#so i know its not on me. i foresaw this coming and did my best to prevent it

[womenaresohot]

I really want to be a good partner someday. I'm so worried I won't be able to

#i like him. i really do #i just know im still worried about restating old patterns #even though im better now #about some things #i can say no #i can stand firm in an opinion #even if it isnt his #but i know its hard not being in a relationship for him #and i did everything i could to avoid this #i noted at the beginning of this relationship that we should probably just continue being friends and not say anything until i could commit #and we mutually decided we didnt want to do that and we wanted to be open #and i told him that i wasnt ready and i wasnt sure when i would be #and i tell him all the time that if he's not confortable he should tell me #so i know its not on me. i foresaw this coming and did my best to prevent it #its just hard seeing him so hurt #and knowing he deserves a relationship

[tsarinatorment]

oo now im interested in that apollo is chb'd patron thing would you care to elaborate on that??

@stereden also asked this! There's not so much canon for this as some of the other things I've talked about but there's still a few things to say on the topic, and not only am I going to talk about him being the patron, I'm going to talk about how that works with the things that happen with CHB during the PJO series, and of course because we're talking about Apollo, there's the odd little titbit from TOA that makes its way into this, too.

A lot of this will be extrapolation, but I've done my best to keep more floating headcanons out of it, so this should at least all stem convincingly from canon.

I'm going to address two things under this umbrella, because I think they're related and also because I find them fascinating: Apollo as the patron god of CHB, and Apollo's loss of jurisdiction over CHB by the events of canon.

So, Apollo and the patronage of CHB. While Camp Half-Blood Confidential is pretty goofy and daft in tone, it gives us a few important little nuggets of information regarding the founding of the camp, namely that it was Apollo's idea - or at the very least, Apollo foresaw that it would happen/needed to happen.

As it turned out, giving Apollo a centaur-back ride was the smartest thing I ever did. Unlike others of my kind, I didn’t belong to a specific tribe. I was a loner…and, sometimes, lonely. We bonded during that ride. I found that Apollo could be quite charming one-on-one, when he wasn’t trying to impress his adoring throngs of fans. When we got back to the cave, he said something that changed my life. “Uncle Chiron, I’ve decided to teach you some stuff.” Perhaps he found the idea amusing: a nephew teaching his uncle. Or maybe, being the god of prophecy, he suspected I had an important role to play in the future of Olympus. Whatever the reason, he chose to share his knowledge with me. At first, he showed me simple things, like how to nock an arrow—“Aim the pointy end away from your body”—and how to bandage a gushing battle wound. He taught me to make a lyre, play a number of hits like “Stairway to Olympus” and “Burnt-Offering Smoke on the Water,” and even compose my own lyrics. Once, in an effort to refine my poetry skills, he sent me on a quest to find a rhyme for arugula so that he could finish an ode to a mixed-green salad. The best I could do was pergola. Apollo called my effort an “ode fail”—the ancient precursor to today’s “epic fail”—but he continued to work with me. The lessons went on for a year. Then one day, Apollo showed up at the doorway of my cave with a half-dozen young demigods. “You know all that stuff I taught you?” he asked me. “It’s time to pay it forward! I’d like you to meet Achilles, Aeneas, Jason, Atalanta, Asclepius, and Percy—” “It’s Perseus, sir,” said one of the young men. “Whatever!” Apollo grinned with delight. “Chiron, teach them everything I showed you. Y’all have fun!” Then he vanished.

I have high doubts that this is exactly how it went down - I don't think those six demigods were all direct contemporaries of each other, mythologically, for starters - but they were all trained by Chiron and it makes sense for Apollo to be the one to introduce them, especially as he's the one that trained Chiron in the first place, and paying things forward is not a new or novel idea, especially when it comes to knowledge (after all, that's how teaching works even now - kids learn things, grow up, the next generation of kids start learning from them. That's just how humanity works).

From here, of course CHB continues to expand until it's the camp we know and love today. Chiron details this out for us (again, I don't believe the actual way he tells it, but the basic facts if not the very fictionised retelling seem solid). I won't copy out all of that, but I will make note of Apollo's direct involvement within the expansion, that that's the addition of the satyrs:

The satyrs arrived en masse with this note from Apollo: I predict that in the future, demigods won’t be able to find Camp Half-Blood on their own. The world will simply be too large, too populous, and too dangerous. When that time comes, send satyrs to track down your prospective students. Satyrs can find anything. They recently located a herd of cattle Hermes stole from me that even I couldn’t find. Trust me: you need seekers, and they’re the goats for the job.

Apollo is the one that's actively looking out for future demigods and their safety here. It's understandable that he's the one that knew it would be needed, because of his foresight and prophecy powers, but the fact that he acts on it so early, making sure the Camp is fully equipped to handle it with the satyrs long before they'll be needed, shows that side of him that he tends to not advertise in modern times - the side that wants to look after and protect the demigods.

That's two of the most important parts of CHB - its existence, and the satyr protector-guides - both directly attributed to Apollo himself, tying him more firmly than any other god to the camp. With this in mind, who else could possibly be the patron of the camp, if not for the god of knowledge whose own teachings are being passed down, and who actively worked to ensure the safety of future demigods?

The third thing is not explicitly Apollo, but considering the pattern it seems most likely, and that's the defences around CHB, back pre-Thalia's tree.

You see, I knew that so many demigods living in one place was like an all-you-can-kill buffet for monsters. Yet I had convinced myself that our campers needed no other protection than the skills we taught them. My pride had nearly been our destruction, but I learned my lesson. I immediately sent an Iris-message to Olympus asking for help. The gods heard our plea. The next day, a magical border settled over and around the grounds—a barrier that would both conceal the camp from unfriendly eyes and repel future attacks.

It's just the general "the gods" mentioned here, but considering that Apollo is the most involved god so far in the camp, if he isn't the one that did this himself (unlikely), he's certainly one of the gods that was involved in making sure this protection happened.

Another minor little detail to note is in the symbolism of the battle that occurs which prompts Chiron to request for aid here. To summarise for those who haven't read this story, the campers are nearly defeated, and it's only last-minute reinforcements from past campers that saves the day:

Then, just as rosy-fingered dawn peeked over the horizon, a new battle cry sounded in the distance. Former campers who had learned of our desperate plight now came charging to our aid.

The reinforcements came at dawn. Yes, I know that's a favourite trope in media (see the very memorable Battle for Helm's Deep in The Two Towers), but that doesn't make it any less fitting here - the camp was saved at dawn, which is the time when Apollo takes to the sky (and yes, by this time chronologically, Helios has already faded and Apollo is the god of the sun, according to Chiron's description of their first meeting:

“Ah…yes, Lord Apollo.” I tried to control the twitching in my withers. “Very weird indeed.” I noticed the sky was darkening even though it was only noon. “Not to be critical, O Great One, but shouldn’t you be driving the sun chariot right now?” He shrugged. “Actually, I put it in park for a few minutes because Artemis is up there doing her lunar-eclipse thing.” He scratched his fashionably stubbled chin. “Or is it solar? I can never keep them straight.”

It's likely that this isn't long after Apollo took on the role, although of course he could have just been goofing around with the lunar-solar mix-up, but he is still, in this narrative, the god of the sun by this point).

The implication here is very much that Apollo's the one who called the older demigods to help (presumably the Ancient Laws are in effect at this point - in fact, that may even be why Apollo had to pass on the responsibility of teaching to Chiron in the first place, with the advent of the no interference Laws) which again adds some credence to the idea that he's also one of the gods, if not the god, who supplied the original defensive barrier for CHB.

So, that's Apollo's involvement in the original CHB, way back when, and I don't think it can really be argued any other way than that at this point, at least, he was the patron god of the camp.

But what about modern times?

Modern times gets more confusing. I still believe that Apollo is, on a technicality, the patron of the camp, but in practicality he no longer seems to have any jurisdiction over it.

He still keeps an eye on the camp - no matter how he tries to throw us off the scent in TOA, there are some slip-ups in his narration that give us a glimpse of the god who is not at all distant from camp emotionally, even if he's physically forced to be.

Over the centuries, I’d had many conversations with demigods who wanted to know more about their absentee godly parents. Those talks rarely went well.

From this it's clear that he does spend time with the demigods at camp, historically (although not recently, which I suspect has a lot to do with Dionysus' forced presence, either because Apollo fears being reported to Zeus, or because there's a rule about only one Olympian god near the camp at a time). He cares about them and goes out of his way to reassure them - all of them, not just his own children.

He also remembers names. There are twenty two campers present during THO, including Meg, and during Apollo's narration we are given the names of every single one. The facts he gives us are precise, and the fact that he is able to perfectly recall every name after being introduced once (especially when we contrast this with Dionysus' refusal to get most demigod names right even if he's known them for a decade) implies a strong level of care. And no, this is not just because it's in winter and therefore Rick had a small enough cast number that he could afford to name them all - in TTC there is a similar number of demigods in the camp, yet Percy, who lives with these people for several months of the year, never gives us names. In fact, we learn in BOTL that Percy doesn't bother to learn some of the camper names at all. This is Apollo caring about these children.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Connor and Travis Stoll are the pranksters?” From a nearby basket, Chiron grabbed a flannel blanket and spread it over his fake legs, though the ruby shoes still peeked out at the bottom. “Actually, Travis went off to college last autumn, which has mellowed Connor quite a bit.”

Not only does he know their names, he also knows their habits and personalities. That's not just a basic level of reading names off a roll list, that's Apollo being actively aware of the children at camp as individuals.

It's also shown less implicitly through his conversations with Chiron in THO. Chiron knows that Apollo cares about the campers - he opens their first conversation with this:

My old friend smiled, though his eyes were stormy and distracted. “Apollo, it’s good you are here. We need to talk about the disappearances.”

Literally Chiron's first thing is to bring up missing campers, because he knows Apollo will care about this - and Apollo does! It isn't Chiron who continues this topic of conversation, it's actually Apollo who keeps trying to bring the topic back around while Chiron talks about Python and Delphi and prophecies:

“Chiron,” I said, “this is Meg McCaffrey, my new master and wellspring of aggravation. You were saying something about disappearances?”

“Disappearances,” I prompted. “What has disappeared?”

“The disappearances, yes.” I wiped drops of tea from my pants and tried to ignore Meg’s snickering. “Tell me about those.”

He asks about it three times before Chiron finally gives him the information he's after - it's actually the thing he's most insistent about focusing on in the whole conversation (he keeps trying to dodge the discussion of Python and Delphi) - and even after that it's the one he keeps asking more questions on, trying to get more and more information. Apollo never says so in as many words, but it's clear that he's very worried about the missing campers (a façade he more or less manages to cling to until his own children are added to the number, at which point the façade collapses entirely and we see Apollo in full worry mode over the children).

So the question is, if Apollo is the patron god of Camp Half-Blood (and let's not forget his domain of protector of the young, here!), why did we never see him in this capacity during PJO?

Quite frankly, it's obvious that he can't. It's impossible that, if Apollo had any say over the matter at all, he would have allowed the sacking of Chiron in SOM. He also sends no visible aid during BOTL, but the Daedalus thing is interesting... But let's start from the top.

Apollo has lost jurisdiction over CHB by the time PJO begins. I would argue that this is a relatively recent development - there are conflicting canon statements regarding how long Dionysus has been at CHB (in TON, Apollo says he's been there for half a century but then later we get confirmation that Dionysus' punishment is far from over, yet in PJO his sentence was cut in half down to fifty years - my personal guess is that Dionysus has been there for around 15 years or so as of TLT, long enough that all the current campers have known him, but as his only known children are fifteen or older in TLT (Castor and Pollux are seventeen in BOTL, two years later, Dakota is a similar age to them) the implication is that he hasn't had any children since his punishment began, otherwise why the lack - considering his far from PG domains, Dionysus is a god I'd ordinarily expect to have a lot of children). However, Dionysus' tenure as Director of CHB likely prevents Apollo from getting too close to the camp for any length of time, as I mentioned earlier.

The biggest thing, though, and what I think was the final nail in the waning coffin of his jurisdiction, was Thalia's death. This is when Zeus put a very large, aggressive stamp on CHB - his daughter is the one guarding the camp now, through Zeus' own actions. By doing this, Zeus has completely muscled Apollo out, and we know that Apollo can't (and is too afraid to try to) challenge Zeus.

So, why would Zeus be so determined to claim CHB as his, and kick Apollo out? There's a few reasons. One is his ever-present paranoia. CHB is a major part of modern day demigod society - barring CJ, which is Mars' and the Roman equivalent, it is the most major part. The amount of power and influence it gives Apollo to have it under his control is huge, and we know Zeus fears Apollo overthrowing him (this is also why cabin eleven is the cabin for the unclaimed demigods - while the logic that Hermes is the god of travellers does hold water, as the camp patron and protector of the young, it would actually make far more sense for them to go to cabin seven. The only reason I can see why it wouldn't, in-universe (meta-wise it's clearly to build the Percy-Luke rapport in TLT to give the betrayal the oomph it needed), is if the other gods refused to let that happen. Considering they all seem fine with leaving their kids languishing in Hermes' cabin, they probably don't really care which cabin it is, as long as it's not their own - Zeus is the only one who has reason to protest against it being Apollo, and he has the clout to make sure he's obeyed on this).

Well, I say one reason is his paranoia; really, a lot of this is based on Zeus' paranoia, because all his interactions with Apollo are steeped in this throughout the series. Another aspect of his paranoia is the Great Prophecy - he wants his own child to be the Hero, but when Thalia dies, he's left in the horrid realisation that it might not be his child; Jason is still very young (and also a son of Jupiter and therefore Roman, and the Romans don't even have this prophecy), and if he's broken the Oath, there's a high chance at least one of his brothers has (whether or not he knows about Percy's existence this early is debatable, but from the way the accusations at theft were immediately levelled at Poseidon before Percy even knew he was a demigod, it's likely that the Olympians were aware of Percy's existence at least a little before the events of TLT). A child of Hades would be a problem, but Hades' kids aren't popular so he might see them as less of a concern/easier to get rid of (Hades also doesn't seem to like sending his children to camp - he explicitly refused to send Bianca and Nico to CHB). A child of Poseidon, however?

Remember that Poseidon and Apollo have historically worked together to oppose Zeus. A child of Poseidon central to a great prophecy in a camp that's under Apollo's jurisdiction is, to Zeus, a terrifying combination and one he won't want at all, so he uses Thalia to wrest the control of camp away from Apollo. Now Zeus is the one in control, and we know Zeus doesn't like giving control back. (And remember that in TLT the Apollo cabin back Poseidon... against Zeus; that can't have pleased him in the slightest!)

Of course, there's also the same power basis in his favour - he doesn't want Apollo to have that power, but he does want it for himself. The gods have all been waning compared to their original selves, and their powers are far weaker. During PJO, all of the gods are, if not pathetic, clearly weakened. It's only at the end that we see Poseidon and Hades regain their strength (the same way we see Apollo regain his in TON), while Zeus continues to wane.

So, what does Apollo do about this? He can't fight back against Zeus - TOA is a spectacular example of what happens if Zeus even thinks he's rebelling - but while the functionality has been stripped, he is still the patron of the camp, and also the protector of the young. Apollo doesn't sit back and do nothing.

First of all are the dreams - we know Percy gets a lot of demigod dreams, we know Zoe gets a dream while in CHB, we know Apollo kids get dreams, we can infer that Chiron probably also gets dreams (I'll get to this in a sec), and also that he knows about the dreams (once again, see @fearlessinger's discussion of our theory on Apollo and the Demigod Dreams).

Secondly, there's Octavian.

Now, it took me a while to try and rationalise Apollo's apparent desire to work with Octavian, especially considering the way it ends up with Octavian trying to kill the Greeks (who are under Apollo's patronage - this, at least, must have been a misunderstanding because there's no way Apollo ever approved that), but when I sat back and looked at how powerless Apollo is in PJO, it makes sense.

Firstly, there's his inability to help Artemis directly during TTC. As this is a gods and titans problem, primarily, the Ancient Laws shouldn't actually prevent him from doing this - the only thing that could be clouding Apollo's sight and keeping him out are the Fates themselves - but Apollo is still unable to do more than effectively send children to their deaths (Zoe is admittedly not a child, but Bianca is, and Apollo is the one who got them most of the way to the desert in TTC, although he isn't the one to actually drop them there).

Secondly, there's the mess that is CHB. Chiron is sacked and Tantalus (someone who kills children) is hired in his place (do I like the idea of Tantalus' punishment extending outside of the Fields of Punishment being Apollo's doing as a way to make sure the kids stay protected? Yes, I do - but there's no actual canon for this although Tantalus finally getting his hands on food right at the end, when Thalia is restored and the power in the tree is now purely Zeus', is a very stretchy potential link to the last vestiges of Apollo's influence in any capacity being broken off). This is all around Bad News for CHB and nothing Apollo could possibly have approved of. Then in BOTL the camp is literally attacked and children die (including one of his own).

Daedalus is suspicious as heck the whole time, and Chiron is clearly very suspicious of him - and yet, he does nothing (even though Daedalus was posing as a Roman adult demigod and it highly amuses me to think of the panic Chiron must have been in about one of the smarter kids asking the right/wrong questions). I was discussing this with fsinger the other day and the conclusion we came to is that Apollo may have been the one to assure Chiron that Daedalus had not - yet - joined with Kronos and was therefore safe to have around the kids. After the mess of Tantalus, Apollo would no doubt be keeping a very close eye on who was being allowed near the kids, after all (and as he can't directly interfere, the most likely method of imparting this information would be via dreams).

The fact that Apollo has been dragged off monster hunting by Artemis on Zeus' orders, thereby keeping him away from camp at the time when they need godly protection the most also plays a significant role here (Dionysus, too, was elsewhere on Zeus' orders, which makes one side-eye Zeus very heavily at this point).

Overall, Apollo has lost a lot of power in recent years, and he's desperate to regain at least enough to be able to protect Artemis and CHB again - power which he would get if the Romans started worshiping him higher, because the gods are clearly fuelled by belief (notably, at the end of TON, Apollo has regained his belief in himself, which is even more powerful than belief from others, and makes me wonder if he could now regain his jurisdiction over CHB back from Zeus). This neatly ties in the Octavian side of things in HOO.

So, in conclusion: Apollo is the reason CHB exists, he's been consistently shown to care about the demigods right from its inception to the modern day and protects them as much as he is able to, which makes him the clear choice for patron of the camp. However, Zeus' paranoia has prompted him to muscle Apollo out of any practical patronage (although he is, technically, still the patron even if he can no longer act on it), leaving Apollo desperate to regain the patronage and protect the demigods however he can without directly defying Zeus.

