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thebelugawhalefriend · 4 months

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The Men Before The Rose - Yan!Royal Harem x Reader

PART ONE

CW: RELIGIOUS THEMES, EXECUTION MENTIONS, Homophobia

Note: This is a sequel to the first story! An expansion into Rose's heritage and how the world works for them. As someone pointed out, it's rather sudden how the homophobia shows itself and comes off as unartful. So! This will mostly dive into the division about same sex couples.

Months passed before you could consider yourself okay again. The isolation from your family and friends was something you slowly had to overcome the pain of. It still stings like an arrow to the heart, but living on was the least you could do for yourself.

In the meantime, you decide to busy yourself with finding the history of the royals. Rose isn't too excited to share in his own history, only providing you one book. Even given the sparse information Rose would provide, his family's long time rule was no mere feat to scoff at. What draws your attention most is his direct father, Aquila. Upon seeing his name on one of the pages, you turn to read the chapter dedicated to his reign.

Before our red haired king had assumed the throne, Aquila Florian sat upon the gilded seat of power. Hair as golden as the rays of sun, eyes a similar shade. No man nor woman could even compare to his mere size- Murals along the castle walls could only paint his figure from the top of his chest if they wished to paint his face!

By his side was his appointed wife that he named Tyto. Her previous first name has been erased from our records, but his command ruled that her name be changed to fit his rigid structure. In fact, much of his rule came from...

The book quickly proved itself to be a rather boring account of events. But, there is perhaps another way to experience the story. You close the leather book in your hands and set it onto the dresser, lifting up and wandering out of the bedroom.

"My Lady, to where shall I accompany you?" You're well aware of the guard outside of the room, and yet he never ceases to surprise you when you step out. "I told you before, you can call me (Y/N)..."

"Not when you've been wed to the king. I've been ordered to call you Lady and nothing more."

"Then... Alright, I don't wish to cause you trouble. Do you think you could guide me to Rose's study?"

The iron clad guard pauses for a moment, "His... His study is more than private, Your Grace. I wouldn't be allowed to lead you there- much less fulfill my duty to your care."

You shake your head a little. It's always been this excuse time and time again, "Is it a sin to want to know more about the man I married? About the family I am part of now?"

"With all due respect, not even Queen Florian has ventured within the study. I cannot let you violate the trust of the king- nay, your husband..."

"He's violated my own trust the day he commanded I stay within these walls and never see anyone I care for again. I'm not just asking as a..." You struggle to utter the mere words, "As a royal, but as a confused human being... Please, I must see the study."

The walk to Rose's study was short, but the tension made it seem like hours. Charles is anything but a hard hearted man. A tender gentleman just above your own height. While he was commanded to keep watch by the threat of death, he couldn't bear to see another moment pass with you longing for more.

"Thank you... Thank you so so-"

"Please make it swift, My Lady. Rose will return in a few hours."

You nod, easily slipping into the unlocked study.

Creeeaaaakkk....

The oakwood door moans as it reveals the room to you. It took your eyes but a moment to adjust to the darkness inside, but there's no mistaking what you're seeing. The eerily large room holds plenty of large murals that paint the elongated walls. Moonlight mixed with dim flames of the torches just barely illuminates the inside from behind you, but God almighty you want to see more.

"I'll need light..."

Closing the door carefully, you snatch yourself a candle from one of the nearby side tables and hold it to a lit torch. After all, no noble could leave their castle barren of a lighting system. It takes you little time to slip right back in and start to walk along the hall of artwork. Strangely enough, this didn't feel like a study. No, this felt like a room dedicated to telling the tale of their rule. You can animate in your head just what each painting told...

Men upon horses trample over others of their own kind. White stallions proudly sported iron clad warriors upon their backs, while at their hooves were unarmored and weaponless men. Swords glowed a beaming sun yellow to declare a holy victory to claim the land they fought for.

A man with white hair stands over a crowd of adoring people and dogs. What's strange is that the dogs stand on hind legs and praise him as if they themselves are human. Horses behind the crowd also cheer for him, but all four hooves stay connected to the ground.

A single long line connects a chain of kings, each one holding a link within a golden chain. Most sport blonde hair and blue eyes, but the last king stands as an outlier. He holds golden eyes and curled red locks. Under them each is a name, but most of the older ones were too faded to read. 'Raven Florian/Lady Mourn - Aquila Florian/Lady Tyto - Rose Florian/Lady Azalea/Lady (Y/N)'.

Even if the third one isn't the last, you take a long pause to look upon the names. Your new marriage has quite literally been set in stone. Painted with your name under the striking red haired man. Yet, you keep going. You must know more about them! What stops you is the hall widening into a rather quaint room. Now this looks a lot more like a study, with a large red chair sat in the midst of bookshelves and a messy desk of papers and a journal. It's the desk you're drawn to first, picking up the most worn out journal upon it.

"Blank?" You look on the cover. The only thing even describing what could be inside were the initials AF written on the leather cover's corner. "What could you be hiding?" You set your candle close and sit down, starting to read the pages inside.

Day of 30th, December, 1201

Today has transpired like any other. My breakfast was rather lean, but I can't complain when dinner is to be grand.

You laugh softly at such an inconspicuous entry. Maybe this would be a silly little journal of thoughts. Most follow such an idea, but some entries catch your attention more than others.

Day of 14th, April, 1202

Joanne of Jonstown has been captured.

Your eyebrows knot in confusion, turning to the page behind it.

Date of 12th, April, 1202

A grand disturbance has taken place at Noble Stewart's wedding. A strange rogue appeared and objected to the union, disgracing the ceremony to declare a disgusting lust for his wife. Any sane man would have wrung her neck on the spot, but the rat got away before he could catch her. It's no matter to him now. I have hired Jasper and his men to bring her to justice. With any luck, he could receive his own spot here by my side...

Date of 15th, April, 1202

Her execution has been dated for three days from now. I suggested we string and quarter her for her sins, but my royal advisor suggested I treat her not as a mere criminal. Rather, we could give her the same treatment as we do for suspected dark arts users. Not only will this serve as a painful death one like her deserves, but will also set the further precedent for what is to come of unlawful relations. If one is to partake in disturbing the union of a man and a woman for their own desires, they are to be burned at the stake. I have no quarrel with what the royal advisor pointed me to, and have let him write the law. It's on her execution day that I shall decree this law and set it into swift motion.

With an uneasy hand, you turn it to one of the final pages.

Date of 18th, April, 1202

The law has been set, and all was well. Not a single soul objected to the law while the spectacle took place. The

"Have you no respect for my personal space?" You immediately shift your eyes from the book to see those familiar golden eyes looking upon you with scorn. Dim candle light in his hand flickering and lighting up the underside of his displeased face. His figure draws closer as you retreat into yourself.

"I-I'm sorry, Rose! I wanted to know more- I-"

"My father's words are about as much history as murderers are innocent!" He practically roars, snatching the journal away and towering over your frame. "I gave you the resource you wanted... I gave you all you could ever want to know. This?" He holds up the book, "These are the ravings of a madman that no person should EVER learn from!"

"Learn from?" You start to rise from your position, a little offended by his assumption, "I wanted to learn ABOUT your family! Is it not my right to know what my children will be born into? What I tie myself to?"

"My father's words and thoughts have died with him. There is no need to continue learning from his example."

Standing up from your position, you place a finger to his chest and start walking him backwards. "You can't hide what your family has done to innocent people! Your father was a horrible-"

"I KNOW!"

His right hand drops the journal, latching onto your shoulder to allow his anger to set deep within. The glow from his candle dims to let the dark features of his anger settle in.

"I know he was a horrible man. He ordered the execution of many people who did not deserve it. If he knew of what I have now... He would surely kill me." Rose sighs, letting you go and setting down his fading candle. "I come from a line of men who claim to know their faith. Who hoped that persecuting the innocent would cure them of their own sins. You want to know what I think?" He looks to the book on the desk with a wicked snarl. "I think they're all burning in hell for the rest of their days. My father, his father, and the ones who came before. The men he hired that still work in the castle? They too will burn for being so stuck in their ways..."

You place a hand under his chin, bringing him to look at you. "It's no use to hide the history of your lineage. You are the result of those men, whether you like it or not." He tries to butt in, but you're quick to pause his interruption. "But what they've done doesn't make you a horrible man. It's what you do now that truly matters, does it not? You wouldn't have executed them. You let my mothers live in peace despite the law your father put into place..."

With a hefty sigh, he cups your face and finally draws out a smile upon his own. "You still violated my trust, dearest. I didn't want you to wander..."

"You assume I'd be content staying in one room for the rest of my years." Your teasing is bold, but his laugh was moreso. "I suppose you're right. Come then, I guess I owe you a proper tour of our home." As you both approach the doorway, you pause for a moment in thought.

"What is to become of Charles?"

"Ah... Him. He can't go unpunished for disobeying my order, my dear."

Your blood runs ice cold, but Rose is quick to try and soothe your tense worry, "Calm yourself! He's not going to be executed- Lord almighty, did you forget my whole point of not being my father? He'll spend some time thinking over his betrayal and punished as severely as the crime calls for. Which... Isn't too cruel."

"Will he continue to serve for us?"

"That remains to be seen. Come! I'll show you to the bottom floor!"

#yandere #yandere x reader #reader insert #x reader #yandere crush #imagines #yandere x you #yandere x y/n #yandere x darling

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alelelesimz · 9 months

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here's a long and non exhaustive list of things i want to see in a totk dlc (big spoilers btw)

i want to learn more about the zonai. people in hyrule spend the entire game trying to learn more about them and in the end when purah sees the temple of time and says "just when i thought i started to figure out the zonai!" there's still sooooooooooo much we don't know about them that i wish we could learn somehow.

ganondorf and the gerudo. in the story we learn that he is the king of the gerudo, he's evil, he wants power and loves darkness. that's all. i want to learn more about who he is in this story, his motives, his relationship with the gerudo, etc. are ALL the gerudo of that time with him? are they all evil? do they leave him once he becomes the demon king? when he gets the secret stone we don't see the gerudo warriors anymore, what happened with them?

KASS. WHERE IS HIM???????????? IS HE OKAY? ARE WE GONNA SEE HIM AGAIN? MY BOY MY DARLING PLEASE COME BACK. i truly can't believe nintendo would leave out such a beloved character without an explanation. even his family is still there. i would've preferred him having a minor role than completely disappearing :(

the connection between ganondorf and calamity ganon. are they related at all? [tangent warning] my guess is that ganondorf/demon king happened first, from there god knows when ganondorf's evil leaked in the form of malice (in botw it's said that he came from the depths of hyrule castle so that checks out) then creating calamity ganon (the one 10000 years prior to botw), which is evil in its purest form, from there he gets sealed away and 10000 years later he comes back and the great calamity happens which destroys hyrule castle and that's what weakens rauru's power therefore gloom spreading more and more and making people sick, and then totk happens. [tangent end]

who's the ancient hero??? okay hear me out here's another tangent: the ancient hero set is a reward after a huge task, so it definitely cannot be only a fan service, right? it is the look of the hero that defeated calamity ganon 10000 years ago. he's obviously not a hylian, at first i thought he might've been a zonai but he doesn't quite look like one? granted, the only zonai we've seen are rauru and mineru, maybe the others looked different, BUT if he's a zonai then calamity ganon must've happened BEFORE ganondorf??? bc by the time ganondorf appears the zonai are pretty much extinct so my theory above would be wrong. BUT if he's not a zonai THEN WHAT IS HE WHO IS HE I WANT TO KNOW! ofc 10000 years is an insane amount of years, that's longer than the entire documented history of humanity, so maybe he's a completely different race that disappeared long ago and hasn't been mentioned yet. if that's the case i wanna know about that too.

naydra, farosh and dinraal. i actually don't think this one's gonna happen lol, but i'd love to know more about them. we know that they represent the triforce and in totk we learn about dragonification. i've seen theories of them being zonai sages who swallowed their secret stones long ago. it would be so much fun to learn if that's the case and why they did that.

what happened to the sheikah technology that was so prevalent in botw? it would make sense that all the guardians in botw just died after ganon is gone. their parts were used for the skyview towers and i saw someone making the argument that they do explode when they die, so that would explain how they were completely erased from the world, although it still baffles me how despite most of the world is still in ruins, there's absolutely no trace of the decayed guardians ANYWHERE not even in the most remote parts of the world. what happened with the towers? they raised from the ground, we see the one in the gerudo canyon came all the way from a chasm which we can now explore. i wish we had more of an explanation of what happened to them.. and as for the divine beasts, it is implied that they've stopped working in the end of botw, but these machines were huge, where are they now? did they bury them again? so many questions that are probably never gonna be answered honestly :/

#totk #sorry i've been thinking about this for days

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kigozula · 2 years

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The Ballad Of Never After - Review

Spoilery!!

