them everytime they come back so he could hit on her in which Hiraeth just laughed off knowing exactly that the gunslinger is literally just old enough to be her son(She's 29)
► That's the reason why Mista almost choked to his death that night when she revealed her age^
► They got to keep in touch with her after that night thanks to Bucciarati so she'd sometimes be invited to come over on special occasions but most of the time it's just either Trish, Fugo, and Abbachio going shopping or Narancia wanting to go to the arcade and eat ice cream but everyone's too busy to go out with him.
► First time Bucciarati heard about it^ he almost gave her his whole wallet in exchange for the trouble of having to babysit the 17 y/o boy and Narancia got scolded lmao
► He and the other two torture dance boys may or may not also spam her with messages everytime they're in *real* trouble and telling Bucciarati about it is not in the options anymore (Abbachio in the bg telling them to stop dragging her into it while Giorno and Trish watches concerned in the corner lol)
► Long story short, she officially became that chill auntie that everyone trusts with their secrets.
With La Squadra
► Now we're getting real ;)
► Hiraeth has a whole ass history with these guys so she doesn't really need to hide her identity with them.
► It all started in highschool with her being in the same class as Risotto and years later they bump into each other again but this time, it's inside the mafia, which they both find quite ironic since they're both the well-behaved kids back then.
► Because of this, it wasn't that hard for Hiraeth to get into Passione and it's also why Oneira exists. Risotto knows that Hiraeth still has a life outside the mafia unlike him and strictly ordered her to never let anyone know about it.
► So what's better disguise than looking like your Capo's crazy twin sister, right?
► Fast forward to La Squadra finding out who Oneira is anyway since you can't really hide anything for that long in a group of nine men.
► Now that they know what she looks like under that cake of white face paint and eyeliner, she has to say goodbye and go solo for safety purposes.
► "Fucking great job, Illuso." "Hey, it wasn't just me! "
► Going solo and building a name for herself after leaving the gang didn't start well either since rumors are inevitable so Oneira really has to avoid La Squadra and lay-low until the rumors subside.
► But sometimes she'll slip in and surprise everyone in the hideout which always ends up with them drinking and trashing the place all night then waking up with Risotto sitting across them with a glare.
► Worry not though, Oneira wouldn't be there to suffer Risotto's wrath since she'll be long gone along with Sorbet and Gelato before their capo could even go back home.
► Cue to three of them laughing like maniacs at 6AM as they drive to Oneira's house to hide using Ghiaccio's car that's covered in pink glitter and puke, with Melone passed out naked and tied in the trunk.
► "Hello?! This is Formaggio, where the hell are you guys?! Gelato, i could hear you guys laughing, come back here you cowards! Risotto's gonna kill us!" "I'm sorry but we missed the part where that's our problem*hangs up*"
With the JoFoes
► This would be a whole another AU from the ones above since Hiraeth only knows Diavolo and Doppio but her with the other villains would be more chaotic than when she's with La Squadra.
► Since this is an AU where Hiraeth doesn't really have to be either Oneira or Maestra, she can do whatever she wants(Hell yeah)
► So if they ever watched JJBA with her, they all better prepare to be bullied for the next 5 days.
► "Dio, wHY?! " "Imagine getting your ass kicked before stands even existed. Atleast, you're sexy though. " "DIO please, you look like a banana fuckboy and you kill dogs. " "Kira, i don't even know where to start. " "Maybe if you stopped shouting your stupid villain monologue then you would've gotten the arrow. "
► Everyone's laughing until it's their turn to be bullied for the dumb shit they did in the show. No one's truly safe except for those whose parts still hasn't gotten an anime adaptation.
► "Atleast we know basic math, Hiraeth. Go back to Fugo and join Narancia, maybe you'd learn something from that 16 year old. " "HOW DARE YOU?! "
► When i said no one's safe, i meant it^
► Don't worry, they're all still buddies and would still start fires together at the end of the day.
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Ariadne and why the Mycenaeans can fuck right off
Warning: Includes brief mentions of r*pe, cultural destruction, ancient patriarchy reminding us why no woman would ever time-travel more than 5 years into the past if that and a great deal of spite for male historians/public education history/mythology classes. 
Possible side effects may include a sudden intense rage for an ancient society equivalent to the innate rage one has for the Romans burning the library of Alexandria, a distinct hatred for ancient men not being able to let anyone have nice things, and a sudden fascination for Minoa. 
Usually, I stick to writing imagines and being happy with that. It’s fun! I love it! But every now and again, in an attempt to escape the crushing forces known as reality and responsibilities I’ll put on a few cutscenes from games I’m: A) Too lazy to play B) Too broke to play C) Too unskilled to play D) All of the above
because cutscenes are free and why torture yourself with impossible levels when its free on Youtube?* *In all seriousness please support video games and video game creators, but no shame to those of us who prefer cutscenes to gameplay.  A few weeks ago I added the game Hades made by Supergiant to the list because the cutscenes were bomb and the characters are so much fun! Intricate as all hell! Hella cute too but that’s unrelated! Now my pretty little simp patootie is especially a big fan of Dionysus and his gorgeous design so the cutscenes with him are my favorite.
I’m re-watching his cutscenes a few nights ago for fun as background when he has a certain line about Theseus. Don’t quote me on this since my memory is foggy at best but roughly it was: Dionysus: Good job with Theseus. Never cared much for him- what he did to that girl was just horrible.*
*I know that’s not his exact line but this is clearly a rant post fueled by spite and ADD-hyper-focused obsessions with ancient civilizations so let’s not worry too too much about the semantics here. 
Now, I like mythology! Personally, I prefer the Norse mythology due to the general lack of very very gross dynamics that several other ancient mythologies seem to include, but I’m decently familiar with Greek mythos. Enough to go - “Why does the God of Wine give a single fuck about the frat bro of Greek heroes being a dick to a woman? Grossness is embedded into the very DNA of all distant relatives of Zeus, a woman being harassed by Zeus or his bastard army is a typical Tuesday in ancient Greece.” 
Wikipedia confirms that Ariadne is the only woman in the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, which I kinda knew already so unless Theseus did some f’ed up shit to some other princess of Minos, Dionysus could only be referring to her. Disregarding what I know about Wikipedia and how it can suck you down the rabbit hole of rabbit holes through sheer fury I stupidly clicked the link to Ariadne’s article. 
By the time we get to the end of this shitstorm, I will have two separate plotlines for two separate stories based of Ariadne, 2k+ notes (and going) on an ancient civilization prior to a week ago I didn’t know existed and within me there will be a rage towards a different ancient civilization I vaguely recall learning about in high school. 
Here’s how this shit went down. 
First of all, apparently after Theseus abandoned Ariadne on an island to die (yep! He did that! To the one person who is the only reason he defeated the minotaur! Fuck this guy.) there are multiple storylines where Dionysus takes a single look at Ariadne and falls in love. 
“A god falls in love?” you say, aware of how most love stories in Greek mythos can be summed up with Unfortunately, Zeus got horny and Hera is a firm believer in victim blaming. “This poor woman is about to go through hell!” I thought so too! And in one variation of the story, Dionysus does his daddy proud by being an absolute tool to Ariadne. In the majority though? He woos the fuck out of her, and ultimately marries her by consent!
Her consent!
In ancient Greece!
The party dude of the Greek pantheon knows more about consent then his father and modern day frat brothers!
Okay! That’s interesting, so I keep reading. 
Ariadne getting hitched to Dionysus is a big deal in Olympus, to the point of getting a crown made of the Aurora Borealis from Aphrodite who is bro-fisting Dionysus, beyond glad she didn’t have to give him the talk about consent. The rest of the gods are pissy especially Hera who doesn’t like Dionysus much since he is the son of Zeus and Semele but they don’t do much. Ariadne ascends to godhood, becomes the goddess of Labyrinths with the snake and bull as her symbol and that’s that on that. 
Colorin, colorado, este cuento se acabado.  And they lived happily ever after. That’s the end of the post right?
NO! Because curiosity has made me their bitch and there’s more to this calling me. 
