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#but it is already a huge cast so can understand why
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I’m up to date on New Life Begins and I love it so much. It’s gorgeous, we’re getting more and more exploration of the different regions in the world, plot is advancing along with the budding romance, and there are so many different female characters/relationships shown on screen. And so many wives + concubines teaming up and making friends with each other, as well as maids and servants being part of the household.
I got Iqiyi VIP for Between Us (and then discovered I needed a VPN as well) but I’m going to be keeping it for this show.
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aamezish · 5 months
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#this girl was joking about another girl in my batch fasting on karvachauth for her boyfriend and it was the light jokes so it was okay#but then she said why is she doing it her caste is completely different from his her parents would kill her#and that how college relationships are only for time being until you're in college and you're there for each other's support#and that nothing in college couples is that serious and they may turn out just good friends in future#and there's no reason to worship your love because it's just 'casual'??!!#ive so many feelings and a little heartbreak#ive already tried thinking about future but you know it 2ould just spiral me and thinking tha ahead doesn't make sense know#logically speaking she's right that we can go through SO MANY changes during the college years and no one knows anything ahead#but idk like i love him its not just oh im in college and ive got a boyfriend to get my nights busier and go on silly pretend dates#i didn't date anyone for nineteen years because i just wouldn't date anyone#its just surprising me as well how i came here so clueless and how everything led to each other and then into us#and i don't say stuff like marriage and kids because that's too huge. just too huge right now to think off#and that's also a way of keeping myself humble#and i would love love love to think about a future too not just yet it's too quick and im okay understanding everything rather than diving#but what she said. is so um its messing with my brain#ofc im not letting it over weigh me not at least from a person who's with multiple seniors#sends all her money to her so called youtuber bf#and goes to private places with some other guy#who's in everything for casual#but i don't know what im supposed to do with it right now#playing around my head#or maybe i should just trust the process
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abnerkrill · 11 months
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fantastic rebuttal to "writers don't deserve better pay because the stuff they write is terrible/unoriginal", full thread here
(to explain, the "Unknown" under his name is from a add-on bot detector; it usually can assign a percentage likelihood that a user is a human being and not a bot, but I think the blue check system disrupted the add-on so it says "Unknown" underneath his name now.)
[image id under the read more:
May 7, 2023 tweet thread from Tom Vaughan @/storyandplot
With #WGAStrong rightfully in the spotlight this week, I've seen some less-than-sympathetic comments focusing on the lack of originality in our projects. This is a fair criticism of the system, but not the writers. A quick history of how we got here (thread emoji)
The first thing to understand is that Hollywood has NOT run out of new ideas. The studio’s preference for I.P. has nothing to do with regurgitating ideas and everything to do with MARKETING.
The late 60s-70s is generally considered the artistic high of the studio system. Ironically, many contribute this to corporations buying up the studios! The corporations knew they had no idea how to run a movie studio, so... they put creative people in charge.
This is how you got the run of so many great films the studios would never make today. They also took bigger chances on young, promising talent (the first "film school generation" of filmmakers.)
But with the success of JAWS and STAR WARS, the corporations demanded more of those kinds of hits. The creative folks insisted such things were unpredictable, and the business folks said let's make them less so.
(Sidenote: This was also the same time a completely different phenomenon was happening. A/C was becoming the norm for theatres, making summer movie-going much more attractive.)
Over the next decade, more and more MBAs and marketing people gained influence in the studio system. Being business folks, huge hits were not a creative problem as much as a product/marketing problem.
The 80s is when the “high concept” became pre-eminent because it narrowed a sales pitch to one sentence, a trailer, and a poster. This made everyone a marketing agent for a movie because everyone could explain what it was about!
In the 90s, marketing became just as important as the film itself (reflected in their respective budgets) when Hollywood discovered they could profit from fifty years of pre-existing awareness for old TV shows and movies.
This allowed the marketing department to move away from pitching a movie and convincing you to go see it (lower success rate), to simple “audience awareness” and building anticipation. (higher success rate.)
The audience knew what THE FLINSTONES the movie was. They just needed to know the casting and when it opened. No one needed to have the remake of GODZILLA explained to them. They just needed to know when it opened.
The marketing department prefers AWARNESS over SELLING because awareness is something you can throw money at. Selling is harder, and it’s less predictable. This is why franchises are so valuable.
Whenever someone says, “That’s something I can sell!” It’s usually something that can sell itself. What they mean is, "I just have to let people know about this!"
Hollywoods's reliance on property the audience is already familiar with is 100% because... the audience is already familiar with it. It is easier to market the product and this increases its chances of success.
This focus on I.P. has become so pervasive, many, including executives themselves, have forgotten WHY it's valuable. They'll option an unknown comic BECAUSE it's I.P., forgetting that it's unknown and lacks the main asset of I.P.
Writers do love writing on an I.P. that means something to them. Every Star Wars fan who became a filmmaker would love to work in that universe. But we do not love it more than our own original work. We would always rather work on that.
So when you see another remake, or reboot, or adaptation, and think, "Can't they come up with something new?"
Remember, the answer is yes. Yes, we can. And we want to. You can blame the market or the marketing, but either way, the widespread production of truly original content is just not the studio business model we're in right now. #WGAStrong
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wilwheaton · 9 months
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When you watch The Curse, you are watching two children who were abused and exploited daily during production. No adults protected us.
This was originally published on my blog in August, 2022.
I had a wonderful time at Steel City Comicon this weekend. It was my first time at this particular con, so I didn’t know there was such a huge contingent of horror fans, creators, and vendors who attend.
I love horror, and I was pretty psyched to be in the same place as John Carpenter and Tom Savini, across the street from the Dawn of the Dead mall. Pittsburgh feels like one of the places horror was invented, at least to me.
A number of these horror fans came to see me, and asked me to sign posters and other things from a movie my parents forced me to do when I was 13, called The Curse. I had to tell each of these people that I would not sign anything associated with that movie, because I was abused and exploited during production. The time I spent on that film remains the most traumatizing time of my life, and though I am a 50 year-old man, just typing this now makes my hands shake with remembered fear of a 13 year-old boy who nobody protected, and the absolute fury the 50 year-old man feels toward the people who hurt him.
I told this story in Still Just A Geek, and I’ve talked about it in some podcasts I did on the promo tour, but I’ve never put it out in public like this, in its entirety.
I suspect someone at the publisher would prefer I tease this and hope it drives book sales from people who want to read all of it, but I honestly don’t want to have another weekend like this one where everything is awesome, except the few times people who have no idea (and why should they) put that fucking poster in front of me, and all the fear, abandonment, and trauma come flooding back as I tell them that I won’t sign it, and why.
To their credit, each person was as horrified as they should have been, told me they had no idea (if they didn’t read my book why would they), and quickly put the poster away. They were all understanding. I am grateful for that.
But I really don’t need to tell this story over and over again, so here it is, with a child abuse and exploitation content warning, so I can just tell people to Google it.
After Stand by Me, everything changed. The attention from entertainment journalists, casting directors, and especially teen magazines came pouring in. The movie was a generational hit, beloved by critics and audiences alike, and every single one of us could pick anything to do next.
River’s parents and his agent got him Mosquito Coast, with Harrison Ford, as his next movie. I also auditioned for the role, but I knew even then that River was going to book the job. He was perfect, and I’d have to wait a little bit for my opportunity to come along.
I went on a lot of theatrical auditions after Stand by Me. I had tons of meetings with directors and the heads of casting at every major studio. It was all a very big deal, and I felt like we were all looking for something really special and amazing as my follow-up to Stand by Me.
At some point, a couple of producers contacted my agent with an offer to play one of the leads in an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space.” The script was titled The Farm. (It would, of course, be changed when the film was released).
I read it. I did not like it. It was a shitty horror movie, and I saw that right away. It was the sort of thing you rented on Friday when the new release you wanted was already out of the store.
My mother, already an incredibly manipulative person, used every tool at her disposal to change my mind. My father threatened me, mocked me, told me “It’s your decision” when it clearly wasn’t. It was all so weird; I didn’t understand why they cared so much.
I told my parents I didn’t like it and didn’t want to do it. I clearly recall thinking it was a piece of shit that would hurt my career.
It wasn’t the first thing that had come our way that I wanted to pass on, and every other time, it hadn’t been a very big deal.
Sidebar: I was cast in Twilight Zone: The Movie, in 1983. The film tells four stories, and I was cast as the kid who can wish people into cartoonland. It was a GREAT role, in a movie I still love. (Note that Twilight Zone had four directors. One of them got three people killed. The segment I was cast in was not that one. I mention this because too many people zero in on this to deflect from what this whole thing is actually about.)
But I was CONVINCED by my parochial school teacher that if I worked on The Twilight Zone, which she had determined was satanic, I would go to hell. (This woman and her bullshit played a big role in my conversion to atheism at a young age, but when she told me that, I was all-in on the supernatural story they taught us in religion class.) I was so scared, more scared than I’d ever been to that point in my life, I cried and wailed and begged my parents to not make me do the movie. And I never told them why, because I was afraid my dad would laugh at me for being weak and afraid. My agent tried to talk me into it, and I wouldn’t budge. It’s the only thing I deeply and truly regret passing on, and I really hate I made that choice for such a stupid reason.
Okay. Back to The Curse.
This time, when I told them how much I hated it, they wouldn’t listen to me. My mother, already an incredibly manipulative person, used every tool at her disposal to change my mind. My father threatened me, mocked me, told me “It’s your decision” when it clearly wasn’t. It was all so weird; I didn’t understand why they cared so much.
That is, until they made me take a meeting with the producers of the movie, in their giant conference room on the top floor of a tall building in Hollywood. All I remember about this place was that it was huge; the table was way too big for the five of us who spread around it, and there were floor-to-ceiling windows on three of the walls, but the room was still dark. There was a weird optical illusion in the center of the table, this thing they sold in the Sharper Image catalog, made from two reflective dishes with a hole in the top of one. You placed an object in the bottom of the bottom dish, and it made it look like that object was floating above the whole thing. They had a plastic spider in it. What a strange detail for me to remember, but it’s as clear in my memory as if I were sitting in that room right now.
One man, who I presumed was the executive producer, was European or Middle Eastern (I didn’t know the difference then, he was just Not Like People I Knew), and I was instantly afraid of him. He was intimidating, and seemed like a person who got what he wanted.
So we sat there, my father who didn’t give a shit about me, my mother who was cosplaying as someone with experience, and me, thirteen years old, awkward as fuck, and scared to death.
I don’t remember what they said to me in their pitch or anything other than how uncomfortable and anxious I was to even be in that room. I tried so hard to be grown up and mature, but I — and my parents — was way out of my depth. I’d done one big movie and that was it. We didn’t have my agent with us, who had lots of experience and would have known what questions to ask.
No, in place of my experienced agent, my mother had decided she was going to be my manager, and she tackled the responsibility with an enthusiasm that was only matched by her absolute incompetence and inability to go toe-to-toe with producers the way my agent did. She was outwitted, out-thought, and outmaneuvered at every turn.
“You don’t have a choice,” my father commanded. “You are doing this movie.”
So we sat there, my father who didn’t give a shit about me, my mother who was cosplaying as someone with experience, and me, thirteen years old, awkward as fuck, and scared to death.
At some point, this man, who is represented in my memory by big Jim Jones sunglasses under dark hair above an open collar, said, “We are offering you a hundred thousand dollars and round-trip travel for your whole family. We will cast your sister, Amy, to play your sister in the movie.”
It all made sense, now. I was only thirteen, but I knew my parents were pushing me so hard because this company was offering me — them, really — more money than I’d ever imagined I’d earn in my life, much less a single job.
I knew that the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, was to say no. There would be other opportunities, and it was stupid to cash myself out of feature films for what I thought was, in the grand scheme of things, not very much money.
It’s incredible to me that I knew all of this. It’s incredible to me that I could see all these things, plainly and clearly, and my parents couldn’t (or, more likely, chose not to).
So after this man made his offer, all the adults in the room ganged up on me, selling me HARD on this movie.
My mother said, “Don’t you want your sister to have the same opportunities you’ve had? Wouldn’t it be fun and exciting to go to Rome? Think of all the history!”
The experience was awful. It was the worst experience I have ever had on a set in my life, by every single metric. The movie is awful, and it is the embarrassment I knew it would be.
I don’t think about this very often, because it’s super upsetting to me. Right now, I’m so angry at my parents for subjecting me and my sister to this entire experience. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
In that moment, I felt bullied and trapped. All these adults were talking to me at the same time, and I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted to go home and get out of this room. I just wanted to go be a kid, so I did what I’d learned to do to survive: I gave in and did what my parents wanted.
The experience was awful. It was the worst experience I have ever had on a set in my life, by every single metric. The movie is awful, and it is the embarrassment I knew it would be.
But here’s the thing: when you watch The Curse, you are watching two children, me and my sister, who were abused on a daily basis. The production did not follow a single labor law. They worked us for twelve hours a day, on multiple film units (while I work on First unit, second unit sets up and waits for me. When I should get a break to rest, they send me to Second unit, then to Third unit, then back to First unit. I was 13.) without any breaks, five days a week. I was exhausted the entire time. I was inappropriately touched by two different adults during production. I knew it was wrong, but I was so scared and ashamed, and I felt so unsupported, I didn’t tell anyone. I knew my dad wouldn’t believe me, and my mother would blame me. Anything to keep the production happy, that’s what she did. That was more important to her than the health and safety of her children. The director was coked out of his mind most of the time, incompetent, and so busy fucking or trying to fuck one of the women in the cast, he was worse than useless. He was a fading actor who was cosplaying as a director, as in over his head as my mother. My sister and I were never safe. Instead of harmless atmospheric SFX smoke, they set hay on fire in barrels and blew actual smoke onto the set. They took buckets of talc, broken wood, bits of wallpaper and plaster, and threw it into my face during a scene inside the collapsing house. My sister is in a scene where she goes to get eggs from some chickens, and they attack her. So they hired Lucio Fulci, the Italian horror master, to direct her sequence. His idea, which everyone was totally on board with, was to throw chickens at my sister. Live chickens, live roosters, live birds. Just throw them at a nine-year-old girl. Oh, and then tie them to her arms and legs so they’ll peck her. All of this happened under my mother’s observation, and with her full participation.
Everything I need to know about who my parents are is wrapped up in that experience: the total lack of concern for my safety and happiness, treating me like an asset instead of a son, lying to me, manipulating me, and using me to get things they wanted, and then gaslighting me about it.
If just ONE of the things I can remember happened to someone I loved, I would have grabbed my kids, gone to the airport, and flown home. Fuck those abusive assholes in the production. Let the lawyers sort it all out. Nobody hurts my children and gets away with it.
My mom says she “had some talks” with the producers. She claims that, once, she wouldn’t let us leave the hotel. (God, what a fucking dump that place was. It was just slightly better than a hostel.) I have no memory of that, but honestly the entire experience was so traumatic, I’ve blocked most of it out.
The movie was the commercial and critical failure I knew it would be. My parents spent the money. I don’t know what they spent it on. I got to keep fifteen cents of every dollar, so . . . yay?
My sister and I hardly ever talk about this. I suspect it was as upsetting and traumatic for her as it was for me. I told her I was writing about it, and asked her if she remembered anything. She told me she��d been lied to her whole life about this movie. Our mother let her believe she had been cast on the strength of her audition. “I was excited to work with you,” she said. She reminded me about some stuff I’d blocked out, including a scene where my character’s older brother (played by an actor named Malcolm Danare, who was kind and gentle, and made both of us feel safer when he was around) shoves my character into a pile of cow shit. When it came time to shoot the scene, the mud they’d put together to be the cow shit looked an awful lot like cow shit. When Malcolm pushed me into it, we all found out it was real cow shit. I was FURIOUS. The director had lied to me and had allowed me to have my entire body shoved into an actual pile of actual cow shit. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember he treated me the exact same way my father did whenever I got upset: he laughed at me, told me I was being too sensitive, reminded me that he was the director and he wanted to get a “real” performance out of me, and concluded, “If it bothers you so much, we’ll get you a hepatitis shot,” before he walked away.