I am curious if anyone shares my opinion...

I wrote part of this review when I was halfway through. And now I am adding some things.

I am most likely in the small group who didn’t like Jacks and didn’t like this book...

I don’t know where to start really. While I enjoyed some scenes, they were just scene and nothing more. Doesn’t help if the rest of the story isn’t good.

First, I read OUABH and thought it’s going to be a stand-alone. I wished it would have been one with a different ending. OUABH might be my favorite book and I love Legendary and Finale. I think Stephanie Garber developed that triology and the amazing characters well. Yet Ballad is a pure disappointment for me.

Jacks - The Prince Of Hearts is portrayed completely different compared to the other three books he was in. In those books he is a fate with a tragic story. He seeks true and real love. He wants it but can’t have it. I had so much sympathy for him and also believed he really looks for love and the woman who will be his everything. I was sure his priority is love.

That view sadly changed in ballad. Why is he gaming, flirting, letting himself touch by other women and whyyyyy was he about to kiss a girl? Next time I will rip that page out since it has NOTHING relevant, is unnecessary, disgusting and is just not the Jacks. This alone made me hate him and lose extreme points.

Legend and Julian were so devoted to Tella and Scareltt. They didn’t even look any other girl‘s way which the only right thing. I don’t believe Jacks likes or sees Eva as potential partner. I think we just were naive enough like Eva to believe he would.

The next huge flaw: I was so tired and sick of him using and betraying Evangeline all the freaking time. While in OUABH I still believe certain moments are real, in TBONA he is an a*****e. He has the choice to be happy and be nice but he deliverately chooses not to.

In OUABH I LOVE Evajacks dynamics. But in the ballad not at all. And how can we now keep shipping the beautiful goodhearted Evangeline with someone like this? He doesn’t deserve a fingernail of her. My Evajacks feels was ruined with this book. I cannot bring it over my heart to ship Eva with him after this. I even prefer Luc and Apollo. Chaos even. But not Jacks.

I was angry that Tella is mentioned too often on the first book but now I wished he would think of her instead of flirting around. I would even say he had more genuine feelings for Tella than Eva. He cared more for her.

And sadly, after all this, I am devastated to see that Evangeline is not special for Jacks. She is not the one. I would be happy even if she was in the same league like Donatella, but I was taken aback to know there were another girl, another fox in Jacks life. And than... the whole reason about why he wants those stones. I was more than just shocked. I think his motives were hold very cheap and nonsense. His history is awful.

While I loved the character development in the Caraval triology, I am very veerryyy sad with this one.

I don't think Jacks character could be ruined more, made worse than this.

I really hoped Evangeline would leave him go find the Caraval team and lock up Jacks somewhere. But she just kept trusting him although he didn’t give her one reason to do that anymore. It was very frustrating that she kept hoping for him. At the same time she also wants Apollo? But erased Luc so easily?? I don’t know...

Now I understand why Stephanie Garber doubts Jacks deserves a happy ending. Now I understand she couldn’t make Evajacks. After this story it wouldn’t be good anymore.

My heart just hurt for Evangeline. I want her to be happy and not betrayed all the time. I wished she would become friend with Scarlett and Tella. And meet with Julian and Legend too.

The overall story was nothing I thought it would be. I personally didn’t like it.

But I liked Chaos. I like almost all scenes with him. And that's that...

The ending... I think Apollo isn't bad. I mean he was betrayed and poisoned and cursed and he still wants Evangeline. And even if I cried, I cried because of how Jacks made Eva sad and not because of what Apollo has done. Maybe what he did will give Evangeline a bit peace...

EDIT: The only thing I can like is, that at the end he sacrifices something for her and saves her, but I can’t just erase all the other things he did before that...

I appreciate the effort of the author, but this is my honest opinion.

#tbona #ouabh #evangeline fox #the ballad of never after #once upon a broken heart

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dinozvortex · 2 years

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Force Majeure The Faction Paradox novel that was but wasn't, an analysis

Force Majeure an analysis-'partial review' through a Faction Paradox lens

“Force Majeure” -- a greater force or a superior force, a fitting name for a book in which all participants to some degree or another are under the power or sway of a greater force they cannot fully comprehend.

For those that don't know, Daniel O'Mahony’s Force Majeure was at one point intended to be a book in the Faction Paradox series. Little else seems to exist online other than this titbit about the book, but given it was published by Tellos Publishing in one of the lulls when Faction Paradox was without a publisher, perhaps this is one of the major reasons why it was not.

Regardless, it remains in tone, themes and concepts very much a Faction Paradox book in all but name, just one in which the titular skull masked group, the Great Houses and Enemy do not appear in name, which is pretty much the case for a number of Faction Paradox books. This one just doesn’t name drop.

While I will try and minimize spoilers to a point, it would be impossible to effectively do this analysis without involving them.

I will also mention in warning for anyone who wishes to read this book, that while I will be not bringing it up (as it is largely irrelevant to themes and plot I'm covering), sex, prostitution (though not sex scenes or graphic descriptions) and related elements do feature in the book -in some parts more heavily than others- so be aware of that fact before opening its cover.

This analysis is not exhaustive, and as I am yet to properly read through the author’s published Faction Paradox novel Newton’s Sleep, I'm sure there are things I will have missed related to it or not in my readthrough, and I welcome the input of others. So let’s begin.

First of all, this book’s cover, and to a much lesser extent its blurb, do this book a big disservice, the cover in particular (a cgi dragon in front of a modern city) does not in any way represent the book’s content (though in some more abstract ways you could say it represents some of its themes).

The Dragons of the book are (other than perhaps something at the end I will not spoil) more metaphorical, a name most commonly given to the original founders of the city or at least its precursor The Old Free House (The Dragons house) who have erased themselves from history. More on them and that later scattered throughout.

There are points in the book where dreams perception and a dreamlike logic cause the narrative or perspective to skip around backwards or forwards in time, and while at times it does lead to events being more confusing to follow than might be necessary, it does very much lend itself well to the book’s themes and for the most part holds together well, it just means that you need to pay attention and try and put the pieces together as you go (and possibly on the odd occasion look back a page).

Candida

Its name ‘means Dazzling white, but is also the name of a fungal infection which can live inside people ‘potentially’ without causing them problems’. Given the city’s effect on people, comparing it to an infection in some ways is perhaps not without merit.

Oh where to begin? With the City of Candida details are vague, while precise, in flux and never still, while also ancient and unchanging.

Where time can flow differently, a place which people can enter by choice (though not without difficulty) and others all over the world will suddenly wake up within unwillingly. It is not a part of the world, some wonder or fear that one day it will cover the whole world and there will be no people left outside of it. It pulls in the flotsam and jetsam of the world, both people and things.

It gets its hooks into people eventually (at least without side interference) and when it gets into them enough that they don’t want to leave, don’t want it to change, “forget who” they've “left behind” or at least have no wish to go back to them. Is this a bad thing? Is it a good thing? That is very much left unclear.

To talk about the City means talking about a lot of other things. Though perhaps first and foremost for its current form we need to explain Doctor Arkadin, a name which apparently means Problem Solver, Healer, Comfortable, Practicality, Realism. Which feels like a fitting intentional choice given what little there is about him.

Something existed here before him at the very least almost certainly the Old Free House, (the head of the house claims that the house was there even before humans). Almost no record of Doctor Arkadin's over-200-year old expedition exist (in or out of the city) It’s almost like he never existed, but he did. He ‘died’ long ago but he’s still alive in some ways.

He established the city and attempted to lay claim to it, to open up to the outside world to bring it under his control, his will, he failed. He tried to sit on the figurative (at least I‘m pretty sure its just figurative) Dragon's Throne (takeing the place and power of the its erased masters) and tried to bend the city to his will.The guards he established still exist (though weaponless and relatively powerless) and his influence can still be felt throughout. But despite not leading the city, more power within it still falls to the Old Free House which came before Doctor Arkadin, and its chatelaine, Flower-of-the-Lady (or The-Lady) is not its owner or master, more its “House Keeper” .

According to one of the only records from the expedition he fell into “madness and delusion” (which may just have been the City’s influence on him) and in the end “he killed himself”. What form that death took though, is unclear, as previously stated he almost seems like he was erased from history. And while he is gone his influence and presence remains.

He constructed a giant brass head three times the size of a human one “with no sign of lines or joins” on its surface. It could not speak, it could not move but “It observes. It orders. It computes. I conceived it after the Oracle of Delphi”. It would seem that it was a machine to try and predict or control the future. Whatever its function, when someone else tried to take control of Candida, when the dust settled the head was found “smashed open like an egg” revealing the “ruined clockwork of its brain”. With it destroyed, the influence and reign of Doctor Arkadin was over. “The Dragon’s throne” was now vacant, and his name would now be said without the title of Doctor.

It seems that, having failed to take the vacant Dragon's Throne for himself, Doctor Arkadin installed the giant head machine on the throne, from which its basic machinery allowed it to use a fraction of the Dragon's power and influence over the city, as well as also having the side effect of preventing anyone else from taking the throne while it still functioned.

A part of the city’s unusual connection to time seems to affect the dreams of its inhabitants, or at the very least the Appeared who enter it. Dreams are not just dreams in the city. Each Appeared only get three and then no more, and the events of these dreams, whether in the past, present, or future, have/will come true (though elements and details of the dream may not be fully literal in nature given the nature of dreams).

Kay (the main point of view character) during the course of the novel would seem to have more than three dreams, though technically speaking the two additional ones may be something different. One is a traumatic memory of her past which is altered, an additional figure being added to it as history changes as if they had always been there. The other is the thoughts of someone else who is in the room while she sleeps and then a memory of theirs. So given that one is a memory being changed by alterations to history related to the city, and the other is a telepathic connection, neither of them really count as one of the three dreams.

Over time the unfamiliar language spoken in the city (and the mix of other languages) become understood by the former Appeared who enter. Without them trying to learn them.

The giant “off-white edifice of The Old Free House” at the highest point of the mountain built city

The city and the Old Free House’s layout seem to shift and change over time and are impossible to map out into 2D. While they are confusing to outsiders (the Appeared), once the city has got into them, and they are part of it they can navigate them with ease. When under siege the chatelaine Flower-of-the-Lady was able to activate functions to reconfigure its rooms and passages, trapping and containing its invaders. During the course of the siege no one who enters dies.

In hindsight many of these points lead me to think that the House may be a damaged and/or modified time ship, or perhaps something more similar to the living Houses of the Homeworld.

It is called “Old Free House” -- perhaps it broke away from the Homeworld wishing for some form of Freedom.

If it is a House of the Homeworld variety (or a similar Enemy form of entity), following a similar sort of set up, the Flower-of-the-Lady is acting, as the book outright says, as the “House Keeper” and someone sitting on “The Dragons throne” would be something akin to the role of the Kithriarch (perhaps a greater level of power).