Also, I was pissed! Still am! Why the fuck-a-doodle-do did I have to learn about the time Poseidon r*ped a priestess instead of the arguably healthiest relationship in the entirety of the pantheon? Why is Persephone and Hades’ story (which has improved since it was first written and I like more modern versions of it, no hate) the only healthy-ish Greek love story I had to learn when Dionysus and Ariadne were right there? The rage of having endured several grade levels of “Zeus got horny and Hera found out” stories in the nightmare of public education led me to keep looking into this. 
There’s this wonderful Youtube channel called Overly Sarcastic Productions that I highly recommend that delves a lot into mythology, and I have seen their bombass video about Dionysus and how his godhood has changed since he was potentially first written in a language we comprehend. 
Did ya’ll know this man is the heir apparent to Zeus? ‘Cause I didn’t know that!
YEA! Dionysus, man of parties, king of hangovers and inducer of madness, is set to inherit the throne of Olympus! Ariadne didn’t husband up the God of Wine, she husbanded up the Prince of Olympus and heir apparent to the throne! Holy shit! No wonder some of the gods were against her marriage to Dionysus - can you imagine the drama of an ex-mortal woman sitting on the Queen’s throne of Olympus? Hera must have been pissed.
BUT WAIT.
There’s more.
The reason we know Dionysus is a very important god and is possibly even more important than we think is because of a handy-dandy language known as Linear B, otherwise known as the language of the Mycenaeans!
For those of you fortunate enough to have normal hobbies and interests, the Mycenaeans were the beta version of the Greeks. Their written language of Linear B is one of, if not the first recorded instance of a written Indo-European language. This language, having been translated, gives us an interesting look at what the Greek gods were like back in their beta-stages before they fixed the coding and released the pantheon. 
Interesting side facts of the Mycenaean Greek gods include:
Poseidon being the head god with an emphasis on his Earthquake aspect, and being much more of a cthonic god in general. 
Take that Zeus, for being so gross. 
The gods in general being more cthonic, as Mycenaeans were obsessed with cthonic gods (probably due to all the earthquakes and natural disasters in Greece and Crete at that time)
Several of the gods and goddesses that we know being listed, alongside some that we don’t consider as important (Dione)
The first mention of Kore, later Persephone, but no Hades because since a lot of gods were cthonic, there would be no need for one, specific cthonic god to represent the majority of death-related rituals.
That’s not what we’re focusing on though! What we’re focusing on is a specific translated portion of Linear B that we have. One of the translated portions of Linear B that for the life of me I can’t find (someone please help me find it and send the link so I can edit this post) says an interesting phrase. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”
One more time. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”
Mistress of Labyrinths. 
Now wait a gosh darn minute. Isn’t there a goddess of labyrinths in the Greek mythos? Why yes! Yes there is! Ariadne!
Here’s a question for you. If Ariadne is but a minor god in the pantheon, a wife to a more predominant god, why is it that while all the other gods and goddesses are bunched together in a sentence of praise, the so-called ex-mortal gets a whole-ass sentence to herself singing praises?
And thus, we have arrived to Minoa!
What is Minoa, you ask? Minoa is to Rome what Rome is to us. An old-ass civilization either older than or younger by a hundred years to ancient Egypt. Egypt, that started in 3200 B.C-ish depending on who you ask. That’s old. Old as balls. They were contemporaries to their trading partner, Egypt until 1450 BC-ish. A 2000 year old civilization.
Minoa was founded on the island of Crete, and was by what artifacts we have found a merchant civilization with its central economy centered on the cultivation of saffron and the development of bronze/iron statues of bulls. Most of what we know about them comes from artifacts and frescoes found on Crete that managed to survive everything else I will mention later, but what matters is that we know a few things about them. 
Obsessed with marine life for some time, given their pottery. 
Had the first palaces in all of Europe, some of them ridiculously big. 
Wrote in Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphs, both still untranslated languages. 
Had a ritual involving jumping over a bull, for some reason. 
Firm believers in “Suns out, Tits out.”
You’d think I’m kidding on the last one but no! No no no! All the women apparently rocked the tits-out look in Minoa!
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^^^^One of many, many Minoan works featuring women giving their titties fresh air. ^^^^
“Wait a second Pinks! What does this have to do with Ariadne being the Mistress of labyrinths?”
Well you see dear wonderful darling, while we know very little about Minoan religion because Mycenaeans (we will get to those bastards in a second), we do know this:
All the religious figures appear to be exclusively women.
The most important figures of their religion seem to be goddesses as there are few artifacts featuring male gods.
Because of the religion, the culture may have been an equal society or even a matriarchy! Historians who are male aren’t sure. 
A frankly ridiculous amount of their temples, including the ones in caves in the middle of fuck-all feature labyrinths. A lot of labyrinths!
Their head god is a goddess! Whose temples have labyrinths and whose main symbols are snakes and bulls. Who do we know is a) the mistress of labyrinths and b) is symbolized a lot by snakes and bulls?
ARI-fucking-ADNE THAT’S WHO!
Ariadne didn’t upgrade by marrying the prince of Olympus! Dionysus wifed up possibly the most important goddess in all of Crete and becoming her boy-toy! 
I’m not even kidding, most Minoan depictions of the goddess’ consort features a boy/man who cycles through the stages of death. Dionysus himself in several myths goes through the same cycle - life, being crushed, death, rebirth, repeat.  Cycles the consort goes through in Minoan legend depictions too!
Okay, that’s great, but what does that have to do with the Mycenaeans? Why do you want to single-handedly go back in time and strangle the beta-Greeks with the nearest belt?
Everything I just said about Ariadne being a Minoan goddess, the Mistress of Labyrinths being hella important on Minoa, is all theoretical. The Mycenaeans are partially to blame for making it theoretical. 
Minoa thrived for 2000 years but it had a lot of issues, mostly caused by natural disasters. Towards the end of their civilization (1500 BC-ish), the nearby island of Thera, today known as Santorini, decided to blow up. The island was a hella-active volcano that when erupted, destroyed a lot. 
How big was the eruption? Well when Pompeii was wasted by Mt. Vesuvius, the blast was heard from roughly 120 miles away, 200 km. 
The blast on Thera was heard from 3000 miles away. 4800 km away.
Fuck me, the environmental effects of the explosion were felt in imperialistic CHINA.
Holy shit that would waste anybody! And it did! Minoa went from being a powerhouse in the Mediterranean to scrambling to recover from losing 40,000 citizens and who knows how many cities. Tsunamis may have followed the blast, further destroying ports which for a navy-powerhouse of an island nation is a bad thing and the theorized temperature drops caused by a cloud of ash lingering for a while would have destroyed crops for the year.
Minoa was fucked. 
The Mycenaeans and all their bullshit made it worse.
Up until a few hundred years prior to Thera’s explosion, Minoan artifacts don’t depict much in terms of military power. Why would it? Crete is a natural defense post. Sheer cliffs, high mountains and a few semi-fortified areas would make it pointless to invade. It’s only when the Mycenaeans in all their bullshit decided to attack/compete that Minoa really needed any army to speak of.
Guess who decided to invade while Minoa was reeling from an incredibly shitty year? Mycenaea!
Guess who won?
Also Mycenaea!
Nobody knows how this shit went down though because wouldn’t you know it, the Mycenaeans in all their superiority-complex glory decided to destroy most written accounts about Minoa, a good junk of the temples and culturally eliminated most of Minoan beliefs. 
Minoa isn’t even the real name of the civilization! It’s just the name Arthur Evans, the guy who re-motivate interest in Minoan archaeology, gave to the civilization because the writings that would have included the name of the civilization were destroyed.
“That sucks!” Fuck yes that sucks! “What does that have to do with Ariadne though?”
Oh ho ho. Strap in because you’re about to be pissed. 
Those of us unfortunate enough to be aware of all the bullshit the Christians pulled on the European pagan belief system are familiar with the concept of cultural, religious destruction. There’s a special name for it I don’t know but if I did I would curse it to be absorbed by the horrendous will of fungi. 
An example: Christianity was not the most popular of religions amongst the Vikings. A monotheistic religion that is heavily controlled did not strongly appeal to anyone with a pantheon as rad as the Norse one. 