My sister also recalled that, after she survived the scene with the chickens, it was the producers’ idea to give her one as a pet.
Okay, let’s unpack that for a quick second: you’ve been traumatized by these birds, so we’re going to give you one as a pet. That you’ll somehow keep in your hotel, and then will somehow get back to America. It will shock you to learn that neither of those things happened.
She remembered, as I do, the huge fight I had with my parents in our kitchen, where I told them I hated the script and I hated the movie. I didn’t want to do it, and I hated that they were making me do it.
“You don’t have a choice,” my father commanded. “You are doing this movie.”
“This is the only film you are being offered,” my mother lied to me. She made me feel like, if I didn’t do this movie, I would never do another movie again in my life. I had to do this movie. As my father bellowed, I had no choice.
Both of my parents denied this argument ever happened. Can I tell you how reassuring it is to know that my sister, who was also there, remembers it the same way I do?
The makeup department decided they would literally cut my little sister’s face with a scalpel, in three places, and put bandages over them.
But one thing she told me, the thing I did not know, the thing that makes me so angry I want to break things, actually managed to make the entire experience even worse than I remembered it.
There’s a scene after her chicken incident where I check up on her in her bedroom. She’s got cuts and bruises, and I guess we talk about it. I don’t remember and I can’t watch the movie because I’m terrified it will give me a PTSD flashback (I’ve had one of those and I recommend avoiding it). Here’s the thing about that scene: she has some cuts on her face, and those cuts are real. They are not makeup.
I’m going to repeat that. My nine-year-old little sister had actual cuts on her face that were placed there by an adult, on purpose.
The makeup department decided they would literally cut my little sister’s face with a scalpel, in three places, and put bandages over them. My sister told me our mother wasn’t in the makeup room when this happened — honestly, it seemed like our mother was strangely and conveniently absent when most of the really terrible things happened to us on the set — and when my sister told her what they’d done, she “lost her shit” at the production. She was pissed, I guess, which is appropriate and surprising. I wonder what would have to have happened for her to put us on a plane and get us home to safety? I mean, her son being abused daily didn’t do it, and her daughter being CUT IN THE FACE ON PURPOSE didn’t do it.
I just . . . I can’t. I can’t understand or comprehend allowing your own children to be physically and emotionally abused. They were literally selling my sister and me to these people, like we were some kind of commodity.
This was a tough conversation. My sister’s experience with our parents is very different from mine. My sister and I love each other. We’re close. I know it’s hard for her to hear that her brother, who she loves, was so abused by her parents, who she also loves. I was really grateful she made the time to talk to me about it, and grateful the experience wasn’t as horrible for her as it was for me.
As we were finishing our call, Amy also remembered one man, a young Italian named Luka, who was our driver for the movie. I haven’t thought about him in thirty years, but I can see his face now. He was kind, he was friendly, he taught us how to kick a soccer ball, and in the middle of an abusive, torturous experience, he stood out as a kind and gentle man. I mention him because she remembered him, which made me remember him, and goddammit I want at least one small part of this thing to not be awful.
The Curse remains one of the most consequential times the adults in my life failed to protect me. I’m 50. I still have nightmares.
Ultimately, as I predicted and feared, this piece of shit movie cashed me out of respectable films forever. I got offers for movies, but they were always mindless comedies or exploitative horror films. They were never the serious dramas I wanted to work in after Stand by Me. The industry looked at me and River, wondering if one or both of us would become a breakout star. They quickly saw that River was doing real acting work, and I was in this piece of shit. For River, Stand by Me was a beginning. For me, it would turn out to be pretty much everything, at least as far as film goes.
There are thousands of reasons film careers do and don’t take off. Maybe mine wouldn’t have taken off anyway. Clearly, it’s not where my life ended up, and I’m super okay with that now. But when all of this happened, it hurt and haunted me.
The Curse remains one of the most consequential times the adults in my life failed to protect me. I’m 50. I still have nightmares. Everything I need to know about who my parents are is wrapped up in that experience: the total lack of concern for my safety and happiness, treating me like an asset instead of a son, lying to me, manipulating me, and using me to get things they wanted, and then gaslighting me about it.
This annotation is the last thing I wrote before I turned this manuscript in, because opening these wounds is hard and painful. I put it off as long as I could, and I feel like I’m still holding back, because just this small glimpse of the experience has taken me a week to write. I can’t imagine trying to go back and unpack the whole thing. (Note that is not in the book: I’ve made an EMDR appointment to work on this because the nightmares have come back after the weekend).
Fuck The Curse, and fuck every single person who exploited and hurt two beautiful children to make it. You all participated in child abuse, and you all knew better. Shame on all of you. I hope this follows you to the end of your life. I hope that living with what you did to innocent children has been as hard for you as it has been for me, because you deserve no less.
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theatrum-tenebrarum · 2 years
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Misunderstanding Lucifer from the Sandman series and why Gwendoline Christie is the right choice (an art historian and occultist's opinion)
I am writing this post as I'm absolutely baffled by the issues people seem to have with the portrayal of the character of Lucifer in the Sandman series. For some reason people find it problematic that the fallen angel is played by Gwendoline Christie, a powerful and androgynous-looking woman, but there is seemingly no problem with Lucifer being played by a black-haired man in the nightclub business (Tom Ellis in the Netflix series 'Lucifer'). Don't get me wrong, Tom Ellis is entertaining and wonderful to watch, but that particular version of Lucifer is neither canon when it comes to the comics nor does it have anything to do with the actual angel Lucifer.
Angels are genderless beings and they have always been portrayed as androgynous in the history of art. Multiple literary sources, including grimoires (books with supposed instructions on how to summon these beings and many others), state that angelic beings as well as demons are able to change their appearance. Many of those forms they might take aren't even humanoid and they can choose not to show any physical form at all. They aren't corporeal beings, the fact that they do take on any resemblance of a physical form is just so humans can understand them better. That's why we've been painting them as human-like ever since the early times of human civilization. What we make to be similar to us is what makes it comprehensible. Portraying beings from other dimensions/realms as human-like but with androgynous features is a way to show they don't belong in the physical dimension, as gender is likely a non-existent concept in other realms of existence. Androgyny of mythical beings, therefore, emphasizes the fact they are different than physical beings such as humans.
Therefore, when portraying an angelic being in art, or in any type of media, making them androgynous is making way for their essence to come through. In a way, the same applies to the way elves are portrayed as ethereal and androgynous since they don't have to be corporeal beings at all, at least when it comes to folklore. I know this opinion might not be understandable to others or it might sound controversial, but I believe that not portraying an angelic being as androgynous and not showing any signs of their divine origin (these include mannerisms that emphasize their etheriality for example, a cadence in their voice that is different etc.) is a huge missed opportunity that might rob these interesting mythical beings of what they are. Not making angels feel like angels beats the point of having an angel character (in a movie, series or video game for example) in the first place.
This is why Gwendoline Christie is the right choice. At a height of 6′ 3″ (1.91 m), captivatingly pale. androgynous with a powerful specific sort of grace and presence - a perfect 'vessel' for the Morning Star. What's more, she understands the importance, complexity, grandeur and the mythical dimension of the figure of Lucifer, as well as the whole 'spirituality' of the Sandman universe which is rather evident from her approach to this role and the interviews she has given so far. I might go so far to say that, even though the Sandman series isn't even out yet (though there is some footage available already), the casting of Gwendoline as Lucifer feels right just as the casting of Lee Pace as Thranduil in the Hobbit felt right and I consider the character of Thranduil to be the best portrayal of a humanoid mythical being on TV. Lee felt like an elven king, moved like an elven king, spoke like an elven king and radiated an energy of the dimension the elven king might have come from (I'm talking about the folkloric 'Otherworld' where elves supposedly live). I feel the same might apply to Gwendoline and Lucifer.
As an occultist, art historian, anthropologist and someone who is rather fond of the figure of Lucifer, I am looking forward to seeing how Gwendoline interprets him. Finally, we might get something completely different from a frequently portrayed 'demonic' side/version of this important mythical character. We might just see the Light Bringer who has not forgotten his divine origin.
- Heidi (@theatrum-tenebrarum)
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Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer (The Sandman series on Netflix, out 5th August 2022)
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shibaraki · 1 year
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GOD’S LONELIEST CREATION ┊ AIZAWA SHOUTA
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synopsis: as head of the mothman study you’ve devoted countless nights to observing your subject from behind the glass. you liked to think those many months spent together contributed to a sense of camaraderie, but time is merely a cradle gently lulling you into false security— and shouta is nothing if not patient.
tags: NSFT, AFAB reader (mention of ovulating), monsters + cryptids au, mothman aizawa, implied monster hunting, captivity, cryptozoologist reader, possessiveness, dubcon to eventual enthusiastic consent, oblivious reader, monsterfucking, mating behaviour, breeding, mentions of size difference (he is 7ft; called ‘little human’ +‘little flame’), vaginal oral sex + tongue fucking (reader receiving), multiple orgasms, non-human genitalia, oviposition (reader receiving; but no belly bulging), unprotected vaginal sex, *slaps roof* you can fit so much plot in this porn!!
wc: 7k+
A/N: now with art of mothzawa!!!! thank you so much, feral!
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Tucked away into the seam between Shizuoka and Musutafu is the UA Cryptobiology research centre. In the eyes of the public it was an extension of the nearby UA University and largely harmless. Cryptids kept there are not advertised, atleast, not the living ones.
The building is huge. An architectural giant, and a stain on the natural landscape. You’ve worked there for years yet still find yourself struck by just how foreboding it looks. Head ducked, you slip past the thin crowd protesting by the security gate, staff card hidden in the sleeve of your shirt.
While they are few in number their voices are loud and accusing. You flinch at the vitriol as you try to reach the scanner. There was a small earthquake in a nearby prefecture a few days ago which was the likeliest reason they had gathered here.
On days like this you couldn’t help the thought that no amount of scientific research would wipe away the countrywide consensus on cryptids. Very early on in your career you came to understand why your superiors lied about the live subjects. If these people knew the truth they could probably birth a calamity all of their own.
Unfortunately it is not only the monstrous who are a target. You lock eyes with a guard standing by the gates and slip your keycard into the shallow of your palm. Nodding in acknowledgement, he places the whistle hung around his neck between his lips and the moment you swipe in he blows, hard.
The gate clicks and unlocks with a short beep that is drowned out by the noise. You walk through and quickly push it closed behind you. Thank you, you mouth over to him, scurrying across the lot toward the main doors. He offers a flippant wave in return.
You enter the mouth of the lobby. It is a wide dome shaped room with high ceilings that houses most of the lecture rooms, and acts as a junction to other parts of the facility. Looking up, you can see each floor twisting into a spiral.
Centred is the reception desk; large and circular to make room for five staff members to be seated at any given time. Yamada is there today, dressed with his shirt cuffs pushed to the elbow, waist length hair braided up into a ponytail. He leans dangerously far back in his chair and twiddles a pen between his fingers. Your unease falls away at the familiar sight.
“Yamada,” you intone sternly. A grin pulls at your lips when he startles. The wheels on his office chair squeak as he rights himself. Wide sheepish eyes land on you and narrow in disbelief.
“Don’t do that,” he pouts, dragging himself closer to the desk, casting another nervous glance toward his coworker. “Bully! I could’ve broken my neck”.
“Then you would’ve thanked me for the two months paid sick leave”.
Yamada smirks, peering at you above his yellow tinted lenses “…Touché”.
You rest both arms on the countertop and lean over, holding a hand out to receive the sign in sheet. “You have a good weekend?” you ask, falling back into idle pleasantries while you skim over the names already on the register. Hatsume Mei. Huh, you think. She’s early.
“Kan and Kayama dragged me out drinking,” Yamada admits tiredly, massaging two fingers to his temples and closing his eyes, opening again to glare at your huff of laughter. “Sure love laughing at my misfortune, don’t’cha? I think you’re spending too much time with those ghouls”.
Signing your name in the next blank row, you give a brief glance at the watch on Yamada’s wrist to mark the time. “Comes with the territory,” you murmur, amused by the whine in his voice, setting the pen and register down on his desk with some finality. “Seen Mei today? She signed in already”.
“You bet. That girl is hard to miss,” he slides the sheets toward his front. “Speaking of…” you turn at the amused hum. His pen is pointed left like the needle of a compass leading directly to a familiar figure. Hatsume is clutching her clipboard with a tenuous grip as she scurries through the lobby, pink hair bouncing on her shoulders.
Her gaze finds you and she perks up. You lift a hand to return a wave as she beckons you frantically. It’s not entirely uncharacteristic of her. Hatsume was the rare type— she loved this job. Any small change or news could garner this reaction from her.
The excitable exclamation of your name draws the attention of the people around you, though the intern remains entirely unperturbed, almost tripping over her feet to get to you. “Mei,” you smile, instinctively stepping forward with arms held open in case she stumbles. “What’s all the noise about? Did something happen?”
“Food!” she pants heavily, grasping your forearm for balance. Her eyes are wide and beseeching as if the word alone was enough to explain her enthusiasm. It doesn’t.
Slow, you repeated, “…Food?”
The band keeping her hair tied back loosens while she nods. “It’s the mothman. He’s not eating!”
“He’s not…” you blink. “Oh!” The realisation trickles in, and you find yourself gripping onto Hatsume’s arms with bruising pressure as it washes over you. Your cheeks ache and she mirrors your grin.
Yamada clears his throat, interrupting before you have the chance to speak. “What’s so great about that?” he asks. “Wouldn't that be a sign that he’s sick or something?”
“No,” you breathe. Energy buzzes lightning-quick under your skin. Restless, you begin to shake Hatsume where she stands, and the two of you laugh in astonishment. “It means he’s hoarding!”
“Hoarding?”
“Mothman cryptids will take food back to their nests for their partners but,” the burst of joy dwindles, then. You worry at your bottom lip. “But… previous observations show that this behaviour should come after they’ve met a potential mate”.
“You think we should be worried?”
“I think it’s unusual”.
Hatsume doesn’t wilt. She shrugs your doubts off like water to a duck’s back, bouncing on the balls of her feet and handing over the clipboard. As always, the notes are verbose but organised. Detailed down to the very last time stamp.
There, written in pen, it states that at 11:58 the mothman was seen hovering by the food hatch. It clarified that there were no signs of aggression or posturing. Shouta was simply waiting. Shouta never waits. At 12:00 his usual weekly meal was given and instead of consuming it immediately as he normally would, Shouta gathered the food to his chest and took flight.
You’re rushing off toward the cryptid wing before Hizashi can press any further. Hatsume is at your heel, her quick light-footed steps echoing through the corridors.
The mothman enclosure is immense. Space is required— most cryptids can grow up to seven feet or above, and their wings even taller. Separated from your observation deck by a thick, bulbous glass window, you needed to crane your head just to catch a glimpse of the ceiling, which remained mostly covered by a canopy.
Flora covers the entirety of the forest floor. The foliage is so dense that sometimes seeing further is impossible, which in turn makes your job that much harder; but it’s worth it, for the sake of Shouta’s comfort. Unlike your predecessors, you strongly advocated for him. You viewed him as an individual, another sentient being with autonomy, and thought building a good foundation of trust could only lead to better data overall.
The facility is vastly different to the outside world. Blacked out nest boxes were placed around the area, hidden away for him to choose from however he pleased, as well as broad net columns where he can rest. Your team was instructed to begin adjusting the seasons months ago. Gradually, the temperature was changed to mimic fall. The fauna acclimated, dousing the otherwise dark and dreary forest in a warm colour palette.