Following this line of thought of the Old Free House being a House Timeship or some combination thereof, it is growing very, very slowly larger over time, and slowly but surely (and on occasion quickly in places) expanding, reconfiguring and growing the city which rests below it.

See Book of War for 91-Form Timeships

Absorbing it (and perhaps even its people (as we know they can do that) into itself converting them into the living equations of block transfer computations)

See (Lawrence Miles short story) Toy Story

Its telepathic circuits reaching out into their minds allowing them over time to understand the languages spoken, influencing their dreams as a side effect of this connection when it alters the past or future of their personal timeline (perhaps to feed off the potential energy, perhaps for some other reason)

The Old Free House and the city (for by the time the book takes place they are in many ways one and the same) exists almost in a separate realm of its own, at any rate it is deliberately stated to be very much not a part of the world.

Characters focusing primarily on events, connections and themes

Azure

meaning bright blue in colour like a cloudless sky. She is a Messanger, a Voladora to-be , the “insect girl”, later she becomes “the bird girl” .She becomes a Voladora meaning flying.

At first she is a messenger who travels by bike and delivers messages to and from the Old Free House and its former inhabitants/members.

Her role stays the same but becomes faster, farther reaching and more well regarded, after she is ready to undergo a ritual (on which Kay accompanies her in order to watch and guard her for the duration) she “becomes a bird”.

They are taken through tunnels to a mountain slope where there is no sign of the city or its light, where Azure is ritualistically chained, blindfolded and her whole body painted with images.

Before this they had to consume a grey looking and grey tasting substance (which it is made clear is not a drug) which temporarily untethered them from time so that the Dragon’s (the erased founders) can “consume” Azure and allow her to become a Bird. Kay sees some of what occurs but is pulled into visions of her past for most of the experience. -In hindsight I am 99% sure the Grey tasting substance is intended to be Praxis.

Once Azure “has become a bird”, when she rides her bike and gets up to enough speed she and everything on her and the bike fully become a bird and fly. The first time Kay’s mind blanks out the experience, the second she remembers becoming one with Azure and the experience of flight in full.

Xan

An interesting figure who takes some time before he materializes in the story

He is not from Candida and the “connotations”’ of the given term of Appeared bestowed upon those who enter it from the “real” world grate against him.

Upon being first presented he appears like he could be a certain familiar figure.

A 'slim' man In a 'cream linen suit' and hat wearing a 'tie, with' 'sharp' features a 'clean of complexion' and “maybe Scottish if his voice was a guide. He seemed unintimidated by her gaze” and a strange sort of pull which draws people into him, and is a charismatic personality.

But once he left trying to remember anything but fragments of the details of his face, of his appearance, is a fruitless exercise, a feature somewhat shared by the Doctor . (This part while fitting for some descriptions of the Doctor particularly more Nyarlathotep ones, is just the start of what makes him over the course of the story stray away from being the Doctor in any form)

He would seem at first to be the VNA era Seventh Doctor in many ways (and I will admit I did end up reading his lines in my head in Sylvester McCoy's voice). I do wonder if this character first began as something similar to the character implied in a post VNA Ace in Daniel O'Mahony’s Newtons Sleep, and became something else over revisions and as the story chose a different route, or if his first appearance was always intended to be a red herring to throw off readers.

In later parts his appearance will ‘change’ or more accurately the descriptions of him will change, as if history is changing and he was always like this. His suit will be grey and more ragged, his demeanor will be less affable (in a way which doesn't seem like its solely linked to events occurring), and he will be described as more as someone who has harnessed what little remains of a lingering power, a prince of his own little domain, who has had sex with all who work under him. Except of course for Kay, Kay is a special case.

There are complexities with Xan’s nature and elements of the truth about it which are left unclear, in part due to all interactions with him being from Kay’s perspective, and his denial of her theory for what he is (which does not mean she was necessarily wrong, just that he refuses to accept the truth she offers.)

The traumatic memory of her past that she keeps reliving has a new figure in it since she came to Candida, a young boy who carries himself in the same manner as him who flees from her presence. Xan claims not to remember this, though Kay points out that she didn’t remember this either before she came to Candida and that her memory of this event in her past changed.

It takes a fair amount of time after entering Candida before he comes to her (almost as if at first he did not tangibly exist there) and once Xan does, Kay finds that he has taken control of, and utterly reshaped the project which was the reason she was sent to Candida in the first place. How Xan is, his goals, his manner, etc. was everything Kay felt she wanted to achieve when she came to Candida. Kay becomes convinced that Xan is part of her, her wants and dreams brought to life and given form by Candida. He claims that this is wrong, that it’s just the city getting to her, getting inside her head, and over time Kay find he has changed or she has changed. He has gone beyond and in directions she feels she never would have considered to achieve his goal, and she wonders, if one of them dies, what happens to the other.. In the end Kay feels that Xan is not her, at least not anymore.

As stated, it is left unclear whether Kay was correct with her theory, but it does seem there was at least some truth to it, some form of connection or link established.

His appearance does change one last time. When we see him last, Kay sees him in shining armor covered in jagged spikes, but later when she looks again she just sees him in a much more battered form of his old clothes, leading her to question herself on how she could have been so mistaken.

Given everything that has occurred, either for a moment her perception was shifted and revealed something of the truth, or time shifted while she wasn't looking and her memory changed with it. The incongruous spiked armour does make me wonder if Xan was intended to be from one of the War time Powers, or at least not native to the era, but there’s enough uncertainty about Xan origins, not withstanding he is a threat, though not to Kay.

Kay

Meaning Pure. I won’t say much. Events focus around her in this story and she stands out in a way which is never fully pinned down, as the one who could change Candida.

Estaban Meaning crown, garland. Also later Millo Meaning Fullness,. Solid foundation, Supporting structure

Elements of both fit. He is one of the guards who sees Doctor Arkadin and is tasked by him, and in the end helps secure the city. However, he saw Doctor Arkadin when he was just a boy despite that being over 200 years ago. When questioned on that he just responds that he could be older than he looks; he describes the point in his life the book is set as his “second childhood.”

His interaction with Doctor Arkadin shown in the novel is through a dreamlike lens, through Kay’s mind linked in her sleep to Estaban, so it’s unclear if this is a dream of a memory of the interaction he remembers happening as a boy. Or a new second interaction which happened both at this very moment and retroactively at the same time or two days after Kay’s arrival. The text seems to imply the latter. Regardless, he is unable to recall Doctor Arkadin’s appearance in a similar way to Kay’s experiences with Xan, which has some interesting implications.

When Estaban calls him "Sir" he responds with “if you must address me then call me Doctor” (pretty sure this is not implying that he was an incarnation of the Doctor, but who knows. O'Mahony has come up with new incarnations of the Doctor before, who have appeared only in a background role so I wouldn't put it past him)

Random minor asides

In a parallel of sorts to an a Adventuress of Henrietta Street we again have a brothel in a position of power but not in charge, some of the women of which perform rituals and get referred to in a few cases as witches.

Also remember witch blood = a time sensitive. The appearances of the word “witch” could be well be remnants of such elements as the few uses of the word feel slightly out of place with the rest of the novel. But that’s just idle speculation on a very minor thing.

Of the three dreams which are true that Azura has, the last feels somewhat out of place, the other two are of things yet to happen at the time she has them. While the third is of something which happened years before Azure came to the City. “I dreamed there was a body in the library, a man with angel wings instead of arms, and really old, really wrinkly skin, and eyes like he’d died of shock.” With enough leeway for dream logic you could relate it more to her, but it seems pretty clear that is not the intention. It feel like a nod to Newtons Sleep a book still yet to be released when Force Majeure was published (so even without the dream elements interfering I’m unsure how closely it will line up with anything in that novel) but it is a link.

While Azure is told that the angel wing part just meant messenger, given other stuff in this novel I suppose the reality could well have been much more literal.

Godma January or the Godma

Godma Meaning Chief, Educated, Good Understanding. January Named for the Roman god Janus, protector of gates and doorways.

A old women who never leaves the “fastness” (a secure place well protected by natural features) “of her cottage on the city limits”. Would seem from what little we see of her to fit with her names meaning, -according to Luis at least- she and Luis were former gun runners who came to the city when they got lost in the mountains.

Like Azure could during the ritual, she could tell, smell, feel that Kay was connected to Xan and shunned her as a result when first meeting her (though would later send her thanks and apologies in the end after Kay’s actions). She was linked to and a former member of The Dragons house. Whether where she lived was to serve the function of an active vigil on the city’s edge or a retirement of sorts was left unknown.

Luis

Meaning Famous Warrior

Large, wide, and with a beard like Father Christmas, despite having no interest before he came to the city, he became the House’s blind Librarian. He is pretty mysterious and despite claiming that his senses have not been heightened is more aware of what goes on around him than almost anyone else, and despite his blindness is able to read and identify books with no issue (though he claims that he has just memorized them long ago).

Like some others in the city (but more than anyone else it seems) he plays the highly complex board game “The War in Heaven” a ‘game’ which can last years and have no clear winner. While you can read the game as simply that, a game along with being a reference to The War its gets its title from, with its complexity and long play times being an analogy of sorts for The War itself.

Given the nature of dreams and other things in the city, and their effects on time and the world beyond, could it not be possible for battles waged on the board to mirror those also taking place out in the universe in some other time and place. Could it and the red and black pieces on its boards in fact be a microcosm of battles of The War itself, and if so could the effects of one change the outcome of the other? .

Perhaps, perhaps not, interesting thought though, and while not something touched on in the published version of the book it would certainly not feel out of place.

(I’m sure Auteur would certainly agree with such a reading)

While not my favorite book ever, I honestly enjoyed the ride overall and would say its well worth a read. It is very much a Faction Paradox or Worlds of the Spiral Politic book, regardless of the lack of branding on its cover. It is still available in print from its publisher Tellos and as an ebook on amazon UK and US

#faction paradox #the war #The war in heaven #doctor who #Daniel O'Mahony

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iridescentoracle · 10 months

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okay so i know i disagree with the Entire Rest Of The Fandom Except Nyquildriver, Apparently, on a lot of stuff, but this does still feel a bit like sacrilege to say, but i’ve been thinking it for over a year now:

i do love the concept and a lot of the individual bits are great, but honestly i didn’t think chat blanc was like, super well-written—the concept is great but the execution was lacking—but not for the reasons i’ve seen anyone else argue. the problems i’ve seen other people have with chat blanc were all down to characterization (of marinette and/or of her parents, mostly) and that all worked totally fine for me.

the problem i have with chat blanc is the way the time travel/flashbacks are handled—having bunnyx frantically flipping back and forth between the chat blanc/ladybug conflict & the how-we-got-here just feels contrived, like if the solution here is having ladybug deakumatize chat blanc then why does it matter what happened, why are you so desperate to find the answers, and if it does matter that much and bunnyx does need to know, then… why doesn’t she do anything with the information

but then there’s also all this focus on “oh she has to find the akuma so she can fix everything!!!!” but surprise that didn’t fix everything and actually now you have to go back in time and avert this whole timeline so actually you could’ve dipped on the fight ten minutes ago and gone back to erase the name as soon as you found out he knows who you are and everything that’s happened since was totally pointless

and while i think that could have been done well—you thought everything was fixed but SURPRISE OH NO—it actually just felt anticlimactic? and the “actually this whole fight was pointless bc she’s erasing this bit of the timeline” could’ve been really poignant—she knows she should just leave and fix things before the timestream breaks down but she can’t bear to leave chat noir like this even in a future she wants to prevent from happening in the first place—but again, as it stood it just felt pointless

like, the problem with how marinette is written in this episode isn’t about characterization, it’s about agency. between dropping off the hat and erasing her name, nothing she does actually matters or drives the plot, and basically ditto bunnyx; she’s great in theory but doesn’t actually do anything that like, a random time portal marinette accidentally trips through couldn’t have done.