#Anonymous #stereden #pjo apollo #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #heroes of olympus #hoo #trials of apollo #toa #riordanverse #rrverse #pjo chiron #pjo zeus #pjo octavian #chb #camp half-blood #tsari analyses things

[pagiecakewritesstuff]

3. MORPHEUS|DREAM OF THE ENDLESS X READER/OC

Assorodus meaning "silvery water".

Purpose may or may not exist, depending on our personal ideologies. The Endless know better though, they saw the entity prowling the lands before the beginning of history, and it was older than them. Not by much, a few eons maybe, arriving after the birth of the universe we know. For this being was strong and withered the coldness of the void until everything was created. First of Writers, the name it was given, for the inherent purpose of every breathing thing had to be formed in words. Whether we believe in it or not.

SERIES MASTERLIST

He balanced on the cliff's edge, a whirlwind of shifting forms, Kai'ckul then Dream, for me, for her, all the same. He kept doing it, even though she escaped to her death minutes ago, long enough to register. I heard him shout across the channels of time and I abandoned my work in progress like I received an order. I wasn't sure why, what condemned me to act so abruptly. He wasn't calling for me specifically, nor did he need an exact person at the moment. What reached me was an exclamation of pain and inertness. Then came the flitting parchment in the wind, strange, uncompleted purpose, yet still ongoing. Partly I convinced myself that this was the reason I travelled so fast.

Shifting his eyes between me and the mangled body on the rocks, his black coat violently flapped in the wind, a gown of a defeated king. I could imagine his crown tumbling after her. He was surprised to find me by his side, his face told it all, he must have expected his sister first. Finally, his angry gaze settled on me, jaw clenched, ready to outburst. He made the connections and invented a reason in his head for my arrival. I foresaw that he will call me to account, questioning whether this was the purpose I had given Nada at birth. The purpose of turning him down and breaking his heart.

"Did everything go as you planned?" I let him blame me, and he regretted it later with a silent apology. He was never good at saying those out loud.

"I think so." Pebbles fell from the great height by my strides as I took my place next to him, he sidestepped, avoiding my closeness even. "Her song is not dead yet, she still has things to do."

He must have thought I'm joking with him, turning against him as his sister-brother did sometimes, an elaborate jest just to make him scarred. With furiously shaking fingers he pointed down as if I didn't notice his past lover laying there before in a grotesque assortment of limbs and brain matter.

"Why then?" For a fleeting moment, I believed he would grab and shake me, not much, just to make himself feel a bit better. Why losing our second love hurts much more? We must assume that once we are past the pain it can't happen again, that we are somehow shielded from it, prepared for what's about to happen. Then reality hits like a slap to the face and we realize that we are not at all ready.

Morpheus wouldn't have hurt me of course.

“I can’t say for certain, my best guess would be to teach a lesson that you must learn.”

Stars blazed in his eyes, swimming over his blue irises, engulfing them in darkness, like ink on water. He seemed so sure that I’m mocking him, but that was far from the truth. He was young, not as preceptive.

“So you have taken it upon yourself to educate me?” Shadows curled around him, bent at his will as invisible pawns. I felt like he might have tossed us into a dream on his whim, cleverly disguised as reality to gain the upper hand for an assault that was never coming. Only I would have still had enough power to free myself, but I found no spell to get rid of. The mortal plane took his side and lent him its shadows. “Shall I remind you who I am?”

“No need, King of Dreams.” He pushed me too far. My hand lashed out, grabbing onto the hair at the nape of his neck. I pulled him close with just enough force so that I don’t hurt him, but render him unable to escape the situation. “Do I need to ask you the same question?”

Dream struggles, tilting his head up defiantly, however, I held him with more than just my arm or physical force. Compared to the form I had chosen to appear in he was much taller, almost by a whole head. I waited for him to settle.

“No,” he groaned then.

“What have you done to her?” Regret flashed in his vision, disappearing fast and without a trace. It wouldn’t have been him if he didn’t stand by his choices.

“A fault in your plans?” Testing me, he knew how dangerous I could be, he saw my wrath, though he was undoubtful that I wouldn’t turn against him. “Or perhaps in my brother’s? Destiny sent you?”

“You tread perilous grounds Morpheus. Answer.”

“I condemned her to hell,” he hissed. I let him go, fingers still brushing against his neck. He didn’t take the free step back, labouring breaths and all. He stood his ground. “She abashed me.”

“As I suspected. And you of course have no fault in this.” His head nodded forward, chin hitting his sternum. From under his brows, the two swirling sea eyes tried to read me. “I never saw a purpose that is to be fulfilled in the afterlife, how strange.”

“Is this Desire’s doing? Like Killala was?”

“Wouldn’t be a lesson if I were to tell you, would it?”

His mask of anger fractured, turning into dust and he let the wind carry it away. It dawned on him that without Nada he was alone again.

“Come to the Dreaming with me.” He spoke low, as if afraid that the desert would take notice of his solicitation. “I find myself in need of your company, First of Writers.”

I smiled at him sweetly.

“It’s best for you to be alone now, Dream of the Endless.”

Lucienne notified me, not him. Almost a century after and he didn’t let me know. I went to visit, only to find his cage broken and empty and he would have let me worry until I find my way to his realm. Then a raven came from me out of the sky, he did say his name, Matthew, and he was tasked to pull me into the Dreaming. But not because Morpheus asked him, the request was made by the palace’s forever librarian.

He either expects me or Lucienne told him I will be coming, as I find the ivory gates now standing slightly ajar, so I waste no time. The sea bordering his domain is still murky and white strings of bacteria cling to the shore’s black sand. I enter, stumbling onto a rocky path. It must have been cobblestone once, now it's uneven and broken up. I know this land from long eons ago and it was not fashioned like this. I’ve seen these rolling hills when they were blooming with eternal spring and with a boat fabricated by clouds and rain I drifted down the river to the doors watched by the three guardians. A gryphon, a drake and a pegasus. When I halt for a moment to take in the landscape I faintly perceive a dry riverbed. There is nothing I’ve written here, for all of this does not exist in the waking world. But dreams sing too. Or at least they should.

As I cross the distance between us Lucienne falls into my awaiting arms. Her suffering must have been close to equal to her master’s, abandoned in a kingdom without a ruler. Hastily she excuses herself and straightens, suit and glasses immaculate as always. She looks deeply into my eyes and almost begins to speak, but I cut her short. Certain matters can’t wait.

“So he is back.” I hush like I’m about to gossip, the tall marble hall’s walls reverberate every sound. Maybe the guardians outside, frozen into stone, listen.

“Not long ago I found him laying in the sand at the shores.” She confirms, then whispers too. “Dare I ask what happened exactly?”

“That’s no story I can tell you, Lucienne. Ask your lord, he might one day. When he is ready.”

“I've been nothing but tactful, I assure you.” The librarian leads me towards a lanced archway, opening to a corridor which serves as a gallery of some, with all sorts of impossible paintings of night and time pushing away from each other in the wake of a crazed star. In the chaos a ship sails towards reality, no, someone thrusts it forward instead. The image tugs on my memory, a member of a long-dead race's teeth flashes in my mind. A vortex. There was a girl too, Hope. I quickly ignore it and focus on Lucienne.

"I'm sure you were." Escaped from the strange visions I force a smile, though it's still shadowed by our looming situation. We walk through a collapsed Dreaming, it's monarch the same as broken. "Tell me, how is he?"

"Restless, my..." She thinks better and doesn't let on what form she sees me in at the moment. Her eyes linger on me. "He should rest, he is weak."

"Foolish man," I mutter and Lucienne smirks. "He will not be happy about it, but I will talk to him."

"That's why I sent for you. Your bond is," she thinks for a second. "Special."

"Even that might not be enough." We pass a window made of colourful shards of glass, the composition depicts Fiddler's Green, what he was.  "Morpheus might not realize this, but even he needs to be shown the right way sometimes."

"He is horrible at accepting help and at asking for it too."

"He always was. Some say that the only person he would accept help from is himself. I might be able to change that, at least for today. Tomorrow is another question. But I can always try to win him over twice."

Finally, we make it to the throne room. I have to surpass a gasp threatening to escape my lips. What the Lord of the Dreaming spent ages to build is all gone, the ceiling caved in and the starry night sky drapes over above us, contrary to the gloomy sun outside. I watch my step around the scattered debris, reminders of an old time, waiting to be removed, reused. Lucienne stays by the door sill, willing to give us privacy. Ornate clustered columns stand, bearing the memory of now non-existent flying buttresses. Stones levitate through the air, where the side aisle's ribbed vaults once were. The upper gallery torn down just carved details left of it. The leaf of a flower, the head of an ox charging towards a wyvern, only wings, no body.  I know the gothic church where he borrowed the inspiration from for these architectural wonders,  I showed it to him. Now he is perching on the unscathed stairs leading to his throne, fully dressed, dark folds encompassing his skeletal body. He watches from his seat intently as I approach. I think he has an idea about what speech I prepared for him, but what he gets wrong is that I'm not here to lecture. I know this by being his friend since he existed, there are rarely any secrets to be found between us. I can see into his toughts as much as he can into mine.

Without invitation, I join him on the steps and I'm above him until he decides to stand tall, a ray of black booming clouds. He presents himself as proud again with the dignity of a monarch, but I can still point out the bruises under his cape, hidden in the most secured layers of his soul. His faith in humanity faltered, rightfully so, though how he will be able to serve them like this now? This is no way to go. I don't plan to guide him back to a better route right away, he needs time to heal and after all, he is completely capable of figuring out things by himself. I’m here, so he has someone to lean onto.

He speaks like a lord.

"I expected you will turn up eventually." Oh, he is stern, he doesn't want to be bothered and I would be content to leave if this wasn't necessary. "Much later though."

"I expected you to send for me at least. Leave me a message maybe?" A growl flares up in his chest, and his eyes hang on the starry sky above, searching for constellations to curse me with. I step up, we are almost the same height. "Or I had hoped for too much after being by your side for a century?"

"And I thank you for that." My closeness makes him back off, he turns to leave the throne room, just with that he is sure he can get rid of me. "But I have things to attend to. As you probably already noticed my realm is in shambles, my subjects are on their own. If I have any left of them."

"You think I don't see it? See into you as deep as your heart." He halts, and I walk up to him. "You are hunched, your spine curved, every vertebra moulded to the trajectory of your cage. And you think I'd miss this?"

My hand finds the nape of his neck, drawing circles on his skin there. His hair gained back a bit of shine. From the side of my vision, I see Lucienne leaving the doorway. Morpheus involuntarily leans into my touch, closes his eyes, and surrenders himself to the sensation. He draws a shaky breath, the electricity of pleasure spasms in his veins, locking his body into a motionless effigy of himself.  Just like that, I came out on top.

"All I ask from you is to rest for a while. A day at least."

"How could I?" He lets me keep caressing him. "The symbols of my power, they were stolen, I have to find them. I can't rebuild while they are missing."

"The Dreaming can wait for a day, it won't change anything." I gently remove his coat, it falls to the ground, and pools at our ankles like liquid obsidian. "Come and rest. Please."

I grab his hand and pull him towards a side exit patiently so he can will what's about to materialize behind the door. He doesn't protest. We turn up in his chamber, vast and airy. To stretch, to breathe. With windows so the oxygen never runs out. I lead him to the bed, king-sized, the ebony duvet is without wrinkles from waiting to be used for years. We stand next to it, eye to eye, his fingers intertwined with mine. He hesitates.

“Do you want to be alone?”

“No. I wish for your company.”  

In unison we climb under the covers, his head finds its place over my heart to listen to its rhythmic counsel, our feet are touching, his much colder than mine. I shouldn't let him this close, but part of me wants to. It's not that we couldn't love each other, but he is an Endless and I'm something even more ancient. Neither of us can be distracted from our tasks by romance.  He longs for partnership that I can't give and I have to admit to myself, that I'm scared. One if not both of us would only end up hurting. Is that worth it for a short interruption of boundless love?

"Why?" He is starved for touch, ardently searches for my warmth, his arm sneaks around my torso, afraid I might refuse. “Have I asked you this before? Why?”

"Why what?" I smooth his locks out of his face, his features sublime. "Rest now."

"Why stay by my side if you do not harbour feelings for me as I do? Am I not tiring?” Speaking into the crook of my neck he presses closer.  “Why did you come here?"

"I do love you." He shudders, he heard this before, never in a way, he would have liked.

"You tear into me every time you say this, yet I still find you more beautiful than anything."

"In which one of my forms?" My nails scrape down his back, his muscles quivering, spine arching to meet my touch.

"In every one of them."  

One day. Maybe one day, when the universe doesn't need us as it does now. I can be his and he can be mine.

“Rest Dream Lord. Rest, I will wake you when the time is right.”

#netflix #morpheus x reader #reader insert #dream x oc #sandman #dream x reader #fic:assorodus

[rionas-path]

Chapter 10

Grave News

XCII. The silence persevered for a most unsettling duration Of time. Each heartbeat taking longer and longer, it seemed. Droplets of sweat running down her temples which all now gleamed In the low candle light. She was struck again by hesitation. After an eternity’s wait, a low rasp spoke: “Proceed, If you have courage, if not, you best turnabout with speed-” A capricious tone cut these imposing words short in their narration “Yet, knowing the stakes, we both know the cause of thy migration!”

XCIII. Her hair stood on end as she mustered her valorous tune From within. After all, this had been her idea all the while. With slowed steps, the doorway lurked closer and the once hostile Flow now caressed instead, dancing round in its humming croon. Her entry greeted her with a tragic image of a man That was the Tsar. He stood turned away from her, rather than Show his face; indeed, he appeared gaunt and could likely swoon At any exertion. His hooded rags were across his body strewn.

XCIV. Though of imposing stature, he seemed to not possess an aspect Of which their kin was oft renowned. His voice was filled with languor: “Do not be afraid now, for you’ve all but been warned! Our fate assured And mutual, felicitous for a demigod’s respect!” Thus, turned the ghastly image, presenting himself before The girl, who felt Aurianne herself turn away at the odious eyesore. This repulsion surprised the goddess, for she knew the prospect Of survival leaned on her talent for this fate to deflect.

XCV. He was an aberration of two worlds, wickedly tangled. High horns were finally revealed, the symbols of his holiness: Malformed – gleaming in two separate shades of ghostliness. One deeply blue, the other lightly violet and mangled. So too, his eyes: one blue, the other in purpurate flames. An errant curse ate at the side of his face on which the veins Of divine flow appeared, carving out his gaunt features. Spangled By chaotic deformities, The Tsar was by this bane entangled.

XCVI. Then his voice crackled into an upbeat sputter: “Delight! Incredulity! Thou’st come! Thou’st come!” He gushed vociferously Over the demigoddess: “I knew thou’dst come eventually!” Bemused, she wished to inquire, yet Aurianne scoffed with spite Before the girl could speak: “The Tsar has utterly declined! Don’t even seek the quest of sense that might be in his sick mind! Though I foresaw this narrative, his state does me affright, His souls discordant and dissonant, his time closest to midnight!”

XCVII. Still, Ríona was not so easily swayed and after a beat, She inquired the Tsar: “You had forecast my arrival?” A low groan came again along the attitude’s revisal: “Do not listen to the damned old fool! He hath lost all his wit Many a moon ago. Of course, he did not expect you, Alas, I did, for seventeen years, have I!” Such ire he spew Out, before letting out a breath and made his souls retreat. The perilous prospects of her dest’ny were now laid at her feet.

XCVIII. She finally made her retort: “Balthazar… then you must know Why I have come?” He grinned sorrowfully: “Indeed, wee damsel; And I regret to inform-” the god couldn’t start his counsel As he was cut short by the true, maddened, spirited bellow Of the Tsar: “No need for sad tales! I stand on the precipice Of a breakthrough! If only I had more of time’s blessedness! If only thou werst the Orb Maven which time could bestow And not a wretched warlord! Thence, I’d have something to show!”

XCIX. All this tension and commotion caused a slip and error grave In the mind of Ríona, for up till now, she hadn’t considered That a divine could take over the body unhindered. Yet, Aurianne knew this fact well, and waited to outbrave Her host when the occasion to act would finally appear; Albeit, for the time being, her mind was still not fully clear. The daze of dread which the sight upon the wretched Tsar gave, Still took hold and reminded her of the deal with the Grim Margrave.

C. “What breakthrough?” Ríona asked, who dared but creep slowly t’wards The raving man. He looked at the table behind him and smirked: “Break through Eternity itself! Years of research, of work, Of suffering: but not for nought! Gaze at my labour’s rewards!” With a slow shuffle, she neared the table before which he stood. There laid notes upon notes which studied every likelihood And ramblings on the very nature of all flow’s accords; Glyphs which channelled the power of all known holy records!

CI. Alas, before she could react, the souls swapped their control Again, and with unpredictable swiftness he caught her wrist. Surprised, she tried to pull away in order to resist Balthazar’s grip over her, though this effort required great toll On her body. In fear, she cried out: “What trick is this? Let go of me Or face my riposte! I know not your game, yet I beg you hear my plea!” The god replied in sinister glee: “Regrettably, young foal, I have a grudge to settle with your vessel’s other soul!”

CII. Aurianne; enraged, began to furiously tug at their reigns, Which were loosening from Ríona’s grip, as she wrestled with The other demigod. The goddess hammered words like a smith: “Thou mustest give to me control, surrender me these chains For but a time brief or else he shall crumble our wrist, I beg of thee, Ríona!” Unsure and under high mind mist, She let go, as the goddess crashed in like torrential rains Of Lonesome Eye! A mighty burst of terror shot through their veins!

CIII. “I knew, I never should had let thee breathe another breath The moment I had trialled thee; alas, we meet again!” Spoke wildly Aurianne; no single soul could her wrath contain. Still left in place, the old god of war began laughing at length: “And there art thee, finally! Long time since our last meeting, dear? I see the girl hast not tamed thy ferocity, that much is clear!” The two gods wrestled relentlessly, showing their mastery’s wealth, Right there and then, the witch did win! Ready to deal him death!

CIV. At that moment, Ríona grabbed their reigns again and regained Control of her figure. The goddess screamed for the girl to leap Out of the way, yet it was too late to evade the flow’s sweep Which ruptured from the god’s palm. She made an effort constrained, To stop the flow with a shield of magick matter, yet could not block The sharp brunt of the attack. This bolt of energy did knock Her back into the wall. Her head now felt heavily strained As it hit the cobblestone, leaving her soul’s vigour drained.