Tawny leaves perched loosely on branches like a flock of goldfinches. Camouflaged behind them are two red dots emitting an unblinking glow. It is very unlike him to be this close to the deck so early in the evening. Waiting for more food, maybe. You note that thought down. You see his eyes follow the movement of your pen and smile.
Mothman cryptids are bipedal winged humanoids. They have always been notoriously aloof and difficult to study. Catching them outright was nigh impossible. They’re a highly intelligent species, and very sensitive to their surroundings. Your best bet was to inflict injury first and capture later when an infection set in.
Shouta was different from the start. So unlike his kin that you sometimes wondered if the research collated about him was permissible. He had been wounded badly by nearby collectors and managed to escape, but rather than relocate, he entered the facility of his own volition. You’d heard the stories. An eldritch being prying open the doors, thick steel bending like paper, the employees paralysed with fear, rendered unable to do anything except kneel under the intense pressure of his glare.
They had been so frightened that the shivering malachite bundle in his arms almost went amiss. A Peryton fawn matted with blood. Director Yagi supposedly spit blood of his own when he noticed.
Shouta never left after that.
Everyone figured the rumours were exaggerated. A mothman wouldn’t surrender itself for the sake of another, not even it’s own kind. That is the universal truth— all cryptids are incapable of empathy. Their sole purpose is to serve as the herald of death, and death bringers did not save life. They took it.
While you knew that to be ostensibly untrue it will never matter. Monster hunting was a tradition practiced for millennia. Accepting that they might be capable of emotion would cast doubt upon such practices. More than anything humanity needed justification for their wrong doings; condemning something as monstrous only renders such violence as heroic.
You, however, had a fascination with them since you were a child. Those unanswered questions and curiosities are what led you to cryptozoology, and ultimately, into cryptid behavioural research. Having Shouta’s care handed over to you was a dream come true.
Shouta was averse to people and made that known; keepers could be found petrified by the feeding hatch, trembling in place for hours if they weren’t careful. Which is why your superiors were greatly pleased by his reaction to you.
You couldn’t confidently say he liked you— could a mothman like anyone? But the cryptid was, at the very least, intrigued by his new handler.
Within the first meeting you recorded vocalisations that were previously undiscovered. Soft chittering and clicks, surprisingly pleasing to the ear; it had a hypnotic quality to it that could almost lull you to sleep. The common denominator was you— rather, Shouta only ever made those sounds when you were visibly anxious, and you often toyed with the notion that he was attempting to soothe you.
You tried not to indulge in such hypotheses as not to cloud your judgment. Humans had a bad habit of anthropomorphising the things they cared about. Countless cynics argued that animals do not love, they simply form attachments to those that provide for them. Shouta may only treat you better because you are the first human to show him sincere respect but that didn’t matter.
Whether your place in his life was just that of a nuisance or not, you cared for him and his wellbeing all the same. That’s what made this so invigorating— not only answers to questions that plagued your field for centuries, but the real possibility that your subject might finally have true companionship.
Your mouth twists as your thoughts drift, imagining the smell of decay percolating in one of his nest boxes now that he was hoarding. Shouta could eat anything within reason if he needed to, but his preferred diet was on the bitter side. Rotted fruits and the like which had a more acidic, sour taste to it, though he could be partial to dry pantry food in the hotter months.
Mothman have been known to feast on flesh, too, in desperate times. Though it is rare for them to acquire the taste for human meat; too mild and too rubbery.
If he truly is readying for a mate then he would soon need more food, materials and bedding. The foliage worked as a foundation but you’re aware mothman cryptids liked to weave silk or cashmere into the structure for the young to cling to and eat.
That gives you pause. Your grimace curls into a wide, exuberant grin, that you immediately shield behind the clipboard. We could end up with babies this year, you think. The first to ever be bred in captivity— a near impossible feat.
Shouta’s antennae are fluttering. Their movements fracture the stillness of the canopy and make known his position. You stare long enough for the dark blob amongst the trees to sharpen into a solid silhouette.
A mothman has a wingspan of around thirteen feet. These measurements aren’t entirely accurate, because Shouta refused to allow anyone to touch them, but the sheer size was obvious at a distance even where they remained tucked to his spine, cocooning him in darkness.
They are covered in loose tiny hairs acting as scales for insulation, while creating intricate, iridescent patterns along the inner forewings that can only be seen in moonlight when open— a gift saved in hopes of wooing a mate. Maybe you’d finally get a glimpse this year.
“Hey big guy,” you call out. Your voice jostles his wings and beckons him forward. Shouta balances himself on a thick cedar branch directly across from the observation deck, a rare sight. He is magnificent in the artificial daylight.
Hatsume releases an awed breath behind you. “Gah, he’s always so responsive to you! I’m jealous!”
Shouta barely acknowledges her presence. His attention is steadfast, pinpointed to your every move; unblinking, lest you disappear from vision. “Don’t take it personally. He’s just known me longer, is all,” you demurred, turning to her with a reassuring smile.
But she is seeing beyond you. The hair on the nape of your neck prickles and suddenly a sinistrous shadow stretches across the deck. Mei flinches back reflexively and you daren’t look back. What was ephemeral fear in her features blossoms into wonderment.
Then, a tapping sound that echoes in your chest. It is careful and somehow that makes it all the more daunting. Brushing off the unease, you pivot on your heel, coming face to face with Shouta. Both wings have hunched forward to create a cocoon of darkness, his pale face barely visible.
Another tap, accompanied by a smooth rumble. His large hand is pressed up against the glass. You step closer and his wingspan widens just a fraction. The light reflects in his eyes. He is right in front of you, so contrivedly real-looking that it feels like it must be fake.
Call it curiosity, or stupidity, or an amalgamation of the two. You outstretch your arm. The pane feels cold where your body presumes warmth. You align your palm with his and it swallows yours, fingers splayed open, still unable to reach the width of his hand.
“Hi there…” you exhale, having to crane your head to hold his gaze. Shouta’s jaw shifts as he clicks his teeth and you are reminded just how impressive a mothman cryptid’s hearing is. “You’re acting all out of sorts, huh. Want more food for the nest, right?”
Dark talons leave marks on the thick glass, hairline fractures stemming from point of impact. His gaze darkens. Hatsume gasps when he shakes his head and you can’t blame her. Cryptids rarely communicated directly with handlers.
“No?” you repeat, brows pinched into a frown. Then, to yourself, “Nesting materials, then? Already? But it can’t be, surely”.
The choice is a difficult one. Every potential mate your team introduced Shouta to throughout the years has been adamantly rejected. There was never an effort to impress or prove himself. He either flat out ignored them or attempted to kill them. You want to enable his new behaviours— to encourage it, even — but there was no mate yet.
Pseudocyesis comes to mind. Though this situation is far different, you wondered whether something in Shouta’s environment had triggered these instincts.
The rich baritone in his purr vibrates against your hand. His eyes blink slow and beseeching, full of apparent hunger, emitting that dewy red glow. Distantly, you register the dull scratch of pencil to paper. Rambling whispers fall from Hatsume’s mouth as she writes, documenting everything the way you taught her to.
“I think,” you begin, tongue heavy in your mouth. Your throat feels dry and the implication behind your next words stings. “I think he wants me to go inside his enclosure”.
A sane person would immediately put their foot down and tell you no. Director Yagi himself would try to talk you down. However, Hatsume Mei is a far cry from sane. She barely considers her own safety, let alone yours.
“What for?” she chimes impatiently. “I noticed he has been keeping an eye out for a specific person all morning— it must’ve been you. Do you think he could really be sick like Yamada said? Since he’s humanoid we can test if our medicines work on him!”
“Mei,” you interrupt, your voice cutting through her exuberance. She shrinks somewhat and you feel bad for being so sharp with her. “No, I’m not sure if he’s sick. And no, our medication only works to an extent. The dose needs to be dangerously high and cryptids burn through it faster than it can be replaced”.
Shouta observes the interaction. The tension in his wings looks ready to snap, and the feathery fingers of his antennae have started to shiver. You take in the sight of your overlapped hands once more and step away, clenching it into a fist at your hip.
“Anyone who goes into a cryptid’s den doesn’t come out,” Hatsume comments, tone uncharacteristically somber.
“I trust him,” you reassured, leveling the mothman with a contemplative stare. He ducks into the fluffy plumage around his neck and glares. “Mostly”.
Hatsume snickers. The weight in your chest lifts and you smile at her. She’s still young. Too young to bear any responsibility for what might happen.
“Something is telling me I have to go in there. It’ll keep me up at night if I don’t,” you continue, adding emphasis with a pointed finger. “This was my idea and mine alone. Do not send anyone in after me. Capiche?”
She gives a mock salute, “Yes boss!”
Each wing with a cryptid enclosure has a staircase leading from the observation deck to a feeding room. You descend the stairs, too aware of Shouta’s stare, which followed until you were out of sight.
The room is dull. Devoid of natural light, furnished only by three large chest freezers and a closet full of linens. There is a hatch the size of a shoebox that can be pulled open to safely deposit food through, and adjacent is a vault door reinforced with steel and concrete.
You open the closet and parse through the fabrics. Admittedly a long shot as far as ‘I come in peace’ gestures go, but the only thing you can think might help. Silk slides petal-soft between your fingers and you tuck it under your arm, joined by another cashmere blanket, smooth and noticeably light.
The vault door requires both a code and a staff card. You input the code and swipe your card. The affirmative beep pierces through your equilibrium. Shouta is not harmless. But you are, and you’re hoping he knows that.
A loud click echoes into the feeding room. You grasp the handle and take one last steely inhale before heaving, struggling with the incredible weight. You curse the door as it groans on its hinges, alerting everything nearby of your arrival.
Mothman feast on anything. Vegetation and flesh, fresh or rotted, but legend always spoke of their hunger for misery. They coveted disaster and fed on it, babe to breast, and somehow grew hungrier the more they swallowed.
You step into the enclosure. The door shuts with a loud foreboding slam and locks automatically.
Shouta does harm to those who would harm him. He feasts on fruit. On cereal and rice. You’d watched him suck through ten packets of coffee jelly, but never misery. If anyone were to ask you, you would tell them that Shouta conjured the very opposite of misery.
You remind yourself of that repeatedly until your thoughts coalesce into white noise. The earth is soft beneath your boots. Something darts through the treeline, gone in a blink, and you feel the hair on your arms stand on end.
Easing into the surroundings, you cautiously call out to him, “…Shouta? You here, big guy?”
A low hum resonates throughout the trees. You feel it more than you hear it, almost like a caress. It coaxes a familiar warm feeling into the pit of your stomach, willing all tension from your muscles until the blankets pinned to your side unfold, falling onto the ground.
A coronal mist has set in, orchestrated by a chattering sound you know well. Your clothes cling uncomfortably to your skin. It’s harder to breathe now. Shaking, you try to advance. Your body is quickly paralysed by the innate urge to flee.
Shouta’s presence echoes throughout the brush and sinks it’s claws into you— throbs under your skin in time with your heart. But if you ran, would that make his blood sing? Would he interpret it as a challenge to prove his worth, or a rejection for which to kill you?
The air is temperate. That perfect balance between cool and humid. Lush oranges and yellows branch out into every corner. Light bleeds through the thinning canopy, the ground dappled with sunspots. This isn’t such a terrible place to die.
You don’t hear or see him. Like before, you feel him first. Fear washes over you and steals your breath. Shouta is at your back, shaping himself to your body in a way that boasts how large he is in comparison. You stay stockstill while he touches you, nosing gently at your throat.
Finding your voice, you croak his name. An eldritch purr shudders through him and he grasps at your hips, pulling them back against him. You exhale at the obvious press of his cock to your back. Those soft chitters you had come to love drown out the panic that follows your realisation.
You were the intended mate.
Death stands behind you, arms cinched around your middle, mouthing along the nape of your neck like he loves you. The line between instinct and desire is deceptively thin. You wonder if Shouta knows the difference, or if he equates love with the heat of your blood spilling into his mouth, seams undone by the touch of his lips.
Your legs collapse beneath you, hitting the floor. A grubby applause from the dirt dances around your knees. Shouta accepts your dead weight as though it were nothing, his wings enveloping you both in an abrupt darkness.
Minuscule scales shimmer and reflect the glaring bioluminescence radiating from his eyes. Before you is a sky soaked crimson and blood spattered stars. “Is this…” you start, voice caught in your throat. It should be harrowing. People would call it a depiction of hell. You call it beautiful.
Shouta tucks his nose into your jugular with a warm hum and you feel sharp teeth protruding beneath his lips. Neck ruffle tickles soft against your skin, keeping you tight to his torso, enough that you think he could consume you whole. He’s pleased. You can tell.
Laughter bubbles up in your chest. It’s as if you are a teenager again, sneaking out with someone to see a clear starry night. The moment is incredulously human.
A mothman does not bare his wings to anyone but his mate. Even in flight they are too fast to be seen. You are so enamoured by it that you don’t notice the shift in gravity until the force on your body lightens and your stomach drops.
You squeak. Frantically clinging to his shoulders and turning your face into his neck, Shouta makes a sound suspiciously like laughter. Your body sways in his arms as the too-corporeal trees rise to meet him. What you cannot see you listen out for; leaves rustling, groaning branches, any sign to indicate where you’ve landed.
When his wings retract the shadows do not recede. You’ve been brought to a dark place. A few metres above your head there is a long slit of light bleeding into the lofty space. You’re distinctly reminded of a grave. That thought makes your heart thump hard against your rib cage.
A calm tenor breaks the silence and you refocus on the figure above. Red eyes bleed into the darkness. Long black hair drapes over his shoulders and blends into the light fluffed ruff of his neck, reminiscent of a scarf that extends down his chest and back into his large wings, which he has tucked closely behind him.
Broad feathery antennae flicker on top of his head, so distinctly insect-like, but his body and hands are startlingly human— it would be, if not for the black tipped talons that grew from each finger and toe.
“Are you still frightened?”
You realise you’re being cradled with deliberate care, as if you might shatter. He treats you like this is the first time he has ever met another living thing. There is barely any pressure behind the claws curled at the base of your neck. All you can think is that he’s warm. Soft. Guided by wonder, inhibitions lost in a concussive fog, you reach up to cautiously touch his face.
Shouta had multiple nests. The team before you took over had planted cameras in all of them only for their recordings to be destroyed, pieces left strewn by the food hatch. It agitated him, thus you respected those wishes. But in doing so you also cut off any means of behavioural observation.
This meant you knew of them, but nothing more than that. You had no idea which nests he actually used. You had no idea how he spun them, or what they looked like from the inside.
What you have been lowered into is not a grave, though it is deep and narrow. The bedding yields, padded under your back, emanating the smell of upturned earth and petrichor.
This is his primary nest.
Your tongue feels too thick for your mouth. “You can… you can speak?”
A black tipped finger hooks into the collar of your shirt. You feel it sharp like a knife's edge, and the fabric rips with barely any pressure. Shouta snorts. And then, “Your kind is strange. Presumptuous,” he traces over the swell of your breast. “And soft”.
There’s only intent to satiate his curiosity, but you feel something dangerously warm coil low in your belly. The broad, feathered antennae atop his head curl toward you, almost prehensile in nature, as if they can sense it.
“You can’t,” words fail you as his tongue glides over your pulse. “You’ve never spoken before. You can’t blame me for being surprised”.
“That wouldn’t be logical,” he murmurs. You exhale shakily as his teeth nip gently at your lobe, pressing what could be a kiss to the shell. “It’s not as if your primitive ears would be able to hear me through the glass”.
The baritone of his voice frissons down your spine and you find yourself clenching your thighs. Shouta braces over you until he is all there is— and you are all he sees.
You argue fruitlessly in attempts to maintain self control, “We could’ve talked through the speakers”.