and i feel like i’m making it sound like i don’t like the episode, and that’s not even true!! i cannot possibly overstate how much i love the idea of it, i’m all about time travel and alternate timelines if they’re handled well, and i have happily eaten up every temporary identity reveal the show has given us and hoped for more! to borrow a description from nyquildriver,

it honestly does feel like all its impact on the story is to give marinette some PTSD "gotcha, can't fall in love with chat noir, okay"

and i am just fine with the actual plot impact going forward being "marinette has PTSD around the idea of falling in love with chat noir now," [kicks a non-trivial amount of my ao3 history under the bed], so at the end of the day i’m still really grateful that chat blanc is an episode that exists, but i’ve never been able to watch it without thinking the whole time that they had all the pieces of a top-tier episode and put them together clunkily enough it’s actually just kind of okay.

which is WILD because holy shit what a concept. like even from years in the future when we’re a couple episodes from the end of season five i still can’t believe that’s actually a real episode they gave us. i wish it were more than the sum of its parts but what parts

#miraculous ladybug #ml s3 #chat blanc #marinette dupain cheng #bunnyx #ml: 3x22 #character: marinette dupain-cheng #character: ladybug #character: bunnyx

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wndybyrd · 1 year

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iris : if your muse could convey one last message to someone they have lost or left behind , what would it be ?

my dearest paul,

i shall not beg you to forgive me, nor will i waste these pages with endless apologies that detail the reasoning behind my betrayal — which i, myself, cannot fully explain. you are more special, more dear to me than you could ever know. i see you, at times, behind the lids of my eyes when they close . . . when i blink, when i sleep. i’m haunted. you stand in those cold, dark woods waiting for me; to run towards the warm future we’d promised ourselves, together. i don’t know how long you waited, just as i don’t know how far into our ambitions you came. if this letter had enough magic to follow the wind & find its way into your hands, i imagine them tough & calloused from a carpentry, or even blacksmithing, apprenticeship. you’d have your own humble home, never without a meal on the table. i imagine you’ve found love ( something much more earnest & deserving of a noble gentleman like yourself ). when i wish upon stars, i wish for you to forget me. it’s selfish, to want you to forgot my darkest moment, to erase my guilt from history. perhaps you have, & this waste of ink is for naught. still, no matter the part i play in your history i will send you this final wish:

i wish for you to be happy. i wish for your smile to still outshine the sun. i wish for you, upon every shooting star. i wish.

your darling,

wendy.

#*PROMPT : answered.#lol :)

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write-the-night · 11 months

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Artemis is still inside my head.

I ask myself who I can give your eyes to. Not to the captain, I could never. The hand he's missing is stained with not yet spilled blood - that soon he will spill himself. The metal hand which will replace it, stiff and useless, just lets the blood slip off. What does it matter? A soldier with no right hand cannot wield a weapon, then he is a soldier no more, then he is a man no more, then he is useful no more. He can only lock himself up in temples of gods he does not believe in. He can only live halfway narratives while knowing time is ticking quick and anxious towards the day of the final reveal. They made the innocent guilty, so the innocent made the sin his own and used it as payback. Since the day he arrived in town everyone was always staring. Glued to his skin. He scrubs seawater all over himself and hopes the salt can fight the poison in their eyes, although the poison was already inside him to begin with, and he was never innocent after all. This is what rage leads to. He was just waiting for a chance.

The night streets smell like mud and the sweat of the men washing dishes in the back. Artemis does not want to go home or perhaps she's just wasting time. How could I ever give anyone your eyes? There's too much beauty and too much suffering in them and I fear I might lead your bloodied purity into a world of things that are dirty and rotten.

Grey sky of eternal summer - always about to burst into a storm that will never come. Was this the future of the legendary Berenice? What did her eyes see before she died? What did her eyes see, through the foggy curtain of the afterlife, through the stone grave? The luxury of a burial which the brother of the lake will never be granted. The luxury of having already passed the veil, before the earth's walls cave in and lock around your throat and cut off all oxygen and sever your trachea like scissors ridding the garden of weeds. Is this not the way it goes? What would it otherwise be, the meaning of the end?

Who, if not mankind, if not Artemis, The Unfit, if not the captain with unloyal blood, if not a mad and forgotten soul - who, if not them, is the poison to get rid of to let the world breathe? The road to a long and peaceful future is ignorance. Questions, doubts, even the silent rebellion of those who are unable to fit in, these are all sharp rocks on the road to a happy ending.

None of them wish for immortality. They do not feel enough fear to be happy fools. Isn't that where you find happiness, in foolish ignorance? Isn't that the key of the shepherds of the Church? Sheep will follow you joyously whether you lead them to a cliff or to the gates of Heaven. How to lead a sheep that's broken in half, that sees evil and doesn't fear it, that sees evil and embraces it as indivisible part of the self? How to lead a man who in anger and vengeance hides behind false patriotism and, in exchange for his hand, will set a whole realm ablaze? How to lead a woman who does not fear madness or irrationality, who does not beware of ghosts, who wears a shaved head and filthy clothes and still summons the souls of history not yet erased? How to lead a soul with no body, that lives in the eyes of visionaries, that clings onto what's left of itself but lost its body in the space between worlds? The Collector guards the doors since always and forever, but the soul's body was left in the same past they've been trying to hide. Did it maybe lose it in one of the circles of hell, when hell was still home? Did it maybe lose it on a pyre like the frail priestess of hope? Did it feel burning flesh or was it hunger, or was it simply the wall they built to keep them inside and to keep themselves outside? I wonder if the soul ever saw the river. I wonder if The Collector knows about the boat and the Master of Death and his companion, and about their already past journey, predicted but never spoken, if it knows about the frail priestess on the other side of the river, welcoming boats into the harbor. I wonder if it knows about the phoenix mark burnt into the skin and about century-old battles, of worlds that still know nothing about the end. I wonder if the man in the mirror and Berenice and The Collector all live in the same unclear non-place, no man's land corridors, streets dripping from a world into another, quiet enough to go unnoticed, not enough for everyone not to notice. Artemis, the captain, the madwoman. Berenice, the man in the mirror, The Collector. Then Echo, the twin demon. Are they all perhaps two sides of one coin? Is it maybe the union of the future-past, of the wait of an apocalypse that already happened, which will join the misaligned ends of space and time in some sort of logic? And if you follow the wheel, if you go around it, you will see that the past follows the future as much as the future follows the past and then, maybe, there is no present in the graveyard.

#my writing #world on fire #writing #personal #art #excerpt from a book i'll never write #poetic prose #poetry #writer #magical realism #books #bookblr #artist #philosophy

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shattersstar · 3 years

Text

evergreen

and if the devil was to ever see you, he’d kiss your eyes and repent (part four)

pairing: adrian tepes x reader

excerpt: You were grinning, running through all the most beautiful, fullest, dreamiest of adjectives to capture the face of your love. You tilted your head to the left, and he followed, the two of you grinning at each other with soft, soundless laughs. You closed your eyes for a moment, inhaling and blinking at him with a new found clarity, the words flowing effortlessly.

warning(s): brief injury mention, fluff, this is so,,hopelessly romantic, heart shape lockets making a reappearance

a/n: sorry ive only been writing for adrian my brain has been in alucard lockdown and it wont end (although this might be my favourite thing ive ever written so i’m..less sorry)

—

It was quiet, the distant din of the forest brushed over the two of you. It was a reminder of the life surrounding the desolate place you called home. Your eyes were closed as you focused on the sound, the breathing of trees and humming of streams. You supposed Adrian heard it all so clearly, the animals and plants alike all alive in the surrounding forest. You strained to hear the crunch of fallen leaves by foxes or snap of fallen branches by deers.

It was autumn and the world was alive with harvest. Animals prepared for winter, plants returned to the soil and tree lines morphed into flame. It was one of the last warm days, the sun high in the cloudy sky, shining onto the picnic you two had set up. You were laying down, letting the sun soak over your while Adrian sat cross legged behind you. Your head was in his lap, the book you were reading was resting on his thigh above your head, opened onto the page you were on. Adrian had brought a book as well, but discarded it after a few minutes of reading. It was out of date, he explained, the science was false and he decided to draw over the useless words instead.

You assumed there was some value in its history, but didn’t question it as he silently sketched. Adrian was always such an artist, often drawing you, or other’s he cared for. He could sketch Sypha and Trevor from memory, yet often butchered some detail of the latter for his own amusement you supposed. He drew his parents often too, but was quick to erase such images, as if even seeing their face was still too painful.

He had begun painting more recently. You liked sitting and working on something while he painted, catching occasionally glimpses at his work. Adrian was never shy about what he created, often showing you without prompting, and never dismissing your request to see his art. He had agreed he was good at it, the technical precision was there, but the heart was not. You were quick to disagree with such sentiment, and yes you could see it within the landscapes and dull memories he created on paper or canvas, but the love was there in the faces of those he cared for.

Each line he added to you, each bit of shading and highlight showcased you in a way that held more adoration than any words could supply. You liked seeing yourself from Adrian’s eyes, seeing your beauty as he perceived it. It was more flattering than anything anyone before him had said to you, not like Adrian would want to hear such things.

You weren’t sure how you knew he was watching, sketching you as you laid in his lap, but you knew he did. You even remained still, forgoing reading to be his muse for the last moments of fall. You didn’t mind getting to lay in the lap of the one you loved, a soft blanket underneath while the sun started to arch towards the west. You could’ve fallen asleep there, nature washing over you and Adrian watching over you. It was a place of peace, a moment you’d engrain into your mind and have a memento—a piece of art to show for it.

You only opened your eyes when Adrian let out an uncharacteristically loud sigh, he didn’t need to breathe, he only did so on his own volition. You peered up at him, sun dancing in his dark lashes. “What is plaguing you so beloved?” You hummed, tilting your head back more as you spoke.

"My chest, it aches.” He admitted with a soft voice. You sat up as his words registered in your ears, worry lacing your features as you moved to sit on your knees, beckoning him closer.

“Still? Why?” He turned his head to the side as your hand smoothed down his slender neck, brushing his collar aside and revealing the tip of the scar that cut diagonal through his torso. You kept your fingers off the injury, but untied the front of his shirt to reveal more of it.

“I am unsure, it just does some days.”

“This has happened before?”

“A few times, yes.” He sighed again, you felt it under your palm that rested next to the pink, raised skin.

“I wished you told me.”

“I did not wish to worry you.”

“And yet I am worried.” Adrian turned towards your other hand, resting on his shoulder and dipped his head down to kiss your wrist. It was a gesture of apology and you accepted it was you let your hand cup his face, lips pressing a kiss to your palm. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t think so.” You frowned, shifting your knees against the blanket. “And somehow I’m not surprised you aren’t pleased with that answer.”

“How can I be pleased when you, my dear, are living in pain?”

“Don’t be pleased then, be appeased.” Adrian shrugged, still speaking into your palm. You let your fingertips graze the edge of his scar before dropping both hands from him.

“If I must.” He chuckled at that, low and warm as your hands found his knees. You gave them a squeeze, almost to check if he still existed before turning, and placing yourself into his lap. You were careful not to lean into his chest, but Adrian eased you against it, his forearm wrapping around your stomach while his other hand brushed your book from his leg. “Now show me what you were drawing.”

“Of course beloved.” He hummed from behind you, picking up his green covered book and letting you flip through the drawings now masking the words. And you were right, many—most were of you.

A few trees, a tired outline of the castle, faces you didn’t know, but still somehow, every few pages was you, lounging in his lap, or from some other memory he stored away. They made you smile, less worried as warmth overtook you.