In order to appeal to the Vikings, what monks would do is they would write down traditionally Viking stories which up until that point were orally passed down. Beowulf, the story of the most Viking Viking to have every Vikinged, was one of these first stories. 
However! Did these monks write Beowulf as closely to the original oral transcript as possible? Of course not! They took liberties! While Norse features such as trolls and dragons and all sorts of Norse magic occur, there is a lot of Christian features added in. 
This happened across all Pagan religions that Christianity came into contact with in Europe. Stories would be altered when written down to be more Christian (this happened to the Greek Pantheon too btw), holidays that were Pagan magically lined up with ones the Vatican just happened to suddenly have. Even names of mythological figures were taken and added onto Christian figure names. Consequently, a lot of pagan religions they did this to got erased over time, with many of their traditions and details being lost forever, and the details we do know being tinted by Christianity.
The Mycenaeans were likely no different. 
Minoa and Mycenaea were as culturally opposite as can be. Minoa is theorized to be a matriarchal or equal society*. Mycenaea and most of early Greece absolutely was not. In fact, during early stages of their religion where they believed in reincarnation, the Mycenaeans believed the worst thing to come back as was a woman. 
Did you get that? With your options ranging from man to ever single animal on Earth, a woman was ranked as beneath literal animals in Mycenaean society.
Fuck the Mycenaeans.
* This is not to say Minoa was without fault, as a society that is matriarchal or equal can still have rampant issues such as privilege, classism, racism, sexism and more, but when history has a shortage of civilizations that didn’t treat women like shit, you find yourself rooting for them more. 
 What do you do then, when you take over a society that is very much the opposite of a nightmare of a patriarchy? You fold their beliefs into your own to bait them into yours. Going back to the Linear B line about “Mistress of Labyrinths” that line would/could have been an early tactic of incorporating Minoan belief into Mycenaean belief. Other goddesses and gods were made into aspects of Mycenaean gods. Bristomartis, the Minoan goddess of the hunt, would become Artmeis. Velchanos, a god of the sky, would become Zeus. 
With more time, the religion shifted more into Mycenaean and eventually into ancient Greece as we know it. Through trade other gods and goddesses would continue to shift and change, some being straight up imported (Aphrodite for example). Dionysus himself changed a lot too, going from a God representing freedom and attracting slaves, women and those with limited power into his cult, to a God of parties for the wealthy. 
Theseus and the Minotaur was a myth likely based on a Mycenaean myth based on a Minoan myth that changes Ariadne from an important, possibly the important goddess of an ancient religion and relegates her to a side character in a pantheon so vast that she would be lost within it. 
All of this brings us to today. Today, where as soon as work ended I spent most of the day, as well as the past two days, looking up everything I can on Minoan civilization and added it to my notes. Spite is fueling me to write two possible different stories for two different fandoms where Minoa dunks of Mycenaea and it is giving me life. Expect an update within the next two weeks folks as I lose control of my writing life once more. 
In summary: Ariadne deserves more respect, fuck the public education system for skipping over the good parts of Greek mythology instead of the r*pey as shit parts, the Mycenaeans can eat my shorts, and a world were Minoa became the predominant power instead of Greece would be an amazing world to live in.
Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. Pink out. 
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numbaoneflaya · 3 years
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You can count on me to pull up with a thousand of questions sbdhdh. A3, A22, C5, D3, F3 for Jilly ; A18, A23, B9, C1, H2 for Nirn ; A5,B9, C8, D1, I5, for Thurwen ; A9, A13, C1, E8, and G6 for Valkya? 😏
A3, A22, C5, D3, F3 for Jilly ;
A3.Do they have any emotional or psychological conditions? Are they aware of it? Do they try to treat it?
Shawty got that stockholm syndrome in a way. She is…. Sometimes aware of it, though she wouldn't call it that any more. Maybe at first in the basement she was more aware, but now that she can come and go she thinks its a thing of the past. tries not to dwell on it. Kind of in a “well its literally not that bad its kind of fun its kind of romantic were just quirky <3” way, will get mad if someone insists she has stockholm or that the relationship is fucked. Will get enraged and upset on Vincent's behalf, probably cry and yell at you.
A22. Is your OC intended to be found generally attractive? Unattractive? Average? Is there a reason why?
I intended her to be fairly average, maybe kind of cute. It's generally the way she dresses/acts in public that draws attention, not her looks. I tend to make most of my ocs on the average scale besides a select few.
C5. Do your OC’s morals and rules of common decency go out the window when it comes to those they don’t like, or when it’s inconvenient? Aka, are their morals situational?
Good question…. Jillys morals are pretty simple- always be kind and nice, murder and hurting other people is bad, and you shouldnt lie. She sticks to those pretty strictly herself despite the situations she gets put in, often to her own detriment. But she doesn't always put a stop to those behaviors from the people she surrounds herself with, so she's sort of accomplice to bad acts of violence just by not snitching. So somewhat situational? She tries not to think about it.
D3. How comfortable are they with the idea of death?
Not comfortable! She hadn't seen a lot of it before her early twenties and was always sort of sheltered. dead fish are flushed down the toilet bcs they go to the ocean to live again, right? Thought cows and such all died of old age peacefully before they were made into burgers until she was like… twelve. 💀Won't kill mice and other critters despite her prey drive bcs she would feel too bad. And this is just for animal death, she's much more uncomfortable with human death. Also a thing she tries to ignore.
F3. Could they ever live in a “tiny home”?
God no. She hates small spaces unless she's hiding in them and tiny homes have no room for all the shit she stashes! No room for zoomies, or climbing on the furniture, or wrestling around on the floor. It would be filled with junk within a week.
A18, A23, B9, C1, H2 for Nirn ;
A18. Do they get jealous easily? Do they feel bad if they do?
He's never had much to be jealous of, as he's never really been over involved in romantic relationships. They were usually mutually beneficial and somewhat clinical in nature. Hes also pretty sure of himself and his value as an asset and lover. If he finds someone who peaks his interest and they become an item though, he might get jealous if he catches them flirting with other people. Hell be peeved at first but know flirtation in business has its value, so to make himself feel better might flirt with someone else while they are nearby. Make a game of it, see who wins.
A23. Does your OC place much importance on their appearance? Do they feel confident in it?
Appearances are crucial to him and spends a lot of time and money making sure he looks his best. He needs to appear above the rabble and impenetrable, dressing well and having immaculate posture and an air of both grace and otherworldliness.
B9. What kind of humor does your OC like the most? Slapstick, ironic, funny sounds, scare pranks, xD sO rAnDoM…
Definitely not one to find fart jokes funny. Very rarely laughs genuinely or full heartedly, he keeps all his expressions of emotion close to his chest. Sharp sardonic wit is appealing to him in the right circumstances, even a jab directed at himself can make him chuckle if it's well formed enough. Irony almost always gets him, even if its dark irony or gallows humor. Bit of a hard nut to crack. Would laugh enough that hed have to cover his mouth with his hand if he were to see Felix fall face first into mud, though. More often than not you can tell he finds something amusing by a gleam in his eyes and a slight squint.
C1. Does your OC have a moral code? If not, how do they base their actions? If so, where does it come from, and how seriously do they take it?
Well he used to have a real moral code :/. Now I mean…. The ends justify the means. By any means necessary. He considers his family's needs first, then the good of the world, then any individual in the world. Has ordered executions of entire families, had babies stolen and sent away, sent armies to certain death knowing full well they would all die, commanded individuals be tortured for information, sacrificed many in what he considers to be a game of chess where he is the player and others are the pawns. He finds senseless violence and savagery to be unforgivable, but if violence has a sense and purpose to employ it, then he will do so.
H2. Is your OC a thoughtful partner, in whatever aspect of that you want to cover?
Nirn tends to be a very thoughtful and attentive person in general, just for the wrong reasons lmaoooo. But with a lover? He's going to be utilizing that to show them how much he cares and using his powers for good. Mention you like a certain fabric while shopping one time and then complain your favorite tunic has a wine stain in it several months later, he's going to be taking your measurements for a new one in your preferred material without a moment's notice. Very keen on picking up moods, expressions and tone. Also has a very good memory. He doesn't really think about it but gifts are how he shows his love. Also a great attentive listener.