#riona's path #fantasy #dark fantasy #poetry #epic poetry #poem #epic poem #literature #writing

[potter-pavlikovsky-popchyk]

It’s terribly perfect, how I can recognize so much of myself in Theo and hate it. And yet even more so, relate with Boris. But try to focus on that so I don’t have to remember—which, I mean, eventually, like Theo with his grief, suddenly hitting him in waves, pounding over him—I find I’m suffocated by my past and all the hurt and even the hope I had snatched from me. I hate those nights I’m supposed to just go back to sleep so simply, but all I can do is loop in my head how pathetic it feels to miss my best friend(s) (even my abusive father). How sad it is, not living in the past per say because I am getting on, living, but still was ripped from it all so abruptly before I could grieve it. So, in that sort of traumatic feel of being all at once stuck in its black trickle memory of times I never thought I would be choked by, never foresaw the bitter coming through so evenly with the sweet, that it could bring a grown man to his knees to weep like a child, clutching at straws in mind as much as he does his pillow, in that memory of all those things lost but never forgotten.

I find I grow angry and hateful towards this inner hurt child of me all too often. When all he needs is that duality of me, my inner Boris, my attention, care, just to be there, not full of judgment of what I did or didn’t do, not finding reason or logic, not full of negativity like I’m already drowning in, but love, understanding that it can’t last forever, it’s just a memory, it’s just one more night of wetting bedding with the salt of me. To purify this bed I’ve died in every way one can time and time again. To make way for the good to come, even if that too ends the same one day. It’s not for us to know… but it wouldn’t change a thing. How I will open my heart again to someone new.

(I guess this sort of relates to this piece I wrote a while back under similar circumstances that hold a special place in my heart. Just me vibing in my Theo feels, what else is new. I’d also gotten up early that day and reflected on why I push away this sort of thing and tend to prefer being more like Boris despite a soul deep sadness that weighs on me just the same as Theo if I’m not careful (like Boris, I suppose.)

(Sharing since I found some comfort in these after writing that.)

(I’ve come to recognize that I think that’s the point of his character development, to push us to that point of being frustrated for him not having much and seeing that we’re often more like that than we care to admit, even if just emotionally, inside. Unhealed children are all too commonly walking around, trying their best, and we don’t even see it or the reason until we see how mean people can be towards Theo (characters like him). Don’t get me wrong I joke too, I get it. It is annoying at times, but we grow annoyed with ourselves in this way too. But I think it says something about those who joke when not understanding him… not seeing why he can’t move on. It’s a bit frustrating, but I always hope that others joke from a place of knowing, of getting how that feels. Like Boris being able to say crazy shit to him because, after all, they are in the same boat. Even if Boris learned how to smile and feel it to more of a level realness than Theo might have developed to.)

#tgf #The Goldfinch #Spotify #Theo decker appreciation post #theo decker #boris pavlikovsky #Theodore decker #im fine and so normal about this book and this album i swear #I really just wake up like hmmm think I’ll be Theo’s special brand of sad and reflective today #for why #idk #hate it #tbh #fml #ahahhahaha #fr tho

[neyxmessi]

i’m curious to know what ur theories are omg!! (on why ney left) but yes, we’ll truly never know it really did seem to come out of nowhere

Okay we’ll start off with my most probable theory:

1) the PSG game. Oh the Barca v. PSG comeback game. The Remontada. That game still makes me sick lol. It was a spectacular game. Arguably one of, if not, the biggest comeback in UCL history. Leo scored a penalty, but Neymar was the true genius of the game. Neymar scored an amazing free kick and penalty (which it’s so interesting that he took them too btw when normally Leo would take them). And he also provided the amazing assist to Sergio Roberto in literally the last minute to secure the win. However, that one photo of Leo went VIRALLLLL and he seemed to be getting all of the credit for the game. Part of me thinks that really pissed Neymar off, and he was literally in his prime if not getting to be there, and maybe he realized the only way to prove his greatness was to get out of a club with Lionel Messi there. So while he truly did love Leo as a person/teammate/idol, he was the one person standing in his way to achieving ultimate greatness. I think in the beginning he was truly about the team mentality and wanting to help Leo be the best (he literally said that in his debut), but Neymar isn’t the type of person to only strive to be that. He wants to the best (he’s always been quoted saying this too lol), and he wants to WIN. Him being the leader? Even better. If this was the reason, I don’t really blame him too much. I wish he never left, but underappreciation can really drive someone up a wall.

2) there is a chance that this move could’ve been prompted even earlier than when Neymar had left. Dani Alves joined PSG in 2017, and it was no surprise that he had urged Neymar to join him. He was even quoted once saying that the only way for Neymar to be the greatest was to get out of Leo’s shadow at Barca. I’m not saying he instilled the idea into his brain, but it seems like he was thinking what some other people were too.

3) the money. €222 million buy out clause is insane, and the wages PSG was paying Neymar was out of this world. Literally his move broke the market. There’s a chance that maybe that’s why he left (although I doubt it. Mans was making enough) unlesssssss his father had something to do with it.

4) the father. While Neymar’s dad said he never wanted Neymar to leave Barcelona, there’s a part of me that thinks that maybe he helped push the decision. He could’ve either wanted it for money, orrrrr there’s a chance that he could’ve pushed the idea into Neymar’s head that he needed to be the greatest. Potential constant comparisons between him and other players that made him feel like he wasn’t good enough. That he had to leave and bring a team to its first UCL to prove his worth. I’m not sure.

5) this is my delusional ass fanfic ass brain that should be taken LIGHTLY. But Neymar announcing for the first time he was thinking of leaving Barca for PSG at Leo’s wedding??? Um??? Who does that? At a wedding? At Leo’s wedding?? It’s interesting is it not? And the Instagram pictures he posted of the wedding afterwards and the caption… it was just iffy and unusual to me. Maybe the pain of staying would’ve been too much. I don’t know. (AGAIN TAKE THIS VERY LIGHTLY THERE IS A REASON WHY IT IS NEAR THE BOTTOM OF THIS LIST 😭😭 — delulu brain over here okay I am claiming absolutely nothing) Also, around this time Leo was getting REALLY close to Suarez. I wonder if Neymar felt abandoned somehow and that also made him want to leave too.

6) maybe he just didn’t believe in the team that much anymore? The 16/17 season was really bad in comparison to the prior one. Maybe he foresaw Barca’s downfall and wanted to get out before his reputation could’ve been ruined because of it.

Anyways these are all my dumb little theories. Take them with a grain of salt. I don’t know anything nor claim to know anything. But these are the best theories my brain could conjure up 🤷‍♀️

#anon asks

[the-one-who-lambs]

16, 21, and 24 of the fic writing asks?

16. What were you go-to writing songs?

Fuckin.. dead silence. Calm piano music or something at the very most.

21. Share your favorite piece of dialogue

THIS IS SO HARD GOD I'm gonna share a few

From "The Risen Lamb and the Fallen God", Chapter 1:

“By doing this, you only prepare me for the first opportunity I can seize to reclaim my crown.” The Lamb raised an eyebrow at him and didn’t hold back a haughty laugh. “As if you’ll ever be able to, even if you do heal. You fought me with all your godly might, summoned a metric fuckton of fireballs, and literally sent your eyes flying out of their sockets to get the best view of me wiping the floor with your furry ass.”

Get his ass, Lamb. That is all.

From "Shot Clock":

So instead of encouraging Narinder what to think, Shamura settled for encouraging him how to think. “The change you seek is already within you. I’m confident you’ll find your answer if you rethink what you know.” Narinder blinked once, then blinked again. “So you do want me to embrace change? Is that how you put it earlier?” Shamura nodded, tilting their head a little. “What’s so surprising?” “I was so sure that…” Narinder shook his head. If the Old Faith needed to change its ways to keep their family alive and together, then of course Shamura would understand. They had to. Everything they did was to protect all the five had built together. He just had to find a way to introduce resurrection, and death would not halt them. Siblings saved, prophecy avoided. “Never mind. I’ll keep thinking about it. I have too much to figure out right now, but I feel I know what I have to do.”

This fic is my take about how, exactly, the ball got rolling on Narinder's dissent. Shamura confides in Narinder about a troubling prophecy that seems to foretell the downfall of their family, and Narinder has been equally troubled by the stagnant nature of his domain. Perhaps if he seeks change, both problems may be answered? (Ha. Hahahaha. Dramatic irony drives every paragraph. They both come to very different conclusions about what change would actually entail, they both think the other shares their view, this instance of terrible miscommunication among many is going to destroy them.) I'd had the thought for a while that if Shamura foresaw the "Five becomes four... nothing" prophecy about the downfall of the Bishops, it's entirely possible that Narinder's act of heresy, introducing resurrection, may have been an attempt to save his family rather than destroy it. Narinder, after all, doesn't exactly tell his side of the story. Leshy, Heket, and Kallamar saw introducing resurrection as a betrayal and act of greed, Shamura maybe to a lesser extent since they put the blame of losing him on themself, but how reliable is the version of the story that the Bishops recount for us?

Last one, from "The Care and Keeping of Eldritch Gods," Chapter 15 (One of the chapters raising young Heket):

“You’ve all finished your tea? Good.” She whisked the dirty dishes away and began to pace around the table. “I called you here today, my fellow royals, because we have to discuss our alliance. The kingdom of heretics has been leading in the war, as you know. There’s no way we can sit back and waste our soldiers the way you two have been managing your armies. Last time I told you, attack them from the wings and then go to the middle. But you didn’t listen.” “Hey.” Narinder narrowed his eyes. “What are you saying? One more win and we will turn the tide of this war.” Kallamar shifted in his seat, shooting Narinder a quizzical look. Heket turned on her heel, climbed up on the table, and folded her arms triumphantly. “What I’m saying is… I’ve poisoned your drinks! Your time is running out and your power will be mine!” “What?” Kallamar folded his arms. “Time out. That’s not fair, Heket. You keep changing the rules of the game to make everything go your way.” Narinder, meanwhile, had already begun pretending to choke and sputter. Heket shrugged. “Yeah, so? Shamura said it’s okay to do things followers won’t like sometimes ‘cause they’re just gonna worship me anyway if I keep them in line.” Shamura, who had been peeking into Heket’s room for some time now, eased the door open. Heket glanced their way, but pretended to ignore them. “It takes practice,” Shamura explained, closing the door behind them and taking a seat on the floor. “You’re probably too young to understand it right now, but your crown lessons will begin soon and we can work on it.” “My realm…” Narinder whispered, his fists clenched as he collapsed to the ground. “My family… I’ve failed them all…” With an exaggerated strain in his gasp of air, he reached up towards Heket once more and let his arm fall limp.  Shamura had to grin at the sight. “Heket, may I join this game?” Heket glared at her oldest sibling. “No way. Mura’s not invited.” With that, she scooted off her table and walked over to Narinder. She made some sort of motion with her hands and provided sound effects to pretend she was stealing his power. Kallamar turned his head towards Shamura, and they gave him what they hoped was a reassuring smile. Still sprawled out on the ground, Narinder asked the question that Kallamar wouldn’t: “What did they do to you, Miss Priss?” But Heket shushed him. “Don’t talk, you’re dead.”

One of my favorite softer moments from this story. Narinder and Kallamar playing pretend with Heket-- Narinder being the ultimate cool big brother that he was once is rolls with everything and Kallamar picks out the plot holes lmao. The dialogue and dynamics here are very, very heavily taken from the way I would play pretend with my brother (2 years younger than me) and my sister (5 years younger) when she was little, before my youngest brother was born :) My sister was the boss/stage director, my brother would just go along with anything, and I'd be critiquing the story dynamics...

Also, the most ridiculous instance of foreshadowing I think I've ever written is included here lmao.

24. What’s something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story?

Honestly, something that always continues to surprise me is how many ideas I get for my story as I'm working on it. So no, they don't really change the story-- I intentionally start my fics with a structure and goals I stick with, but I tend to think of many important details and plot points as I write rather than as part of anything I've drafted beforehand. Most recent example I can think of: I decided to introduce Thenana, a follower who will become critically important to Narinder's character development in The Risen Lamb and the Fallen God, a couple chapters earlier than I had initially planned to (and the plan for the rewrite was already to introduce her earlier anyway)!

#hannah's rambles #THESE ARE SO FUN thank you Megsie!!!

[struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor]

pretty much just echoing what other anons are saying about the absolute lack of nuance that armys have fostered where anyone who has a negative opinion about anything the members do is just an uncultured hater who wants the entire wrath of stan twitter to fall on x member.

while i do think black armies are absolutely correct about the virtue signaling and pearl clutching that white armies tend to do when it comes to sexual references in hip hop/rap outside of bts and agree that it is largely based in racist stereotypes. i think the “bora glasses” are causing them to miss the point of a lot of the uproar. its not about lyrics being sexual bc this (for the most part) did not happen with latto’s verse. in addition, a lot of them hate to admit they find this language attractive bc its the kind of stuff we have been socialized to expect from men since we are little girls. i am latina and grew up around reggaeton (heavily influenced by rap and hip hop) where a min. 80% of the music is extremely degrading and objectifying of women. even as a queer adult woman in her late 20s while i acknowledge this issue with the genre (and have heard much more explicit things) a lot of that music is extremely nostalgic to me. so i understand the cognitive dissonance but i cannot accept that from men i expect better from (not JH obviously lol).

and yes, i do think this is a bad look for JK even if he didn’t sing or write that part bc either he’s aware of the meaning and has no problem with it or is that oblivious to not even know what someone is saying on his own damn song. the fact that an alternate version even exists with this collab tells me that the check cleared before someone in a board room went “actually maybe not”.

despite my deep respect for BTS throughout the years, at the end of the day I will always acknowledge that they are men. they are not some sexless unicorns raised in a place with no misogyny or gender roles, they are men and like most other men they engage in behavior that often betrays the respect of most women whether consciously or subconsciously. we simply may not see it bc they are celebrities with pretty curated online personalities. now, that doesn’t mean i think they’re secretly chauvinistic pigs but despite my respect for them i always keep a degree of distance bc they *could* be.

i will add that the “bora glasses” are a hell of a drug. the double standards when it comes to the members vs other celebrities is insane (and i dont even like most celebrities lol). i know not a single one of these armies would think twice about talking shit about a song like this if it were from anyone else and that’s what really disappoints me about what our spaces have turned into.

I really appreciate your perspective on what the previous anon said , given your own personal experiences and culture. I'm obviously not the best person to speak on this subject.

I agree that the "bora glasses" are a real thing. It seems to me that even "normal" Armys are complaining a bit about the song, however, which is good. But I don't know that the solo version exists simply because Hybe foresaw the original would upset people. They likely wanted to recreate with 3D what they did for Seven - two versions counting as one, or at least another version to boost streams apart from the instrumental. Since it didn't make sense to have a clean and explicit versions again, and because maybe they knew some fans hadn't liked Latto's verses or Seven being a feature, they used the same strategy they applied to TXT's Back For More recently, and recorded a solo version.

I also agree that BTS are men, so, like all men, they're probably a lot more insensitive and ignorant to sexism than we imagine, and say or do a lot of things that would disappoint us (though I don't believe they're secretly chauvinistic pigs at all).

Anyway, thanks for your fresh take!

#ask #bts #jungkook #text #thanks for the ask!

[makeste]

BnHA 326: What’s up Kids, It’s Me, Your Old Pal Stain

Previously on BnHA: Ochako shamed the U.A. Clown Mob into letting Deku go back inside his own fucking school by giving them an hour-long speech about how not to be humongous dickheads. Kouta and Gigantic Fox Lady saved the manga by being the only ones brave enough to give Deku a hug. Shouto was all “man, all this togetherness sure does remind me of that promise you made that we would handle Touya together which you immediately bailed on, doesn’t it, Dad.” Aizawa was all, “for the one and a half people out there who thought that my losing an eye and a leg might actually make me less sexy, I’m very happy to prove you wrong.” All Might was all, “[standing outside the U.A. fortress alone in the rain talking to someone or something??].” Like seriously, what was up with that though.