“Do you ever draw yourself?” You asked once you reached the last sketch, lingering on it.

“No, the image of myself in my mind changes far too often.”

“Oh?” You were surprised by Adrian’s answer, you expected something darker you supposed.

“I see myself one way, and then...I do not. I cannot draw what constantly changes.”

“Why does it change?”

“You.”

One syllable was more breathtaking than a single drawing he had ever done of you.

“Oh.” You found yourself on repeat, closing the book and letting out a slow breath.

“And I supposed other’s I’ve met, but mostly you.” It’s always you, he does not say despite how well it sits in his mouth.

You knew you had impacted Adrian, only a fool would say they didn’t, but to know that the way he constructed himself in his brain, how he felt when he thought of it, how he saw himself in his dreams, how he saw himself with you were all changed by you and how you loved him felt like a deeper proclamation than i love you.

“I still wish you would though, what am I supposed to put in this locket?” Your voice held an air of teasing, but a current of seriousness laced it as well.

“I could try, if you could like.”

You were silent for a moment, you didn’t want him to settle on a version of himself to etch into existence. Not when he was ever changing in his mind's eyes. “What if—“ You twisted carefully to look at him, noses brushing as you did. “What if you drew yourself from how I saw you?” You asked, wanting his art to convey his beauty as it did yours.

Adrian pondered it for a moment, before tilting his head and surprising your lips with his. “Yes.” He whispered against your mouth before finding his book yet again.

You slipped from his lap to give him space and studied him for a long moment. He didn’t shift under your gaze, or look away, but instead studied your back. You were grinning, running through all the most beautiful, fullest, dreamiest of adjectives to capture the face of your love. You tilted your head to the left, and he followed, the two of you grinning at each other with soft, soundless laughs. You closed your eyes for a moment, inhaling and blinking at him with a new found clarity, the words flowing effortlessly.

Serious mouth, something that hides smiles and fangs. Lips that slope into something heartbreaking—a smile like no other.

He grinned at that, eyes dropping to the page as he began drawing.

Soft eyes, set deep, but still shining. Sharp like daggers and holding handfuls of sunrays in them. Not cold with sadness, but heavy with it.

“Heavy with love too.” He hummed, earning a kiss on his forehead before you settled back to describing him.

Nose…

You paused your words, letting Adrian catch up to your lovely description, while you pondered on it too. You knew this was much for him, so much love filling his ears, outward and heedy. Yet it didn’t feel like enough, like it captured how much his appearances enraptured you, but as his heart did too. You wanted him to see your love through your eyes.

It was a daunting task, and yet you carried on. You reached out, brushing over his nose with your index finger, as if the words lived in your fingertips and could only be released by touch. You furrowed your brows, lips parting before you took Adrian’s hand, the one holding the book. He kept his gaze on you as you brought his slender fingers to his nose, tracing it as you did. You loved all Adrian’s features, but his nose especially, and no words could describe the beautiful feature that pulled his whole face together.

My favourite thing.

He let his attention fall back to the drawing, a bloodless blush could’ve warmed his face with the kind descriptions you imparted onto him. He knew you loved him, you proclaimed it enough, but the sweet words that overtook this dimming autumn day were even more dizzying than he expected. And you weren’t done yet, unrelenting in your words and adoration for him.

Sharp contours—jaw, cheekbones—with an underlying kindness, youthful softness to the angular curves.

Beautiful forehead, my favourite place to kiss. And press myself to.

Brows low, very precise—too serious most of the time.

Hairline like the ocean, framing the sand and sometimes sweeping over it.

You twirled the forever loose curl that hung forward, always draping against his smooth skin. He wanted to lean into your touch, but his attention was on the page.

Hair long, softer than any silk. Golden—not like honey, but wheat fields blowing in the breeze. And thick, with lazy waves throughout it.

You stayed quiet after that, hoping it was enough. You were all warm throughout now, despite how the evening had fallen over you two. You wanted to climb back into Adrian’s lap, but instead you moved to sit cross legged, toying with a loose thread on his pants, twisting the string from the seam by his knee around your finger until his shoulders dropped and the pen stopped moving.

You let your hands rest in your lap, and you watched him study it for a long moment. You wanted to ask if it was okay—some version of him he could agree with, yet he brought the pen back, scrawling something in his tight, professional handwriting and tearing the page from the book with precision.

The drawing took up one corner, the words printed in the background barely noticeable to the bust drawn over them. He folded the piece of paper, once, then twice. A tiny square sitting in his palm, before Adrian finally met your gaze. He reached out, cool fingertips grazing over your neck as he brought your heart shaped locket to sit in his other palm. He used his thumb to open it, placing the piece of paper inside and closing it again.

He kissed the smooth metal before letting it fall back against your sternum, smiling with a haziness that made you feel drunk of love as well. You took his hand in yours, Adrian quick to intertwine fingers before you could settle your palm to his. He urged you closer, uncrossing his legs and letting you take up space between them. “Do you feel better?” You hummed, the pain that had overcome him before not leaving your mind.

It wasn’t like you to forget so easily.

“Hm, better? Yes.” He nodded, pressing a kiss to the side of your nose.

“Are you just saying that?”

“No, of course not.”

“I find that hard to believe, you often dwell in pain my dear. Especially alone.”

“I know,” He sighed yet again, bringing his free hand to your chin and drawing your attention to him. “If you’d like, I believe I have found a way that you can help, make me feel better.”

“Yes, what is it?”

He smiled—heartbreakingly. “Marry me?”

For a quiet beat, you paused, the words reaching your ears, settling in your short term memory before they processed into something that rang forever in your head. You and Adrian had talked about marriage, he had settled on the notion it was a frivolous display and he had everything he needed with you. And you agreed. He was everything you needed.

And now, he needed to be your husband.

You tucked some of his hair behind his ear, leaning in with a low voice, “My love, don’t you know?” You asked, blinking up with a slanted grin, “I’ve been married to you from the moment we met.” He breathed out a chuckle, reedy and low.

“Then,” His palms cupped your cheeks, forehead pressing into yours. “Let me marry you.”

“Yes,” You breathed into him, “Yes you can marry me.”

It was the first day of winter when you finally opened your locket. You unfolded his drawing carefully, the likeness you wanted to convey hung in every inked line. Your fiancé existed in both your hearts now.

Your fingers brushed over the words, creased from the folding, but still clear.

It’s always you, my betrothed.

#adrian tepes x reader #adrian tepes imagine #alucard imagine #alucard x reader #castlevania imagine #castlevania #writing #if this doesnt get notes ill boycott writing for all of 2021

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zephycluster · 3 years

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Precolonial HWS SEA Rant Post, feel free to ignore

If you're still reading, then you're probably looking for evidence or some juicy tidbits to throw back at me or to try and find dirt to cancel me, like typical Tumblr/Twitter. Go ahead, I don't really care.

First off, let me just say that If you like Precolonial South-East Asia AUs, feel free to keep enjoying them. I will respectfully support your passions from afar. This post is just to explain why I don't like it, especially the way they keep insisting/portraying PH in it.

Still here? Then let me begin.

Since the recent confirmation that the ASEAN Six Majors (Can't really say ASEAN 10 atm since it's still missing some people) Were completed and the Ma-Phil-Indo Trio was included, there has been a large surge in 'Precolonial' fanarts and portrayals of South East Asians, those three especially.

Even long, long before, circa 2010's ish, a rather well-known fan universe known as 'Maaf' dealt with their story and how their Author thought their intertwined histories went. Written by (my best guesstimate) an Indonesian writer who wants to explore the old, SEA bond.

When I first stumbled across Maaf (I was in Highschool at the time, around age 16-ish), I took a casual interest in it and tried to read it through. But, I will wholeheartedly admit that at the time, Pre-Colonial cultures of South-East Asia in general, let alone Philippine, did not really interest me that much. The focus (I think) was mostly on Indonesia, a country I didn't really know back then, and the liberal use of 'ancient' names and artwork just made it feel like an entirely Original Work (that needed a degree in History to really appreciate) and not something from Hetalia. I also completely disagreed with what I could gather was the story's portrayal of PH but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Do I hate 'Maaf'? No, I don't hate it. Do I wish I never came across it or that it didn't exist? Of course not. Just because I didn't enjoy it or appreciate it that well doesn't mean I wish any ill toward it, its fans, or its creator.

Fast forward to April 2021, the long awaited inclusion of South East Asia to the canon Hetalia verse. I was happy, the other fans were happy, all was good.

Then started the questionable fanarts, fan theories and fan pairings.

Especially the expansion of Precolonial! PH.

Let's go back to Maaf for one moment. From what I understood of Maaf, PH there was a character who once was like all the other South East Asian cultures, trading with them, all around being a nice family.

But all that changed when the Spaniards attacked, so cry the precolonial buffs. They destroyed everything, ransacked and marginalized the tribes, erased everything that PH was!

Did that happen? ABSOLUTELY. The Spaniards had this vision in mind that they must spread Christianity to all of the 'savage, unchristian heathens' of their realm. :V /s

But back up a second, back to PH's portrayal in Maaf. The way she (yeah, she) was portrayed there was that she was slowly losing her memories of being a 'true' South East Asian and grew more and more westernized in the process, like some sort of Culture-specific Alzheimer's or something.

Firstly, that is seriously depressing, and secondly, I just really don't see that happening.

Here's why.

Point 1: Even before Colonial Masters, Filipinos as a people cannot agree on anything.

I'll just begin this segment with a Philippine proverb that outlines what Filipinos call 'Crab Mentality' or 'Crab Bucket Mentality'.

"You don't need a lid for a container when you're keeping multiple crabs. If you keep at least two crabs together, they will just pull each other down instead of helping each other up."

I don't know how it goes with Indonesian or Malaysian history class, but what I know of my homeland, both pre- and post-colonial history, we were never really 'united' or 'together' in the sense that Indonesia and Malaysia were (from what I assume).

Let me pull up a somewhat related question on r/AskHistorians.

The reason I brought this up as it shows the reasons why, in my opinion, a single entity that is 'Precolonial Philippines-tan' is an impossibility.

The answers are long and would extend this already long post to stupid proportions, so I'll just quote relevant sentences. The link is here for those that wanna deep-dive into the answer.

"All this to say that there wasn't a name used for the entire Philippine islands before the Philippines that people now would agree to. An interesting comparison would be the Holy Roman Empire, which might also be characterized as disparate politico-geographic groups of relatively small size that had a history of relations between each other, but one thing they had that the Philippines did not was a common language, or at least a family of mostly mutually intelligible languages, so that the name Deutschland or Germany isn't terribly offensive to anyone. If you called the Philippines the 'Lupang-Tagalog' or even 'Lupang-Tao' the other ethnic groups would protest."

For those in need of translation, 'Lupang Tagalog' means 'Land of the Tagalogs' and 'Lupang Tao' means 'Land of People', specifically. The first one is already exclusive and offensive, as the Tagalog peoples are but one of many ethnicities here.

And for the 'Lupang Tagalog' suggestion specifically, it's even more offensive as they are the majority ethnicity (not by much, just around 28%) From this chart from Geography Now! It would basically be alienating everyone else in the 72% remainder that isn't 'Tagalog'.

And even 'Lupang Tao', the most generic name in a local language you can think of, would be met with contempt because the name itself is in the Tagalog language.

Just travelling between two individual island groups today would sometimes require a translator because the words can change very rapidly and very drastically. Here's a sample of some differences coming from a friend living in Visayas (in Red) vs. the words I know living in Luzon (In blue).