A5,B9, C8, D1, I5, for Thurwen ;
A5. Are they good at handling change in their life?
I would say so, yeah. Shes been used to things constantly changing since she was little and has had little to no control on outside influences. Shes also not one to over think about the past and lament, shes more of a one foot in front of the other, the only time is the present kind of gal. Of course large changes like becoming a warden were a bit more severe, but shes mostly able to think in the present as long as she has immediate problems to deal with.
B9.What kind of humor does your OC like the most? Slapstick, ironic, funny sounds, scare pranks, xD sO rAnDoM…
Slapstick is always gonna make her laugh as long as nobody gets seriously hurt, even if its her own ass tripping into a tree. Not a fan of scare pranks, 0/10 recommend trying to scare Thurwen. You will end up with a broken nose at best and an angry elf. Likes puns, but she's the one to groan at them and try and hide the grin spreading across her face. Gallows humor but only if its her in the gallows, otherwise doesn't find it funny at all. If a little kid calls someone a fartcicle she will be tears in the eyes giggling, which is hard when your warden commander and everyone looks toward you to be serious and mature gyshsdhdfsghsd.
C8. Is your OC more practical or ideal morally? I.e., do they hold people to high expectations of behavior even if it’s not realistic for the situation, or do they have a more realistic approach and adapt their morality to be more practical?
She definitely holds herself to moral ideals and is very hard on herself, but has realistic moral expectations for others. She can understand self serving and people only wanting to survive and she will only give people a little bit of shit for it, no one's perfect. But then she expects herself to be perfect and berates herself constantly for not living up to the hero of ferelden warden commander ideals.
D1. How religious is your OC? What do they practice, if anything? If they don’t associate with any religion, what do they think of religion in general?
Atheist ever since her mom died when she was a kid, but now Shes in a weird mixed state ever since the urn of sacred ashes where shes like. fuck the maker, but Andraste is cool I guess. So respects/believes in the power of Andraste while thinking the maker is a piece of shit and the chantry sucks ass. Even she doesnt know what she really believes, but she did see the ghosts of Andrastes disciples and Shartan, used her ashes as healing salve, killed an old god, etc. So shes been in a weird place recently, crisis of faith/non faith pretty continual.
I5. Are they a good cook?
I mean…. She can cook basics. Shes been feeding herself and the alienage kids since she was old enough to walk so she knows how to get protein and make things edible. Does it taste good? Probably not. She didnt see her first spice till she was 17 years old, but she can skin a rabbit in seven seconds.
LA9, A13, C1, E8, and G6 for Valkya? 😏
A9. Does your OC make a lot of excuses? For themselves? Others?
She tries to excuse bad behavior of herself or others a lot, yeah fgdgdsfhdhs. Mostly she doesnt have to make excuses for herself because she can wholeheartedly be like “yeah i fucked up but whatever im sexy and large and awesome and everyone loves me 🙄whatever baby” and when other people fuck up shes pretty sympathetic even though they are not as large nor as sexy. Shes very used to forgiving and excusing herself its totally alien to her when she really fucks up and is suddenly like wait… valkya…. Did bad?? What is this feeling. Shame?? Guilt?? IMPOSSIBLE.
A13. Does your OC have any phobias? If so, where did they come from?
She hates those giant bugs in morrowind and valenwood a whole fucking lot but I wouldnt exactly place it as a phobia. Those huge mosquitoes and haorvers got no respect but she really hates the morrowind bugs ever since they knocked her over and jumped her while she was pants down peeing drunk as hell in the sand :/ never forgave. Never forgot.
C1. Does your OC have a moral code? If not, how do they base their actions? If so, where does it come from, and how seriously do they take it?
She was raised in a healthy household that tought the basics, prety much “harming others needlessly, stealing, torture, rape, dessecrating the dead, being selfish and not doing right by others, etc etc all basic bad things” are her morals. Her morality is basically treat others how you want to be treated. And if they treat you badly, then have fun beating the shit out of them to show everyone else not to fuck with you. Its a pretty nordic morality in that way. Her morality is also since she was ‘blessed’ with being so large and strong, that she has to also look out for the little guy who cant protect themselves. So If someone treats them how valkya wouldn't want to be treated, then beat the shit out of the person harming them to show them the little guys got backup. Her parents raised her to be a hero and thats p much how she sees herself, which has its benefits and its fuckin problems.
E8. What’s one of your OC’s biggest regrets?
Fucking up Dem and Dariens relationship for sure dude :/ valkya always gonna be sulking over that one. She doesnt regret becoming a vestige, even though it would have made her so much happier not to be because it ended up saving so many people and the world. She regrets not spending more time with Naryu, regrets always having other life saving business she had to run off to, regrets not cherishing the time they had together. Regrets not telling Lyris how she feels, either. Regrets not being able to save as many people as she should have, regrets she wasnt stronger in coldharbor and didnt break out herself. But she tries not to think about it <3
G6. Do they have any favorite childhood memories?
When she was seven she once spent two months training to hold her breath underwater, because her cousin always held it longer and won the gold bet. She trained for hours almost drowning in the river until she could comfortably hold it for up to three minutes. During the next holiday when they all got together again the competitions were on and they both went under- her cousin won, holding their breath for four more minutes before they decided to come up. This was the first lesson she learned that shocked her world view- you always need to know your opponents capabilities. (after she lost 26 gold in the bets, her mother later had to inform her that her cousin was an argonian.)
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facelessxchurch · 2 years
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The primitive aliens that the Faceless Ones have enslaved make no appearance in Bedlam and are not mentioned in SoW or DoA. I'm going to just assume Darquesse annihilated them all. And yes, I instantly deduced a connection between the spiders on the Faceless Ones and the Children of the Spider. I've been waiting for someone else to catch that for literal years lmfao, I was actually hoping the Torment would turn up in SoW, like Mev brought him with him as a prisoner
Ugh, you're probably right about Darquesse genociding the aliens. Ngl I'm so annoyed by the FO in phase 2.
They went from a Lovecraftian Cosmic Threat to to some ugly, passive fucks. Like, instead of being world destroyers that hunted and tortured Skulduggery for sport, they just let themselves get fucked up by Darquesse's ridiculous spirit form. That scene is so stupid, they just watch as she attacks one of their own. While they can't die, it is more a matter of pride. This really isn't what I've been imagining when hearing that Darquesse and the FO were locked in an eternal battle in the ruined Dimension.
They are established to like ruling and be worshipped and to cruelly punish those that oppose them. So, why aren't they teaming up on her, if not to kill her, then to put her in her place and punish her for raising her hand against the gods they are. Why aren't the hunting her down for sport on the regular and torture her for fun like they did with Skul? It's not like they have anything better to do. If they like being worshipped so much, why did they let their pets die? Also, shouldn't Darquesse be theoretically be able to kill them bc her body, aka the dead Reflection, got made magic by soaking her in the same water that made the Godkiller Weapons?
At least that scene was unintentionally funny bc it's literally just this meme:
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I can't take these Hydra ass motherfuckers serious anymore tho.
And then there is the whole thing with the FO worshippers being proven right with the FO just shilling in the Malice!Future and occasionally eating some mortal's souls while mages are living in the Utopia the FO followers wanted. That downgraded the FO's threat level so, so much.
The best characters are the active and not the reactive ones, but even calling them reactive would be an overstatement. Landy made the FO passive, he made them boring.
Why would you wait for that? No one in the fandom cares about the FO and their followers (apart from Creed for whatever reason??) and even less about the CotS. At this point, would you be surprised if Landy had forgotten the CotS were ever a thing? That the spider pets are just coincidence? He's pretty unimaginative with monsters tbh. Gigant spiders in Bedlam and giant bats in SoW. Like, seriously? An alien dimension and a dimension filled with magic and that's the best he can come up with?
Ngl I think the CotS in the Leibniz Dimension are all dead since I believe they were all located in their temple(?) within Dublin-Within-The-Wall. If not all, at the very least the Leibniz!Torment is very much dead since I doubt Mev would take the time to send someone to free him from his cage during the draugr attack. I think Leibniz!Eliza is dead too tbh.