“We could have. But then the other humans would know this part of me,” he replies plainly. “Is that what you want?”
You’re a little embarrassed by the immediate ‘no’ that rolls onto the tip of your tongue. You bite it and let your silence answer for you. A disservice to your team and to your research— you seek truths and yet the truth is you are secretly happy that this is yours and yours alone.
Shouta huffs. He brings your foreheads together and your knees part reflexively to make room for him as he settles between them. The shine in his eyes has dimmed into a simmer. It reminds you of a pyre after the fire has burned; the glowing ash left to cool overnight.
“If I had not played along and acted beastly you wouldn’t have paid attention,” he continues. You tremble as he slots against the cradle of your hips, a suggestive pulse felt between your legs. The size of his body forces your legs wider around his waist. His cock is heavy and the heat emanates through your work pants. He doesn’t move, and he waits.
“You…” you’re breathless when it hits you. “You could’ve left all this time”.
He rises slowly at your words and tilts his head, beckoning you to continue. There is an unwavering composure about him that leaves you uneasy. You got the sense he knew your thoughts before you voiced them.
“You stayed and cooperated with our research. Even though… Some of them treated you like an animal. You could be anywhere but here”.
Shouta gives a disapproving chitter. The sound devolves into a hum. He settles a large hand on the top of your head and leans back into your space, uncomfortably close, as if to impress the answer upon you. “Here is where I am supposed to be”.
He’s not a monster, just something that wants to belong.
Your hand smooths over his cheek to his hair, the other guiding his palm to your chest where your heart sits. He squeezes at your chest, curious. Gentle fingertips brush the antennae rooted in a crown of thick black hair. The sweet resonant purr surges and you watch the touch shudder through his body in awe.
Your blood sings, reacting to his desperate call with a burst of exhilaration. A thought crosses your mind— had it been you he was chasing, or this feeling?
Was this how it felt to be a predator?
“Here. With me…” you rasp, wetting your lips as your eyes fall to his mouth. Shouta smiles and you have to temper the urge to touch his teeth. “I’ve worked here for a long time. Why wait until today?”
“Courting takes time. And though I was sure of you I knew you weren’t ready,” he rasps, rocking up against your sex. A gasp catches in your throat and his antennae flutter in response. “I can smell that you are now”.
“Smell?”
Shouta hums an affirmative. “All creatures have a cycle. Your body changes over the weeks,” the hand over your heart descends to your stomach, resting above your waistband. The repetitive stroke of his thumb is doting, almost. “Soon you will be ovulating”.
You are torn between horror and amazement. The craving to write this down was insatiable. Truthfully it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Shouta could know that— he was finely tuned to his environment. That was the entire purpose of chemoreception.
Regardless, that knowledge instills a sense of vulnerability in you. The scales felt tipped entirely in his favour and there was nothing you could hide from him. It was equally liberating and frightening.
A quiet trill pulls you from your thoughts. He must pick up on your anxiety, because mothman crowds you back against the nest and you sink further with a weak smile, your fingers threading into his fur. Wildflowers and long grass borders your periphery. You hadn’t much chance to appreciate his hard work in the dark.
“Shouta,” you faltered. Perhaps you should be more concerned that giving yourself to him was never a question. “Are you sure it’s me you want? I’m just a human”.
“I see that,” he stated dryly. “But you are my little human. My mate. This is not up for debate”.
Memories surrounding your tentative relationship over the years come to the forefront of your mind. How purposeful and gentle he was, the obvious preference for your company, his willingness to share his secrets and weaknesses just to see you satisfied.
The pregnant pause is mistaken for hesitance. Shouta brings your hand to his throat, inner wrist tickled by the plumage. Soft hair trails up his neck and thins by his jaw. Behind him, his wings unfurl and stretch. Pushing the heel up to his jugular, you feel six deliberate clicks. The rhythm of each is individual, some pitched and others deep, and the silence between is different in length, almost similar to morse code.
“What did you say?”
“Your name,” he rumbles.
There is underlying significance you aren’t privy to, yet you feel it all the same. You meet his gaze. Skin feverish, breathes coming quicker. Your hips twitch helplessly and he bites back a croon.
“Okay. Touch me, ” you slowly coil your arms around his neck and bring him into an embrace. He goes doubtlessly, engaging you with knees settled either side of your hips.
Shouta cuts your clothes off carefully and with ease. The simple hook of a talon and they tore like thin paper. His tongue, long and tube-like at the tip, glides between your breasts, flicking over your nipples and watching with fascination. It’s as though the roles have switched. You are the subject now.
You laugh breathily as he nuzzles into you, palming at your soft stomach. Shouta works his way down your body, giving a curious churring sound as more of your body reveals itself. He tears away your pants, but rather than discard them, he tucks them into the borders of the nest.
The air feels good on your skin, cool where it kisses your arousal. “Hold yourself open for me,” he says. “I want to taste you”.
An overwhelming wave of embarrassment washes over you as he guides your hands to the back of your thighs, ankles hooked over his broad shoulders. Pressure behind his claw-tipped fingers, Shouta gently pries your folds apart to demonstrate his wishes. “Like this”.
You moan, bear down on his tongue at the first lick as it glides over your clit, a shudder rolling through your body at the threat of his teeth. He descends again and again with bottomless yearning, no longer hunger, rather like an elastic compulsion pulled impossibly taut.
A pleased chitter vibrates against you. His wings extend and shudder, looming above like tapestry. “So good,” he breathes in, shameless as he noses along your cunt. “So warm. You smell even better than usual”.
The muscles in your thighs clench as the narrow tip of his tongue teases your entrance. You push down into your heels with a weak cry of complaint and he obliges, gently pushing inside you.
Your breathing falters. “Sh—Shouta,” you croak, reaching down desperately to grasp his plumage the deeper he sinks. It feels never ending, flexing and twisting experimentally as he draws out, still keeping his lips pressed up against you.
Gradually he builds a rhythm. Observing raptly from his place between your legs, his gaze never strays, gleaming when your hips buck into his mouth. It’s his expression that spurs you on— that rapt, intense desire.
Shouta stretches you on his tongue, the obscene slick sound of saliva echoing throughout his nest. The tension low in your belly coils, taut, and you feel it pulse. Your toes curl and you let out a loud, broken moan that sounds like relief.
“Don’t stop. Feels so good,” you keen, balancing right at the crest. Shouta’s pace grows anxious the closer you get, his big hands palming at your thighs, talons pinching skin. He forces them wider as he presses his weight into you with a long groan. “Yeah. That’s it, make me cum. Oh fuck—!”
A moment passes without air, yanked under by the force of it. Your body wrings tight and the tension snaps. Undone, loose at the seams as he takes you through the aftershocks quaking through your body.
You return to yourself, registering the quiet hum reverberating in your skull. Shouta nuzzles your sensitive clit before making his way up your torso. He smells like sex. His ruff, chin and cheeks are wet with arousal. You can taste yourself on his tongue as he licks over the seam of your lips, and shivers when they part to meet him.
The kiss is strange; not quite a kiss, more a press of mouths. You suppose it can’t be helped with teeth like his. His effort is far more endearing than it has any right to be.
Brief fatigue washes over you and settles into a giddy afterglow. The black spots in your vision dissipate. A short, soft chitter comes from his throat. The noise is familiar— they’re exactly like the sounds he would make when you were anxious.
“I’m okay, Shouta. You— You’re a bit too good at that,” you reassured, taking his face into your palms and feeling it in his cheeks when he smiles. The shifting wings behind his head draw your attention as they flutter. He’s near enough for you to reach out and stroke them.
They’re breathtaking. The texture is unlike anything you have ever felt before. You pause at his squirming, “Does it hurt?”
He huffed a laugh. You think that will never get old. “It doesn’t hurt”.
“Feels nice?”
“Too nice,” he says, stroking your hips. Lifting your hips, you grind lightly over his cock. You swallow, noticing how much it had grown, now completely unsheathed. Shouta reflexively chases the feeling, bucking up against your sex. You both hiss at the sensitivity.
Timidly, you ask, “Can I see?”
He nods.
The size is daunting. His cock is curved, long, but more notably it is thick. Fleshy in colour and hot, leaking a clear liquid over your hand. Ribbed around the shaft, the slight bumps slide under your palm as you bring your fist up to the narrowed head. No spikes. Good. If you met God you’d thank him.
It is crowned by sensitive skin, not unlike a human’s, but in gently pulling it back you find it reminds you more of an ovipositor. Shouta’s rumbling deepens, head hung between his shoulders. Drapes of long dark hair fall to curtain his face. His antennae quiver in place, wide red eyes looking back at you.
You feel yourself ache with unfulfilled arousal. Pressing your thighs together does nothing but tease. Shouta watches you guide his cock to the apex of your thighs, his chest heaving as you glide him through your wet folds, drenching yourself in his slick.
The cryptid pushes into you with a gentleness that is almost terrifying in its intensity— so out of place for a supposed harbinger of suffering. “Careful, little human,” he rasps, an ever present humming in his chest.
A pleasant tingling sensation begins to spread throughout your abdomen, relaxing your muscles, like sinking into the soothing heat of a hot bath. You’ve long shut off your avid questions, rendered thoughtless and pliant by the pressure. “Oh,” you exhale, struggling to keep your eyes open. He’s barely halfway in.
Shouta pulls out slowly and rocks back in, repeating the motion as you open up to him. You crane your head, jaw slack as you moan, reaching out to the immense silhouette above you. Everything about him is big. It’s all you can notice. He’s taking handfuls of you, kneading the fat at your thighs, hooking around them and pushing your knees toward your chest.
“Look at you,” his voice is thick and trembling. You whine, watching the way you swallow around him, clit swollen and twitching. “Perfect,” he rasps, the mix of your arousal dampening the fur around his base. He pulls out again, tantalisingly slow, and your legs start to shake.
“Shouta,” you choke, not knowing what it was you were asking for. He gives it to you anyway, rocking forward in one harsh movement, setting a pace that splits you in two. You can almost feel his cock is in your throat; touching parts of you you didn’t know existed; carving out space for himself and making a home of it.
The earlier mindfulness is gone. Shouta sets a divine pace. He shifts on his knees, gripping at your waist with his talons pressing into skin, pulling you down onto his cock. Praises have dwindled into a language you cannot understand, but you recognise those six successive clicks— he’s calling your name, over and over.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck. Ah. What is—?!”
The hypothesis is reaffirmed by the sensation of him stretching you further, widening inside you, inflating as something pulses through his shaft, abandoning his body and slipping into yours. Your mouth falls open as heat prickles across your skin and what feels like a second orgasm crashes over you. You’re left suspended in a free fall that never seems to end.
It feels too good to panic about. Sperm packets or eggs or both— whatever they are, they’re smooth, cooling where they gather inside of you, and right pushing up against your sweet spot. Tremors wrack through your limbs and Shouta appears no better. His upper lip curls, wings fully presented and twitching.
Weak, you wrap your arms around his head and cradle him to your chest. Your fingers brush over the apex of his wings and with barely any exertion, he slams you back onto his cock, a loud groan drawn from his chest. His pelvis slaps against your clit and in a moment of lucidity, you feel the ground rise to meet you.
Rigidity bleeds from your muscles as you cum again, soon replaced by a wave of exhaustion. You grimace at the uncomfortable bloated feeling in your belly. Shouta is muttering, antennae curled and brushing the swell of your cheeks. You can hear his voice. Muffled, as if you were under water, “You did well, little flame”.
Thinking aloud, you mumble, “What if they don’t take?”
He nudges your chin, gathering you into his arms to cocoon you both, “I’ll make sure they do”.
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mortis-fox · 2 months
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Hey. I've been thinking about some things. In the community of visual novels featuring yanderes, John Doe is one of the best known (if not the best known) in the fandom. and I remember you saying that the John Doe game wasn't taken seriously but it became something huge. And since recently you've been delving a lot deeper into the universes of John Doe and HH, I imagine there might be an extended version of this universe, a new game or a continuation of John Doe. Have you been thinking about this recently or do you already have a project?
i genuinely dont understand how it happened ^^;;
the game was originally, like you said, not something super serious and i was just having fun, but honestly i think thats what makes it special! personally i enjoy things more when i can see that the creator had a good time making it and wasnt out to create a cashgrab or doing it for attention and i just genuinely enjoy the energy behind it more so maybe thats why JD got the attention it ended up getting?
that and his design does lend a lot to interpretation which i think makes him fun to play with! also at the start i didnt have ANY lore and everything was very up to interpretation and that generally catches peoples eye, though not going to lie i had no lore or anything planned when i made him XD everything developed as i went along
anyway to answer your question, i do have plans and a script written for a longer, more in depth game featuring doe, maison and more of the cast of the uncanny valley! itll be done in the same style as house hunted with multiple choice (though i think doe will still have the "yes" or "no" answers cause i think it gave his part a little special twist haha, he will get more endings and more story though
sadly though this is something for the future since we have a few projects we have to get through first! purple is almost done and then we're gonna revamp the phobia project demo and afterwards we're gonna work on our adult game "frost bite" until its finished, but! after those are outta the way ill be focusing my attention solely on uncanny valley until the game is done! during the work on these other things though there might be another mini chapter featuring a new ucv character similar to how we dropped JD and HH, which can stand alone as games but i do plan on expanding on !
TLDR there will be more uncanny valley, but its a couple years down the road!
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ultfreakme · 1 month
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1. Sokka’s sexism has been toned down and changed, not entirely removed. Pakku is still exactly the same. Sokka is actually wearing the KW armor in the trailers BTW, and I understand the change because in the OG, Sokka wearing the uniform wasn't a progressive guys can wear dresses thing. It was a joke, Aang also wearing it was a joke. It was not in good taste and they modified it to be more respectful.
2. The trailer literally has Aang having a tough time accepting his position as Avatar and they have said multiple times Aang’s childishness and fun-loving side is still in there.
3. The Ba Sing Se thing was a literal joke and they're playing the bit and you guys fell for it. EDIT: The Ba Sing Se thing isnt even real! A twitter account parodying DiscussingFilm posted it as a joke.
4. It is an adaptation so they do have to shuffle things around and redo things.
5. When they said it's like "Game of Thrones" they did not mean its not for kids anymore. It was to give a little more weight to what's happening and expand the demographic from just kids to something everyone can enjoy. An all-ages show instead of a strictly kids show. I'd say ATLA already is that but they had to censor deaths to make it appropriate for very young kids. Albert Kim straight up says he put more details on the genocide in there because the original viewers, who were children and the cast like Gordon and Kiawentiio were able to see that and understand the implications in the OG so he thought okay we could show it more.
Also like, you do understand that a good reason why we ONLY see the remains of the air temples is not because of a deliberate choice but also because of censorship, right? They worked with to make it poignant and intentional rather than restrictive, but the censorship played a huge role.
6. They removed Sozin's comet to accommodate for the inevitably longer time frame over which the live action will take place in. All of them are growing older and there was no guarantee for s2. So unfortunately the series's timeline has to increase too. Sozin's commet happens in like 3-4 months on the OG. They COULD have put it in to give the kids direction and a deadline but that deadline would be like, maybe even 3-4 years from now. Like I get it, and I won't pass judgement on if it's a good or bad decision until I see the show.
6. Bryke were there for the first movie. We all know how THAT turned out.
You don't need to watch the show, you may continue to ignore its existence and even hate it but it irritates me to see people entirely misunderstand and make conclusions without knowing what is actually happening.
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fallout4-reacts · 10 months
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How would the companions react to walking in on Sole nude (not in like a sexual way, but like, got a wound on their thigh during a fight and was in the middle of stitching it up in their room with the door closed or something like that)
That raider was ruthless, sneaking around Sole and opening them up like a fish with their bloody, rusted knife. Sole made it through and made it to Sanctuary owing to the stimpacks, but now they has to assess the extent of their injuries and heal themself. Sole totally removed their garments as the enemy drove his blade directly into their ribcage and managed to slide down to the thigh, shocked by the length of the cut. Then they hear footsteps in the corridor...