Ate vs. Manang = Older Sister

Ibon vs. Pispis = Bird

Tumawa vs. Kadlaw = To laugh

Takot vs. Hadlok = Fear

Kain vs. Kaon = To eat

Ngayon vs. Subong = Now, at this point in time

Iyak vs. Hibi/Gibi = to cry

Talampakan vs. Tiil = Foot (in Tagalog, the word retains its 'body part AND unit of measurement' meaning)

Tulog vs. Tuyo = to sleep (Tuyo in Tagalog is either a dried salted fish or 'to dry')

The kicker is that just like Tagalog is just one of many languages here, so too is the language my friend speaks. Ask an entirely new person, like someone from Mindanao, they'll probably have an entirely new set of words.

It's not just Luzon vs. Visayas vs. Mindanao, either. Here's a map listing some of the ethnic groups here.

Even the way they're written differs from location to location.

While we're on the subject of Island divisions, a casual skim across Twitter and Tumblr has shown that their Precolonial PH has been one of the following ancient civilizations: Tondo, Butuan, Sugbu, Namayan. There may have been others but that was what I have found.

Notice how even today, the posters of Precolonial PH can't seem to agree on what he's supposed to be? With Indonesia it's either Majapahit or Srivijaya and Malaysia it's usually Malacca iirc.

What is the big deal? Well, let's go back to the Ask Historians post. "Why didn't the Philippines ever change its name to remove the colonial mark that being named after a Spanish King has?" The answer: "If you suggested something dating to precolonial times, the other ethnic groups would protest."

Since we're on a roll with maps, let me bring this up.

As you can see, the precolonial PH posts have a reason to not be able to agree on one thing, as there is a LOT of options. Do you also see how THAT list is also split up?

It's split up into those aligned with China (Sinified), aligned with India (Indianized), aligned with the Middle East (Islamicized), and no alignment (Animist). Now, let's go back to the main suggestions for which Kingdom/Polity/Civilization/whatever Modern Philippines used to be.

If the Filipino peoples' couldn't agree on something as simple as WHAT TO CALL THE LAND THEY'RE LIVING ON, what more a living, breathing, walking, talking entity that is supposed to be a beacon of all of their 'unified' culture? ESPECIALLY if that entity used to be a currently existing Kingdom/Polity/Rajahnate/Sultanate/whatever.

Tondo? "Of course, always the damn Tagalogs. Tagalog this, Tagalog that. First the capital city, then the language,* THE REST OF US EXIST, YOU KNOW! What about us in Visayas? Mindanao?"

*The national language known as 'Filipino' is just standardized Tagalog*

Butuan? "Wait, you want Butuan to represent us? They're they only Indian-aligned city in the Islam-majority Mindanao! They're not even that many of them! I'm not gonna change my religion!"

Sugbu, the other name for the Rajahnate of Cebu on the map? Lemme bring back my Visayan friend again. According to her, she hails from the Hiligaynon part of Visayas.

"Sure :v and the other islands are what?

Chopped liver?

Not to mention the language and writing barrier helloooo"

And Namayan? Well. I'll let this pic speak for itself.

To summarize, no matter who you pick as Modern PH's previous identity, it will not end well nor be accepted by the other Kingdoms at the time.

"So where does that leave Modern PH, he had to have been ONE of them, right?"

Well, not really. He doesn't HAVE to be one of the Ancient Kingdoms that lasted till the modern day. I mean, predecessor representatives exist in Hetalia canon, after all. Like Modern Greece is a different character from Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt and Modern Egypt, heck even England and his brothers have a canon mother that was the rep before them.

Or you could even use the same logic that Germany does, in that each specific region has/had its own representative and that Modern!PH is just the 'mediator' between them (cause gawd does PH need one). There could be a Tondo, a Namayan, a Butuan, and a Sugbu, all arguing and this Proto-PH is just trying to make headway in making them all satisfied.

But, even after all this, there is another reason why I personally don't subscribe to the 'Precolonial PH' idea, and by tangential extension, the Indo x Phil pairing.

Point 2: Even without intending to, Precolonial Indo x Phil just comes off as patronizing

This second point is just ENTIRELY personal preference and barely has any facts to back it up.

Again, if you like the pairing and disagree with me, You do you. I will respectfully support you and your passions from a distance.

But for me, Indo being Phil's seme/bae/boyfriend and consistently bringing up precolonial times just comes off as patronizing.

Just one more time, I'd like to point out that I am NOT bashing Indonesia, its people or the subscribers of Indo x Phil. This is just how the pairing feels to ME specifically.

The way I see it, Indo x Phil as a pairing, especially if it extends back into precolonial times, reads the same way as a long-since married couple where the husband/wife CONSTANTLY brings up that ONE outing you had together, or that ONE prom night where you kissed while dancing, even it happened like 30 some-odd years ago and so much more happened since then.

Even in a platonic sense, It reads like two besties where one ALWAYS mentions stuff like 'Yeah but you looked so much cooler back in High School' or 'Back in Grade School you would've known that', or 'Remember back in Pre-school we did X? How could you forget that?'

How does one respond to the notion that no matter what you do now, it will never compare to a past you've already forgotten or barely remember? That the best version of 'you' is already long gone?

"That's because the westerners made you forget your culture! You gotta take it back!"

While it is true, yes, as a collective we barely remember the Kingdom that commissioned the Laguna Copperplate, or created the Banaue Rice Terraces, or created the millennia old bonds that we still share with Indonesia and Malaysia.

But to keep pushing the precolonial identity would be to neglect and cast aside the one REAL binding belief and culture that spans the entirety of these islands we call the Philippines.

We take on all the bad stuff that happens to us, conquer it, and make it our own. Be it natural disasters, foreign powers, or negative stereotypical mentalities.

Yes, we've forgotten the ancient kingdoms of old and are just now digging through the closet for those remnants of the past. Yes, the colonizers imposed that on us, and made us forget. But in the process we've also taken everything that they left behind, everything that they threw at us, and created something that can only come from us.

The lanterns that the Spaniards used to light the way to the morning masses they made us attend became our globally known symbol of Christmas. The junked vehicles that the Americans left behind in World War 2 are now rolling works of art that announce themselves loud and proud on the streets (for better or for worse). The iced dessert recipe that the Japanese forced us to learn while they were occupying the country is now so distinct and famous it is synonymous with us, and is so delicious even Italy has taken notice.

Even after all this? Even after all the 425-ish years total we have been under a foreign power, with all the progress we've made as a country, a people, and a nation, you would still imply our fragmented, jigsaw puzzle state of being in the past was better just because it was pure 'South East Asian' like everyone else?

We might not be as well put-together as Indonesia or Malaysia, but we made this melting pot of angry, leg-pulling, dogpiling, Native, Mestizo, Chinoy, and Fil-Am crabs OURS, damnit!

It's now 4:30 AM and I have work in 5 or so hours. I'll be going to sleep now.

#hws #hws philippines #precolonial philippines #hws theory #hetalia #hetalia world stars #hetalia world series #hetalia headcanons #aph #axis powers hetalia #aph philippines #hetalia philippines #aph hetalia

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wolfloupen · 2 years

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What could I say—I do not wish to appear selfish by saying I saved myself because I crave a chance at life, I wish to become a great king and a wonderful god and a better person but who else is there to give me a reason not to join the marigolds on that field by being turned to ash? Spread across the valleys and fields, carried by the wind and being sent through mountains and lakes—Lakes, yes. Lakes coated in floating pads of green, the most beautiful petals of white on top of them.

The lilies.

The lilies .

The bell.

The bell .

My camellia.

The child—

Jade Emperor! I beg of you.

I beg of you to let me send a lily to someone special.

Or a petal.

A patch of fur from my scalp will do!

Do not bring the furnace here—don’t bring the furnace!

No!

Jade Emperor, I have caused you so much chaos and panic and I have deceived you, yes, but I am not a bad person. I am not a bad person, I am merely misguided. Guanyin, great Goddess of Mercy, please let my last words be to a boy, no, this is not a trick, please, I can assure you—

I have been awful! Is that what you wish to hear? To hear me begging to have my life be spared! Let me go! I was born as a cursed being, I know of this! I scared you, Jade Emperor, from the moment I opened my eyes but a child is nothing if not the empty vessel easily subdued to influence. Was it not you who sent down two soldiers—guards—men to check upon me and inspect that I was harmless? Was it not you who did not interfere with my quest for immortality? If my methods of learning were wrong why didn’t you tell me!

I have raised a kingdom all on my own!

I have lost myself to the idea of cruelty and isolation because you cannot fathom the idea of talking to me!

Speak to me!

Talk to me!

Why am I the villain!

I never asked to be the villain!

Answer me!

Will you erase this moment from history? Will you erase my tears and cries and pleads of mercy?

I am not a monster. I was never a monster!

Speak to me! Speak! Speak! Speak! Speak !

Why am I punished! Explain it to me!

My insatiable bloodlust; why is it a part of me? What did I do to deserve it!

Ple..

Please!

Plea…

Please!

Don’t throw me in!

…

Am I not speaking?

Can you not hear me?

Can you hear me!

Erlang!

Erlang, tell them to stop!

Nezha, I apologize, please! Empathize with me! You must understand— Nezha !

Nezha—

What do you know?

Nezha, don’t look away from me!

Do you have the answers? Do you?

Nezha!

Nezha, please!

Laozi, do not throw me in, please!

Please, I must talk to the boy!

Please, what have I done wrong!

Pl…

…

—————————

RHY YOU BEAUTIFUL SON OF A BITCH. THIS MADE ME CRY SO HARD!!! AND I HAVEN’T EVEN READ ALL OF IT YET!! 😭

I swear you and Knox are out to get me this year

The most heartbreaking part is the fact that wukong only remembered nahza when he was about to be thrown into the furnace, the little boy that desperately needed him to save him from any further harm, but by that point it was far too late

OHOHOHOOOOO

YOU'VE FINALLY READ MY FAVORITE PART!!!!!

Believe me, I had a blast trying to convey genuine emotions into this scene when I first learned/read about the furnace and how SWK was going go be thrown in so they could kill him. I think the most traumatizing thing about it is that he couldn't do anything while trapped inside before breaking out.

I'm happy you're enjoying the fic and I'm sorry if it hurt too badly that genuinely wasn't my intention, I just wanted to try and be real with the emotions Sun Wukong would feel when thrown in that sort of situation qwq)b

#ask #thank you qwq

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ireallylikejonouchi · 3 years

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𝙽𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚑𝚢𝚘𝚗 𝚗𝚘 𝙼𝚊𝚐𝚘 𝚁𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠

Written and drawn by Shiibashi Hiroshi, Nurarihyon no Mago is a manga series that ran in Weekly Shonen Jump with 210 chapters, 25 volumes. It’s about a Japan that has a massive Yokai underbelly, consisting mostly of yokai yakuza clans that run certain parts of Japan. The protagonist, Rikuo Nura, is the third heir of the Nura clan, kingpin of Kanto. His grandfather is the legendary Lord of Pandemonium, the yokai Nurarihyon, but Rikuo is only a quarter yokai, having a half-human father and a full human mother. As a child, Rikuo thinks yokai are the coolest thing, but his classmates mock him for this, not believing that they exist, and finding it even weirder that someone could admire them. Rikuo is told that it is his destiny to take on this role, and that he cannot live a human life. Hearing stories about evil yokai who enjoy making humans despair, Rikuo decides that yokai are terrible and he wants nothing to do with them. When Rikuo’s classmates are attacked by some rebellious yokai from the Nura clan, who are unhappy about their new leader being a quarter-human child, Rikuo awakens to his yokai blood and transforms in order to defeat them. He decides here that he will become the third heir in order to subdue yokai that would bring terror to humans with his “Fear,” the power system of the series.

With the synopsis out of the way, from this point on there will be spoilers. Be wary. I’ll try my best to spoil only what’s necessary in order to get my point across.