Btw, after letting it sink in, the description of the FO also kinda reminded me of the pale man from "Pan's Labyrinth" who actually looks creepy and not silly like the living failures from Bloodborne. I also know Landy is a Del Toro fan, so I'd not actually be surprised should the pale man have served as inspiration for the physical form of the FO. What are your thoughts on that?
Extra meme below the cut:
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transsexualhamlet · 3 years
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the many sins of tokyo ghoul :re
or: 13 reasons why :re is fucking terrible not clickbait
Disclaimer: I think no matter how long this post gets I’m missing something, so let’s just outline the worst ones. And I mean to be transparent, the only reason I actually read :re was so I could make this post... (and bc i wanted to see the what, five panels of hide) Well, I couldn’t stand hating it without evidence beyond hearsay and General Vibes. But I knew it was gonna be bad, I knew it was going to ruin me jesus christ. Obviously I’m not hating on people that like it, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with genuinely enjoying it (I do genuinely enjoy parts of it, and by parts i mean chapters 1-50 with exceptions and 75) I think it’s wonderful if you can derive joy from it (lmao) but I can say that through my lens in life, there’s so much fucking wrong with this goddamn fucking piece of shit manga and I feel the need to yell about it because i am ✨autism✨ so let’s get going (this is r e a l l y long just a warning)
tl;dr Ishida stay in your fucking lane
1. Transphobia and Homophobia:
alright here we are first off with the big one and if I had to choose, one of Ishida’s greatest sins here. It’s quite unusual in mangas like these to have any sort of representation for such things in and of itself, and yeah of course that annoys me, but having no represntation at all is like so much better than getting actively harmful representation. Most manga that aren’t specifically about those things shy away from those topics, and it’s tiring but it’s normal. You wouldn’t want a mangaka to try to write about something like that without experience or informed opinions. So I say if you can’t write something correct, just don’t write something like that in at all. Ishida clearly,,, does not get this.
And it’s not just the case of Mutsuki, who, well, gets it bad enough, there are three full fucking trans characters Ishida made like, just to shit on. 
Big Madame- god, made like that specifically to perpetuate the predatory trans woman trope jesus christ is Ishida friends with JK fuckface Rowling. Ah yes the ugly, human trafficking, predatory, pedophilic killer that tried to make their male child more feminine? Has a dick. Really? Could you be a single bit more transparent about your fucking agenda here? I really don’t have to say much here.
Kanae von Fuckwald- Technically Ishida says here that basically this bitch was just like??? Pretending to be a guy for years just to what?? I don’t even know?? Get together with Tsukiyama? Cause he’s fucking gay or something? I don’t even get it but like i read this post yesterday and that’s a whole ass thermian argument. It’s like “oh well this is fine because well this person’s not actually trans and therefore the representation thing doesn’t apply”... it’s useless. You created the character that way and you made it intentionally to for whatever way promote this idea that people would “pretend” to be a different gender and that eventually they’ll realize that it’s a “lie” and they never really wanted it. This is what you’re saying about the real people who are,,, actually trans? Jesus christ. Also thinking that a twink like that would be trans? God yeah trans guys can be feminine but buddy that’s clearly not what you’re going for here.
And of course, Mutsuki- There’s just... so much wrong here. I mean like. Before we even get into anything about his character and what they did to him let me just discuss his entire design. Buddy like if you had to choose one person in that show to be trans that’s the least likely one. Ah yes, the feminine one. With the androgynous haircut and the shy disposition and the physical weakness compared to the others. God that’s like, a fujoshi’s take on ao3 of what character should be trans. As much as yeah of course, trans guys can be feminine, they are in no way obligated to be such and you shouldn’t make them more so to be more “believably” so. Ask any actual trans person ever. A character like that is just perpetuating the notion of trans guys being inherently more feminine or trying to pretend to be otherwise.ThEn, of course, there’s the ridiculous sexualization, infantilization and fetishization of this character, going through a thousand plot hurdles to make him constantly stripped, put in girls clothing, chased by perverts, assaulted, ET FUCKING CETERA. Give him a fUCKING BREAK. Creating this character the way he’s portrayed in canon (including so called backstory of murdering parents because of sexual and physical abuse) is perpetuating a notion that someone would be a trans guy because of internalized misogyny and/or trauma instead of because they’re just... a guy. It’s just it’s just it’s just Really bad. Plus taking his character, demonizing him and making him like, supposedly love haise (which i Really hate for a thousand reasons, god that’s like, a parent and child type relationship they have there not romantic,,, god,,,) try to like fucking murder touka and stop seeing sense, and then just... return him to being infantalized. God. Jesus christ fucking goddamn it I love Mutsuki and he deserves better.
Oh yeah and then the homophobia, this one’s smaller because... most of the trans people are here to go “it’s gay... wait it’s not Really gay so it’s ok” but I would like to leave a small note here for all the gay characters who got thrown under the bus not just in re but in the original, like, you know, Nico and shit? I really do not know shit about Nico but all the things about Jason? God if I had a thing for one person that you shouldn’t try to portray as representation it’s Jason. IDK what’s up with him and Naki but god it wasn’t healthy. (i’d like to say here that i love naki and i think naki deserves the world but honey there are better heroes than yamori) Anyway yeah I think that’s also bullshit and Ishida should stay in his fucking lane. (or her i guess, i just feel like it’s probably a guy bc of just... so much sexism)
Ok, now that we have the big one out of the way-
2. The mishandling of portrayals of various mental illnesses:
I’m not an expert on this one like I can say about the gays TM but just like in general, the whole manga’s very messy and portrays a lot of gritty stuff, and Ishida clearly attempts to throw in some mental illness for fun, but god fUcking damn it they’re bad. I couldn’t really even give you examples bc it’s pretty widespread and i’m stupid, but it was really like trump throwing paper towels “and you get a demonization, and you get an infantalization, and you get a butchered character, and you get a fetishization-”
3. Ishida having no fucking clue how science works
This particular factoid led me to have a very hard time reading this manga because it went from being about like, yknow, torture and fights and crying and stuff to weird experimentation bullshit and mutated whatever and everyone’s a hybrid now I guess. When I heard this thing about the quinxes, I thought that made no sense, because I was like “yeah but wait,,, how tf does that work didn’t Ishida say earlier that kagune literally were fueled by human meat isn’t that like the entire point the ccg is against?” and then Ishida’s explanation of how they’re not just exactly like Kaneki is that “oh yeah well there’s like, metal around it, so it’s different.” OH YEAH OK THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE NOW, THANKS.
The thing is... there’s no way of actually regulating that. You couldn’t move a kagune unless it was attached to your cells, and if it’s attached man, it’s attached and it’s part of you. Also yelling “frame two” won’t like make it any bigger lmao, either you’re gonna have it based on theoretical science in this universe or you’re going to have a dumb supernatural magic pokemon fight deal. The whole thing makes no sense. The science issue isn’t just about this either, it’s also about how the entire thing basically undermines the point of the whole story. When you blur the lines between human and ghoul with little to no real rules or basis in real science, every rule kind of just becomes cheap plot convenience.
So the Quinxes can eat human food unless they use their kagune too much, alright, but Kaneki couldn’t eat human food before he’d even ever used his though the only difference between their bodies was this,,, theoretical metal thing?? And Haise... was never really covered, before he went black hair emo bastard and like vored Eto, did he eat human food like the rest of the CCG? He certainly cooked it. And the squad that lived with him wasn’t aware he was a ghoul until he pulled out the kagune. So I’d assume so, but then how could he have a kagune, how could he survive when his body still was like that?
Is it the RC suppressents? Then couldn’t he just have taken those and lived as a human the entire time? Is that all he fucking needed, is that the only difference between human and ghoul? It doesn’t make sense and the rules are bent so much they don’t function anymore. Ishida like write down your rules somewhere even if they’re bullshit, they shouldn’t contradict each other.