Today on BnHA: All Might is all “here I am in Kamino having a belated mid-life crisis because Deku abandoned me and I’m a terrible mentor and everything sucks and I hate myself.” Stain is all, “don’t make me come over there and give you a ten page speech about why you’re still the goat while menacingly holding you at swordpoint the entire time” because idk if you knew this guys, but Stain is pretty crazy actually. Anyway so he does that, and then All Might gets all emotional, and then the lady from chapter 92 shows up and gives All Might’s statue an encouraging pep talk, and then Horikoshi is all “and it even stopped raining lol can you believe this shit I’m not even a little bit subtle,” and he really isn’t. But I still got emotional anyway, because seeing people reassure All Might that everything he’s struggled for his entire life hasn’t been in vain just got to me okay. Horikoshi knows I am weak to the All Might feels and he just goes for the jugular every time, that bastard.

lmao. “in the neverending downpour, All Might is...” yeah, thank you, glad we’re getting right to that then

“All Might is driving 95 mph in his busted ass car in the pouring rain, is what he’s doing.” huh

so basically a day or two after his adopted child refused to accept the handmade bento that he packed with love, my man is out here acting like he’s got nothing to live for anymore. this sure bodes well for certain prophecies on which the clock is still ominously ticking down

his fucking face though omg. is it weird that I’m kind of hoping more people ambush him just because I think it’d be funny to see them get their asses kicked like the last bunch

(ETA: or maybe he will just stand there openly not giving a fuck and basically daring them to stab him!! get it together please All Might.)

side note, “anti-hero supporters” is such a strange way of saying “people who hate heroes”, which I’m assuming is what they actually wanted to say?? this makes it sound like it’s a group that really loves antiheroes. “these Hannibal stans have been a real menace lately. time to go deal with them”

ha ha ha, fucking ouch

are you really gonna do it Horikoshi you bastard. are you really going to let that be the final encounter between the two characters whose relationship you once described as the vertical axis of the entire fucking story. are you really gonna?? huh??

huh

you’re telling me you were driving 112 mph and you still didn’t get there in time. you’re losing your touch old man. lol Todo’s ice is almost fully melted already, how late were you

(ETA: so apparently this is taking place after the end of chapter 325, meaning he went to U.A., hung out for a bit, saw the kids come back with his bedraggled half-dead protégé in tow, watched as they shamed the civilians into some long-overdue character development, and then was all “welp, time to go argue with the hero-hating faction or something because I’m feeling useless.” and Edge just let him go, just like that. though to be fair I have to imagine it’s pretty hard to say no to All Fucking Might.)

also belated lol at the fact that the kids were all “yeahhhhhhh we are definitely not gonna touch that thing, let’s just leave it here, he doesn’t need it anyway.” probably the right call to make since they couldn’t get a hazmat team on such short notice

fuck. ha ha ha fucking ouch part two

All Might please put that thing down before you get gangrene. also yeah, you dropped the ball, good for you to acknowledge it. nobody’s perfect and you did your best. but yeah you could have handled a lot of things completely differently. but I still love you

is Horikoshi really putting this flashback here. are you serious. what kind of fucking sadist

look, I swear I’m not one of those people that runs up and down the street shouting “DEATH FLAG!!” at every third panel lol. but this shit screamed Death Flag when we originally got it, and it’s screaming DEATH FLAG!!! even more now. like with the capital letters and exclamation marks and all. and that’s just a fact. I don’t like it but that’s how it is

ffkdjslk

“DID YOU READ THE SIGN??!” Horikoshi asks while zooming in maniacally because he thinks we’re blind or something. lol what

-- though actually, it only just occurred to me that this sign is actually written in English. I never really paid attention up until now and had been assuming it was written in Japanese and translated by the scanlators, but the writing here is clearly part of the original image. anyway so maybe that’s why he’s zooming in?? just to make sure everybody pays attention lol

okay fuck this

see, this is the whole problem right here. once again All Might is all on his own. Deku’s self-destructive angst spiral was fortunately brought to a grinding halt because he actually has support from his friends and family and teachers and classmates. but All Might never had that same kind of support, and it’s made all the difference between the two of them, and not in a good way. Katsuki wasn’t wrong when he said All Might and Deku were both cut from the same cloth. but now when it’s All Might’s turn to go all “I WALK A LONELY ROAD~~” once again, there’s nobody in sight

just, after forty plus years of him carrying this torch, I just wish someone would finally come along to let him know he doesn’t have to. all those things that he wanted to say to Deku are also things that he needs and deserves to hear himself. Aizawa was making a little progress there, but now he’s got his sad zombie cloud boyfriend situation to deal with, and we can’t expect him and his perfect hair to solve all our problems. someone else has gotta step up

oh my god

“you rang?” never mind I take it all back sob

omg why am I laughing. shit

this man truly has the best PR game in the series. we were truly convinced he was gonna suddenly become a good guy and defend All Might against the other villains or some nonsense. as if this wasn’t the same man who decided on a whim that Iida Tensei deserved to be paralyzed, and that his fifteen-year-old brother deserved to die for daring to be upset about it

lol even All Might is all “I genuinely never saw this coming” lmao

just want to say, for the record, I have always harbored a very sensible hatred toward Stain. feeling very vindicated right now. good job Past Me

adsfklwkfsdwgkj

ffffwefjslkg. ghsdlkg. dsfkkkslkjldwkjrg

STAIN: heard you talking shit old man

ME: smh that’s what I thought you’d say you dumb fucking Stain

STAIN: how dare you talk about All Might that way

ME: gljfljgk

(ETA: in hindsight I have no idea how I didn’t clue in sooner that he didn’t recognize him -- or, well, ~didn’t recognize~ him, to be more accurate lol. I think it was the whole “is that a slight against the heroes?” thing that threw me. Viz’s translation makes it much clearer that he’s offended on behalf of All Might specifically, not heroes in general. anyways.)

sob. so All Might is all “yeah I don’t blame you for not recognizing me in this sweet leather jacket”

good thing he still knows how to do this party trick

A+ reflexes on Stain’s part presumably pulling the sword back a few inches to keep this dumbass from impaling himself with his whole pufferfish routine. can you imagine if that was the gruesome death Nighteye foresaw. and he was just too embarrassed to say anything

lol anyways guess I was wrong about Stain everyone

way to fucking go, Past Me. you really biffed this one

oh wait

Stain sure is one wacky rollercoaster ride

oh fuck me lol I forgot how much I did not miss this

(ETA: “this here is the sacred ground where All Might gave up the last of his power and turned into a shriveled old man!! please ignore the part where I admit to knowing all about that, and yet pretend not to recognize said man when he’s standing two feet in front of me.”)

Past Me, I know we’ve had our ups and downs these past ninety seconds, but I’m really starting to think you were on to something. this dude has always been kind of insufferable. always acting like his high horse is a fucking giraffe when it’s actually a Shetland pony

dammit now he’s got All Might going off on a depressed monologue

oh my god my heart

shit

why the fuck does that hit so hard. he became a hero because he couldn’t bear to just sit back and let bad things happen to people who didn’t deserve it. I mean that’s basically the same as every hero ever, right? so why does it still hit so fucking hard every single time though. what is it about seeing someone so determined to stand up for other people and fight on their behalf. it just never loses its impact no matter how many times I see that determination mirrored in so many of my favorite characters

“I wanted to make the world a better place.” omg. but you did, though. like seriously, I feel like people are always dogging on him for not being 100% perfect, and fandom really doesn’t give him enough credit for everything he still managed to accomplish. this man came of age at a time when Japan was by all accounts a total shitshow, and singlehandedly managed to bring about an era of peace that lasted for four fucking decades. can you imagine having peace for that long?? that’s longer than I’ve been alive. shit

and he gave people hope. he inspired them and protected them and made them feel safe. and no, he couldn’t save everyone, because he’s only one fucking dude (and also because the whole time AFO was also out there desperately working to undermine him so that he could keep preaching his narrative of “heroes are bad actually”). but you know what he did do, is inspire multiple new generations of heroes who, if they can all manage to work together, will finally be able to accomplish everything he never could

so yeah. forty years of peace, and inspired the “that’s how we all became the greatest heroes” generation -- that’s a fucking win in my book. talk about having a net positive impact on the world. lol anyways now I’m all fired up and ready to fight anyone who tries to talk any shit about you, All Might

“but what if I talk shit about myself” okay listen up All Might I’m gonna need you to try just a little bit harder to work with me here okay. please calm down and stop blaming yourself for every single bad thing that’s ever happened in the world. do you remember that time Bakugou was blaming himself for Kamino, and you gave him a hug and told him it wasn’t his fault, and that he was only a boy, and that even though he was strong, even strong people can struggle with the burdens they place on themselves, and that you were sorry for not seeing that earlier? do you remember all of that? that’s what I want someone to tell you too, dammit. anyway please stop breaking my heart please and thanks

wtf

are you dead All Might

um

I don’t even have the slightest idea what’s happening lol

oh snap did he grab him so they could hide??

hold the fucking phone. don’t tell me this person in the background with the umbrella is here to actually do something decent??

oh my godddd

and here come the feels. oh boy. okay don’t mind me, I’m just gonna sit here sobbing over this fictional lady and her simple act of kindness in this weekly shounen manga that I care about way too much

FUCKING DAMMIT AND HERE’S A SECOND HELPING

DON’T MIND ME, I’M JUST GETTING DISPROPORTIONATELY EMOTIONAL OVER THIS WOMAN’S DETERMINATION TO HONOR A MAN WHO SACRIFICED EVERYTHING TO SAVE HER AND COUNTLESS OTHERS. I’M JUST HAVING SOME FEELS OVER HERE ABOUT HER HEARTFELT, DOESN’T-EVEN-KNOW-ANYONE-ELSE-IS-WATCHING FEELINGS OF GRATITUDE THAT COMPELLED HER TO COME OUT HERE AND MAKE THIS SMALL BUT POWERFUL GESTURE. I’M JUST OUT HERE GETTING ALL PROFOUNDLY WORKED UP ABOUT STATUE MAINTENANCE AND THE HUMAN RACE. NEVER MIND. JUST IGNORE ME AND CARRY ON

holy shit. I was not even remotely prepared. you can’t just do that to me. you can’t just leave all these death flags on my lawn and then suddenly shift gears to show me the best of humanity in a chapter where I was expecting the worst. that fucks a person up lol

OH ARE WE STILL GOING

my heart. you see that, All Might. your legacy is so much more powerful and meaningful than you think

...has. has Stain actually been giving All Might a pep talk this entire time

I give up lol. this dude is a fucking enigma

YAYYY

it may just be a metaphor panel, but I’ll take it lol. I missed them. nice to see the traffic light trio front and off-center. I know the whole “this is the story of how we all became the greatest heroes” thing had left some questioning whether certain characters would continue to play a central role in the narrative, and hopefully this will help to ease those concerns just a bit

anyway, so idk if it’s getting a bit chilly down there in hell, but damned if Stain didn’t just give an actual decent fucking speech

I have to say, earlier when I was whining about All Might not having a support squad, I really was not expecting Stain to be the one to come over and pat his head and reassure him that he made the world a better place

-- okay LISTEN

YOU CAN’T JUST COME INTO MY HOUSE AND HIT ME WITH THOSE ALL MIGHT TEARS AGAIN GODDAMMIT THIS ISN’T FAIR. my god. first 317 and now this

holy fucking shit

“I’m just gonna pretend like I haven’t been stalking him for two days and didn’t see the entire Deku bentogate thing go down, and then I’ll give him the whole big speech that I rehearsed, and then I’ll turn around and be all ‘BUT IF YOU’RE A TRUE HERO’, and then I’ll toss him the super-secret AFO wifi password that I stole from Tartarus. god I’m such a badass. fucking give myself chills”

so basically what you’re telling me is that this whole time my “what’s up kids” characterization of Stain from this shitpost has actually been 100% accurate. just want to make sure I’m understanding this right. okay then

“and then I’ll dramatically spin around and be all NOW COME KILL ME BITCH”

it must be so much fun to write Stain. drawing this coked-out maniac who talks like a chatbot that was trained to speak by reading Alan Moore monologues. that must be a trip

anyway so All Might is still crying, the awesome lady from chapter 92 is admiring her handiwork totally oblivious to the batshit insanity going on fifty meters to her right, and it’s finally stopped raining lol

“THE RAIN WAS A METAPHOR YOU SEE” yes, yes, we got it lol. thanks for that Horikoshi. don’t think we needed any help putting the pieces together on that one but I appreciate the effort

so that’s the end! and as I mentioned in another post, I had the count off by one chapter, but next week should be cliffhanger week! so break out your U.A. Traitor bingo cards, friends and fiends. either that or something else happens that I’m completely not expecting at all. which, based on my success rate with Stain predictions, I’d say is more than likely lol

mmm but anyway, so now that the Hug Deku 2021 campaign has finally come to an end, what’s it gonna take to get a hug for my struggling bento-preparing jacket-rocking world-weary death-flag-waving husband who is the worthiest man to ever live and deserves the fucking world, goddammit

#bnha 326 #all might #yagi toshinori #stain (bnha) #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

[edenmemes]

assassin’s creed valhalla starters

words within ‘()’ are additional, optional choices! more maybe to be added at a later date. some n/sfw present. 