The beginning of this manga takes its time setting up character dynamics with short story arcs, as well as establishing what the yokai of the world are truly like with various examples of opinionated yokai antagonists. Some consider it boring, and I can understand why, but I think it pays off very well. The characters are incredibly likeable and fun. Even the ones that don’t have very much development are still a joy to see on the page when they show up. Rikuo himself is simultaneously a complicated character and a very easy character to follow. The first chapter takes place a couple of years before the second one, and his childish judgement to go from worshiping yokai to hating them is intentionally so. The story is about his growth. Rikuo is told that he must take on this role, he denies, but eventually accepts under his own terms, and for his own reasons. This ultimately sets up what his character arc will end up becoming, as one of his final conflicts at the end of the story sees him battling against another half-yokai, Abe no Yoshihira, who believes it is his duty to follow his evil father’s plan because of his "cursed” mixed blood. Rikuo doesn’t simply reject this title, but he also doesn’t accept out of obligation. He accepts this as an opportunity to bring about change. The change he wants slowly evolves from protecting humans to bridging the social gap between human and yokai so that they may find peace together. Fate shouldn’t be fought against or ignored, but you must make whatever you can out of it. Rikuo feels that connecting human and yokai is something only he can do as a half-yokai, so he feels a responsibility to carry this out, yet it is also what he truly believes in and wants. He is a leader because he was graced with the opportunity to bring about a better world. Your fate is only what you perceive it as. The final villain Abe no Seimei believes that human and yokai are fated to be at odds forever, and that influences his evil plan to purify the world. Both are believers of fate to some extent, the message isn’t something as simple as “defy fate” or “there is no fate,” which I appreciate. This manga is very good about exploring all facets of the themes it presents, which I will give more examples of shortly.

The power system is an interesting one. To quote the wiki, “ Osore (畏, Fear) is the term that denotes the unique skills and traits of each yōkai. It refers to the "fear" of the unknown, an emotional reaction produced when the yōkai represent themselves as "monsters". As yōkai first existed as creatures who induce fear in humankind, the general concept of "fear" revolves around being feared and respected by humans and making them feel small and weak. It involves exerting a wall of pressure to make one's presence feel larger than the actuality. When done correctly, this also creates a change in the mood and surrounding air - as seen whenever a dense fog appears when a Hyakki Yakō gathers in the series. Itaku states that Osore only applies to scaring humans.“ Fear is an inherently negative word, especially when associated with demons. However, Rikuo is proud of his fear, despite scolding yokai who scare humans. Fear in this manga is not quite so black and white. Rikuo’s form of fear is reverence, admiration. He considers this to be a form of fear, and he is indeed proud of the awe he is able to inspire within his followers as well as his enemies. Rikuo is able to use a power that comes only thanks to his human side, letting a yokai haunt his humanity while keeping control with his yokai half, performing Equip and gaining that yokai’s powers, but only if they entrust themselves to him. It is the ultimate representation of the Fear that Rikuo believes in. For the core power system of the series to have such a double meaning about it speaks to the coming complexities, and it is incredibly fitting for this story, as I hope to convey.

Fate, lineage and connection to history are the main themes of this manga. Many of the characters in the story are tied to tradition before it starts, and have to be brought out of that by Rikuo and his progressive mindset. One’s blood is used to portray this theme in an interesting way. Rikuo’s father, Rihan, describes him as a symbol of hope for the future. Rihan longed for a world where human and yokai could get along, yet he came into constant conflict with both evil yokai and evil humans, as his son Rikuo would soon come to do as well. Rikuo loved his father, and carries on his dreams. However, similar to his “fate” of leading the clan, his respect for his ancestors is well-informed by his individual beliefs, and not from any kind of feeling that he MUST do what his ancestors wished. Abe no Yoshihira failed here, becoming a slave to his perceived fate. Hagoromo-gitsune, the main antagonist of the Kyoto arc as well as Abe no Seimei’s mother, was tied to her blood relations as well. She did everything for her son, who was soon to be reborn again into this age. She had her own image of an ideal world, erasing humans and making a world full of yokai, but she didn’t consider her child’s ideals, which she could have presumed from Seimei’s suffering he received when both human and yokai betrayed him. Seimei is born and casts Hagoromo-gitsune into hell, declaring that he will purify all life from the world, as neither human nor yokai can be trusted. Abe no Seimei is the agent of fate, declaring that all living things on Earth have doomed themselves to a fate of death thanks to their own horrible and greedy nature. Abe no Seimei is a half-yokai himself and he has found solace from neither of those sides. Rikuo, however, does not give up. He equips himself with the true fear of this reality that places him in-between two worlds, unable to fully enjoy life as a human or a yokai, refusing to resign himself as Seimei did, and instead fighting against the fate Seimei enforces by bringing together humans and yokai, including Hagoromo-gitsune, in order to seal the final blow against him.

You may be wondering what it means that Rikuo was able to finish off Seimei by fusing with his mother. Well, you see, Hagoromo-gitsune is sort of, in a way, Rikuo’s mother as well. You see, before Rihan had a child with Rikuo’s mother, he was married to another woman, Yamabuki-otome. For context, Abe no Seimei is a man who reincarnates throughout generations, as does his mother, Hagoromo-gitsune. Some time after Yamabuki-otome’s death, Seimei used her to take revenge on Rihan for disrupting his plans, by reviving her as a child and turning her into the host of the yokai Hagoromo-gitsune, sending her with false memories and subliminal orders to kill the man she loved when she was alive. Once she had killed Rihan, her human self hid itself away in despair and Hagoromo-gitsune was able to take control of her body for good. In modern times, after being cast into hell by Abe no Seimei, she is revived by Nurarihyon in anticipation for the final battle. After encountering Rikuo and his burning feelings in Kyoto, she had regained her human memories before being struck down by Seimei. Upon her most recent revival, she found she had feelings for both Rikuo and Seimei, and considers both to be her children. She regrets that her feelings for Seimei had ended up being met with treachery, and she goes to confront him. When she hears his full plan, she decides to do kill him herself, though she fails. She feels it her duty as a mother to make up for not understanding his suffering earlier, as it’s now too late to reason with him. Hagoromo-gitsune’s progression comes from her ability to find love for her yokai followers, considering them to be her children all the same as Rikuo and Seimei, and learns that she should have seen this love all along rather than being blinded by her obsessions with her blood son. Once again, she values her children and the blood she shares with them, but she is only able to find happiness when she realizes that the feelings she has for them don’t have to be restricted to only them simply because they are her kin, and similarly she does not need to follow Seimei’s plan just because she thinks it’s what a mother “should” do. Fusing with Rikuo is the culmination of this. While Rikuo is technically her kin, as Seimei is, we see through her arc that she has matured and learned to spread her love. So even though without context it would seem that she simply went from one child to the other, we can see the complexities of this and see how it relates to Rikuo’s arc, accepting something not out of obligation, but from your own will.

By coming to a true understanding with the woman that Abe no Seimei had discarded, his mother, and her doing the same, an act that seemingly defies their fates (Rikuo’s fate to be a cold yokai ruler and Hagoromo’s fate to be a slave to her child’s whims), they’re able to defeat him and sever fate itself.

The Hundred Stories Clan Arc is one that I really appreciate for showing me how truly interesting Rikuo was as a character. I hadn’t realized it up to that point, and it’s clear why. His characterization and progression is subtle. The text doesn’t tell you how Rikuo grows, the art and his actions do. When humanity told of Rikuo’s half-yokai status is convinced that he must be killed for the safety of Japan, Rikuo is forced to face the fact that the humans he wants to protect are not perfect, and have as many imperfections as yokai do. Humans can be greedy, they can do horrible things when they’re afraid. In a backstory, the leader of the Hundred Stories Clan is shown to be a despicable human from Japanese history named Sanmoto Gorozaemon, who takes control of yokai to secure his political and social power, and turns himself into a yokai in order to secure that power. When a member of his clan is assaulted by humans who don’t care about the harm they’re causing, some of them even reveling in it, through facial expressions we can see him struggling with the thought of killing these humans to end the conflict, or out of revenge possibly. Shiibashi leaves this to the reader’s interpretation and it works wonders, he has no internal monologue relating to this feeling and nobody points out that he seems crazed or anything. It’s some panels that you could easily miss if you’re reading too fast.

In this panel, we are shown his reaction to a female yokai appearing and tormenting the humans that were tormenting him and his clanmate just moments ago. Even when he showed such rage at the humans, seemingly almost snapping, he decides he needs to stop the yokai from killing them. However, the expression on his face conveys perfectly how complex his emotions are over this. Despite how confidently he’s saying he needs to save them, his face almost looks like he doesn’t want to. Of course, he overcomes this and saves them for the sake of his dream.

It’s clear to see the moral dilemma he’s going through and it’s conveyed entirely through art and subtext. This is confident storytelling, and not to mention incredible artistry. Shiibashi has a certain maturity and respect for the reader that is hard to find in Shonen Jump manga sometimes.

Rikuo’s fight against the yokai artist Kyosai in this arc is notable for being similar to what I just described from the beginning of the arc.

Kyosai has an interest in turning human women into yokai using his painting techniques, including one of Rikuo’s classmates. Enraged, Rikuo engages him in combat with his newly acquired Attack Mode, which switches his Fear from a defensive technique to an offensive one, and changes his hair from white with black underneath it to having half of his hair being black on one side and the other being white. As the fight progresses, Rikuo is continuously injured and decomposed by Kyosai’s abilities, burning his flesh and scarring Rikuo black.

Rikuo’s deteriorating mental state during this arc is conveyed visually through his design, with both the way he is inked as well as his literally evolving design, his new transformation. He’s never had to confront these kinds of humans and yokai before. This leveling of suffering is new to our middle school-aged protagonist. After Kyosai is defeated, his momentary rage subsides but he is still scarred, physically and mentally. Encho, the acting leader of the Hundred Stories Clan, betrays Sanmoto’s reincarnated brain for personal gain, confusing Rikuo who is already in a fragile mental state. He struggles to comprehend the enemy, as he had been forced to face humans that he wanted to protect, yokai that despised those humans, and even his own best friends. Once again, exclusively visually conveyed and up to interpretation.

At the end of this arc, he accepts the help of his friends, his aide Yuki-Onna, and equips with her, washing himself of the stress he’s in and covering him in a beautiful veil of ice. His design goes back to normal in order to show this, and get across just how much his friends mean to him, in a truly impactful way that really strengthens the theme by giving real weight to his connection with both his yokai and human lives.

Every arc is strong in its own way, I simply wanted to discuss the few that best show what I’m trying to say. I hope you now understand why I love this manga so much and why I think you should read it. I promise the things I’ve spoiled here are only a fragment of the whole experience, and your appreciation will only grow as you experience the full context by reading the manga. If I got across what I wanted to, then you understand that this manga cannot be explained as much as it can be experienced. There are probably more things that I never noticed, maybe you’ll discover those before I do.

This manga is an ode to the future, to humanity. We can overcome our differences and coexist. Perhaps all it takes is for one person to take the fear that we as people feel in our daily lives onto themselves. The fear that there can never be change, the fear that our road only ends in sadness. The fear that our history defines us. The fear that we must conform to our duty. The fear that accepting a duty strips us of individuality. The fear that we can never bring these conflicting aspects of our mind together and find inner peace. The fear that we can never bring the conflicting aspects of people together and find true peace amongst ourselves. Not many people can overcome that fear, but he who is truly strong is he who equips that fear. He who takes that uncertainty of the future and uses it to empower himself and push for that change he wishes to see. This review is my ode to the man who was able to understand what makes people who they are and didn’t let that fear consume him. The man who equips true fear. Thank you for reading.

#nurarihyon no mago #nura: rise of the yokai clan #manga analysis #manga review #shonen #shounen #manga #manga art #rikuo nura #hagoromo-gitsune #abe no seimei #weekly shonen jump #review #i hope i didnt ramble too much

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mxchowind · 3 years

Text

Words Unspoken

Xiao x reader

Warnings: angst/fluff???