Damn man I’m not even going to go into the dumbass rules of the half humans or the special fast aging thing or the fucking,,, folded up cells deal,,, or the Imagination Kagune, or the fucking,,, Dragon, or the zombie ghoul apocalypse or the “whole new species made of just kagune” i don’t even have the time it is fucking ridiculous and I can’t even with it. Physics. Laws of physics. If not biology, at least follow physics Ishida??? Please???? And if you’re not you need to do that consistently??
4. character glow ups actually being character glow downs 
(with the exception of nishiki, he baby now, and akira, i think her development was valid af)
God, this one gets me every time. Touka was cool. Touka was fucking badass, she had a complex character with many motivations and wants, and in the original having her eventually kind of soften bc of Kaneki is valid. But taking her and turning her into like literally nothing but Pretty Housewife Yearning For Husband At War? God, kill me. She’s a strong person. She can like Kaneki without the guy being her only character trait. Also uh, Touka and Kaneki being a couple was valid before this change, now I honestly can’t stomach it. Like they were the kind of “both bisexual” m/f couple that we stan. No longer I guess.
She’s the most egregious example, but I’d also like to point out Juuzou, not everything they changed about him is bad, honestly we fucking stan his knife legs, but he’s kind of like a rip off L now? You got rid of his ~unhinged~, we do not stan. I’m on the fence about him bc i think that kind of is a valid transition to adulthood and I guess he’s grown up, but again, why change his fucking hair color? What is the explanation for this?
Also Hinami. I mean, I don’t really care about her a lot in general, but it’s weird to see her as like an adult when Ayato emo boy looks like exactly the fucking same and they’re like,,, supposedly the same age. 
There are definitely more I’m missing here. Honestly, Hide was valid. God him with his fucking burlap sack. With a fucking lenny face on it. I can’t with him. That’s so Hide. But there were some bad ones.
5. one hair color change was my limit, enough said
black white black and white black white more white god bitch get some variety
6. Showing me great new characters and then promptly ruining them
And you can tell this one’s about quinx squad, my favorite bastard children. God, I love them. They’re the only good things about Re other than Hide and Haise and like everything else, Ishida took them and went “what if i *guts*” god why. I love these kids with all my heart. Why. Why. Why did you do that to Mutsuki. Why as soon as Haise isn’t in the room they all get themselves tangled up with pedos. Why they gotta break up the squad. Why make all of them lose all the wholesomeness and lessons they learned from Haise. Why do you ruin them all with weird unreciprocated random crushes on each other when they’re like basically siblings. Why fuckinG KILL SHIRAZU HE IS THE APPOINTED CHIEF DUMBASS OF THE SQUAD WHY HIM. WHY. WITH SO LITTLE IMPACT. YOU COULD FUCKING MISS IT SO EASILY. THAT’S NOT RIGHT. AND KANEKI JUST FUCKING ABANDONS THEM BC HE HAS HIS MEMORIES AGAIN N O ? NO ACTUALLY NO.
7. the casual racism and sexism :)
i just :) can you stop having girls constantly bring themselves down for being female :) and making them be oversexualized, less full characters :) always in some way connected to a guy :) more weak and hurt more often :) my fucking god :) also yeah it’s way less prevalent but there were a few racist caricatures thrown in there for taste if you don’t know how to draw lips just don’t
8. Ishida being too much of a pissbaby for a real death scene
Basically: undermining the impact of “deaths” fom the first series while also randomly and badly killing off new characters. Oh that character that died in the original in a really cinematic way that made you cry and think about the meaning of life and how beautifully tragic this story was? Oh lol they’re not Actually dead. (x10) Doing that with Hide (at least in the manga, not the anime, god root A really did it with him but we’re not talking about that) was valid, seeing as I love him your honor and in the manga one of the lessons that his character hinges on was like in chapter 75 to live on instead of giving up even if it hurts and all that... (this is obviously kind of the opposite from root A where his character was like more about sacrificing for kaneki since kaneki had already done so much, i think both are valid but we’re Talking About The Manga) he was done well. That was right (even though i think they should have done More of it) but there were so many characters this kind of thing was done to without the proper adjustment in the handling of the messages given here. 
Like with Koma and Irimi, who,,, honestly should have stayed dead because their entire character arc kinda ended there and showed how they were sorry for their actions and this was how they were making it up. And then they just like... come back. And fight more. Really? This wasn’t the only instance either, same deal with Shinohara (though him coming back made me cry) it like, kind of undermines it if you’re going to have Juuzou derive his character development from that. Either Juuzou gets to keep his unhinged and his dad, or he loses his dad for real and he also grows up. God guys choose. What’s the message you’re playing here. (at least they kept Yoshimura dead, his death made me cry and I would have stabbed something if it wasn’t real, probably Ishida.) And even with Kaneki himself, god, if he can’t die from being stabbed straight through the fucking eye, what COULD kill him? It really diminishes the anxiety you feel about “omg is this person gonna die i want them to be ok” if they basically evade the laws of physics and their own previous character arcs 70 times. I’m definitely forgetting more of the same, Ishida can’t write a good death, he needed the anime writers to do it for him.
9. Kaneki. Just. Kaneki. 
God they fucking butchered this man. I could go on about his character is weird and confusing in the manga from the beginning, but we’re focusing on mostly all his weird :re character development, the bad handling of Haise and his memories, and all his iterations.
Before I read :re, what I could glean from fanart and the occasional fic that wasn’t tagged properly was really confusing and kind of a mixed bag. I knew Haise was Kaneki but without his memories, now in the ccg trying to be a pacifist and going :DDDDD a lot yknow. And what I came up with in my own mind for that change was a deal of (this makes more sense with the anime canon tbh, the manga honestly doesn’t do any of this well) like Kaneki after The Shit Went Down With Hide (whichever canon you’d like to interpret that as) he basically realized that he really couldn’t be a ghoul, he didn’t want to be, he didn’t want to hurt people and he wanted to be happy and make other people happy instead of what he thought was right before (trying to fight to protect others on his own etc) because that mentality had gotten people he loved hurt, and well subconsciously I guess that kind of factored into his development into Haise and maybe caused his memory loss (along with the, yknow, shanked eye.) So when I started to read it that kind of checked out, this is what he’s trying so hard to be now. But then this whole bullshit of the whole other like, 37 different versions of kaneki complicated things. 
Haise was scared that when he got his memories back he would cease to be, well, Haise, and he would just like revert back to what he was before everything. Which I can understand him being scared of and I think was a good point in the plot for him to worry about that, but I was like “oh honey don’t worry that’s not how it works” and was kind of vying for him to eventually get his memories back, come to terms with the fact that those were his memories, he did do those things, he was half a ghoul, and maybe come back to his original fight of wanting to bring the humans and ghouls together, still caring about his human people in the ccg and all. That development was real, and it wouldn’t just go away if he got his memories back, he learned a lot and grew a lot and he has a different outlook on life now. Right?
Fucking wrong I guess. Dude gets his memories back (very ambiguously, it was really hard to tell when that even happened tbh) and like. Turns into a flaming ass looking like ebony darkness dementia raven way. Haise gone. Fucking completely. No trace left. Doesn’t care about his kids anymore. When he’s done with that and goes white again he’s just Kaneki again and there’s really not enough left of things that like, really wouldn’t go away? He loses the flair? The dumbass? The :D? The Extra? WHY? Why would those things go away? Haise shouldn’t have been right that he would disappear when he got back his memories. That killed me. I love Kaneki and all but H a i s e. He is my b o y. H i m. With his e n e r g y  s h o r t s. And his m o m. And his c o o k i n g. And his k i d s, I l o v e him. And Ishida doesn’t seem to realize that they’re... literally the same person. Haise isn’t just some stupid bastard occupying Kaneki’s body, he’s a valid part of Kaneki himself and to be honest, peak Kaneki. Should have stayed that way. Would have been great for Hide tbh. Not just having him pretty much revert to his old self, but basically respond equally to both names and balance the world between human and ghoul. I would have loved that. What happened for real? It doesn’t make sense and it breaks my heart.