Cait : She casts a quick glance at Sole before crossing her arms and leans against the doorframe.
"Not bad, I had one like that before. Ya can come back after you're done patching and tell that fool Preston that I'm not going to take care of his stupid tatos. He wants a planter, but I'm too busy with my bat knocking the heads off the raiders trying to take us from behind."
Sole remains stuck for several seconds before regaining the capacity to speak.
"Can you get out of here now?" they ask, their face expressionless.
"What? Are you going to say you're shy? You don't have to; you're hiding a lovely body beneath your armor."
"OUT!"
Codsworth : (OK, not exactly speaking steps) In a nervose movement, his mechanical arms rotate two or three times on themselves. He tries to keep his cool by moving his three eyes in unison towards the corridor.
"Please excuse my untimely disruption, Mum/Sir; I came to inform you that supper will be served tonight in the common room. All of your companions will be present, but if you want, I may arrange a meal for you in your extremely quiet dining room. I understand if you don't feel compelled to... socialize."
Sole smiles at their butler, but he doesn't look at them.
"That's OK, Cods, eh... When... I'm finished, I'll join you in the lounge to discuss this further."
"Definitely!"
And the robot bolted from the room.
Curie : She runs over to inspect the huge wound.
"Oh no! What occurred? How come you didn't provide proper care?"
"That's exactly what I was about to do."
"This lesion requires disinfection and suturing! Just wait for me; I'll collect my equipment!"
Sole would have liked to object, or at the very least inform Curie that it is not appropriate to enter people's bedrooms without their permission because they may be... naked... but the Synth has already gone. Sole, with a pout, casts a glance at... their own health kit.
Danse : If embarrassment could kill him, he would have died right there. His face is absolutely bloodless. Not that he hasn't seen other naked soldiers; intimacy is a very meaningless concept in the field. But Sole, in this situation. He feels as if he has crossed an unbearable line and committed an awful act. He swiftly turns around and makes a motion to exit, but his brain records the second piece of information.
"You are severely injured!"
"It's mostly superficial, but it is."
"Need…help?"
"No, I'm doing just fine on my own."
"Perfect!"
And he's back in the hallway as swiftly as he came. Sole will have to wait until the paladin explains why he came to see them in the first place.
Deacon : (glitch power) As soon as his eyes are drawn to Sole's nude body, a huge wicked smile grows on his lips, and before his friend is able to react, he is in his underwear. Sole is taken aback and takes some time to comprehend what the spy is saying.
"Is this some sort of nudist gathering? Or is this an Adam and Eve celebration?"
"This is MY room, and I am HURT!"
"Oh, yes!"
Deacon is clothed again before Sole can say anything else. The unfortunate vault dweller is fully swept away this time.
"So, let me look at this wound— 
"No, get out!"
"Alright, alright. Whatever you desire! But if you ever feel like the planet is spinning much faster than it should, give me a call and I'll be there."
And now he's gone. Sole winks, unsure whether the scene was real or if they have hallucinating.
Dogmeat : He lies on the bed with his head resting on his legs, waiting for Sole to finish.
Elder Maxson : He enters and exits the room. It was a single continuous motion. With no change in expression. When Sole is finished, they dress and proceed to the living room, where they find the Elder in a pretty stiff position. The Elder, on the other hand, constantly stands straight.
"You're done, Knight. I needed the report on supermutant activity near Satellite Station Olivia immediately. Did you finish cleaning everything?"
"Not a single mutant left alive, sir."
"Perfect, perfect, perfect. I'm returning to the Prydwen in order to dispatch the soldiers to retrieve any sensitive data that may be left. I intend you get there as quickly as possible."
"Yes, sir."
"And, Knight..."
"Yes, sir?"
"Please never bring up this unfortunate incident again."
"The satellite station's super mutants?"
"You are fully aware of what I mean. Dismiss."
"This is my living room, sir."
"Perfect, perfect, perfect. Have a nice day."
He walks out of the home, and we can hear the motor of a vertibird in the distance. Sole then allows themselves to burst out laughing.
Hancock : His smile becomes so large that he appears to have much less flesh on his face. Sole's expression is devastation.
"Wow, this is my kind of job!"
"I am hurt!"
"Yes, I see. That's too bad. Need a hand?"
"Definitely not!"
"Well, I'll meet you in the lounge."
Hancock walks back. Sole takes comfort in the fact that, despite his debauchery, Hancock never crosses the line, demonstrating some semblance of... respect...
Gage : He enters the room and doesn't seem to be bothered in the least. He begins casually declaring the report of Nuka-World's behaviours.
"Porter! I’m naked!" 
"I saw. But as I was saying about Nisha’s operations— 
"I’m naked and I want you to go out immediately."
"All right, Boss."
Sole is still taken aback by the raider's dashing demeanour. But, well, Gage has undoubtedly seen some green ones in his life, and it does make him any more impressed by anything.
MacCready : His expression is stern, as though it were Sole's fault. Sole, for their part, is frozen in place. MacCready makes a hand gesture with a scowl on his face.
"When you're finished—whatever you do—I need your support to recover—
"Get out!"
"Okay, I'll wait in the living room."
When Sole has finished, they proceed to the living room with the intent of reprimanding the mercenary, but he sits quietly on the couch with a broad smile.
"Aside from that, it was a pretty spectacular view. "Not too bad, you know?"
The vault dweller pauses before turning to return to their room. Before they rip their friend's head off, they need to scream into their pillow.
Nick Valentine : The tin can has a swirl function. Sole notices this because as soon as they realise Nick is in the doorframe, they can only see his back.
"God! Pardon! I… I didn’t think. I should have known better. I saw you come in and I wanted to... It's unforgivable, God. Pardon."
"It's fine, Nick, and given how many times you've patched me, it's not like you haven't seen these parts of my body before. It's just that you have the big picture right now."
It makes Nick feel even more uncomfortable. Even though they are over two metres apart, Sole can clearly hear Nick's fans react by kicking in all at the same time. They can't help but chuckle at the scenario, but they have too much respect for the detective to make fun of him.
Piper : A reaction halfway between Danse and Nick."Wow, Blue!" she exclaimed in turning heels. "Sorry! I’ll uh» she’s cut off by her nervous laugh «waiting for you in the living room. Yeah, I’ll just wait for you in the living room. There. Do you have nuka cola in your fridge?"
Preston : He already possesses the grace and stature of a marble statue. He now has the stiffliness. He's not even blinking. He was about to say something, but nothing came out of his mouth. Not even breath, by the way. Sole thinks he could castigate him, but the Colonel's state of stupor is heartbreaking. They stoop, take up their coat, and drape themselves in it. When they speak, they try to employ as calm a tone as possible.
"You wanted to see me, Preston?"
"See... you? NO! Well, uh... you mean like in the expression? Okay, as stated in the expression. Okay. Yes, I was hoping to see you. But not you! I mean, I saw you, I couldn't deny it. I saw you! It’s awful! No! I mean, you're not awful! I regret! I'm truly sorry! I should have made a signal or knocked on the door— 
"Breathe!"
Sole crosses their arms, unsure whether to laughs or be annoyed by this situation. It's the first time they've seen the man in such a nervous state. They decide to take a humoros approach.
"I don't even have a door to knock on. It's all right, Preston; I understand your discomfort and that you don't mean anything."
"Of course not! I am forever thankful to you for understanding me. I mean, to grasp the situation as it is. I'll be in the living room waiting for you."
"Does a settlement need my help?"
"Yes!" 
"My pip-boy is sitting on the table. Put it on the map, and I'll get to there as soon as I can."
"Thank you!"
The man exits the room without further questioning. Sole locates the small community on their map, but they don't see their Colonel again for the rest of the day. As if he was trying to avoid them...
Strong : The super-mutant frown.
“Puny human should wear armor.”
“Puny human is in their ROOM and you GO OUT!”
“Puny human stupid. Puny human should never let their guard down.”
“GET OUT!”
“Strong get out, but Strong wants to know when human and Strong are going to get the Milk of Human Kindness.”
“GET OUT!”
X6-88 : Hands behind back, straight, and unimpressed.
"Ma'am/Sir, it is not appropriate to deal with such an injury without the expertise of the Institute's doctors."
"X6? Could you just leave my room right away?"
The Courser executes, but only for a few steps in the hallway.
"I reiterate my recommendation that you be taken in to one of the Institute's physicians for a professional body examination."
"Get the fuck away!"
"There is no need to get carried away and use vernacular. Unlike the way you handled the damage you caused yourself on your last assignment, my advice are perfectly adequate."
"I'm perfectly capable of handling the damage I've done to myself, and if you don't want me to do any damage to you, I recommend you take the Sanctuary Grand Tour right now!"
X6 obeys without fully comprehending why the future director places themselves in such a state.
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actual-changeling · 5 months
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@thegirlwhowatchedtv
Alright, I do not want to derail OPs original post, so I will make my own!
Disclaimer: If anyone tries to argue that something Aziraphale does "isn't that bad" or tries to blame Crowley for it, you will be blocked. I'm an abuse survivor and that kind of denial is not just disrespectful but also triggering to me personally, and I do not want it anywhere near me; I hope you can respect that.
Discussions and arguments are fine, abuse denial is not.
Disclaimer 2: I don't hate Aziraphale, none of this is hate, I understand he is acting based on his own trauma. However, none of that excuses his behaviour, and I will delete any and all responses that say something along the lines of 'his trauma means he gets a free pass to treat Crowley like shit'.
--
With that out of the way, let's get into it, shall we?
Yes, you’re right that he’s not fully listening to Crowley
This is the first point that is also the most important one. If we do not properly look at this, every other interpretation of what comes after will be (partly) incorrect. I have already written several metas about this, and I will do it again.
Aziraphale isn't not just "not fully listening", he is not listening period. He has not been listening to Crowley the entire season, and he sure as fuck doesn't start now.
but a large part of it is that he doesn’t even understand what Crowley is saying to him or why he’s saying it.
The fault lies by Aziraphale and Aziraphale alone.
"It's probably best if I start off doing all the talking and you do all the listening."
Crowley is telling him hey, I have something very important to say, and I really want you to just listen to me for a moment. Every single time Aziraphale wanted to tell him something, Crowley listened. All he is asking for is the same. But Aziraphale does not care about what Crowley wants to say and never has. From the second he enters the shop, he is not listening or giving a single fuck about what Crowley wants.
Aziraphale wants everything to be about himself; he is the most important being ever so Crowley needs to "hold his thought" aka shut the fuck up. Following so far?
From his perspective, he comes to Crowley with this huge offer that will solve all their problems, Crowley shuts it down, and then abruptly changes the subject.
Yes, that is indeed his perspective, and his perspective is 'valid'. However, it is so far removed from reality it borders on delusional and thus CANNOT be considered as an 'alternative' to what is actually happening here. Aziraphale thinking this is a problem, not an excuse.
Aziraphale looks baffled and isn’t fully listening in this scene because he doesn’t understand what any of this has to do with the Metatron’s offer.
Again, Aziraphale not listening is a problem, Crowley does not need to do anything different because the issue here is Aziraphale not listening. Aziraphale has NEVER listened.
The Metatron's offer, yes. The one he presented to Crowley not as an offer but as a decision he made for the both of them without asking Crowley if that's what he wants. He shows up and tells Crowley "I have decided that you will lose everything about yourself and go back to the place that cast you out because I want to try and change a system that cannot be changed. Your thoughts on this don't matter because this is what I want and I have decided you also want what I want."
Healthy much, huh? Fucking disrespectful is what it is, and Crowley would have had every right to punch him for this alone.
He’s anxious to get back to the subject of heaven because from his perspective, Crowley is ignoring what he said and refusing to engage in a discussion about it.
Aziraphale is a gigantic hypocrite and again, yes, this is his perspective, but it is NOT based on reality or in the least bit proportional to what is going on. It is NOT an excuse for any of his behaviour, it doesn't matter if that's how he sees things because the way he handles it is horrible and hurtful.
When Crowley puts his sunglasses back on and walks away, he tries to follow him and practically begs him to come with him, because at that point he, too, is panicked and desperate, and thinks that Crowley is giving up and rejecting him.
Aziraphale is not begging. Crowley was begging. Aziraphale is doing what he always does - he is trying to manipulate him. I'm tired of people not seeing that, so I will pull out a fucking checklist.
First point: He is making decisions for Crowley without allowing him freedom of thought or speech. Quite obvious, I believe.
"To heaven! Work with me."
Aziraphale is trying to use Crowley's attachment to him to make him forego his own boundaries and do what he wants instead. This is something he has been doing for centuries.
"We can be together!"
Here he is repeating what Crowley actively said he wants - he wants them to be together. Aziraphale is "offering" that without understanding the difference between their expressions of it. Another attempt at emotionally manipulating Crowley by pretending that he and Crowley want the same thing and that Crowley is being unreasonable.
"Angels, doing good!"
Same thing, trying to bait him with something that Aziraphale thinks of as the ultimate reward for Crowley, ignoring that a) Crowley does not want it and b) this is the climax of millennia of Aziraphale telling him he does not love him as a demon. So it obviously does not fucking work.
"I need you!"
Ahhh, classic guilt tripping tactic. Aziraphale is trying to make Crowley feel bad and guilty for not wanting to follow him to heaven, actively pushing the buttons he knows exist because he put them there. 'Rescuing me makes him so happy.' Aziraphale knows that and he is using that knowledge to get Crowley to ignore his boundaries and thoughts to come and 'rescue' him instead.
By now, Crowley is looking away and not responding to any of his manipulation tactics.
"I don't think you understand what I'm offering you."
I can't even begin to describe how horrible that sentence is. Not only is he completely ignoring Crowley's history of pain and trauma (that he never cared about and often doing the opposite by implying he deserved it), he is telling him that he is stupid and neglecting all the rightful concerns Crowley has had over the centuries.
His intention is to get Crowley to submit to him by making him feel as if he is incapable of making decisions for himself in this regard so that Aziraphale can make them for him instead.
If you can read this and not be physically and emotionally repulsed by it then I honestly don't know.
Crowley, who stopped when Aziraphale called and hates himself for it, finally responds.
"I understand. I think I understand a whole lot better than you do."
I'm my own person who understands this situation and can make decisions for myself.
It's the truth. Aziraphale is spinning lies, and he is trying to cut through them with the truth, but Aziraphale doesn't care.
"Well, then there's nothing more to say."
Besides wanting to have the last word, Aziraphale once again does what he did in episode one: my way or the highway. I will leave you or force you to leave me if you don't do what I say.
Just that this time it does not work because Crowley knows he will lose him no matter what.
They both also stubbornly refuse to understand that the other person would never in a million years go with them.
Crowley KNOWS that Aziraphale does not want to run away. He wants to keep Aziraphale safe, and in his mind, the only way of doing that is to get as far away from the danger as possible.
And I want you to actually look at Crowley's speeches.
EVERY SINGLE TIME he ASKS. He ASKS Aziraphale to run away with him, he says please come with me, he says I want this, do you want it to? He says I love you, I love us, I want to keep us safe, will you come with me?
When Aziraphale says no, he respects that. He doesn't try to manipulate Aziraphale the way Aziraphale is manipulating him - who also NEVER FUCKING ASKS HIM. He just assumes he knows what Crowley wants and decides for the two of them.
So why would he leave now that he’s being presented with an opportunity to fix things in heaven and protect the earth? Of course he wouldn’t.
He wouldn't. And that's the point. The only choice for Aziraphale is to go to heaven, and the only choice for Crowley is not to go.