❝ you should see the other man. he got the worst of it. ❞   ❝ and who better to lead us to glory than me? ❞ ❝ i am most at home helping others. ❞       ❝ i’ve waited long enough for you, and you for me. ❞   ❝ thank you for not saying anything about my past. ❞       ❝ know that however far away, you’re always in my thoughts. ❞   ❝ when you see your god, tell them i sent you. ❞   ❝ what you make up in muscles, you’re lacking in spine. ❞   ❝ i almost envy you, to see the world through such a muddy glass and live with such petty concerns. ❞   ❝ i smell the stink of a dozen kingdoms in your beard. ❞   ❝ this feud is not yours, yet you fight it all the same. i find that strange. ❞   ❝ by the look on your face, you have lost your will to live. ❞   ❝ my arms are numb from battle. does it need any dressing?    do you think it is a serious wound? ❞   ❝ oh dear. this is not how i foresaw things. not at all! ❞   ❝ should we take this to your chamber? ❞   ❝ i want this. i want you. ❞   ❝ turn around, walk away, and you keep your insides inside. ❞   ❝ stay back! back! i will fight you! ❞   ❝ you look like reddened shit. what happened? ❞   ❝ i have always wanted to experience the world as you do. ❞   ❝ you come like a valkyrie out of a fog. but i have no dead to give you. ❞   ❝ all right, stay close and do as i do. ❞   ❝ home. or...it was home, once. now it is nothing but bone. ❞   ❝ i’ll have no qualms wiping clean your grin. ❞   ❝ just take care. such hatred can make you careless. ❞   ❝ away from your table for a day and you are already lusting for blood. ❞   ❝ if i did not know any better, i would say you are teasing me. ❞   ❝ the dream of new lands is a powerful lure. ❞   ❝ i love climbing up here. makes me feel as high as a raven. ❞   ❝ if i don’t find your horse, i will steal you a new one. ❞   ❝ i feel somewhat trapped. in this room, in this settlement, in this life. ❞   ❝ you are lost in a sea-storm of your own making. ❞   ❝ the poet in you sings once again. ❞   ❝ tonight, we will eat and drink like gods and wake in a kingdom made new. ❞   ❝ i wish i understood you better. for those i do not understand, i do not trust. (and i cannot stomach a lack of trust.) ❞ ❝ i’ve been called worse. ❞   ❝ you have nothing to fear from me. i bear you no ill will. ❞   ❝ you are a shadow of your father. weak and witless. ❞   ❝ what is this? is this...are we in hell? ❞   ❝ keep company with kings and you will soon have a crown of your own. ❞   ❝ a toothless cub may grow to be a dangerous wolf. ❞   ❝ you are far too young to speak so wise. ❞   ❝ i need clear, sound judgement. i need you. ❞   ❝ kind and courageous people live the best lives, but it can be a difficult path to keep. ❞ ❝ i want to say...i love you. and i have for some time. ❞ ❝ you smell that? the stink of jealousy. (of our budding friendship, i think). ❞   ❝ ah, while i have you, i’m reminded...i have this for you. ❞   ❝ your lies are just like you. big and bold. ❞   ❝ don’t excuse yourself. you enjoy this too much. ❞   ❝ you've come back. why are you wasting your time with me? ❞   ❝ care to sing a song? helps me pass the time. ❞   ❝ that is twice you have earned my admiration. ❞   ❝ you have only the setting sun to tell you when to stop. ❞   ❝ i want to know what you know. name your price. ❞   ❝ people like you deserve something worse than death. ❞   ❝ they called me a lout, a disgrace. they were right. ❞   ❝ i will have to get used to watching the sights of war from afar now. ❞   ❝ there’s no other way. fight or hide. it’s up to you. ❞   ❝ do not think me a coward. i am not afraid of war. ❞   ❝ friendships end. often at the point of a spear. ❞ ❝ i will make you beg as your father begged. ❞   ❝ (until that time,) it would be best to keep all discussions about...    about us to yourself. ❞ ❝ without you i would have lost my way a thousand times. ❞   ❝ you have no other friends. so tread lightly here. ❞   ❝ be it a blessing or a curse, family is always first. ❞   ❝ let’s not walk too far with that idea. i need you right where you are. ❞   ❝ you bested me. yet, i’m the one left standing. ❞   ❝ it’s a pleasure to meet you at least. ❞   ❝ you and your people here have done more for me than i could ever repay. ❞   ❝ you have my highest respect, regard, and trust. ❞   ❝ you’re not shy, are you? ❞   ❝ if we do this, you’ll earn the right to call me friend ten-thousand fold. ❞   ❝ does this have the stench of betrayal to you? ❞ ❝ today has meant so much. we rode, we fought, we drank, we laughed. (you showed me your world.) ❞       ❝ your end was written the moment you came for me. ❞   ❝ i am a sellsword. i ask what i please, and i take what i’m owed. ❞ ❝ you move and i will take your eyes. you hear me? ❞   ❝ i will leap first. on my word, you must follow. ❞   ❝ many times i wished to tell you. wished to say what was in my heart and what i desired. (but duty kept me from it.) ❞   ❝ these wounds will heal quickly. you’re lucky. ❞   ❝ anything to help you feel at home. ❞   ❝ our friendship is the best thing to come from this mess. ❞   ❝ you will be remembered for this, for years to come. ❞   ❝ i thought i had lost you. for good this time. ❞   ❝ you have shown me a great kindness. it is only fitting that i do the same. ❞   ❝ the mess you’re in...you don’t know the half of it. ❞   ❝ you have drawn a dark conclusion about me, haven’t you? (that is all well and good. i’ve drawn some about you as well.) ❞   ❝ you seem...strangely familiar. ❞   ❝ here i am, an upright man who never once learned how to bend the knee. and yet...i shall try. ❞ ❝ that’s a bread knife. do you mean to butter me? ❞   ❝ is that not something you worry over? ❞   ❝ a blind pursuit of vengeance has made you predictable. ❞   ❝ no matter where you are, or how far you travel, i will hunt you down. ❞   ❝ i came for you, looking for a friend and ally. ❞   ❝ people change.    it may be that you change with them, or you go your separate ways. ❞   ❝ i wish you whatever peace you may find in this new life you’ve found. ❞   ❝ i want your word: you will follow my orders. ❞   ❝ the day is new, and the air is bracing. are you ready for the fight ahead? ❞   ❝ er...good to meet you as well? ❞   ❝ what riches are worth so much misery, and the deaths of honorable men and women? ❞   ❝ my destiny is mine to weave. ❞   ❝ my road forward has been a muddy one. slick with blood and tears. (but we can reach its end together.) ❞   ❝ it is a wise leader who considers the needs of others. ❞   ❝ i think my mouth has gotten me in enough trouble today. ❞   ❝ at the end of all things, you will find yourself with nothing but your regrets. ❞   ❝ you saw fit to keep me guessing through your fits of madness. ❞   ❝ by all the gods, what was that? ❞   ❝ i was...restless. a quiet walk alone clears the head. ❞   ❝ when winter is past, summer will come and wind you in a flowered skirt, for you are beauty and shall not wither. ❞   ❝ ...unless you had a more interesting day planned for us? ❞   ❝ i do hope you see it now, for all you have done for me. ❞   ❝ your passion, your strength. i have never met such a burning soul. ❞   ❝ i have no guilt nor regret for what we have done, but we should be careful. ❞   ❝ i see before me a person full of passion, vigor, and a love for their people. ❞   ❝ if i wanted to hear you talk shit, i’d cut out your tongue and shove it up your ass. ❞   ❝ you! you look stronger than most of the others. ❞   ❝ your hatred for me burns bright. i could warm my balls on it. ❞   ❝ you’re quite like your arms: incredibly thick. ❞   ❝ i fought as i do, as hard as i do, to survive. (for i know what awaits us in the end. only darkness.) ❞   ❝ a shameful trick. you are your father’s child. ❞   ❝ you destroyed my life. i will take yours. ❞   ❝ you snore a little, like a wounded bear. ❞   ❝ that’s when i knew i would live and die for you. ❞   ❝ i’m going to pretend your last words were taken by the wind. ❞   ❝ i might still kill you yet, if your prattling doesn’t cease. ❞   ❝ you are weak like your father was weak. (you dance better than you fight.) ❞   ❝ have you ever seen muscles as massive as mine? ❞   ❝ i’m honored by your faith in me. and your confidence. ❞   ❝ after my missteps, i worry what you must think of me. ❞   ❝ with so much blood in the water and death in the air, i’d like to know your name and purpose. ❞ ❝ i have a good feeling about this place. ❞   ❝ you helped me reclaim what i had lost in myself. ❞       ❝ you speak of honor. where’s yours? ❞       ❝ you will throw away all reason to defend what you sworn to. ❞       ❝ you really are like a hero out of folk tales. ❞       ❝ how much would you sacrifice to be freed of fate’s shackles? (would you give your tongue, your hand, your sight?) ❞   ❝ there’s no power strong enough to do what you say. ❞       ❝ please, you must fight for me.    who knows what vile people might come to harm me? ❞   ❝ i have no need to count my kills. they number too many. ❞   ❝ i appreciate you for all of your qualities. ❞ ❝ not even the gods can change fate. ❞       ❝ i think it is time i take my leave. ❞ ❝ you really thought my life was in danger? (and you risked your own life...) ❞ ❝ the path ahead is bright, with glory at its end. ❞ ❝ it is easy to lose one's way on the road to glory. do not let false victories blind you to what is true. ❞ ❝ the act of leaving so beloved a home, there is a sadness to it. ❞       ❝ so there’s nowhere...you call home? ❞   ❝ all things end. ruins are not a warning, they are a testament. ❞   ❝ be nice to sleep in a real bed when this is over. ❞   ❝ in my sleep i dream. and in my dreams i see an end to the doom that will grip the earth once again. ❞   ❝ even when we win, we lose. ❞   ❝ i am as good with my lips, as i am with my tongue. ❞   ❝ is this your idea of a pleasant ride through the country? ❞   ❝ no whispering god brought me here. i brought myself. ❞   ❝ i would like very much to pass some time with you. ❞   ❝ ...and that’s how i got that scar. ❞   ❝ do i now haunt your dreams? ❞   ❝ it was never in their character to lead, it was always within yours. ❞   ❝ so easily wounded by words. imagine the ruin my axe would inflict on your flaccid ego. ❞   ❝ i have felt this way for some time now. i care for you. ❞   ❝ i have not felt safe since then. not really. ❞   ❝ how long have you been chasing me? seventeen winters? eighteen? ❞   ❝ you are not always to be trusted. your passions overcome you. ❞   ❝ i like you. you may help me here or step on me...and by the look of you i’d welcome either. ❞   ❝ it is good to have you in this fight. ❞   ❝ you need only know my impressive scale and flawless build. ❞   ❝ i am better than any man here. ❞   ❝ i can tell by looking at you, you are not a great warrior. (you know it too, there is no reason to deny this.) ❞   ❝ i am looking for honor, and have become lost as a result. ❞   ❝ many apologies. you are no child, simply a frail and fully-grown fool. ❞   ❝ i was stupid, selfish, reckless, blind, boneheaded, and i smell like blood and shit. ❞ ❝ anything to say for the mess you led us to? ❞   ❝ how was your...first kill? ❞   ❝ you squirm like that and my axe will miss your neck! unpleasant for both of us. ❞   ❝ i know you would defy me to the death, fighting for a glorious end.     that i will not allow. ❞   ❝ most men choose to be loud or stupid. impressive, that you managed both. ❞   ❝ you are a great warrior. conquerer of this land and that of your birth. ❞   ❝ you’re chasing shadows like a madman howling at the moon! ❞   ❝ quite a hit you took. how many were lost? ❞   ❝ well fought! even if your wits were somewhat rattled. ❞   ❝ we suffered no losses in this fight, and the men who humiliated us are dead. what is there to say? ❞   ❝ i would like to be close to you. ❞   ❝ if you are a warrior with honor running like sunlight in your veins, then you may help me fulfill my destiny. ❞ ❝ you are a long way from any warm hearth, warrior. Is this where you call home? ❞ ❝ am i to go the rest of my days without love or attention? i think not. ❞   ❝ the gods favor you. they always have. ❞   ❝ the others, they are like clubs. blunt and ungainly, you are nimble, like a knife. ❞   ❝ people with eyes that gleam like yours are always up to something more. ❞   ❝ only a fool stays awake all night worrying. you are tired when you get up, and the problem is still not solved. ❞   ❝ i liked you from the first. i saw something in you that captivated me. (as if a forgotten memory of an old friendship had suddenly resurfaced.) ❞   ❝ you've done nothing but give me your blind word! ❞   ❝ did you bring me any treasure? ❞ ❝ the woodsmoke from your firepit does sting the eyes. but the warmth is welcome. ❞ ❝ it is not something i can speak on. or wish to. ❞ ❝ i'm with you. only say the word. ❞ ❝ until we cut off this serpent's head, it will poison us, day by day, drop by drop. ❞ ❝ get some rest and return here at first light. ❞ ❝ i missed having you at my side. how i wished i could have taken you along on my travels. ❞ ❝ i do not like this, but i will not stop you. ❞ ❝ i have waited too many years for this day. when ___ stands before us, give me the final blow. ❞ ❝ why do you carry such a useless burden? let it go. ❞ ❝ i have waited years for this, but i will not risk losing it through rashness. ❞ ❝ i cannot fathom your game. you are either a young fool...or deceptively wise. ❞ ❝ your confidence blinds you to so much in plain sight. ❞   ❝ it’s good to be here, with you and your people. (i feel my life has found a new road.) ❞   ❝ there has always been war, even among the gods. ❞       ❝ my honor has been stained. until it's wiped clean, i want nothing else. ❞ ❝ i lack the patience for pole fishing. i would have better luck with my bow. ❞   ❝ if we tell all our stories, we’ll be here for a week. ❞ ❝ can you teach me the art of archery? ❞   ❝ bury the past. build the future. ❞       ❝ i missed you. your clear head and your courage. (we have not had enough of both in recent months.)   ❞   ❝ i have a good feeling this war is near its end. ❞ ❝ explain in plain words why you have willfully disobeyed my commands. (do you mock me?) ❞   ❝ the gods favor you. they always have. ❞   ❝ my love for you rises tall and strong, like the tree of life. ❞   ❝ the prize is some of my time. (a walk in nature, maybe more if that is where our conversation takes us.) ❞ ❝ together, we are unstoppable. ❞ ❝ it is natural to fear change. to resist it. (but all things change, and all things end.) ❞ ❝ you said nothing of this to me, not a word. ❞ ❝ so long as men and women fight to secure honor and freedom, their allegiance hardly matters to me. ❞ ❝ i care for you. i do not know how to say it any other way. ❞   ❝ love can burn brighter near death. ❞ ❝ i knew this would be difficult, but sometimes the weight bears down heavily. ❞ ❝ you are young and still foolish, so i will spare you your life. (but cross me again or harm anyone i cherish, and you will join your friends in hell.)   ❞ ❝ if you are as brave as you appear, you will come. ❞ ❝ this is not a natural quiet. it's as if a curse has befallen this place. ❞ ❝ there was a curse here long before i came along. ❞ ❝ we’ll forge a warrior from your softness, hammered on the anvil of war. ❞ ❝ you are different than the kind my flights of fancy attract. burdened, decorated and…delicate. ❞ ❝ i do not know what else to say. m-my memories are faint, hazy. ❞ ❝ how are you doing? you survived a serious blow. ❞   ❝ we’ll weave our sagas together, thread upon thread. ❞ ❝ i try to use my knowledge to help others. i am only a threat to those who fear the unknown. ❞   ❝ slap some moss on that gash and wrap it well. ❞   ❝ a knife to the back is a wound that never heals. ❞       ❝ with me you have wisdom! glory! power! what more do you need? ❞       ❝ if your hell is real, i’m glad you’ll get to see it. ❞   ❝ to fight beside such legends is an honor. (i've only heard tales of your conquests. now i get to live them.) ❞   ❝ i have tried to live well. it is enough that the gods know that. ❞ ❝ a cloud hangs over you. is something wrong? ❞   ❝ you have plunged my city into chaos. ❞   ❝ my sword is gore-greedy. i am ready to fight. ❞   ❝ accept your fate and die a coward, here before your people... and i will spare the rest. ❞   ❝ you would take the rescue for yourself, so the victory song is written about you? ❞   ❝ kneel, and i will spare your life. ❞   ❝ it has been some time. what brings you so far to see me? ❞

#rp meme #roleplay meme #roleplay starters #long post for ts /

[robininthelabyrinth]

Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 10 - ao3 -

Lan Qiren was only made aware that Wen Ruohan had fixed things when he realized that two weeks had gone by without anyone saying anything about him personally and had, out of a sense of morbid curiosity, asked one of his teachers about it.

“Oh, didn’t you hear?” his teacher asked, nose deep in one of the musical scores they’d put together for the array project, hunting for the flaws. “The sworn brother business was just part of one of his schemes to gain additional power amongst the Great Sects.”

Having been involved in it, Lan Qiren wasn’t so sure about that. “What do you mean, honored teacher?”

“He’s been finding ways to form new ties with all the Great Sects, not just ours,” his teacher explained. “It’s all come out; some very clever people figured it out. There’s a new trade agreement with the Jiang sect that both sides were keeping hushed up, something going on with the head of the Nie sect that the Nie sect disciples are being especially close-mouthed about, and, of course, his new connection with the Jin sect…it’s really not that surprising that he decided to find a way into our Lan sect by trickery.”

His teacher said it casually, as if of course Lan Qiren's sworn brotherhood had been formed by a slightly underhanded maneuver rather than torture or rape or anything like that, and while of course that was in fact true, Lan Qiren was stunned by the fact that what passed for common knowledge in the cultivation world had been flipped on its head in such a short time.

Truly, Wen Ruohan’s cunning was boundless. It was a little frightening.

“Say,” his teacher added. “As his sworn brother, you’ll be attending the wedding, won’t you? You should bring back some stories!”

Lan Qiren stared blankly. “…what wedding?”

It turned out that Wen Ruohan’s new connection with the Jin sect was through a marriage. The bride wasn't surnamed Jin, that would be too much for most people to tolerate without some sort of excuse; she was instead from a powerful subsidiary sect that swore allegiance to the Wen sect, in keeping with Wen Ruohan’s preference for his own people above anyone else, but her mother was a branch cousin of the Jin sect and everyone said that it was obviously meant as a way to bind the sects together. They said Wen Ruohan had spoken openly of his desire for sons – as usual, no one mentioned the names of those of his descendants already in his sect’s memorial hall – and that there were high hopes associated with the union on both sides. The Jin sect was said to be already parading around the marriage as their newest political victory, trying to use the connection to their best advantage.

“How long has this been planned, do you think?” Lan Qiren asked Lan Yueheng, mostly out of lack of other people to ask; unsurprisingly, Lan Yueheng shrugged.

“It’s an engagement,” he said disinterestedly. “My cousin says the negotiations for an engagement can be as long or as short as everyone wants it. But surely no one would make a lifetime decision like that lightly? Not to mention an alliance between sects, however implicit. It must have been planned a long time ago.”

Lan Qiren wasn’t so sure. There was always the ambiguous situation between Wen Ruohan and Lao Nie to consider, and given the way Lao Nie had spoken during his visit, it sounded as if he had encouraged Wen Ruohan to come up with some clever way out of the situation, rather than suggesting that one already existed.

Moreover, he wasn’t sure that Wen Ruohan considered a marriage to be a lifetime decision. Hadn’t he been married before, had sons before? It was only that they had all died…

“Lan-er-gongzi!” A runner came up to him, saluting. “The Sect Leader asks that you report to the hanshi at once.”

“That’s probably your invitation,” Lan Yueheng said, sounding mildly disapproving – undoubtedly he thought weddings were a waste of time compared with doing experiments. Taking inspiration from his work with Lan Qiren in merging math and music, he’d recently expanded his interests from mathematics to alchemy, and Lan Qiren grimly foresaw many exploding furnaces in the Lan sect’s immediate future. At least they had some out-of-the-way places for him to work, or else there'd also be a lot of punishments for violating the rules about too much noise in Lan Yueheng's personal future. “It’ll probably make you miss the first week of this season’s classes, too…well, try not to be too bored.”

Sadly, Lan Qiren did not think being bored would be an option.

Sure enough, when he arrived at the hanshi where his father and brother were waiting alongside several sect elders, the subject of discussion was the invitation he had received to attend the wedding.

“As Sect Leader Wen’s sworn brother, naturally you must attend,” his brother told him. “We will also be sending a delegation from the Lan sect to attend on our behalf officially, but your position is different. You must be careful not to offend anyone.”

Lan Qiren saluted. “I will do my best.”

“Sect Leader Wen will not be kind if you lose face for him, especially at his wedding, even if it is inadvertent - or even if what you do is perfectly correct by our standards,” one of the other elders, one of the older teachers, the well-respected if sleepy one, said. He sounded concerned on Lan Qiren's behalf, which Lan Qiren appreciated. “You must especially take care not to offend his new bride. Even where the marriage is made for the purpose of power and there is no expectation of love, a man does not like to have disturbances in his back courtyard.”

“Especially if the stories are true and Sect Leader Wen hopes for sons,” the teacher in swordsmanship responded, his voice a little acidic. He was still unhappy with Lan Qiren over what had happened during their visit to the Nightless City; Lan Qiren did his best to avoid him whenever possible. “I doubt Sect Leader Wen will persist in trying to raise one of our children once he has one of his own.”

That explained the sour expressions on the faces of his brother and some of the elders, Lan Qiren thought. They had hoped to use him to manipulate Wen Ruohan, though the exact method of how they would have done so escaped him no matter how he analyzed the words he had overheard that night in the hanshi, and Wen Ruohan had neatly evaded their snare with a countermove of his own – as with weiqi, so with politics, he assumed. A disappointment, as always.

“A brotherhood is for life,” Lan Qiren’s father said, voice distant as always, neutral as always. “There are ten months at minimum before any son is born, and all the years after; even if Sect Leader Wen forgets about his obligations, that does not mean that we must. There will be other opportunities.”

“Provided Qiren does not provide grounds for Sect Leader Wen to abjure the relationship,” his brother interjected.

“I will try my best not to do so,” Lan Qiren said again, stiff as always, though he suspected his brother was simply stating a fact rather than casting doubt on him. “When should I prepare myself to depart?”

“The delegation leaves tomorrow morning,” his brother said. “You will need to give a personal gift to your sworn brother in addition to the sect’s gift. I have selected several options; come with me to pick the one you prefer.”

Lan Qiren saluted the elders and wordlessly followed his brother to the treasury. He liked none of the gifts his brother had selected, thinking that they all seemed a bit too gaudy even for a recipient whose tastes tended toward the luxurious – a bit more Lanling Jin than Qishan Wen, and not at all something he would select for himself – but eventually he chose a heavy golden crown that seemed to be not too far from the ones that he’d seen Wen Ruohan wear in the past.

“Not the dagger?” his brother asked, his voice thick with irony that Lan Qiren did not understand, nodding towards another of the options, a golden-hilt blade so purely polished that one could see their reflection in it.

“Sect Leader Wen has a rich collection which we cannot hope to match,” Lan Qiren said, thinking of those peerless treasure swords rusting away as wall decorations in Wen Ruohan’s bedroom. “Moreover, it’s a wedding, which represents two parts joining together into a single whole, while a gift of a knife implies severing. It is therefore inappropriate for such an occasion.”

“Brothers who have shared blood cannot be separated. It is a suitable gift from a sworn brother.”

Lan Qiren looked down at the options, feeling a little helpless. “If you would like me to change my selection…”

“The guan is fine,” his brother said, and shook his head, seeming almost a little pitying. “You are very good to be concerned with your sworn brother’s feelings, no matter how your relationship came about. Too much goodness can be seen as weakness, you know.”

I thought I wasn’t supposed to be making trouble? Lan Qiren thought to himself. Still, since his brother did not seem inclined to elaborate, he handed the gift to one of the servants to be put into an appropriate box.

In actuality, he had already selected a personal gift of his own, shortly after he had first heard about the impending wedding – it had seemed reasonable that he would need to send a gift, even if he didn't expect to actually be invited, and it had not occurred to him that he would be allowed to utilize the sect treasury for such a thing. He’d gone to Caiyi Town and purchased a small set of drinking bowls, applying the glaze himself as the artisan spun the pots; they had gone into the kiln immediately thereafter, and he was expecting the delivery today – in fact, it was probably already waiting in his room.

He would pack the set up with his personal items and give it to Wen Ruohan anyway, he decided. After all, he’d opted to do the design in Wen sect red rather than Lan sect blue, rendering it useless for his own purposes, and it would be worse to simply throw it away or to let it sit and gather dust. Being frugal is a virtue, after all.

Of course, if he were truly being frugal, he would have told his brother that he did not need an additional gift and left the guan alone, but he didn’t want to reject his brother’s kindness, either, rare as it was. Better to just eat the loss of the funds and have Wen Ruohan think him a spendthrift…

“Sect Leader Wen will undoubtedly have you stay in the Sun Palace during your visit,” his brother said abruptly, and Lan Qiren looked at him: his brother wasn’t looking at him, but into the distance, and his fingers twitched at his side in an uncharacteristic display of nervousness. “As his sworn brother, it would be inappropriate for him to put you in the guest quarters, or to fail to allow you free mobility through the Nightless City.”

“That seems likely,” Lan Qiren agreed hesitantly, not sure why his brother was mentioning it.

“He is fortunate that you are not naturally observant,” his brother said. “Otherwise one might fear that you would use the opportunity to learn more about how the Wen sect works – its treasures, its secrets. Its plans for the future.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Lan Qiren said quickly. “Have courtesy and integrity, after all. Even if I were to discover something incidentally, naturally I would be honor-bound not to share it without informing Sect Leader Wen that I had done so.”

His brother sighed, his fingers abruptly unclenching. “Of course you would. How could anyone doubt it…I don’t suppose you’ve ever given any thought to Do not forget the grace of your forefathers?”

“Of course I have. That’s one of the fundamental rules,” Lan Qiren said, now absolutely bewildered. “That we should live up to the expectations of our ancestors, both in our good conduct and discipline, and in supporting our sect so that our descendants may honor them equally.”

His brother shook his head. “Sometimes I really don’t understand you. You were tricked into an oath like a virgin maiden into a sweet-talker’s bed, weren't you?” he said. Lan Qiren really didn’t understand how his brother’s mind worked that he kept changing subjects like this. “I just wonder that you aren’t more resentful of the one that did it, the way anyone else would be. The way you act, you’d think Sect Leader Wen had done you a favor; you’re so considerate of him.”