Some people on the interwebz try to kind of even that whole deal out by trying to say he like, has DID, which although is obviously a valid thing, like, so does not apply to him. God I’m like so not an expert on this but I feel like it’s not that hard to tell. His 87 little Kanekis in his head aren’t separate personas, they’re metaphorical representations of his past morals, experiences, and ideologies that all conflict. Again Haise here is peak conflict because when he gets his memories back, he has all these different conflicting ideas that were all previously separate. They’re all him. Tortured Kaneki constantly yelling at him in Jason’s chamber is basically again, a metaphor for how he’s denying his ghoulhood and the trauma that he’s been dealt. It’s not that this dude still exists just the way he is ready to show up at any moment lmao. Ishida kind of dealt with that badly too because Haise really said
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after his memories happened so I can see why people might, but it’s... not right, and it’s Ishida’s fault about that which is Incorrect
Also just blanket statement, black reaper Kaneki? Fuck him and all he stands for. 0% valid. I can excuse literally every other version of him. But wh y. God he leaves the room and Urie starts misusing his power and getting groomed by a pedo, Saiko is just, left behind and sad, Mutsuki gets captured by a perv and mentally destroyed again, Shirazu dies and the bitch is like like “lol it’s your fault” yeah helpful, die
10. P- the- the porn chapter-
Idk about you but that was so fucking unecessary??? Not even going off of how terribly awkward and weird it was to have it there when the opening was “i’m sad about my best friend who’s gonna get executed what do you do when you’re sad about your best friend” “i simply do not think of him or i might actually just curl up and die” “yo lmao same” “wanna fuck” Like ok um I’m biased bc i’m not straight but I like, really hated that. Even just flipping through the pages as fast as I could to get to the end of it like. God. It’s not a fucking hentai. I’m here for the plot. If you’re not gonna release the director’s cut of kaneki fucking voring hide, i don’t think i need to see 20 pages of straight fucking sex. And if you absolutely must have porn, kaneki is a fucking bottom. That man gets pegged do not try to prove otherwise. You started it out that way god I love how they’re like “oh god wait that looks kind of gay, the woman being dominant, better stop that right now” god Ishida not having a single iota of knowlege about his own characters aND THEN SHE GETS PREGNANT? NO. Excuse me. No. I just. I. Why. This isn’t. A fucking porno. This isn’t tentacle porn i swear oh my god kill me
11. Giving the wrong characters attention
Basically, redeeming characters that should have been redeemed and not going into/discussing characters that should have been redeemed/had more backstory. For example, Tsukiyama can go fucking die. I like, do not even care rich boy. I don’t understand how anyone could think he needed to be redeemed he’s just a gay attention whore who really needs to let this kid get on with his merry fucking life. I don’t care. I literally did not need to read three whole books about his dumbass hangup over eating Kaneki. Kaneki doesn’t fucking want you bitch move on. He didn’t need to be redeemed or seen to be in any way sympathetic, no one wanted it. Same with that bitch ass Furuta, he wasn’t really redeemed but he was given w a y too much time to play out his sob story. God man Rize doesn’t fucking want you. These gross ass simps. I swear.
On the other hand, I kind of liked Eto even though she’s a pile of shit, and I got mad when they didn’t really go into much about her. And you know who could have gotten much more screen time/development? TOUKA. God, I love her and she was just sitting around in the background being straight. Let her have some spicy development. Also obviously, Hide. He was... so underappreciated and underexplained? What happened with him? He didn’t just pick himself off the ground in the sewers and go ‘well i’d better get back to the ccg now’ we have a whole two years which are completely unexplained, most of which he was off mysteriously being involved in things but completely missing the eye of Haise and other major players. Where tf was he? How did he get around? What was he even doing??? I wanna know about that! Not all the characters I hate’s tragic backstories that make me feel 0% more sympathetic towards them :)
12. ARE WE ALL JUST GONNA COLLECTIVELY IGNORE THE WHOLE VORE THING???
Ok like i know i say “the entire reason I read :re was __” but like to be honest this was the turning point, I saw pictures of hide’s vore face and went like
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So I was like “god fucking damn it ok, Ishida would you care to explain this to me” *cracks open re*
And then they DIDN’T.
Like. It’s actually laughable how much that entire situation was just glossed over. They gave that maybe like two pages. Like what. I. This manga has more sex scene than no homoing that. They just don’t even bother to. I feel like Ishida had that as a plot point but realized halfway in how it looked (i.e., really fucking gay) and decided that was something that he was just gonna, not deal with. Just act like that’s a completely normal heterosexual bro thing to do. Like of course anywhere would be pretty gay but Kaneki chose his face. His face. Like his face and his wholeass neck and his shoulders and nowhere else. (and assumedly like, his tongue, seeing as how the dude can’t talk... bruh) Dude really said extreme hickey. French kiss to the max. Ishida clearly did realize that generally, you can only get a bitten off face by,,, having your face bitten off, which is just inherently really fucking gay. Like, I’m just at a loss as to how it even makes sense. You wouldn’t think that the skin off his face, and specifically around his mouth, would really be the most nutritious thing to consume? I can get like the shoulders but generally you’d think something like his arm or leg would be 1.less inconvenient, and 2.much more logical and nutritious? But NO, Kaneki was like “you know what i’m gonna do? eat your Face” and hide’s like “lmao sounds cool”
(not to mention, wasn’t there another guy with a vore face somewhere? like that old guy in the ccg with the bigass turtleneck, i wanna know about him) But like... my bro Ishida went “yeah this happened but i’m going to cover it up with speech bubbles and the ends of panels guys they clearly had their socks on” Dude didn’t even TRY to explain otherwise. Like hey man, that’s pretty damn gay, you are kind of at liberty to either tell me why otherwise, or accept those implications and acknowledge them?? It’s really hilarious when you ignore it cause it’s like
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kind of
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pretty damn
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WEAK of you to leave it at that fucking pissbaby
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hmmmmmmmmm however could this happen i guess we’ll never know
13. What the fuck was even the plot omg
God I’ve been writing this post for like five hours so like, I’ll keep it short but like it made sense in the original, not to be like an anime fan but the anime made fucking sense (not re i mean like the original) this lore is so fucking stupid god, the horrors of the entire fucking dragon arc bleach my eyes, unresolved plotlines who???? (the whole ‘oh yeah also ur dying of old age’ thing etc, is kaneki like??? still doing that?? or was that randomly resolved with the whole spewing ovary bullshit i’m going to fucking kill myself) and to top it off, good job Ishida at a real fucking cheap ending. 
You gave them. Fake human. Really? They just come up with artificial human at the end. Kind of undermines the entire fucking story my guy. Ah yes throw out our whole plot. That was the whole tragedy. You gotta eat human. The ghouls have to eat human and that’s tragic bc they have to kill people or whatever. Or i guess they fucking don’t well fucking ok. God you could have just had them negotiate a kind of peace where the ghouls can get dead humans and such, there are plenty of them and no one has to kill anyone then, there could be a rule system for it, it would be messy but eventually everyone would be ok with it, and I think that would work a lot better than “quick fix i made some hamburger helper human you can eat it fine” guys wtf. It’s like Ishida started plotting out the ending for re approximately 2 hours before his deadline. Anyway yes I hate re and I love yelling about it thank you for coming to my ted talk.
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queer-crusader · 3 years
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How do you think Silver & Flint's relationship would have evolved if things hadn't ended the way they did in S4? How do you think things would have progressed through time? I tend to think about the what ifs a lot. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on it.
OOFT. I mean i have many thoughts! It’s... very hard to say really. Because i think one thing Black Sails does incredibly well is the way it builds a story and a character. Many choices made in this show are so dependent on what the characters want and who they intrinsically are and how they influence each other (willingly/knowingly or not), and i feel like there are many very complex interwoven roads that led them to the conclusion they got to. Which is one of the many reasons the finale felt like such a tragedy; you know things are going to end badly because you kind of see it coming. And dear god it does hurt, even with Flint being reunited with Thomas.
So. I think there are two ways to answer this question, and you can sort of divide them into canon-ish versus fanon wish. These may not exactly be clearly indicated bc like i said i have Many Thoughts, and i apologise in advance 😅 Another thing i’ll be looking at here is something we had to lay out for our characters when i studied acting - the goals/objectives/motivations of the character, and their emotional/mental state. None of this is meant to be critical against any character. I simply adore analyising them and the paths of the story, and I love each and every character i talk about here deeply.