There is NO version of this where they do not separate over this. Any version in which Crowley tries to follow him ends with Crowley dead and wiped from existence. This is the only way this argument could have gone because Aziraphale is currently incapable of making rational decisions.
but Aziraphale has no idea that’s why that happened to Gabriel because Crowley didn’t tell him
Even if he had Aziraphale would not have listened. Aziraphale has treated Crowley like fucking GARBAGE for centuries, never shown compassion, never offered a safe space to talk about all the horrible things that have happened to him. The problem is not Crowley not telling him, the problem is Aziraphale being so unreceptive and full of himself that Crowley COULDN'T tell him.
They’re both well-intentioned and terrified of losing each other, and as a result, they both handle this argument badly and lose each other anyway.
Handle this badly - there is no other option. Crowley is handling this as well as he can but Aziraphale is stuck where he is and needs to choose to break out of it. There is no version where this works out well. I am not misinterpreting Aziraphale, I am simply not excusing or ignoring all his unhealthy and maladaptive coping mechanisms and manipulation attempts like so many people seem bound to do.
I am so fucking tired of trying to excuse Aziraphale's actions as if this hasn't been his behaviour since Eden. Six bloody thousand years and he has not learned a single thing and still treats Crowley like shit.
Crowley chooses himself over Aziraphale for the very first time and I am so, so proud of him for that. I know how hard it is, and he is in so much pain because he loves Aziraphale, he doesn't want to lose him, but he loves himself more.
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flanaganfilm · 11 months
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Mike, can you tell us your experience premiering Oculus at tiff 2013? I recently saw Perri Nemiroff’s interview with you (looking like a baby btw- so young) and it made me think about what your mindset must have been as in getting yo experience the launch of your career, post Absentia, at one of the most prestigious festivals.
Oh, I remember that very well... a lot changed in a very short amount of time. And I think I know the interview you're talking about, I keep trying to link to it here but it doesn't take...
So there are few things to point out about Oculus and about what was happening in my life at the time. When Oculus got greenlit, I was working full time as a reality television editor. I used to sneak out of my job at lunch to go to "doctor's appointments" whenever I had to come for production meetings or casting sessions (they started to think there was something really, really wrong with my health).
Making the movie was an amazing learning experience - it was my first "real" movie, and full of lessons. It was the first collaboration with people who would become pillars of my career moving forward, like producer Trevor Macy (who is now my partner at Intrepid Pictures and who has produced everything I've ever made since) and my DP Michael Fimognari, who is one of the most important collaborators of my life. It was also the first time I worked with a young actress named Kate Siegel, who played the spooky ghost in the mirror.
We went into TIFF with distribution already in place. FilmDistrict had committed to the project during the Cannes market before we shot the movie, so we thought we were set. It was going to be my big theatrical debut.
Just before we premiered at TIFF, FilmDistrict abruptly and bafflingly dropped the film. I still don't really know why. They had committed to a worldwide theatrical release for the movie, but for reasons that were never made entirely clear to me, they dropped us just before the festival. Suddenly the whole enterprise was in jeopardy, and I didn't know if anyone would pick the movie back up.
I was absolutely terrified.
Being my first "real" movie, I didn't really know how this world worked and couldn't understand why our distributor didn't want to release it. We'd made the movie they had been excited about, they seemed to really like it, and we'd done everything they asked - it was a shock to the system. So when we rolled into tiff, we were homeless and trying not to let FilmDistrict's abrupt change of heart poison our chances of another sale.
I had never been to TIFF before but heard about Midnight Madness, which had seen huge sales from Cabin Fever and Insidious. Bidding wars had broken out while the films were still screening. But being part of the program was absolutely no guarantee of distribution - in fact, this might be the highest this movie would ever rise.
Trevor Macy and I went to the world premiere of The Green Inferno, which was playing the night before we played, and the audience was ROWDY. Like, shouting and hollering throughout the movie. We looked at each other with wide, nervous eyes - if this was the Midnight Madness audience, they were going to hate our movie the next day. We were considerably slower, ponderous, and atmospheric in a room that seemed to demand visceral, overt entertainment. I left the screening feeling dejected and a little doomed. Trevor was more upbeat, citing conversations he'd had with the programmer, Colin Geddes, who assured us he'd put our movie in the best possible spot for its success.
Our screening was September 9th, 2013 at midnight. I was petrified, and we were sold out. I remember walking into the theater feeling like this was the most important screening of my life. I wasn't alone, thank goodness. Trevor Macy, Michael Fimognari, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff, Rory Cochrane, and James Lafferty were on hand. The film seemed to play well. It was the opposite of the screening the night before, which Colin had told us would happen - "watch," he had said. "The Saturday night slot is the big crazy one. You guys are Sunday, and it's going to be completely different. They'll plug right in."
He was right. You could hear a pin drop for most of the first half, and then there were moments of scattered applause that picked up as the film progressed. By the end, people were jumping in their seats and cheering for young Tim and Kaylee. There was an audible gasp when the anchor swung. And the applause at the credits seemed heartfelt and loud.
Most of that is a blur for me. I found this grainy pic from the Q&A after the film. I still had no idea how it had gone, or what was going to come out of it. I remember having hard time putting words together, and I vividly recall feeling like I sounded like an absolute moron whenever I talked, and trying to pass the microphone over to the actors as often as I could.
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It's tough to see everyone in the pic, but from left to right it is Colin Geddes, Michael Fimognari, myself, Trevor Macy, Katee Sackhoff, Brenton Thwaites, Rory Cochrane, and James Lafferty.
When I stepped out of the theater, though, I became aware that everything had changed. I was immediately surrounded by people who had seen the film, suddenly shaking a ton of hands and realizing that it had been a hit. I walked into the theater by myself, utterly anonymous, and feeling every bit like an imposter. But everything was different when I walked out. I remember someone from the press talking about it years later, and saying "I was there that night - you walked into the theater with nothing, and walked out with a career."
People were asking me to sign stuff. That had never happened in my life. People wanted to get pictures. It was SO. FUCKING. WEIRD. Someone snapped a picture during that little whirlwind, and you can see it on my (young, skinny, hopelessly naive) face - an overall bewilderment, a gentle disbelief that this was happening:
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I loved my experience at TIFF. And it absolutely started everything. Relativity, Blumhouse, and WWE Films joined forces to make an offer on the movie at the festival, and we left with a theatrical distribution deal. My career had officially begun. Now, I wouldn't feel like it had for several more years - I remained in fight/flight/survival mode well through Gerald's Game - but in retrospect, yes, that's when it happened.
Thank you for asking this question, it's been a while since I've looked back at this period of my life. It kinda makes me want to watch that movie again. It has been a LONG time, and I owe it a lot.
Maybe everything.
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Not Your Classic Vigilante [Ch. 10]
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Alternate Dimension AU TW: Language, Mentions of Death, Graphic Descriptions of Violence, Body Horror, Monsters be destroying shit, Lots of Gore, Fires, Major Character Injury CW: OC Use, See the OC Guide [Here] Genre: Drama, Action, Angst, Light Comedy Pairing: Batfamily & Batsis!Reader, OC x Reader YN Pronouns: Female (She/Her) Word Count: 4.9K
(10/?) [First] | [Previous] | [Next] [DC Masterlist] | [Not Your Classic Vigilante Masterlist]
Notes: HA I FINISHED IT Bi-annual update fr fr
Disclaimer: This series is originally by @fandom-meanderer who is a close friend of mine, but she has since fallen out of her Tumblr days and asked me to finish a few series for her, hence why I am now in ownership of the Not Your Classic Vigilante series, I hope I can still live up to her writing as I rewrite this series! (I promise not to change too much, hehe)
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Taking heavy breaths, you took your time to steady yourself. Your hands were beginning to cramp from how long you’d been holding your rapier, and your uniform had been singed and torn at the edges. You stood your ground, but barely, and before you the daemons were twice your size, maybe even more, but they were mutated so heavily that you couldn’t even tell what they used to be. If one thing was certain, it was that you’d never seen a monster like them before. The casualty count, although you didn’t know it specifically, was immense. Today, regardless of whether or not you made it out alive, is a huge loss for the Guard. 
“Captain! The S squadron has arrived!” You heard a voice shout. Reinforcements have just arrived at the nick of time, whilst more beasts wandered out of the woods and towards the ravaged town.
“You see the situation, if you find any living civilians they are your first priority to get to safety, we’ve determined the daemons’ weak points to be their underbellies, aim for that area first! The skin is loosest there,” you commanded. “This place is already razed down, I don’t understand why they keep coming,” you mumbled. An axe lodges on the ground next to you, just barely missing your side. “Nixon! Now’s not the time to get lazy!” You pulled the axe with one hand and flung it back towards him, something he easily caught while blocking off the daemon’s claws.
“Thanks, Cap!” You couldn’t respond, too busy dodging the swings from the daemon in front of you. Its movements were slow and heavy, but they hit hard. You could barely get in a good attack with the equipment you had. Turns out, and maybe you should’ve expected this, rapiers aren’t the best for large opponents. 
“Ugh, this is getting nowhere,” you mumbled just as you ducked below the beast’s arms. You jogged back, keeping your eyes on the monster, and you switched out your rapier for the rifle strapped to your back. You aimed quickly, precisely, and with a deep breath you fired. The bullet pierced the daemon’s skin, but, if anything, you just pissed it off more. “Fuck, well, we’re screwed. Is it just me or are these things getting taller?”
“Not just you, Captain! Not just you!” Evangeline scrambles up from the floor, casting a spell to knock away the hoard. The blonde runs next to her Captain, shaking slightly. Instinctively, you took a defensive stance in front of her while reloading your rifle. “Where are they all coming from?” Hints of French laced her panicked tone.
“No clue, but we’re going to be here for a very long time,” you grimaced. “Take deep breaths, Eve, if you can’t handle it we’ll switch to base-tactics,” you said
“There’s just so many of them,” Eve huffs. “Almost like… like they were waiting for us to get here,” she coughs. That struck a cord, you turned to her for a moment, but hearing the monsters roar, you refocused back on the situation, doing your best to push the daemons back. Could all of this have been an elaborate trap? Who was pulling the strings? Now that you had thought about it, it would make sense for this to be a trap. All of the Guard were here, high ranking military officials, Starspire was even a village well known for their exports, getting rid of this area would disrupt many industries. But the village was also far enough for it to still be somewhat controlled. Everything happening here, surely, had to be part of some elaborate plan.
‘Take a deep breath, (Y/N),’ Alex’s words echoed in your head. You looked around the field.
‘Where the hell did you go, asshole?’
‘Calling for backup. I don’t think we’re dealing with the natural world anymore, there must be some sort of magic involved.’ Despite your efforts, you couldn’t find Alex anywhere. ‘Don’t worry, I’m still as much a part of the fray as everyone else. But if my theory is correct then I know someone who could help us.’
‘Call them in, I’ll take anyone at this point, anyone who can get rid of these monsters,’ you replied.
‘Certainly, Captain, remain vigilant.’ Then, his side went silent while you pushed forward. Two magic circles appeared under Eve’s hands as the field became encased in a bright light. Half of the daemons, that had already been hacked away at, fell at the attack, while others trudged on.
“Gah, Eve, warn us before doing that!” Carter rubs his eyes harshly.
“Ay, if it’s getting more than half of these fuckers, hell, do it again, Eve,” Nixon shouts back.
“I’m sorry!” Eve apologizes despite it.
“Are there any more coming in?” You spoke after tapping your earpiece.
“All clear in the North, Captain,” one voice says.
“None coming in from the West either.”
“The East is clear.” You looked forward.
“The South is clear,” you said. “Focus on the remaining daemons, we’ll reconvene once they’ve all been killed,” you flicked the blood off your rapier. “And someone get me an actual sword.”
“Captain,” Carter addressed you curtly while offering his own sword. Regal in all rights, Carter’s sword, much like yours, was a gift from the Royal family. As was every weapon belonging to the Brigade, granted. However, Carter’s was a marvel to look at. A silver broadsword upon first glance, but to its wielder it becomes their greatest protection. You made the trade quickly and just in time, too, for what happened next was something you would have never expected and something you would’ve never wanted to happen.
The sounds of despair and destruction had been drowned out by an all too familiar cry. Cries, when you first ran into the burning village you heard them everywhere. Men, women, and children alike were screaming for help all around you. That was hours ago. To hear shouts that weren’t from your squadron only spelt trouble. You turned your head towards the voice, and saw a sight that was some sick twist of what you’d grown up fearing. Without any care for yourself, granted you had other things to worry about, you sprinted towards the young boy with the silver of the broadsword reflecting the flames. In a delicately crafted move, you felled the already wounded beast. You held your stance, your left arm blocking the one behind you, and your right arm holding the sword parallel to the ground. Then the beast slumped to the burnt earth, making no attempt at any further attacks, but your split decision move wasn’t without consequence. The sharp pain across your front side was enough to tell you that next time you should think more carefully before doing.
“Captain!” Eve was running towards you in seconds, but her actions were a second thought to you. No, you were more concerned about the boy behind you. The boy wearing a ripped uniform, mask half hanging from his face and half tied around his head, and with slight cuts and bruises to his face and hands. True, this was the least of the wounds you’d see him have, but the knowledge that he’d been here long enough to get those was what scared you the most. Once you were certain the beast was dead, you were quick to turn, pull your gloves off, and cradle your hands around Damian’s face.
“How… How did you get here,” you huffed, wavering slightly. You moved his face around to see if there were any bad cuts, and your thumb traced under a fresh, but shallow, one under his eye.
“(Y/N)…” Damian’s eyes widened. His eyes fall to the three large gashes that stretched across your hips and abdomen. “You’re hurt…”
“We don’t have time to worry about that, how did you get here?” You repeated despite the good many number of daemons on the field. You brushed off the sparks on his shoulders and offered to help him up.
“I was looking for you,” Damian took your hand and stood up slowly, you didn’t yet know if it was from shock or if he was hurt.
“Is that the whole story?” People don’t just drop out of the sky. And to enter this universe is something that should be incredibly hard, if not impossible.
“A man in a lab coat brought me here,” his voice was shaken. You didn’t fault him for that, the young boy was just dropped in the middle of a blazing battlefield with heaps of dead bodies sprawled across the ground. It was a sensory overload with the blinding flames and the heavy stench of iron. Not to mention the fact that you were covered in blood, your own, your comrades, and the monsters’ alike. Now wasn’t the time for answers, and you’d be damned if anything happened to Damian here, so, instead you strengthened your grip around his hand.
“Do not, under any circumstances, let go of my hand,” you said firmly, holding your conjoined hands up so he could see, if he didn’t already feel it, the tight hold you had around him. Damian nods, what else could he do in this situation? With your left hand holding Damian and the right brandishing the sword you charged across the battle field. It might be better to carry him at this rate, but then you’d be more susceptible to attacks. Hard to dodge when there’s more weight on your back or on your front. This would be best, if worse comes to worse, you’re sure Damian would forgive you for throwing him to safety. But if he kept lagging behind, then there might be a problem. “Keep up!”
“I’m trying!” Damian barks. It was now you noticed the way he moved his gaze from you to the ground in rapid succession, no doubt trying to keep his steps in align with yours. “If you want to go faster then just let—”
“No, Damian, if I let go of you it would only be seconds before one of those monsters picks you up and kills you, do you understand?” You stopped only for a brief moment before taking off again, seeing one of the daemons take notice of your little brother. “Shit, they’re everywhere,” you said with grit teeth.
“Is that a kid?!” Nixon shouts. He pulls his axe from the broken ground. Damian first noticed the red stains on his white uniform before the disgust directed at him. “Lose him, Cap! He’s slowing you down! He’s going to get us all killed!” You pulled Damian along before he could shout an argument back. One, you just need one building that’s at least a little intact to stash Damian in for the time being.
“Just stay focused, Nixon!” You deflected a piece of charred wood. Damian’s hand slips for a moment and you react with a vice grip. “Don’t let go, Damian!” You shouldn't have been upset, it wasn’t his fault, it was the blood between your hands that made it all the more slippery.