Lan Qiren thought his brother might be being sarcastic, but he wasn’t very good at determining such things. “Even if the manner in which we became sworn brothers was unorthodox, the oaths have still been sworn,” he said, a little haltingly. “I cannot control his actions, only my own. Just because he might not be a good brother doesn’t mean I can’t be – isn’t that right?”

His brother glared at him. “If you have something to say, Qiren, you can say it directly.”

Lan Qiren was at an utter loss. “I – was?”

“Your teachers say that you’re brilliant,” his brother said, voice suddenly very cold. “I often wonder whether they’re not growing too old for their work.”

“I don’t –”

“Never mind. You’re dismissed.”

Lan Qiren saluted and returned to his quarters, puzzling over the conversation as he packed away his things for the trip. Was his brother trying to warn him against anyone encouraging him to act as a spy? Or was he trying to convince him to act as a spy himself? But if it was the latter, why wouldn’t he just say so? If it were truly necessary for some reason, for the good of the sect…

Was he supposed to volunteer?

But that would be truly breaking the oath of brotherhood – of which he still didn’t know the contents…

Lan Qiren supposed that, at least, was one thing he would be able to fix: very soon, he would be seeing his sworn brother again for the first time since they’d sworn their oaths.

Maybe he’d find a way to ask.

#mdzs #lan qiren #qingheng-jun #my fic #my fics #spilled pearls

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Letter 28: 🐬 Amuse Me🐬

A letter arrives in the mail. Blue diamond shapes decorate the vertical periphery. The penmanship upon the page is neat, with the occasional whimsical flourish. At the bottom of the letter is the sender’s signature, accompanies by a clumsy doodle of a little spotted mushroom.

The letter comes with a small succulent in a flowerpot, wrapped in cellophane. Its leaves resemble the folds of a rose, giving it an elegant appearance despite its inherent simplicity, its humble existence. Unassuming.

***Spoilers for chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, Happy Beans Day, and Vargas Camp!***

Good day, Prefect-san,

I do hope this letter finds you well.

I am writing to extend a thank you for all the amusement you have provided me ever since your entry into Night Raven College. Though Floyd’s moodiness and Azul’s business ventures do often keep monotony at bay, there are times when I long for something new to shake up the status quo. The Sea Witch must have heard this poor, unfortunate soul out, and sent you to grant my wish—for there is always great fun to be had when you are nearby.

You did not make the best first impression. It is rather rude to spy on those in the courtyard—or anywhere, for that matter. Is it any wonder why Floyd and I had to chase you and your friends away? We do not appreciate others prying into our affairs. Try something like that again, and I assure you that you will wish you hadn’t.

You made a return when Azul came to claim what he was owed. Ace-san, Deuce-san, Grim-san... Many of your beloved friends were in his clutches, yes? Fufu, how noble (disgusting) of you to come dashing to the rescue. It had been a while since any clients had the gall to oppose us—it livened up the business venture.

Even as we tossed you out of house and home, battled you beneath the waters, deceived you about the contracts... Your spirit did not break. You must have been so very determined to help your friends. It was admirable (pathetic), really. But I welcomed the challenge—it was interesting.

Then the unexpected happened: Azul Overblotted. He had always had such a tight grip on his Unique Magic—not even I foresaw him losing that control. I certainly didn’t expect you and your friends to throw yourselves at him, to fight Azul and return him to normalcy. Despite all that happened, you were still determined to save your friends, the other anemones, and... even Azul.

Your kindness knows no bounds.

Azul awoke in a daze, finding himself entangled between myself and Floyd. Ah, yes. That wary, shocked expression of his was exactly like the face he made when we first met. In the end, Azul is still as soft as he was back then. I am glad that I may continue to enjoy my time (toying) with him.

Life slowly returned to being mundane—until you crashed into Octavinelle, pursued by Scarabia students. Once again, I was pulled out of boredom, thrown back into the fire. We devised a crafty plan and sought to execute it.

Poor Kalim-san. I pity him, being manipulated for so long by Jamil-san... being so blatantly ignorant to the truth. I attempted to squeeze the information out of him, of course—but, like you, it seemed Kalim-san was also determined to protect his friend. Right up to the bitter end, through the storm, the years, the rain, through the battle with Jamil-san, Kalim-san believed in him. How cute (terribly saccharine).

Ah, but that was not the end of your selflessness. You assisted Vil-san in arranging a group for VDC. You visited my humble little club exhibit, despite our bad blood. You were the distraction for Jack-san for Beans Day. Time and time again, you are willing to jump into the fray, to lend a helping hand, at little to no cost. Eager to befriend even your old enemies.

I would call it foolish, but... because of you, my days here at Night Raven College are fun. Fun, and unpredictable. I do so despise being bored.

I shall forgive you for being nosy, and for being so foolishly kind. I shall even forgive you for joining Floyd for camping while leaving me all by my lonesome. All that I ask for in return is that you continue to entertain me.

I look forward to seeing how you might amuse me next.

With utmost sincerity,

🐬 Jade Leech 🐬

Octavinelle Vice-Dorm Leader

Mountain Appreciation Club Founder

Second Year NRC Student

#twst anni #twisted wonderland anni #Jade Leech #twst #twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #magic mystery letters #spoilers #twst anniversary #twisted wonderland anniversary

[lightrises]

"Only in allowing her to pass..." — Hornet, The Radiance, and the means by which Hallownest turned its victims against each other

A quick note: I read Hollow Knight as an anti-colonialist text. As such I'll be touching on topics related to colonialism as it's depicted in the world of the game, and said analysis will reflect both a sympathetic take on The Radiance and a critique of The Pale King that won't pull its punches. If this sounds up your alley, hello and thank you for the read! Let us be sad about these bugs together.

———

So!! A while back I realized something about pre-canon that felt rather... "curious" is one way to put it, I think. To wit: for all the effort and scheming and determination The Pale King poured into trying to get rid of The Radiance, neither of his plans involved directly killing her.

Was that his long game? Well, sure, that seems clear enough. His tack changed from luring the moths away from their god and creator to a more literal form of incarceration once the infection became a factor, but at its core the end goal never really changed—The Pale King very sincerely wished to destroy Radiance via obsolescence. The Seer lends us foreshadowing to confirm as much:

[Image descriptions: Two screenshots from Hollow Knight, showing the Seer and Ghost in the Seer's alcove at the Resting Grounds. Across both screenshots, the Seer tells Ghost the following: "None of us can live forever, and so we ask those who survive to remember us. Hold something in your mind and it lives on with you, but forget it and you seal it away forever. That is the only death that matters." End description.]

(Which, by the way and given the context, talk about an extremely unsubtle allusion to cultural genocide huh!!! Whew.)

In any case, we're left with a whole bunch of machinations which build up to... well, two very roundabout attempts at committing deicide. That's kind of weird, all things considered! Why not just do the deed in one fell swoop and get it over with?

This could be for any number of reasons. Maybe the king was devoid of the means to instantly kill another higher being. Maybe his personal sense of scruples stopped him short of signing off on MURDER murder (although, y'know, the aforementioned genocide + eternal imprisonment = still cool and copasectic apparently!). Maybe the long drawn-out cruelty was the point. Maybe the idea of playing fuckign 4D chess with the circumstances was too delicious for him to pass up—that man did love to tinker and stick his claws where they sure as hell didn't belong—or maybe it was a little bit of All The Things. Who knows!!

But interrogating The Pale King's methodology on this count isn't what I'm here for, at least not really. The main reason I raise this question at all is that in her own way, Hornet did too.

"I'd urge you to take that harder path... "

See, going by The Pale King's actions and what The White Lady explicitly says, they both foresaw two outcomes wrt the infection: it can be allowed to spread, or it can be contained. At Teacher's Archives, Quirrel acknowledges the fact that Ghost is expected to do... something about this, but he doesn't elaborate on what HE thinks that's supposed to be apart from the obvious "Gotta bust into Black Egg Temple first". Hornet is the one person who presents to us—to Ghost—what's framed as a third option: confront and destroy the infection at its source.

And she doesn't bring it up like it's just another tactic for Ghost to consider, prim and indifferent to what they would do. She nudges them towards it, actively, up to the point where she throws herself into the fray against Hollow at a juncture that's uniquely dangerous to her and her alone just to make that option feasible.

Even when she's couching it in disclaimers that this is still Ghost's decision to make (and let's be fair, she's extremely not wrong about that lol), no one can pretend Hornet is unbiased. It's obvious in that buttoned-down Hornet kind of way that she is way the hell done with the increasingly tenuous stalemate that's kept Hallownest's desiccated corpse from collapsing in on itself. Personally it's hard for me not to read some Toriel Undertale-esque "My father was too entrenched in his own foolishness to pursue any course of action that would have DEFINITIVELY ended this" shade into her stance here, regardless of whether that's strictly true in canon.

And that bit—Hornet's hopes for an end to Hallownest's stasis, moreover her grim calculation of what needs to be done to get there—that's the bit I find super interesting but likewise tragic and depressing as shit, on multiple levels. In no small part because a) canon itself gestures towards Hornet feeling conflicted about the very plan she's pushing, and moreover b) she has at least two (2) damn good reasons to feel that way.

So, what do I mean by that? Let's look here first:

[Image description: A screenshot from Hollow Knight, of Hornet and Ghost inside the Temple of the Black Egg, standing in front of the unsealed egg itself. Hornet has been struck by the Dream Nail and her dialogue is displayed as follows: "... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?" End description.]

As the curtain is about to drop on things one way or another, Hornet thinks,

... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?

Now, looking at that last bit it's easy to go "Oh no, Hornet's worried that Ghost won't survive killing The Radiance!" And I do think that's part of it: Hornet is, categorically, not her father. By endgame it's clear she's not content to view her Void-borne siblings as tools to be used then disposed of. She's also well aware that as a healthy autonomous Vessel amongst the countless dead, Ghost is the only person left alive who has a fighting chance against The Radiance. Knowing someone is the only qualified candidate for the job doesn't make encouraging them to embrace a probable death sentence any less of a bitter pill to swallow, though. And odds are on that this sentiment extends to Hollow too, who IS going to die no matter what happens here. To put it bluntly, it's more than reasonable to conclude that Hornet hates the absolute fuck out of this.

But I don't think that's all there is to it either. Remember what I said earlier about The Pale King's bids for genocide? Well, it's not like the man deigned to limit his efforts to just the moth tribe.

"We do not choose our mothers... "

On top of everything else—an infected Hallownest being all she's ever known, the fact that she only exists because of the infection, the list goes on—Hornet has spent her life wedged into a position that's been uncomfortable and terminally unglamorous at best: she is both a daughter of her father's kingdom and of Deepnest.

Deepnest, which like the moths and many others was here long before the wyrm and his lady wife swanned onto the scene and the God Become Bug laid claim to everything the Light touched plus a considerable amount of change. THAT Deepnest, which has fought claw and thread to retain its sovereignty against same-said settler king, and for which Herrah not only surrendered her life but also agreed to bed her worst enemy, all in hopes of securing a viable future for her people (put a pin in that last part by the way, I'll come back to it soon).

Two Worlds, One Family (Ft. An Indigenous Woman Trying Her Damndest To Work With What She's Got Versus An Imperialist Who Only Signed Up For This Because He Needed The Political Favor THAT Badly, So It's The Height Of Dysfunctional Actually). Fun times!!!!

The baggage this entails for Hornet is gnarly enough without implications made by The White Lady and the pre-canon timeline of events and even Team Cherry's dev notes that the king may well have looked at baby Hornet, gone "YOINK", then ensured she spent the lion's share of her childhood reared within the pearly auspices of his Pale Court*. That would be rather advantageous for Him Specifically after all, the potential to mold a born foe into a future ally and even have her trained in combat under the same tutelage as her doomed sibling. And far be it from him to stop a grown Hornet—his own flesh and blood too!—from making Deepnest her forever home if she so pleased. He totally wouldn't be reneging on his "fair bargain made" by doing this one simple thing until Hornet came of age, not t e c h nic c a l l y.

If that is indeed the case, there's a non-zero chance Hornet's formative years were a hot mess of cultural alienation and being a good deal more privy than most to just how much of a bastard her father could be. There's an equally non-zero chance that at some point she stood or sat within earshot as The Pale King finally, finally dropped all pretense and euphemism to name the Light for precisely what (for who) it was.

See, in conjunction with the question that started this whole dang train of thought I've been asking this one too: Does Hornet know? When she speaks of confronting "the heart of [the] infection" does she know she's talking about not just a literal person but someone very specific? The Radiance, who god though she may be shares skin in the game alongside Hornet as a native woman screwed over by the same settler king, likewise deprived of her kin and saddled with a life gone horrendously pear-shaped?

I'll assume for the sake of exploring the possibility and because I think it's a likely one anyway that yes, Hornet does know. She knows, and despite everything can't help empathizing. She might even look at Radiance and see bits and pieces both reflected and slightly inversed in her own mother: Radiance was forced to the sidelines while her people—her children, the brood she was meant to lead and care for—died out under The Pale King's rule, and it's no stretch to assume she's at least as upset about that as she has been about everything else; Herrah too took drastic measures for her people's sake, trying to head off annihilation by relegating herself to the sidelines in an act that was as much calculated risk as an attempt to find wiggle room and leverage in the face of a nasty proposition.

A calculated risk that, if things continue as they are, might well amount to nothing as the rest of Deepnest gets eaten alive by the infection. It survived The Pale King's advances for so so long, only to fall here. Herrah's sacrifice would be for naught; the other tribes—themselves the king's victims—would keep succumbing to the infection too.

And this is where things fall apart.

"... or the circumstance into which we are born."

Let's be clear: I think Hornet is wise enough to know what's what here, that all the carnage and suffering falls on her father's head for starting this slow-motion trainwreck in the first place. Hallownest wasn't always Hallownest. This domain was Radiance's home first, along with many others. It was the worm-turned-king who rolled up on the scene unsolicited and decided this was a ""'problem""" that had to be """solved""".

But the fact of the matter is that he's gone and The Radiance is here, raging, seemingly inconsolable. Above and beyond being Deepnest's rightful heir, Hornet isn't in a position to countenance more splash damage even if the grief and fury fueling it makes perfect sense. She can understand without ever bringing herself to love Radiance, and she can bend her knee to practicality even if she hates the everloving shit out of it because the fact that it "has" to end this way isn't fair.

This lends itself to one last awful conclusion: that Hornet has probably considered and (rightly or wrongly) discarded the possibility that Radiance can be saved, at least not without dragging more collateral along for the ride. If even her mother and every other enemy to the king seemed to dismiss talking Radiance down as an option way back when... well. Why should Hornet hope for any better after things have escalated so far?

Again, it's practical. A practical net good is what Hornet strives for. And again, it fucking sucks.

For extra tragedy points, this makes Hornet's extended crypticness around Ghost followed by her last minute casting about for a reason to tell them "Wait, don't; not just yet" that she never voices even more of a gut punch. She can't bring herself to burden Ghost with the context that haunts her so, least of all when it might weaken their resolve to go through with what (she thinks) needs doing.

It's the "same song, different verse" which led to the mantis tribe and Deepnest being pitted against each other: Hallownest rigged the game so that two women who could have been powerful allies—who have a mutual vested interest in driving out settler rule—wound up poised as enemies instead. And how awful is that? The king for all his being extremely fucking dead still gets the last laugh, because outside of a miracle the game never manifests Hornet can salvage what her mother started and look forward to a future where Deepnest pulls itself back from the brink if and only if The Radiance dies.

Resolution comes at the price of a completed genocide. Add two more dead siblings to the unconscionable pile thereof, while we're at it. That's what it boils down to whether or not Hornet can bear to articulate it as such, and there's no grace or even a properly bittersweet ending to wring from this clusterfuck. And that is rough.

———

* This has been better explained elsewhere, but a quick rundown: The White Lady tells Ghost that Hornet and Herrah "were permitted little time together." On its surface this can be taken to mean that Hornet was still very young when Herrah was shipped off to Eternal Dreamland—except this doesn't jive with the fact that we meet Hornet as an adult. If the stasis kicked in once the Dreamers went to their rest, which in turn halted the aging process for every living bug in Hallownest, AND before all this Hornet experienced little by the way of quality time with her birth mother... I think you can see where I'm going with this.

To top it off we've got Team Cherry weighing in ominously from their dev notes on Herrah: "As part of the agreement for her alliance and her role as a dreamer, King gave her a child (Hornet). Was she allowed to keep this child or was she taken away?" This isn't confirmation by itself of course, but given additional canon details (see above): Can I get a "yikes" in the chat fellas.

#hollow knight #hornet (hollow knight) #hornet hollow knight #hk hornet #the radiance #hk radiance #herrah #hk herrah #hollow knight meta #sup folks it's been a minute since i dropped a whole dang essay but Here We Go!!!!!!

[lysmune]

Promises of

      A thousand things that she believes the Demon Prince to be, and a thousand times he proves her wrong.

(Diavolo/F!Reader)

     Promises of a painful, slow death is what she believes he’ll give her, but a radiant smile dispels her fears. With liquid ambrosia for eyes and vermillion-struck hair, she’s never seen someone so intimidating, so contrary.

     “I hope your year in the Devildom is a great one!” the stranger chirps, loud and booming, and friendly.

     “Thank you,” is all she manages.

     Promises of a scornful, prideful visage  is what she believes is his flair, but he bears no ill-will towards the hubris of humanity. A thousand lights splayed below the balcony, a gaze set onto the distant future, graced by the soft glow of hope, he tells her that he wishes for peace, more than anything.

     “Don’t all you demons despise us?” she piques and he laughs deeply, sonorous in the never ending darkness.

     “Maybe, but I,” and he turns to look at her with a gentleness that she’s never thought to find in a hell-spawned man, “I find human souls, flawed as they are, beautiful.”

     Promises of friendship is what she believes would be the farthest thing possible, but when he calls her in invitation to see the black roses blooming in his greenhouse, she finds that maybe, it isn’t the most far-fetched situation.

     “Look!” he exclaims excitedly, pointing towards a small bird, tufted in crimson, its winding onyx tail fluttering as it perches itself on the flower’s stem. “It’s a black-tailed canary. It’s a bird native to the Devildom.”

     “How pretty,” she comments, watching the bird fixate its beady eyes on her before it takes off into flight.

     Lord Diavolo chuckles beside her. “Seeing such lovely things up close really does lift my spirits,” he murmurs in awe, in wonder, underscored by a melancholia she can’t quite fathom.