So, looking at that finale. There’s several things that i could take from what you say about things not ending the way they did - for now, i’m looking at the confrontation between Flint and Silver in the woods, where Silver forces Flint to quit his war and reunites him with Thomas.
Firstly, let’s analyse what we get from the canon, and what i believe motivates these characters to bring them to the point they end up at. There’s that famous line i think of Silver where he says he doesn’t know anymore where he ends and Flint begins - their thinking patterns have become so intertwined, they basically share a braincell. The tricky thing about this is, just because he and Flint think similarly, share tactics, and a knowledge of how to use people in their means, just because they understand each other well, doesn’t mean they share opinions and morals. Flint especially seems to forget this. He believes Silver is with him in his cause to end Imperial rule. But from Silver’s final actions, it’s clear Silver values his personal wants and needs above that of this abstract crowd of people. He’s not oppressed - or hasn’t felt the effects of Imperial/religious oppression (as far as we canonically know) like Flint and Madi have. And that means he doesn’t have the same drive. He’s driven by his personal connections to these people, i believe, purely from his own point of view. Like, i suspect he struggles to place himself in the shoes of Madi or Flint to feel their pain and motivation. He can see it, he just... doesn’t fully grasp it. (There’s also a question of whether he wishes to, but i feel nowhere NEAR qualified on answering that, nor do i think the canon gives us enough material to give a perfectly cut & dry answer.)
So you have this big miscommunication. Flint believes that, because he and Silver have basically become one shared braincell, they have the same goals, while Silver is still driven from a point of selfishness. (Side-note: there was a moment in the show he became selfless! He wouldn’t give up his crew when faced with torture from Vane’s quartermaster! But then he lost a leg over it and it seemed to dampen that selflessness. I think from there on, moments where he seems to be motivated by the good of the crew come instead from an internal need to belong and be loved more so than a genuine sense of brotherhood. That brotherhood may still have been there, but i think he might have suppressed that instinct a little and instead let the more selfish needs take more of a front seat. Understandable and not bad/evil, like that’s super valid of him. But my point is, he’s not exactly ready to fight for another man’s cause he doesn’t have as much of a personal emotional profit in, especially when he knows it’ll end in certain death for everyone he cares about and he knows cares about him.)
So that’s sort of where the characters are mentally in that climax. I may be skirting details and summarising a bit hastily, but it’s also been a GOOD while since i’ve watched season 4, so i apologise. Flint (and Madi as well - she plays an equally important role i think!) is fuelled by a mix of rage born from oppression/discrimination, and a protectiveness for others who may suffer the same fate. Silver meanwhile is fuelled by a need much closer to home - to be loved and to keep those he cares for and deems important to him alive and around. I’ve framed it as their emotional drive, but really it is also their goal, their objective in that finale. Flint and Madi are looking to burn down an oppressive system while Silver... isn’t. For him, their goals stand directly in the way of his. And by the end of the show, he’s gained enough power to prevail in his objective, cancelling out those of Flint and Madi.
So, could it have gone differently? I think, if we wanna play with canon and keep it as close to canon as possible... It seems almost impossible. These people’s goals just do not align. (There’s that sweet sweet tragedy again.) So what you need for it to go differently in short is for one of, if not several, of these people to change their goal. But we’re talking their MAIN objective, their main driving force at this point in the show - so like, the chances of that are slim. ESPECIALLY if we’re talking about the canon characters. After all, for that, the characters would need to look inside themselves and fucking face up to some of their issues and work on them. (This is something which these characters are not very prone to do, bc jesus it’s a mess in there and if that were me i’d preferably not turn introspective either and be forced to look at all that.)
So if we wanted Flint to change his goal, he’d need to come to terms with the Empire being untouchable - which is bullshit bc like my man has a POINT, just because they seem to be able to be brought down doesn’t mean they ain’t - and to accept the homophobia and oppression they treated him and Thomas with, which, yeah fuck that, absolutely not, his rage and his goals are valid as FUCK. If we wanted to change Madi’s - lmao like listen i understand wanting her and Silver happy together bc we ship EVERYTHING in this house, but she’s poc and proper royalty and wants to end slavery. We ain’t touching her goals. So that just leaves Silver. Silver would need to face a part of himself that keeps him from placing Flint’s goals, or Madi’s goals, over his own. (I suspect we circle back to that insecurity and need to be loved, which defo stems from whatever trauma he swears doesn’t affect who he is today.) So for that he’d uhh... need therapy. And a shit tonne of it. But then you still have the issue that Flint and Madi will likely fight their war (bc they DESERVE IT), which may lead to what Silver considers inevitable - that they will die early and horribly, and he ends up all alone.
So, looking at playing with the canon-ish to change things? It’s gonna end in tragedy. There’s doesn’t seem any other way about it, i fear; not with the way these characters were written, with who they are and what drives them and what they want. If it doesn’t end in tragedy in one way, then almost certainly in another.
So what are our other options? What if we look at the fanon wish - whether it’s silverflint, or silvermadi, or madisilverflint, or just to have these kids be fucking happy? Well, you know what? Maybe it DOESNT have to end up in tragedy. Maybe, if Silver does align himself with the goals of the people he loves - after learning to communicate and place himself in other people’s shoes and prioritise the needs of his loved ones and compromising and all that jazz (god this boy needs therapy that only the fanon can likely give him, rip) - he could join them in their war. And maybe, his genius and creativity and quick wit will in fact propel their cause forward and help so much, none of them dies an early gruesome death. It’s not impossible! It just requires that sweet sweet character growth he doesn’t get the opportunity for in canon.
Another option, and this one is perhaps a little more plausible if the show had no episode limit or a desire to end in tragedy and “align” itself with “history” (they’ve played fast and loose with real history i’ve learned, and like,, it’s a story about fictional characters so why did it have to align itself with history?? Okay fine, as a prequel to Treasure Island, it still needed to end in tragedy for Silver bc we know where he ends up. Were there no Treasure Island and no rules and we could do what we wanted with the show and write a new ending, then what?). This one is more popular, you see it in loads of fics and i like it a lot. Silver sends Flint to the plantation. Flint and Thomas break out and get their war anyway. They’re pissed at Silver for a bit for being a selfish dick shitting on Flint’s dreams, but like,, it’s not as if it stopped Flint. (We can even look at it like Silver knew they’d probably fight their war and have better odds with Thomas in the mix, giving them a better opportunity - but like, that’s just a fun headcanon to play with that i don’t think aligns with what he explicitly states to want in canon.) And then, after some years, everyone learns to communicate and talk things out and maybe, maybe, Silver grows a bit and things become healthier between him and Flint.
Listen, the moral of the story is this. I love all the ships in this show. I think they’re all neat, and i love the different iterations in which people bring them to life and try to align them with canon. Do i think that with the canon we’ve been given, silverflint could happen? Maybe. Would it be healthy?? I mean... Probably not 😅 but like, that doesn’t prevent me from shipping it. (That’s not the point of shipping - sometimes you just wanna see that sweet sweet chemistry pay off, even tho u know it ain’t healthy. The characters are fictional. It’s okay. No-one will get hurt - apart from maybe you if you end up romanticising it and taking that into real life but ooft that’s a whole other kettle of fish.) But god, that’s the fucking JOY of fanfics ya know?? It may also be why i enjoy writing my modern au so much xD therapy is an option, and canon means even less than usual. All im saying is, when it comes to the relation between silver and flint, the fan community are a fucking godsend. You want them to be friends?? We got fics for that! Want them to bone? SO many fics for that! Want a sort of father-son role?? Uhh nowhere near enough fics for that, but the fandom’s still active so you never know! Partners in crime?? Hell YEAH that has potential, even in canon i think if u just stretch out fan-written episodes far enough!! (God can you imagine the POTENTIAL?? Ignore the war, the grittiness, the drama. Get me some pirate hijinks where the stakes are low but they’re still sharing a braincell.)
(Hmm. Now i need to add another idea to my WIP list lmao xD)
Anywayyy, hope this satisfies ur curiosity anon!!
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