“Sorry!” Damian is taken aback for a moment before regaining his senses. You looked to the woods and watches more of the monsters emerge. Luckily, if there was any in this situation, they seemed to be smaller monsters compared to the daemons. If anything, they were probably scavenger beasts, the lot of them will turn tail and run once they see the daemons, while the braver ones will venture more inward. Though you had to be realistic. A monster is a monster, and that’s an added problem on your plate.
“Oh fuck me…” You shook your head. Then a small ray of light. Sure, the roof was on the verge of caving in, but a house is a house. “Eve!” You turned back for a second to make sure the blonde was still in ear shot and when she notices you running towards the house, she opened a warp portal next to her and slipped in, immediately appearing at the front door to open it, and allowing for you to run into a building and push Damian inside. You knelt to his level, and with a stern expression, instructed him. “Do not leave this building, I’m going to have Evangeline place a protection charm up, alright? I’ll come pick you up once I resolve this mess, then you have to tell me every single thing that happened to you before you came here.” Though you spoke clearly, you knew when words go through one ear and out the other. You’d have to trust Eve to explain the situation to him, but you didn’t know if Damian would trust her.
“I can help.” That’s definitely the last thing you wanted to hear. Typical of Damian, though, he was still young, and he still thinks he can do anything, still thinks that he has to. But not here, and not now. 
“No. You can’t.” You kept your words curt enough for him to not misinterpret them. “This world is very different than our old one. You’re not in Gotham anymore. Those things out there can crush your skull in less than a second, and I don’t need anymore deaths on my mind right now, let alone the death of my little brother. Got it?”
“Yeah…” Damian looks back to your abdomen. It was still bloody but the wound was gone. “What happened to—” That might be the hardest one to explain to him.
“No questions right now. I have to get back out there before any of my teammates die. You can trust Eve, she’s a good friend of mine. Now, please, stay here.” With that, you ran out, slamming the door behind you. Not a moment later, Evangeline ran in, her white and silver uniform singed around the edges. She closes the door and places her hand on it, a magic circle appearing between the two with words of an ancient language inside of it. She waves her hand in the air and the building is surrounded in a veil of blue. She eyes the singed hole in the roof, but pays no mind to it, instead looking to Damian.
“So you must be Damian Wayne, right?” She smiles through the tired breaths. Damian nods and looks out the window. Eve seats him on the ground and hands him a thermos. “The Captain has told me so much about you. I’m Evangeline Chandler, your sister and I are good friends,” Damian suspiciously eyes the thermos, but takes it anyways.
“Yeah?” He unscrews the top, seeing some kind of soup inside of it. Eve takes the thermos from him, placing the cup in his hands and pouring the soup into it.
“Yes! I owe her a great deal. She asked me to give this to you, it’s actually Nixon’s, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind sharing with you,” Eve grins. “You can trust it, Nixon is actually our resident healer. This soup should fix you right up,” she insists. “If you don’t believe me, I can drink it first,” she continues.
“That wouldn’t matter if you’d grown a tolerance to poison,” he gives her a pointed glance.
“Are you saying that the son of a vigilante and an assassin doesn’t have a well built tolerance?” She fires back.
“… touché,” he takes a tested sip of the soup, the immediate taste of a hearty vegetable broth greeting him. He could feel the warmth circle around his face, his chest, and his stomach.
“You don’t have to mind it, Nixon’s vegetarian too,” she chuckles, kneeling down next to him and dusting off her uniform.
“You know a lot about me,” was Damian’s next statement.
“That Captain tells me a lot about you,” she smiles. “Let’s see… you have a dog named Titus, your best friend’s name is Jon, for your tenth birthday you and the Captain went out to an arcade and ended up staying there for hours so you missed your celebration,” she counts the events on her hands, “oh! And how could I forget my favorite story? Whenever you had nightmares, the first place you’d go is to her—”
“I get it, woman,” Damian clears his throat and, again, Eve could only smile.
“And that is exactly how the Captain described you. She doesn’t talk about her family often, but her expression is always so kind when she does, especially when it comes to her siblings. Of course, this is only after a good number of drinks. Goodness, though, once she starts, she won’t stop, it’s a bit cute,” she rests her cheek on her hand. “I’m glad to see that you match her stories.” Damian could only look out the window as the screams got closer.
“What is going on out there?”
“There are quite a few of you correct?” Eve changes the subject and, with the wave of her hand, the voices deemed to dampen out into mumbles. “Two older brothers and two younger brothers, an older sister and two younger ones as well, if what she told me was right.”
“Yeah,” Damian caught on. She’s trying to distract him from the hell outside.
“Let’s see,” her eyes drift up in thought. “Barbara Gordon, Richard Grayson, Jason Todd, (Y/N) Wayne, Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, Timothy Drake, and then there’s you,” Eve says.
“That’s all of us, but recently father brought in a new one, Duke Thomas,” Damian explains.
“Ah, yes, the Captain has explained that her father loved to take in children,” Eve crosses her arms. “But, and perhaps I’m biased, I must say that his biological children are just so adorable,” Eve coddles. “Are you still hungry? I always have something on me.” As much as her efforts to divert his attention were somewhat appreciated, she’s wasting her time on him.
“What exactly is your role?” Damian presses. Eve takes a deep breath in before sighing and shaking her head.
“I should’ve known that it would be a lost cause to try to distract you, you’re very much like your sister in that regard, but I’m keen on at least trying to follow orders. Allow me to introduce myself properly then. I’m Evangeline, Evangeline Chandler, and I am from Earth-78, born and raised in Versailles, France. I’m the magic dealer of this team, you can tell because of these silver linings here, see? However, I specialize in support, which is why my uniform is white,” she claps her hands. “Ah, the Captain, your sister, is a damage dealer, she specializes in up-close combat with blade-type weapons. She truly is amazing.”
“I see… I assume this is normal for you.”
“Not in the slightest, no. Oh, well, battle yes, but not these beasts. These monsters just started coming out of nowhere, actually,” Eve scooted away from Damian slightly and, with a few waves of her hand, an image constructed of light appeared between them, “come take a look. These are the variants we’ve been fighting for quite some time,” she invites him to move the image around. The base animal was a kind of wolf, that much was certain, but the creature had mutated the ability to support itself on its hind legs whilst also gaining articulate hands. It was as if it was some gruesome mix of human and wolf, a terror of nature, and a horror of nightmares.
“What are those?” Was all Damian could say.
“In truth… We have no idea.”
~
Alex stumbled behind a building, holding his phone close to his ear.
“Come on… connect, connect…” he plead. Finally, an answer.
“Alexander.”
“Remember when I told you to come tomorrow? Scratch that. We need you now.”
“What in the blazes is going on? Why do I hear fire?”
“Get over here and I’ll still be alive to tell you.”
“You really don’t take no for an answer, alright, hold out for a few more minutes.”
“Will do. I’ll take care of the stragglers, everyone else move inward!” Alex hangs up the phone, waits until everyone was out of earshot, and pivots on his heel, both hands flying out and several magic circles appearing in the ground in front of him. “Sanguis voragine.” In the slight wave of his hands, the circles began to rotate in on themselves before ultimately converging into a larger one. Spilled puddles and splatters of blood began to move in toward the centers of the circle.
‘Alex, don’t do anything you can’t handle,’ your voice had a warning tone.
‘No need to worry, I'd been saving my stamina for this moment,’ he reassures you before walking into the middle of the vortex. 
You, meanwhile, glanced behind you at the fortified safe house. You’d instructed Eve to keep your brother busy, but you didn’t know how long he’d sit still. You’d have to wrap this up quickly now, somehow, at least.
“Okay,” you took a deep breath yourself, steadying the sword in front of you such that you were facing the blade. “Infallible guard,” a magic circle surrounded the sword and, in moments, a clear barrier surrounded you.
‘Perhaps I should’ve said that to you.’
‘See you on the other side.’ You readied your blade for what you hoped to be the final time that night, and charged forth.
~
Eve looked like she’d just seen a ghost. Eyes wide and jaw tensed.
“What’s wrong?” Damian asked quietly, a now empty thermos in his hands. Eve, wordlessly, stumbled to the window and peered outside.
“They’re using artifacts,” she mumbles, she looks back at Damian. Your orders conflicted with her morals.
“What are those? Something bad?”
“Call it a last resort. It should be fine since it’s (Y/N) and Alex but…” her scarred fingertips rose to her mouth habitually and, before she could begin to lightly bite down on them, she answered, “they take a lot of stamina to use, some that I doubt those two still have,” she mutters. She takes a seat with Damian once more.
“Then leave me here, I can fend for myself well enough,” Damian insists.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, young sir,” she replies. “Even if I wanted to, the Captain benched me,” she shakes her head. “I’m unfit for battle at this moment,” she stretches her hands out, the cuts and tears on them, fresh and weeping, were enough to tell Damian all he needed to know. “What good’s an archmage with anxiety?” She laughs pathetically. “Plus, I do enjoy talking with you,” she nudges him softly. “You must be so confused, aren’t you? Scared, maybe, but too stubborn to admit it. I don’t blame you, we all were like that before as well,” Eve clasps her hands together. “You know, I had a brother around your age as well, Felix, I haven’t seen him in so long, he’s back home where he belongs though,” she rests her cheek on her hand.
Curse his sister, it wasn’t Eve on babysitter duty, it was him also.
Damian couldn’t help but glance out the window again, the flames had begun to die down, he could tell from the way the room slowly darkened.
“Your family must be worried,” Eve tries to strike a conversation yet again.
“They don’t care.”
“Or so you think,” she shoots back. Then, when someone bangs on the door, both people stood up in guarded stances. “Being unfit for battle means nothing in war,” she sighs. She picks up her gloves from their spot on the rugged table. Despite the state of herself and her uniform, the gloves were pristine. She slips them on.
“Could be one of your teammates.” The door started to strain against its hinges.
“They would’ve been able to open the door,” a magic circle appears in her palm, “your sister told me to keep you safe at all costs, please respect her wishes.”
“If she’s really my sister then she knows I won’t,” Damian stood next to her, ready.
“She told me that you’d say that too,” the door bursts down, one of the few remaining beasts stood tall at the doorframe. “Divina vocatio,” she chants. Veils of light surround the both of them. “Have faith, Damian, that I will keep you safe,” she says. The beast roars in a way neither of them had heard before. The magic circles in either of Eve’s palms begin to rotate counter to each other as she crosses her wrists in front of her. As soon as she broke the formation, multiple circles appeared in a cross pattern over the beast’s chest, effectively pushing the beast back, but not doing much to detain it, rather, it charged despite it.
What could he do in this situation? Think, Damian. He scanned the shack for anything he could use. The image that Eve showed him, something stood out to him, but he couldn’t quite put where he’d seen it from. Then, kicked under the bed, something gleamed against the dying flames. He dove toward it, holding it up and the beast stopped. Eve chanced a glance back.
“Crucifix…” she holds her hand out and Damian tosses it toward her. “Made of silver,” she weighs it in her palm. The beast takes a step back. It could only work as a repellant, but as a weapon it was hard pressed. Damian looked around again, something made of silver, anything. The cross in Eve’s hand was a likely choice, but he’d rather not chance the karma. Surely there’d be something else?
Well, fuck it. He ran toward Eve, hand outstretched to grab the one silver item in his sight. Then, blood, lots of it. He and Eve turned to the beast, who’d been cut clean in half. Its torso slid to the ground in front of them, while its legs fell backward. Nixon stood at the door, if anyone had never seen him before, they’d think his uniform to be naturally red. Without a word, he falls back, completely passed out.
“This fool,” Eve clicks her tongue. “Help me pull him in here, would you?” She asks.
“Sure,” they both grab one leg each and pull him in, Eve slamming the door shut and placing another charm on it.
“His axe is made of silver,” she says. “And his artifact is an imperial one of strength,” she explains it well enough but Damian still stared blankly at her. “Meaning he’ll be out for a while,” she shakes her head.
~
“Where’s that help you were talking about, Alex?” You shout, stumbling backward and just barely keeping your balance.
“On his way… hopefully,” Alex bumps into you, the magic circle under him flickering weakly.
“After all the damage has been done,” Carter backs against the two of you.
“Well… the good news is that there’s one left,” you handed the sword back to Carter and held your rifle instead.
“And the bad news is that it’s the biggest one,” Carter sighs. You spot your rapier sticking out of it’s shoulder blade.
“Well… your effort is appreciated, Carter,” you nudged him and Carter stumbled further from you. “We’ll need a miracle.” The beast groaned.
“We are called the miraculous trio,” Alex takes a step back, distancing himself from the beast to ready an attack. “Let’s live up to that title,” Alex bends down slowly, tapping the blood puddle beneath him.
“You think we’ll get a raise?” Carter asks.
“Nah,” you aimed your rifle. “Dead Shot,” you said under your breath. A magic circle appeared on the daemon’s body. “There,” you pulled the trigger and Alex focused a ring of magic circles on it. “Carter!” Carter slid in front of you and launched the sword forth, the tip barreling toward the beast before the sword impaled it. The beast staggered back, but it did not fall. Instead, it looked to you, directly at you, in a way that sent shivers down your spine.
“W… W… Wayne,” the beast growled out. You held your hand up, stopping Alex from dealing the last hit. “I… know… you,” it fell forward, but still it’s gaze never wavered. “Do… know… me…?” It asked. You took a step forward.
“Hey,” Carter spoke up.
“It’s fine,” you reloaded your rifle. Soon, you were an arm’s length away from the beast. You spotted a hint of silver on it’s neck and, as if it were calling you, you pulled it out of it’s loose and tattered skin. It was an ID tag, one that every Knight received, hell, yours was around your neck right now. The name was almost entirely worn through, but you could still just barely read it.
Then… realization. You staggered back, suddenly feeling weak in every limb.
“Captain?” Carter’s voice behind you again.
“Oh my god…” You shook your head. You looked around the battlefield, corpses of knights and beasts all around, and then to the one in front of you. You fell onto your knees and you placed your hand on the beast’s head. “You served well, Major Syke,” you said the name on the ID.
“Thank you,” the beast breathed it’s last before stilling. The field was quiet, quiet except for the sound of you pulling your rapier out of the Major’s shoulder. You turned your earpiece on and waited for it to connect.
“The field is clear, report the total number of casualties and damages to me whenever you can, we will regroup in the North delta base,” you turned the comm off and turned around to Carter and Alexander. “Don’t tell anyone this,” you whispered, “but… we’ve been killing people.”
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Not Your Classic Vigilante Tag List : @gabytodd @peachydokii @marshmallow12435 @f0leysgurl @luminaaz @lolsnack @akuri-shinsou @pansinspace @time-shardz @lovely-maryj @urminebutidontwantyou
If you want to be added to either tag list or removed just send me a reply to this post, and ask, or a DM and I’ll add you as soon as possible!
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beanghostprincess · 1 month
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What are you most controversial/unpopular OP opinions??? Sorry if it was answered before
You want me to get canceled so bad-- If I speak-- But idk, I guess I'll say the controversial opinions I can say publicly without a bunch of people coming at me!
Zo$an is a bit... Overrated? And by overrated I mean extremely/annoyingly overrated. I like the ship and its canon dynamic but I think at least 80% of the fandom portrays them in a very mischaracterized way. Not to say that... The ship is literally everywhere and the shippers always look for every little thing to prove they're canon, even if the "proof" has literally nothing to do with them. It's not that I don't enjoy the ship (although I must admit I prefer other dynamics a lot more) I just can't stand shippers that go to extremes. It's funny because I think Zo$an's dynamic is way more interesting and romantic in canon than it will ever be in the fandom. It's a bit sad, ngl. I liked them a lot at first but it got so tiring and now I am pretty exhausted from seeing it everywhere. The people force it to be more than it is when the canon is already pretty fucking great.