     In response, she presses her hand on his shoulder, humming in agreement; he simply smiles.

     Promises of gold is what she believes would catch his fancy, but his curiosity lies in the fleeting moments caught in polaroids. From swirling pink blossoms to the grin of an aquarium’s beluga, to the cascading reds of a maple autumn and a white winter’s falling snow; he finds joy in all these.

     “This is my favourite,” he notes fondly and she leans over to look at the object of his attraction. It is the simple snapshot of a summer daybreak, the first light of dawn. “The sun never rises here in the Devildom, so I’ve always been curious about it. Your world’s truly blessed.”

     How the Underworld’s Prince is so much of an optimist, she’d probably never know, but it warms her to see him so full of life.

     When he passes the picture back to her, she shakes her head and, with more than a little uncertainty, presses her fingers against his hand.

     “Keep it,” she insists. “Consider it a gift for the hospitality you’ve shown me.”

     Promises of an uneventful night is a relatively easy feat, she believes, but the seven brothers prove her wrong when she’s crowned the guest of honour. They shower her with neatly wrapped gifts, words of gratitude and a group hug so earnest it moves her to tears.

     They take turns dancing with her tonight, seven brothers gliding through seven different musical pieces. Mammon steps up into a bold, thrilling hustle; Leviathan sways with unusual confidence in a jazzy foxtrot; Satan twirls her into a fittingly passionate tango; Asmodeus sweeps her around in an excelsior schottische; Beelzebub rounds a blustering, grinning quickstep; Belphegor drifts into a draping, dreamy carousel and Lucifer, unsurprisingly, leads her gracefully into a viennese waltz.

     What does surprise her, however, is when the Prince comes up to her, requesting her for a dance. “If you’re not too tired, of course.”

     She smiles and places her hand atop his, letting his fingers curl around hers. “No, it would be my honour,” is all it takes for him to capture her breath in a slow, seamless waltz that lasts a beat longer than it should.

     Promises of a shrinking distance isn’t what she foresaw, but he is insistent in having her company, which she, admittedly, isn’t too bothered about. He greets her jovially when he meets her in front of AkuDonald’s, dressed down in a maroon Oxford shirt and beige khakis, a pair of shades completing his look; she wonders if that’s his way of avoiding attention.

     As they both stand in line, he strikes up polite conversation, questioning her how she’s been, how her classes are going, how she’s finding RAD and the seven brothers, and she is, quite frankly, genuinely surprised by how much she’s come to enjoy the entire affair. He’s about to answer when they hit the front of the line, a tired looking demon snippily asking for their order.

     Like always, she goes for the fried shadow goose AkuBurger, the six-pack AkuGizzards and a blushberry slushie. He takes a little more time deciding, but eventually settles for the Hellfire DoubleAkuBurger and a Blackburn coffee before he insistently pays for their meal. Tipping her head down in thanks, she takes the tray and leads him towards a relatively private corner in the joint where he tucks into his lunch undisturbed.

     “Do you come here often?” he prompts and she shrugs, swallowing her food down.

     “Enough,” she responds. “The food here is generally safe for me to not die from.”

     He chuckles. “Not a fan of Devildom cuisine?”

     “Just not nearly as bold to eat something with ‘Double Poison’ tacked onto it,” she explains. Catching him eyeing her gizzards, she picks one up in between her fingers and offers it to him. “They’re good.”

     Leaning forward, without so much of a warning, he takes it from her hand with his teeth and she stiffens, embarrassed, unsure if he’s being serious or just messing with her, or if he’s just dense.

     “You’re right,” he answers, happily smiling as he licks his lips, “they are.”

     She tries not to think about it too hard, simply nodding in agreement before they pass the rest of the time with small-talk, light banter and the never-ending cringe of dad jokes so terrible she has to laugh at each one. Once they’ve finished and exited the premises, he thanks her for her time today, smiling as he always does.

     “I had a lot of fun,” she gladly admits, to which he hums, pleased.

     “I did, too,” he reciprocates and then, a little less playfully, a little more seriously, “If it’s alright with you, let me walk you home.”

     “You don’t -“

     “I want to,” he assures, insists. “I enjoy your company and I’d like us to spend more time together.”

     She warms at his boldness, more evident today than any other, at the way he tentatively reaches for her hand in consent, in invitation, and she accepts it with a nod. With a smile that crinkles his eyes and a careful hold, he leads her back to the House of Lamentation.

     Promises of constant contact is something she’s sure he isn’t one to keep, especially given his consistently packed schedule, but when she’s back in the Human World, her D.D.D rings most often with his name.

     He fills her days with updates on work, on Lucifer’s increasingly baggy eyes, lamenting at how much less bright the Devildom is without her.

     “You’re being dramatic,” she chuckles as she picks up a carton of eggs. “It’s not that bad.”

     “No, it is,” he implores with a huff. “The brothers miss you, including Lucifer, even if he denies it. Teasing him is no fun anymore,” he protests and she clicks her tongue at him. There’s a pause before a sigh, then, “I’m not being honest here.”

     “No?”

     “No,” he repeats; “I miss spending my time with you, I miss being able to see you, I miss talking to you in person. I miss you; I miss you a lot.”

     She runs her fingers through her hair and oh, fuck, he really shouldn’t spring these things onto her. She’s sure he can hear her heart over the phone when it’s this loud.

     Tightening her grip on the trolley’s handle, she responds with an, “I miss you, too.”

     Promises of staying away are best upheld because they’re the smarter option, the safer option, but when she’s back in the Devildom, she‘s compelled to see him again. Barbatos directs her to his study, knocking on the door before he leaves her by the room just as Lord Diavolo lets her in.

     The wind is knocked right out of her chest when he scoops her into a tight hug and she eases into his arms, burying her face into his chest. He smells faintly of warm spice and agarwood, of a familiarity she’s sorely longed for.

     “I’m glad you’re back,” he whispers, the hint of a tremble in his voice.

     “I am, too.”

     Promises of subtlety is a given, she believes, but he hasn’t much thought for it when he clasps a golden bracelet onto her wrist. It is a simple chain, studded with tiny opals, and much too lavish for someone who’s come here as an exchange student.

     “This is a little excessive, don’t you think?” she asks, raising a brow as she fiddles with the accessory, to which he frowns.

     “Do you not like it?” he inquires and she shakes her head.

     “No, I do,” she assures, and she really does. It’s a beautiful piece of jewellery, it’s just that, “I’m not quite sure if I’m so deserving of such things.”

     At that, he takes her hand, pulling her a little closer. “You are,” he affirms softly, gently lacing his fingers with hers. “Let me be a little selfish.”

     She chuckles. “You’re being selfish by giving me a gift?”

     “No,” he replies as he levels her with a crackling, sparking gaze and her heart skips a beat. “I’m being selfish because I want you to myself.”

     Promises of indulgence are what she believes to be a demon’s domain, but he simply holds her in his arms most nights, content with the simple pleasure of having her there with him, of talking to her, of hearing her say his name without the formalities.

     “You’re not anything like I thought a demon would be,” she muses as he hugs her tighter from behind, letting her head rest on the line of his shoulder.

     He chuckles, pressing his lips to hers sweetly, briefly. “No?”

     “I expected them to be a little more ...” she trails off in search for a word, then, “churlish.”

     “I can be,” he mumbles while he lazily nibbles at her ear, patterns kisses into her jaw and the exposed column of her neck. “I’m just being polite.”

     She hums. “Maybe.”

     “You don’t think so?”

     “No,” she responds with a peck to his cheek, hand coming up to the side of his head, pulling him closer against her. “I think you’re just a touch holy.”

     His skims her skin with tongue and teeth, breaths warm, chuckling as he does. “You’re bold to say that to the Prince of Hell.”

     Promises of a Lord unshaken is what she believes the demons see, but behind all the closed doors, he bares his vulnerability to her against the starless, perpetual nights.

     “Do you want to talk, Diavolo?” she asks. He’s silent for a moment before he offers his hand to her. She takes it and he pulls her to his side, letting his arm drape down to hold her at her waist.

     Overlooking the city sprawled under him, he sighs. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing the right thing,” he confesses under his breath, the uncertainty wavering his voice. “I want peace between all the realms, but do they? Do my people?”

     "You don’t think they want that?”

     “We’re demons. War is within our very nature,” he states simply, pressing her a little closer to him. “A few of us are fallen angels, others human, but most demons were born here, and all of us are vengeful, resentful creatures,” he murmurs; she says nothing. “The fallen angels want nothing to do with the Celestial Realm, the human-turned-demons carry over their hate and the rest of us have just always had a taste for destruction.

     “For most of us, we’ve always felt like the two worlds looked at us with nothing but contempt. When Heaven smites an angel unruly, they’re punished into being a devil; when humans talk about eternal torture, we’re the very picture of it. Demons are a proud folk, we give back the respect we’ve been shown, but when everyone has only ever hated us, what is there to be but bitter? And the cycle keeps going, it has for the last thousands of centuries.”

     “I’m sorry,” is all she can offer and he chuckles.

     “Please, it’s alright,” he assures with a smile, though it’s wearied with the burdens of a leader. “I’m just ... wondering.”

     She isn’t sure what to say to him, if she can even comfort him. She’s no angel, or demon, and even as a human, she’s never been a particular occult; she’s just an exchange student who lacks understanding of the tension’s nuance.

     “Look, hey,” she starts, “I know I’m not the best person to say it, but your people respect you. They might squabble with Heaven or us humans, but they’ve put their trust in you; otherwise, in all honesty, I think they’d have just eaten me and Solomon alive.”

     He cracks a small, tiny smile at that.

     “You needed mutual agreement between all the realms for this exchange program, and you did it. If that tells me anything, it’s that they’re probably tired of all the fighting, too,” she surmises. He laughs, just barely, before he bends down to kiss her forehead, letting it linger.

     When he pulls away, he says, “Thank you, that helped.”

     “Did it?”

     He hums. “A little,” he responds, loosening his grip on her. “I need to be alone for a while, is that okay?”

     “Take all the time,” she answers. Placing a quick kiss onto his cheek, she turns on her heel and walks away. Comforting demon royalty isn’t something she’s good at, and maybe she never will be, but space? Space is something she can give him.

     Promises of ‘unto death do us part’ is tradition, the idea of a romance that spans the fire of life until it’s snuffed out by a swing of the scythe, but she believes that mortality is fickle to him. A being of a thousand years that will live on for a thousand more, and she fills in the mere potential century; a year for him is a decade for her.

     Yet here he is, knotting the string of his life to her in promise. “Make a pact with me,” he declares, bringing her hand up to his lips, kissing her knuckles as though she were royalty.

     Her breath hitches. “Diavolo.”

     “Let me be yours,” the demon pleads, yearns, longs and she’s a little taken aback by the openness of it all.

     “You don’t have to,” she says but he surges, drawing her in.

     “I want to,” he asserts, unyielding, though she’s still unconvinced.

     An act of binding. That’s what it means to be tied down to a contract, and she knows full well what the consequences are, for the both of them, should any of them trespass their terms. With the seven brothers, she did as the situation demanded, but with Diavolo, there’s absolutely nothing that warrants it.

     He seems to sense her unease, because he squeezes her hand, brings her closer. “It’ll be fine,” he assures; “Let me show you what you mean to me.”

     “I know where I stand with you,” she tells him as she raises a hand to cup his cheek.

     “Do you?” he asks in rhetoric, pressing his lips against her pulse, eyes locking onto hers. “You needn’t ask and I’d gladly give a century of my life for you, freely offer you my soul, and even if you love me less, leave me for a human, I’d regret none of it.”

     She swallows his words when he presses his lips to hers, wholly engulfed by the sincerity of it all. Gentle as always, tender as always, and none of the demon she’d thought he’d be, his hand coming up to caress her face. He leaves her lightheaded, breathless, forehead touching hers, the warmth between them near unbearable.

     “I trust you, utterly and entirely; let me show you that I do,” he murmurs and she clasps her hands behind his neck, her lips hovering above his.

     “Nothing I say will change your mind, will it?”

     He chuckles. “I’m afraid not.”

     Promises of sacrifice and loyalty, they aren’t taken lightly by the laws of a contract, but he pledges himself anyway, so readily and so staunchly she almost falters.

     In reverence, he traces the mark - his mark - that runs from her shoulder and coils around her arm, marvelling at the sight of it. “Was it painful?” he asks as he glances to her, worry underscoring his words.

     She shrugs and offers him a smile in hopes it’ll reassure him. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

     Leaning in to thumb a kiss to her clavicle, he chuckles low. “Sometimes I forget you’ve made pacts with the seven strongest demons here,” he says and the pride in his voice makes her chest swell.

     “Eight,” she corrects while she cards her fingers through his hair, trailing the curl of his horns, eliciting a quiet, pleased hum from him.

     “Eight,” he repeats in satisfaction before he lifts his head up to meet her and she, emboldened, enraptured, captures his lips in fervour.

     Agarwood and warm spice, she drinks the taste of him, smoky lapsang and carbon ashen. He spills her name into her mouth, once more into the spellbound night when she punctures a soft bite into the juncture of his neck, a hymnic praise that makes her feel nothing less of otherworldly. He almost - almost - whines when she pulls away, chuckling as she does.

     Under her, he’s nothing short of breathtaking, with topazes for eyes and vermillion hair, and dark skin marked by black, steeped in gold. Triangular patterns of red hiss around his throat, the newly formed pact pulsing with magic and she trails her fingers across them, enamoured.

     “You’re beautiful,” she finds herself professing and he lets out a quiet laugh, Adam’s apple bobbing under her touch, the sound reverberating.

     “I’m all yours,” he surrenders and she’s touched, honoured by the sincerity of his proclamation. “I will be until you say I no longer am.”

     “And I, yours,” she promises before she laces her fingers with his and kisses him once more.

#swd obey me #obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me diavolo #diavolo x reader #munewrites #f: obey me #ch: diavolo #an: this took so much longer than expected #an: can you tell I have no idea where to take this #an: look i have a LOT OF FEELS for tiddy man diavolo #an: I feel like he'd be the only one out of all the demons to tell mc that hello yes i wanna be yours #an: idk it just seems fitting esp because he really can't spend much time with them #an: ALSO YES for Diavolo the pact is a show of complete loyalty and trust #an: also using holy or divine words to describe the demons is now my favourite thing to do because why nOT #an: Honestly though im p sure diavolo isn't this sweet #an: man probs has ulterior motives #an: gives me those vibes #an: thIS IS TERRIBLE ON THE PHONE #an: tumblr let me have line breaks

[always-on-tatooine]

MaulxReader part 8: The Escape

Finally getting to this part of the story (this has been rolling around in my head since winter break). At the same time, I’m happy I gave this story the time it’s needed to develop. Also, I’m so happy for all the friends I’ve met on here so far. I really appreciate everyone’s support.

Unfortunately, school is really ramping up so big sections like this will be coming out much slowly. I’ll still be working on this story but until break I will probably only be posting small blurbs. Also, I’m thinking of trying some other side projects too. (yes, most of them will consist of our favorite grumpy red Zabrack)

Also thinking of making an ao3 account too. I’ll keep you all updates if I do so.

Warning: Mentions of violence/wounds to reader, action sense, explosions, and strong emotions. As always, let me know if I missed anything

Masterlist link: https://always-on-tatooine.tumblr.com/post/640968824459526144/shooting-stars-maulxreader-masterlist

3.8k word count. Enjoy :)

@justalittlecloud @a-dorin @hornystarwarsbisexual @mother-0f-monsters @lovelyzabrak-meadow @pinkiemme @maulieber @joslynuniverse @dollar-tree-witchcraft @lalalandbutbetter @zabrak-show @secretmaul @jedi-bitch @helloladyvanilla @enchantress666

            Waves of questions and confusion were overwhelming, as (y/n) took in her surroundings. In what was less than a minute of holding her head down, the room once full of mob guards was now littered with dead bodies. The only one left standing held a strange glowing red weapon as it plummeted into the man who almost killed her. Who was the single survivor of this outmatched battle? She knew his name was Maul, and that she had provided housing for him over this past week. Yet here and now, (y/n) realized how little she knew about the man who just saved her life.

             One of the glowing beams of Maul’s weapon retracted, releasing its hold on Lysscol’s body. Leaving the former mob boss motionless on his throne, Maul walked over to (y/n). “Hold still,” his command was soft as one swoop of the remaining end of his weapon cut through her cuffs. Reaching a black gloved hand towards the freed captive he asked, “Are you ok?” (Y/n) did not know how to respond. So many questions ran through her head, yet none were able to find their way out, “What…? How…?”

            Helping her off the ground Maul looked her over, “Are you able to move on your own?” (Y/n) looked deeply into his tattooed face. Who was this man? “Yes, but…”

            Maul retracted the other end of his weapon, “Then we have to hurry. We may have killed their leader, but they will still come for us.” Pulling his hood back over his head, he grabbed (y/n)’s hand and led her out of the throne room.

            In the hallways, more guards laid on the floor. Rushing past them, the farmer was only able to get a glimpse of their condition; large slash wounds had cut though the guards chest plates, inflicting a deadly blow. Before, (y/n) could process the scene, the two were already past the alley way and rushing into the streets.

             The pair moved fast, yet stayed within the crowd, maneuvering through the groups of people as not to be seen. Still holding Maul’s hand, she did her best to keep up with him as he led her though the streets. Finally gaining the nerves, (y/n) asked, “How did you know where to find me?”

            “Only an organized syndicate would be able to push the number of weapons you were selling. So, I looked for their usual hiding places until I found the right one.”

            His remark did not satisfy (y/n)’s scrutiny. Remembering back, Victor Lysscol had seemed so familiar with Maul. As if they knew each other.  “You said you had given them orders. Are you a part of the syndicate?”

            “Something like that…”

            “Then what was that weapon you killed him with? Those blades you were using. I thought those were Jedi swords.” She could feel his hand tighten at the name of the legendary space monks. “Jedi are not the only ones who know how to use a lightsaber…” the words rolled off his lips with anger, yet his unpleasant facial expression would be left to the imagination as it was hidden by his hood.

            “Then how did you…?” (y/n) wanted to continue her interrogations, but Maul cut her off. “I will answer your question later. Right now, we need to get out of this town. You are now marked by the Crymorah’s. That means if they ever see you again, then they will kill you without a second thought.” The tone of urgency in his voice was enough to make her stop.  Taking her saviors advice, she focused on keeping up with him as they headed back to the shop.