Adding to the Zo$san thing. I think that relationship would only work if Luffy is there somehow but it wouldn't last a day without him in the relationship. Unless there's like, a ton of character development most of these people don't make them go through.
One Piece Film Z is my worst enemy. It's such a boring movie. The only good thing is the soundtrack and maybe the suits but God watching that was torture.
Boa hate is uhhhh weird. I mean, I get why the joke about her being in love with Luffy might be annoying, but I think most of you need to learn to understand that Oda's sense of humor is sometimes a bit too exaggerated (and not funny) and it has basically nothing to do with the actual canon dynamics between characters. Boa likes Luffy because he's one of the first men who has ever treated her right, so of course she confuses that feeling with love. And of course, yeah, it isn't canon. Whatever. Just read between the lines, maybe? And also, stop using words like "pedo" to describe her because using that term so lightly about 1) a fictional character and 2) somebody who's clearly not a pedo is fucked up. Lmao. Do you even know what that word means???
Once again complaining about Pudding hate and saying that it's stupid. I won't overanalyze because I always do it with her, but the only reason people hate her is for misogynistic reasons and because they're babying Sanji. Evil male characters are okay and hot and very traumatized but the second it's a woman she's the most evilest person ever! Because God forbid they make mistakes! Suddenly their character development isn't valid because they hurt their babygirl!
Now that we're talking about my dearest Pudding. Not tagging anybody of course, but I saw this post with so many interactions of people agreeing about Sanji considering violence as a sign of love which??? Doesn't make sense at all?? OP said it was because he couldn't tell the difference between love/abuse because of his family, but that's just... Not accurate. That could only happen if they had manipulated him into thinking abuse is a type of love, but he had healthy love growing up. Even when he was with the Vinsmokes (Sora and Reiju, I love you). And yet OP said Sanji considered Pudding's behavior flirting (wrong) and that's why he let her attack him (nope) and that it was proof of Zo$an. And okay, it's not a hugely popular theory, but a lot of people agreed with it and it bothered me a lot because it's both out of character and also using Pudding (complex female character) once again to try and prove the canon of a ship (that doesn't have anything to do with WCI either???). It just bothers me. People can perceive the story however they want but... Y'know.
OPLA isn't that good. Or good at all? I only like it because I like the cast and it's funny seeing my blorbos irl. But the script is simple and dull and just stupid most of the time. The characters are either simplified, mischaracterized, or forgotten. And tbh most of the shots are very awful and could be a lot better. The directing is also nonexistent. It's 6/10 and 3 of those points are because both the Zolu and the cast.
Apparently this is a very common theory about Nami's origins, but, uh, I don't think we need to know? What else do you need to know about her? People say she's a lost princess or something like that as if we didn't have a lost princess already (Sanji ily). Repeating the same plot would be boring and underwhelming, but also? It'd be extremely useless for the plot and it'd go against everything about Nami's story and the way Luffy reacts to it.
Luffy isn't canon aroace. In fact, the reasoning people use for him being "coded" is the same Oda uses for Zoro too and Zoro is almost never portrayed as the "idiot who doesn't know what sex is" the way Luffy often is. If you're calling Luffy canon aroace for what Oda said about him being focused on adventures, the same goes for Zoro being focused on his dream. They could be coded arospec but there's nothing confirmed and the constant discourse about it is stupid. Attacking others because of their ships just because you don't agree with them and saying it's wrong using our identity to do it is very fucked up. Especially since most of the time people complaining aren't even aroace. The only reason people do it (attacking others saying they can't ship Luffy and that it's "weird" and "wrong") is that they infantilize Luffy/Don't want him getting in between their ships (<- aroace person writing this) (also, it's very ableist since people agree on Luffy also being neurodivergent coded and treating him like a kid bc of that but this isn't about that now).
Somehow this is very common. Some fucking how. I can't believe I have to say this. I'm tired of people blaming Usopp for what happened in Water 7. Or in general hating Usopp. Actually, he's one of the best-written characters in the whole show and he's so underappreciated it's so frustrating.
Sanji's perv jokes are annoying af and we all know that, but people who hate the character and consider him a red flag for that are missing the point completely. The point being "Oda exaggerates jokes to an annoying extent and most of the time they don't even reflect the character". I understand they can make you uncomfortable (same here tbh) but reducing Sanji to only those jokes is a waste of his character. You need to take jokes less seriously.
If I see one of these "red flag OP boys" TikToks adding Law/Ace/Zoro/Sanji next to fucking Doffy I will riot. Also, stop adding Crocodile there. He's a mafioso, there's NO way he won't be a sweetheart to his lover.
Baron Omatsuri's artstyle and animation is amazing and it fits the plot and aesthetic of the movie perfectly and people saying it's ugly will forever bother me.
"Usopp is suddenly hot after timeskip!" He has always been hot what the fuck are you talking about.
People reduce Nami to her "mean"/"sarcastic" personality a lot when she's quite literally one of the most kind-hearted characters of all. That being said, morally speaking she's probably one of the worst. I could explain how that works but I don't want to do it now, the point is-- Let the girl be sweet instead of making her mean all the time. And also, let her be mean and selfish without making it her entire personality. There's something called "balance".
Film Red was kind of bad. Like, the songs are amazing (thanks, Ado) but the ending is awful and the plot is very meh. I'm only here for Uta and Shanks but the rest of the characters are just useless. I do appreciate Sanji's hair in the movie, though.
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I saw he wasn't on your no writing list so I thought I'd try my luck lol.
Something with Blackbeard? Literally anything is fine I just need the content. A sentence would do for me at this point.
I understand completely if you refuse and add him to your list, he's very unlikable. Thank you for your time. ❤️
Blackbeard x Female Reader
Thank you for the request and it’s totally fine I forgot to add him to the list lol 😆 I won’t write smut for him lol buttt he does play a HUGE ROLE in one of my ongoing series !! So thank you for the lovely request and here’s a lil something!
Warnings: Angst! Character Backstory!
Authors Note: If you have not read The Straw Hat Girl’s then that’s fine but for those who have read it this is the backstory for Luffy’s wife. Find out why she was raised with Garp and the ASL bros! The reason her name was hidden!
Enjoy!!~🍯
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You watched as Teach packed his last bag, “So this is it huh?” Your voice simple as you leaned against the door frame of your once shared bedroom.
“Mhmm.” He grunted back to you without looking in your direction, “It’s for the best.”
You felt your blood boil the second the words left his lips, “How can you even say that?! You don’t even know if it’s real!”
“Don’t fucking say that! It’s real I tell ya!” He snapped back finally looking at you with disgust, “And I’m going to obtain it! Right along with everything else the sea has to give me!”
“But what about our dreams together the ones you said you wanted to share with me?” Your voice losing its bit as your arms fell to your sides, “What about our…” Words dying in your throat as you thought of how pointless it would be to share the news. Hand touching your tummy.
He wouldn’t care.
“Fine. Obtain the one piece, become King of the Pirates for all I care about!” You barked out as Teach pushed past you to the front door with bags in hand. “J-just …just why can’t I go with ?” Your question had him stop for a moment, his figure large and casting a shadow over you as he blocked the front door.
“You’d both be dead weight.”
“Dead …weight? H-how can you say that? You said I was your one and only! You’re queen of the sea. That we’re your family!” You cried out to him your emotions getting the best of you but the man stood firm. Turning his head to the side to glance down at you he gave a bone chilling grin.
“You should be careful when a pirate says a few honeyed words just to warm up his bed.”
And with those final words Teach left never to be seen again until you saw him on the newspaper. Known as Blackbeard now. Wanted posters slapped all over the city causing disgusted eyes to stare at you. You knew they were wondering if you were affiliated even though he hadn’t shown for a couple months.
You were grateful for his lack of appearance. It helped keep your secret better until you moved back to live with your sister Makino.
The trip to Foosha Village wasn’t to bad it was the questions she decided to bombard you with that really got ya stressed. “I can’t believe he would just leave you!” Makino grumbled as she dried a cup at the bar, “And your child! Poor baby.”
Releasing a sigh you stood up with the sleeping baby still in your hands, “Hey I already told you not to bring that up. With him being a pirate we’ll have to keep her name a secret.”
Makino leaned over to look at her little niece with a fond smile, “It’s okay honey you don’t need him anyways. Your mommy, Garp and I will take good care of you!” Her gentle smile made the pouting baby tilt her head a bit in wonder.
“Honey.” You whispered to yourself. Makino said it as a term of endearment but you heard a reminder. A reminder not to trust honeyed words and you would carry that reminder with you everywhere. “I’m going to call her Honey.”
The baby in your arms wailed and you shushed her as you bounced on your heels, “I know mamas it’s just for now.”
“I’ll see you later I’m gonna take her for a walk.” You said waving to Makino who had a pitied smile that made your gut wrench.
“I know you like your own name. But don’t worry. One day there will come a time when someone strong will come to save you and you won’t have to hide or run to keep yourself safe.”
You spoke to your young child who you knew couldn’t listen but felt needed to hear the reassurance nonetheless. Walking along the beach with the waves crashing as your baby’s whines started to lower.
“You’ll be free. Until then just hold on okay Honey. Just hold on.”
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libroseitm · 2 months
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I wrote a note to myself on how to navigate this slightly sketchy time in the campaign, writing things down helps me think more affectively and to remember what I've thought about. As I was reading it this morning, I wondered if others would find it useful, so I changed the writing slightly, here you are:
. I know a lot of people have said it already, but it needs repeating over and over: if you feel burnt out, take a break. It's okay. Many of us have invested a lot of time into this campaign over the last two weeks. It's natural to want to slow down or step back. If you're struggling to take a break, think of it as a strategic rest- you're resting so you can come back stronger and more motivated than before.
. If you want to interact with the people who run large accounts, avoid using phrases along the lines of "I trust you", "I rely on you", "you always do the right thing" etc. At best this kind of language puts undue pressure on the person, at worst it sounds threatening. Try to stick to "[a specific thing you did] helped me today" a simple "thank you", or sending them something lighthearted to help them smile.
. Understand that while many people are taking breaks and feeling de-motivated at the moment, the interaction on your posts will likely go down. I know hardly any of us are doing this for clout or likes, but the sudden change in the amount of interaction can be jarring, and it's natural to feel weird about it. It's important to not rely on others for your motivation and make sure you're doing this purely because you want to.
. Others are not responsible for our motivation and vice versa, we are not responsible for theirs. However, if you are online and want to help, you can like, comment, QRT/reblog the posts that have little to no interactions. Make sure if you're QRTing/reblogging to add the tags. You can find these posts easily by searching one of the tags: #saveOFMD, #RenewAsACrew, #AdoptOurCrew, and put the "latest/newest" filter on.
. To put into perspective why you may be feeling strange: We celebrated the highly anticipated ads along with many of the cast and crew. That was incredible. Then, without warning to anyone, DJ put out a beautiful and hopeful message thanking us and involving us in the shopping process. While this was so very wonderful, it also turned the campaign around in a complete 180. While this was going on, the RAAC team needed to have a change of leadership. The reason for this change isn't something we need to be concerning ourselves with, or trying to speculate on. The point is, they were not available to provide guidance because they weren't able to anticipate the sudden nature of the change (not blaming DJ at all, the timing was just a bit rubbish). Responsibility fell onto Jac who has said from the beginning that they are uncomfortable with being in a main leadership role. That boundary was pushed and broken. In turn, through no single person's fault at all, things got confusing and stressful. So no, you're not weird, crazy or silly for feeling worried, scared or upset.
. And finally to end it on a high note, tonally, OFMD is a silly and lighthearted show. While important aspects like representation of various groups is the main reason we like it so much, the other huge reason is that it makes us laugh. In my opinion, this is why we're such a chilled out fandom in general . We're all here to have a good time. So let's make some memes! Let's share funny scenes! Let's be silly, and have fun! Not only does this get you posting and using the hashtags, it'll help you to laugh, and it'll help to lift this weird vibe we've got going on at the moment.
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adelarsims · 1 month
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Hi XD
I actually do wanna learn more ab them! And I have a few specific questions if you don't mind!
How old are they really?
They seem a bit obsessed with looking young, is there a reason for that?
Why don't they use a wand if it helps keep their hands looking younger?
What changed them from a snob to a slightly more uhm personable person?
What do they teach?
Also here is your excuse to ramble about world building and magic cus I love this stuff
Another more vague one, you mentioned their childhood was rough, can you talk more ab that?
Finally because I feel like I'm overstaying my welcome, how did they discover they have feelings for Caleb?
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1. let’s just say over a hundred. caleb once told cassie that 100+ years old feels better than 97 or something, because there's something romantic about being 'over a hundred', like straight out of a fairy tale, while 97 is just a really old grandpa :D
2. when they imagine looking in the mirror and seeing their hair grey and face wrinkled, they're terrified. it’s not a simple vanity - many spellcasters share this fear, when you don't see the constant flow of time when you look in the mirror, your image of yourself freezes like a fly in the amber - and going back into that flow gets more and more terrifying because it feels like suddenly the end nears faster. not all spellcasters choose to prolong their life, but those who do find it hard to stop. as for the youthful look... i think Morgyn just craves to feel at their peak, being the perfect image of themselves in everything. they were deprived of feeling worthy in their early years, so they keep proving and proving otherwise. especially after some discoveries about themselves that upended their understanding of who they are and thrown them into a deep identity crisis – they would grasp at all perfection that is still within their power to maintain. well... maybe it's also a bit of vanity, too.
3. it’s just more natural for them to cast with their hands and gives them access to much stronger magic. a wand doesn’t hold any magic itself, it’s like a laser pointer for magical energy, helps to focus and direct it. spellcasters need wands, innate mages don’t, though they of course can use them too. hand magic is raw, it’s more powerful but requires mastery and precision, and allows to weave spells that aren’t accessible to wand users, because wand is a single-channel magic focus, so to speak, and hand magic allows multi-channeling it (so basically, there's a limit that former humans who learned magic can do, and for innate mages this limit is very far, if existing at all)
4. oh no, don’t mistake a snob for an insufferable asshole. they were always personable. they’re likeable, cheeky, warm and affectionate to those they’re close with, especially those who appreciate and accept them, even though their position as a grand sage and academia headmaster naturally made them more reserved. and they’re still snobbish about magic, they know no one will do it better than them when it comes to spells, tend to nitpick mistakes in others' spellcasting, and get annoyed when someone is being lazy or unreasonably cocky with their magic. they just were hot-headed about people doubting their prowess as a student, but they have matured a lot and have good self control now.
5. mostly advanced elemental magic, and a few arcane disciplines i’ve yet to find names for. magic schools in my morgynverse are quite different from what they are in the game, for example, practical school isn’t about cleaning dishes. it covers healing, herbalism and potions, enchanting equipment, crafting amulets, like that. the new jewery creating pack will work so damn good for my story, i can’t wait!
6. i already gave bits and pieces here and there on this post. i can tell you a couple minor things if you want. there’s a plant that is used in potions, it’s called cyclop’s brain, it has huge leaves and massive seed pods, and tiny tiny seeds. also, every four years, on 29th of february, “the day that does not exist”, the academia holds a huge event called Masquerade of Mysteries, it’s grand and magical and everyone is allowed to go all out with enchantments and costumes, every student and teacher is looking forward to it.
7. i’m not sure how much i should say considering that i hope to start telling my story one day and it’s a spoiler, but let’s just say they weren’t really accepted for who they are and were considered dangerous even though they never gave anyone any reason to be afraid of their magic (it’s not simply about them being a mage, that wouldn’t be as much of a problem as their origin)
8. slowly. eventually. they were physically attracted to Caleb from the beginning, but it’s doing right by one another that truly brings people together. Caleb was there for Morgyn when they needed it most.
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