            Quick on their feet, the two arrived back to the shop shortly after their conversation ended. Madam Rekstall now stood under the awning of the vegetable stand, as she had agreed to watch the shop while Maul had gone to retrieve (y/n). “Thank the maker you’re ok,” the psychic embraced her old friend in a big embrace, “I told you I foresaw one of your deals going wrong if you kept doing business with those mobsters.” Brushing some hair out of the farmer’s hair, she could see the bruise that was forming, gifted on her cheek by the late Lysscol, “It looks like they did a number on you, but it could have been a lot worse…”

            (Y/n) ignored the pain on her face. Still in shock, she was trying to piece everything together. “Is that how Maul knew to find me? You saw it in one of your visions?” Madam Rekstall shook her head, “Oh no my dear, he was quite capable of sensing your danger without my help. I just simply took over the shop when he ran over to go save you.” (Y/n) looked over at her savior, who was now starting to pack what few vegetable crates were left. He was the once who sensed she was in danger? But how?

            Still holding the farmer in her arms, the psychic began to speak again. Yet her words would fall on deaf ears as (y/n) was still compartmentalizing everything she had just witnessed. She watched as her old friend’s mouth moved, yet she could not hear a sound. Even the sounds of Maul hastily gathering the shop, the bustle coming from the open road beside her, and all the other overwhelming sounds of the city, all became an incoherent hum. Out of all the noses that surrounded her, the only thing she could make out was the sound of a radio. Specifically, a small radio that sat on the counter of another nearby shop stand. Looking over, she could see two men standing under the awning, listening to the broadcast as well.

            ‘We're here to interrupt this program with breaking news. The war is over now! The Separatists have all been defeated by the Republic Army. Counselor Palpatine, who’s leadership has recently been extended under jurisdiction of war, has announced that with the war over, The Council will now declare a new kind of republic. One that will unite the entire galaxy under one Empire.’

            “Did you hear that?” (y/n) hear the man standing behind the shop counter ask, “the war is over now!” “Thank the maker,” the other man chimed in, “maybe this new empire will do something to clean up this slum planet.”

            Watching the scene unfold, (y/n) wanted to join the men in their enthusiasm. The end of this drawn-out war between the Republic and the Separatists should be a good thing, right? Despite how good it sounded, something inside said otherwise. She could feel her insides start to twist as shivers ran down her spine. Something deep inside told her this was wrong. Then she remembered what Victor Lysscol had said in the throne room. ‘New governments mean new business,’ could this have been what he was referring to? Either way, the unsettlement she felt within was enough to tell her the end of this war would not bring anything good…

            (Y/n) was only broken by this strange state she found herself in, by the feeling of Maul’s hand on her shoulder. During her trance-like state, Madam Rekstall must have walked away, as her hooded friend was the only one standing near her now. How long was she out?

             “We can’t stay any longer. If we do not leave this town, it will only be a matter of time until they find us.” The sharpness in his voice reminded her of the paramount of the situation they were in. Grounding back into reality, she realized he was right. Nodding her head in agreement to the Zabrak, (y/n) headed over to the wagon to help pack what was left.

            Madam Rekstall now watched as the two quickly finished gathering their things. Folding one of her sets of arms, she started, “Do you have a plan on how to defend yourselves if they come for you out there on the plains?” (Y/n) was already mounting her jumper, getting ready to make their escape. Shaking off the eerie feeling of what she just experienced, she tried to compose back to her usual self.

            “You know I have one of the best security systems on this planet. Lysscol’s men know it too. If they even have the Reek balls to try to take us on, then they won’t make it back in one peace.” Rekstall rolled her eyes, turning her attention back to Maul who had taken his place among the few crates that were left in the wagon. “Please take care of her out there. I haven’t seen any harm coming your guy’s way. Please don’t prove me wrong.”

            Maul looked over at (y/n) who was now starting the jumper. She would have died if he had not interfered. Yet now that the Crymorah Syndicate knew that she was connected to him, their grievance with the young farmer may only get worse. It was clear to him now, that in his current situation, he would be incapable of controlling the different crime families. If they were willing to betray him and disobey his orders, then his association with (y/n) meant they would stop at nothing to kill them both. ‘It’s her fault for getting herself into this mess,’ he thought to himself. Yet despite how much he tried to pass on the responsibility in his head, he could not deny the fact that she had been the only person to help him since he crashed on this planet. The causation to the state they found themselves seemed irrelevant as he felt it was his duty to protect her now. Over the sounds of the jumper engine starting, he insured, “I promise, no harm will come to her.”

            The farmer pulled the jumper and attached wagon out of their parking space. Looking over at the psychic, (y/n) called over, “Thank you for watching over the shop! I owe you one.” As the jumper began to pull away, Madam Rekstall called back, “Just be safe out there,” she waved an arm, “and may the force be with you!”

            The force? Her bike was already too far away to ask why her old friend had given her such a strange farewell. Weaving through the populated streets, (y/n) made her way out of the city. After some much careful driving between the hordes people, the pair had made it out. As tall clay buildings turned into flat grasslands, (y/n) felt that they had made their getaway. With the city behind them, she was able to pick up some speed on the open road. With fewer crates than they had that morning, they were able to move faster than before. It would not be long until the two would be home, and safe.

            Unknown to (y/n) and Maul, only moments after they left, two men on speeders arrived at the shop stand they had been selling at. They wore mixed armor like the guards in the throne den had, yet more time had been put into their garb to attempt to make it look coherent. They did not say for long; once it was obvious that their targets had escaped, they got back on their bikes and headed toward the city outskirts. Madam Rekstall could only watch the scene unfold without gaining the attention of the armed men. Sitting in her fabricated chair, she smoked her pipe, attempting to not show interest in the guard’s inquisition. Only after the men left, did the psychic feel that it was safe to mutter to herself, “May the force keep them safe.”

**************

            Only when they were out in the fields of grasslands was (y/n) able to gather herself. As long blades of pale blue grass were pushed away from the velocity of her speeder, the last hour that had unfolded replayed in her mind. The farmer understood that arms dealing with the Orkaron Mafia was a dangerous job. Just getting her hands on the various bits of blasters and armor had almost cost her life a few times. Yet out on a small planet such as this one, she could only sell as many vegetables as there were mouths to feed. She was always just one bad growing season from not being able to make a sustainable income.  Her immoral and hazardous situation was not blind to her, but the need to eat and stay warm at night was overwhelming on a planet such as this.

             Glancing over her shoulder, she could see Maul was alert as he sat in the back of the wagon. ‘Strange’ has been a term she had used to describe her new housemate over this past week. Now she was now beginning to see there was much more to him. It felt almost haunting now, to have had someone stay with her for a week and know so little about them. Yet right when she was about to be executed, he came in and took on a whole syndicate base, all by himself.

             Executed… it really was a close call. Too close to (y/n)’s liking. It had been a long time since she had been in a situation where she had so little control. Danger was something she was used to. Yet each encounter she had out on this lawless planet, she always managed to have the upper hand. Yet today she was rendered powerless and was almost put down like an old Fathier. Helpless, it made her feel helpless. Tears that formed in her eyes were pushed to the sides of her face by the air that brushed against her vehicle. She had built this life of independence so that she would not need anyone’s help. Yet she would be dead now if it were not for Maul. It was not that she wasn't grateful to him, she just hated the feeling. ‘Helpless,’ the word repeated in her head again. A dreadful feeling, she had not felt in a long time. Not since she…

             “Incoming,” Maul roared, waking her out of her thoughts. Over her shoulders, (y/n) could see two speeders behind them and getting closer by the second. The wagon was already slowing them down enough as it was, but as the bikes got rapidly closer, it became apparent that their speeders had been altered, allowing them to move even faster for occasions such as this. Once they were in firing distance, blaster shots started flying past the escaping pair, nearly hitting.

            Maul was now standing in the back of the wagon, red sabers in hand he deflected the blasts as they came towards them. His deflections were flawless, yet the riders exhibited their maneuvering abilities; dodging each bullet that flew back. As they moved out of the way of the returning shots, Maul took the opportunity and turned to warn (y/n), “They're gaining on us! If we don’t do something soon, they may get close enough to crash the speeder!”

             (Y/n) looked around the empty lands. There had to be something that could help them. That is when she saw it, off in the distance she could see her farm coming into view. They were almost to safety, she just had to make it there before their new ‘friends’ could catch them. “Hang on!” she called, as she pushed full throttle toward the hut.

             The sounds of an overworked engine filled the space around them. With a slight jerk, the speeder gained speed, using all its power to carry their weight and the wagon with it. Despite their increase in speed, the riders managed to still get closer. Maul kept his balance as he continued to block the basters coming at them. “(Y/n), we need to do something fast! It’s too easy for them to overpower us at this rate!”

             (Y/n) called back to them between shots, “Can your saber cut though the wagon hitch?” “Of course!” Maul called back. “Good, I need you to get on the back of my bake, and when I tell you, cut the wagon.”

             In between the breaks of defecting shots, Maul took a glance towards the front of the speeder. The farm he had come to know was now in view. A few kilometers in front of it, he could see the familiar blinking lights hidden in the grass. (Y/n)’s plan was starting to make sense. Without hesitation he made his way to the speeder.

             If Maul were anything like the legendary Jedi she had heard about, she figured that he would have no problem getting from the wagon to the attached speeder at these speeds. What she did not expect was for Maul to do so while still managing to stand. Just as he did in the wagon, he was now balancing on the back seat of the speeder, waving both ends of his saber around as he continued to block blast as they came their way.

             There was no time to question how he was capable of any of this. The faint blinking posts were coming close at a rapid speed. (Y/n) knuckles grew lighter over the throttle as every bit of energy the engine could handle was headed right to it. It was only a few meters away when she changed her trajectory. Dropping all speed, she took a hard turn to the left. As the speeder spun around, she now faced the riders, who used to be right behind them, coming at them at full speed.

             “Now!” she called. Just as effortless as Maul had cut her cuffs back in the throne room, it only took one sweep to release the wagon from its confines. As (y/n) continued to spin, the velocity sent the wagon flying in off in a distance, away from the chaos. Free from the weight of the wagon, the speeder had almost completed a full spin.

            In sync with (y/n)’s unspoken plan, Maul maneuvered himself to a sitting position for what was about to happen next. With full speed, (y/n) now took off to the right, as the riders were almost in grabbing distance from them. Yet at their speed, they were unable to recorrect in time to follow. As their speeders continued to drive forward, the two grads went straight into the mine fields.

            The last that would be seen of the riders was a series of explosions that only consumed a small section of the vast planes. Dust and flames filled the area where they had detonated one of the many hidden landmines. Even on hovering speeders, the pressure from the anti-gravity converters was enough to set them off. (Y/n) stopped and turned the bike so they could watch the spectacle. Though Maul was used to this kind of excitement, here on this humble planet, it seemed so out of place. As for (y/n), she was just relieved that her home security came in handy when they needed it.

            When the flames died down, (y/n) drove over to the control pad she had used earlier that morning. Stopping the bike, the farmer got off the speeder and hit the switch. Buurrrrr the sound rang around them. Maul took the opportunity to stand up and address the young woman after such an encounter. “Very impressive strategy,” Maul complemented, “these traps really are excellently placed. I can now see how you’ve been able to take on so many…”

            (Y/n) was faced away from him, but Maul could sense something was wrong. “(Y/n)?” The young farmer turned towards him; arms wrapped around herself as she was beginning to cry. Maul was shocked. Usually, she was so composed. So cocky. Yet here in this moment she was… vulnerable. Had today been too much for her?

            Too much it was indeed. Waves of emotions flowed over (y/n) like an overwhelming sea. She did everything in her power to keep herself together, but after everything that had happened today. Being captured, almost dying, Maul saving her, and now this chase; it became too much to contain as tears began to fall from her face.

            She did not want to be seen like this, especially not by Maul. He had already seen her chained to the floor and beaten, and then this? Clenching her eyes shut, she wanted to disappear into the tall grasses. ‘Helpless,’ the words flooded her mind as the dreaded feeling crept in again.

            Yet, before the feeling could travel in her any farther, a warm sensation surrounded her. Opening her eyes, black cloth surrounded her as Maul began to hold her in his arms. His body felt slightly awkward, as if he had never given anyone a hug before. However, his arms around her were enough to make her start to cry even more. Barring herself further into the layers of black fabric, she released the feelings that had been overflowing inside.

            With everything that had happened, one thing in particular came to mind. Something that, for unknown reasons, (y/n) felt crucial to tell Maul. Between sobs she spoke, “In the market… there was a radio broadcast…” Maul pulled his head back a bit so that he could look at (y/n). Her face was a mess, as her (y/hc) was glued to her face and her (y/ec) eyes shimmered behind tears. “On the station. They said the war was over… that the counselor was declaring an empire…”

            Maul’s facial expressions showed how shocked he was by her statement. As much as she wanted to enquiry on his thoughts on the matter, her feelings only continued to come out even more. Crying harder now, she continued, “I don’t know why, but when I heard the news… with everything else happening… it’s supposed to be good news, but all I can feel is fear and dread when…”

            (Y/n)’s words became more incoherent as she began to cry more. ‘The force must be very strong with her,’ Maul though, ‘if she was able to see through Sidiou’s plans; even if she did not understand what she was sensing.’ The young farmer was now uncontrollably weeping in his arms. Maul was honestly a little envious at (y/n). He could feel how difficult this was for her, but to openly cry the way she was, took a kind of strength he felt he did not have.

            Seeing as she was barely able to hold herself up, Maul picked up the smaller woman and carried her in his arms towards the farm. If she wanted to fight him on the matter, but she was too exhausted to do so. As he continued to carry her, (y/n) tears started to subside as she was starting to fall asleep in his arms. “Rest,” Maul gave the gentle command. The sun was beginning to set in the horizon, revealing the two moons that were now hovering over the farm he walked towards. “Close your eyes for now, for there is so much for you to learn.”

#shooting stars #darth maul #maul #maul x reader #maul x you #darth maul x reader #darth maul x you #darth maul fanfiction

[betweendoctorsanddetectives]

tjlc aside, what is the “you were told but you didn’t listen.” solution for Sherlock surviving the fall??? 🔍👀 Or is the solution inherent in tjlc??? Is there any meta on the fall that exists after s4 was released??? I've already read toxicsemicolon's (Amy's) meta on medium but she doesn't detail Sherlock's survival plan in s2...

i do think the solution is ultimately inherent to tjlc (and i’d also be inclined to say that there’s very little to be solved in the show outside of the lense of tjlc)

so there’s two elements to my answer here, the first being that I think the how doesn’t matter and the second being my best answer anyway

keep reading under the cut!

firstly, i’m firmly of the opinion that there’s very little point in understanding how he survived for a number of reasons:

1) to me, it’s funny that mofftiss knew how much people cared about how he survived when they didn’t care or really plan a solution. one of their favourite holmesian anecdotes & one that i think of often is “You know my methods Watson, I am well known to be indestructible” from A Study In Terror 1965. i’m struggling to find the clip where mark gatiss says this but i know i’ve seen it, i think they talk about how holmes survives a fire that almost certainly would have killed him, and then it’s never explained in the film & mofftiss found that really entertaining.

“You know my methods, John. I am known to be indestructible.” is said by sherlock in the end of teh, when john does finally ask how he survived, and i take this as an indication that mofftiss don’t care about the audience understanding how sherlock survived

boop and they’re fine.

2) focusing on this too much takes away from its metanarrative purpose, which is essentially that sherlock the character represents sherlock the show. by this i mean that there is a parallel to be found between the character of sherlock ‘dying’ and then ‘coming back to life’ and the show of sherlock being ‘bad’ and then being ‘redeemed’. s4 was intentionally wrong-feeling, they knew how angry it would make people, and they predicted it to a tee. acd got berated by angry fans following the publication of the final problem, mofftiss are now bad bad men who get many complaints and even a fan campaign against them. anderson represented fans in s3 in the capacity both of obsessively trying to understand how sherlock survived the fall, and of the doubting thomas turned true believer (i.e. had no faith in sherlock (the show) until he realised the truth). they knew what would happen, they foresaw the loss of faith of most fans, they foresaw some small group of fans believing in sherlock holmes! 

taking that into account, the metanarrative we see from the fall is far more important to me than the literal answer as to how he survived. sherlock’s fall from grace = Sherlock’s Fall From Grace

3) it’s simply the wrong thing to focus on. imagine if the hiatus between s2 and s3 hadn’t been spent largely on solving this one element of the show... the tjlc boom happened after tsot aired, when the idea that johnlock was actually endgame really took off in believable way among a much larger group of fans & from there the meta was incredibly prevalent and big connections could be made that hadn’t before! john’s “i don’t care how you did it” line is really relevant to me. i don’t care either. anderson’s character is ridiculed for how much he cares. there are mysteries integral to a sublime enjoyment of the show and so much time was spent focusing on one mystery that simply... wasn’t 

“it’s not the fall, it’s the landing”

now, none of this is to disparage the good good problem solving that was thrown at this question, or the genuine enjoyment people may gain from it - at the end of the day if you have fun solving a mystery that’s all that matters! 

a number of theories are plausible, with some even being compatible together, and some theorised prior to s3 and then acknowledged in s3:

rubber ball under the armpit to cut off bloodflow for when john took the pulse; bungee cord; john knocked down by the biker so he wouldn’t see; the ambulance station(?) blocking john’s view of the pavement; homeless network helping; false dummy body; mycroft the confidant being able to help

in terms of when people say “you were told” regarding the fall, i think it could only refer to the little sequence from when sherlock explains to anderson! but people can feel free to chime in because obviously, as i’ve said, i’m not particularly personally interested in how he survived, so i’ve not cultivated a strong knowledge of this area

finally, my personal favourite theory, which may have been proposed elsewhere by someone else*, but i actually stumbled across myself when watching jonathan creek:

this is my favourite simply because i find it fun, i don’t necessarily think it is The Most Correct

(& i’m inclined to believe that mofftiss have in fact seen jonathan creek, partly because it’s iconic within the realms of campy british murder mystery, partly because the main characters have a distinctly johnlockian dynamic, partly because some elements in the show make the tjlc bell in my brain go ding, and partly because of this)

oh! also, a fun fact i had forgotten about and came across when i was finding the screencaps above! alistair petrie (sholto) was in the episode in which that fall survival method appears, and was in fact playing the character who fakes their own death. everything magically connected :-)

* pre-s3 airing, i saw posts about the layout of the hospital and the pavement outside and i’m sure i have seen, all those years ago, someone talking about false flags in the pavement or a trapdoor or trampoline or net or something, though i can’t say i ever saw anyone connect it to this episode of jonathan creek

#Anonymous #tjlc #would like to say i think its very sweet of anon to refer to amy's meta in parentheses because thats how i always refer to it :')