This is my second fic! I decided to go with xiao because he really appeals to me as of late and so baby too- ;; i changed up the reason to why he’s fond of almond tofu too for the content- anyways i hope i didnt write him too ooc- if i did, i apologise deeply,, enjoy!

He had known.

Mortals were nothing but lights that faded away with the time’s span. He knew, of course. The ‘Mighty’ and ‘Illuminated’ Guardian Yaksha, names given to him that don’t mean a mere mora.

To him, you meant the most. Though the man would never admit himself, or did he?

Time erased pain.

But never had it healed his scars. What a lie it has been.

Xiao hid, from all that seeked. From all of the memories of you. To think, he was such a dense, foolish idiot- an idiot who loved you. And still do, he’d like to believe.

Of course- out of all, tonight’s wind blows gently. He dislikes it, the tranquillity all resembles you too much. The gentle-living spirit you were- once. Upon his very wish Xiao finds himself asking, begging for you to come back.

But a replacement? He never asked.

Lumine’s arrival sure had people in favour, and people starts to dot and comment on how similar you and her are. Both spirits of freedom and love, supposedly that is said. He didn’t like that.

You were, and still are special, even if that no longer lingered in anyone else.

The ever so radiant smile of yours could warm any cold heart up, that, he has experienced first-hand. A dangerous adepti, they say? None of that was him in your mind. The time you two had spent together, under countless stars beneath the vast expand of skies, were always cherished by both. His eyes soften at the very thought of you- though sorrows come right after.

Lumine is a different case, however.

All the times she tried to please him to get information- it’s different. The aura she gives off is nothing subtle as yours, and warm too. Your scent is much more pleasant to him, or perhaps just the thought of you brings a slight smile to his stone-cold face. Xiao could go on and on about you to anyone, really, but he won’t.

It pains him to think back to that eventful night-

When all was lost.

You had lived long enough to withstand- let alone, battles. But this one was quite the fate-changer. The one that left you in blood and tears, not your own but his. That desperate look on his delicate face- by Archons, Xiao has such pretty features you’d wonder he should like to be working in a tavern for the girls.

All jokes aside, regret fuelled.

Of course, once again you decided to leave his field of vision, dealing with the terror of a creature on your own. Not that he disapproves, you were outright a swordswoman, gifted with the blessings of Anemo, like his own. Dealing with such small amounts wouldn’t be an issue normally, as you often received commissions. Only if you had known..

..when the reinforcements came.

‘‘Hey!! Are you even paying attention??’’

The small pixie screams in his ears, wincing in pain from the high-pitched voice she possesses. Expression stonic, the ravenette decides to ignore her fully. What was that? Flashbacks of what seemed to be thousands of years ago-

Then Xiao suddenly realises. It was when he lost you.

Pain, pain, pain. Kill them, kill everyone.

Thoughts racing through his mind- it takes a while, and enormous strength to resist, before his eyes land on her. Lumine.

‘‘What do you want? I don’t have time to spare for foreign travellers.’’

As cold as he blurts those words out, he means it. No, he cannot withstand the sight of them for any longer- the memories flooding back to his mind, no matter how much he tries to push away. It hurts, he wants someone to cling onto, and he knows, the only one to do it would be you.

‘‘We’re not looking for trouble! The boss lady said you know something about what is happening recently- we brought this!’’ Lumine chirps, handing him the freshly made Almond Tofu.

No, please. No.

It was a breezy afternoon, the wind blowing past your hair gently, directing your way to him. Recently you discovered this new recipe- and couldn’t wait for him to try it out. As you hummed a tune, ever so lively, filled with life, Xiao waited for you patiently. You two were often sighted together on the top of Wangshu Inn, and you were said to be the only one who would make the Adepti smile, even if it was a little. It was true, your smile could brighten anyone’s day up, even the dangerous man.

‘‘Xiao! Look!’’

‘‘Calm yourself first.’’

You gave an apologetic smile, before the brand new dish got shoved into his face. At first, he looked away- what new recipe might you have stirred this time? But the scent of said food filled his mind as you picked up the spoon, scooping some.

‘‘Have a try!’’

‘‘.. I have hands, too.’’

In all reality, he was embarrassed. Without a further thought he picked up from where you left off, and swallowed the tofu whole. It tasted- gentle. Almost as if you poured your heart into making such a dish. Its almond flavoured taste lingered on his tongue for a while more, before eagerly scooping another spoonful.

You smiled. His facade was worn off, and Xiao right then was just Xiao. His duties forgotten, his raging heart calmed, and he was just Xiao, someone who longed for more and more time to be with you, and to have more of this delicious plate too.

Your laugh echoed in his mind.

That was when he chose Almond Tofu over every other dish. It was because of you. Only if time allowed you two to dance in everlasting joy.

It didn’t.

‘‘Stop spacing out!!!!’’

This annoying pest, the ravenette curses without fear. As Xiao turns his gaze finally back on track, he realises that you’ve been on his mind more than ever today. Why is that? Is it because he can’t stand people comparing you with Lumine-

Never. You can never be compared with her. You’re- far more- dear.

‘‘So, Xiao, what would you do about this situation right now? The Moon Carver sent me.’’

Instead of being content to help, he turns his eyes away.

‘‘I am no longer interested in being in contact with mortals. Go.’’

Any other day Xiao would give a gratified reply, but not today. You’re simply occupying his mind too much, perhaps this is it. He still wants to remember-

Go away. Go away. Please.

Stop, stop it. Stop coming back.

‘‘Geez, what a let-down!! Let’s go for now, Lumine,’’ At least that little thing knows what not. They took their leave in silence,

Just like you did.

It rained.

It rained, as if the whole world cried.

With blurred vision, monsters easily took you down no matter how much effort was made to struggle. That, he knows.

He wasn’t strong enough to protect you. He failed.

Let alone, you were the last person he wanted to lose.

Blood, blood, blood.

Blood everywhere. Blood coated you. Recalling, when Xiao turned around to see such a sight- his eyes widened in shock-

Don’t leave, please.

At least not yet, not when he didn’t make clear of his feelings-

But time was not his to command.

His eyes, wet and stained with rain or tears, you do not know. The pain pierced through you like arrows, it hurts, but none is able to save you. The gash is too big, and deep too.

His hands. The ravenette’s hands are so gentle even under the harsh gloves. Carefully, he lifted you up from the ground, and it was him who spoke first.

‘‘Don’t go, it’s a command.’’

You chuckled lightly before the voice faded into weak whimpers. His own voice was shaking, it pulled your heartstrings.

‘‘You- you’re not even smiling, Xiao. Come on, at least give me a smile- whether it’s the last time i would see it..’’

How could he decline such a request?

Smiling was harder than supposed.

Gathering all that was left in him- a smile formed. It was genuine. Something no one but you had seen- that was enough for you. To be the luckiest person to see his smile. It hurts. You wanted to see more, maybe you two would have a future together, and smile, always, then he could learn how to make Almond Tofu and take care of himself and-

Too much to wish for.

‘‘Xiao-’’

He silenced you. With his lips.

Had he known it was the first, and the last, you indulged yourself fully, sinking deeper into the sweet, airy kiss. The taste of metallic was awful, but what was even more- you didn’t know if he was crying, or just the rain.

‘‘You know.. I love you, Xiao.’’

So that was the word.

Love.

To think, how foolish he was- in love with a mortal.

But he was, and nothing could change that. He loved you.

‘‘Don’t go, then. Don’t go.’’

His voice laced with desperation- he begged to the Archons, to someone, to save you. No one would, he knew. Before he knew, you went, quietly.

You were gone.

Rage filled him. Putting on the mask he could feel power surging through every part of him- destruction.

Kill, kill, kill.

The rest of the monsters advanced, but only ended in a bloodbath as he unleashed himself. That village was never heard of again in history.

Throwing the mask away, Xiao leaned down, back to you.

‘‘I love you too, [Y/n].’’

#genshin impact xiao x reader #xiao x reader genshin impact #genshin impact xiao #genshin impact fanfiction #genshin impact

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voidcat · 3 years

Text

– a case of bad luck

2. a deal (with the devil)

m.list ; prev ; next ; wc: 2.1k

a/n: society if i could w r i t e,,, anwyays i feel im making mafia dazai ooc? i hope not, ive just began the light novels dsfdg uh yea i'll probs update once a week (depends on how often i can write)

Insisting he leaves you off at the station, you let out a breath of relief for the first time in hours. Unsure he may still be following, you change directions few times, walk fast and use shortcuts only locals of the neighbourhoods know to get him off your track. Just in case.

The next day he doesn’t show up, neither does he the day after. Not knowing how to feel or what to think about this, because there is no way he will let you slide off this easily, you do your best to resist the relief.

And soon later, it blurs back in your head, like smoke dissolving, like a bad dream.

But the unease never leaves. Neither does the feeling of being watched.

Then one lunch break, your eyes get fixed on a spot by the sidewalk and you can swear it’s the same clothes, the bandages, the posture and the look and everything crashes down back on you again. You do your best to linger and change directions as many times as you can on the way home that evening. Nothing goes wrong that night, or the day after or the day after that. If the false of sense peace were to go for few more days, you think you’ll forget all that happened again, too focused on school or whatever your friends recently bringing up.

A bell to mark the school hours ending, walking outside, caught up in whatever you’re discussing and he just stands there, like it’s nothing, like he belongs to his peer group, missing some of the bandages you saw on his face before, clothes not sticking out like you thought they would.

He stands there and smiles your way.

You think, you’ve never wanted to punch someone in your life as you do in this very moment. Just to erase that smile off his face.

In your view, he only gets bigger with each step, the flock of students you’re stuck in only walking towards where he waits and you look around for a way to sneak out but nada! Nothing! And your friends have grown suspiciously quieter than the usual. Stealing glances from one another and from you, the snicker like they’re sharing this little surprise for you.

Shorter than calculated, you find yourself standing right in front of him.

No words on his end and the expecting looks on you make the air tense.

“Hi… Dazai!” You say at one point, fake enthusiasm clear, not that they seem to mind nor realize. “What brings you here?”

“I was just in the city as you see. And decided, what better time to surprise an old friend than now?” The smile vanishes for a moment, the forced school play act making you want to roll your eyes but he puts a hand on your shoulder suddenly, you wince and shake his hand off, and he continues. “So, have you got the time to show me around and catch up?”

“Do I have a choice?” Followed by a dry laugh, you look back to your friends who only seem satisfied, makes you wonder what kind of lie he sold before he got here. His smile grows wider in reply.

You sigh and start to walk by his side, taking a step a second later than him to keep a distance and to see where you’re headed.

“What did you tell them exactly?” your curiosity takes the best of you as you reach a traffic light.

A little ‘huh?’ coming from him, he turns back to glance at you, the sun behind his head makes his height apparent. The short lived look of asking he gives you dies as he tilts his head “I only told them a cliché story, assumed they’d fall for cheesy scenarios such as that.”

Red turns green.

You take a step by his side, no more following behind. “Which is?..”

“That we were old friends with a shared history of potential intimacy and I wanted to take you out now that we are back together again!” He says it like it’s so usual.

The two of you reach the pavement and continue to walk, never faltering.

Letting your eyes linger on him for a while, you turn your gaze back on the streets as the sense of familiarity begins to vanish. “I didn’t take you for the romcom type.” You say at last as you stop.

“I’m not.” He doesn’t spare a glance this time. “I just know someone who likes them.”

The number of people around decrease with each step, the air gets colder –maybe it’s your nerves. The light starts to fade and not a word has been spoken for quite some time. Not that either of you were dying for some get-to-one-another.

When he speaks again, you don’t hear it at first. “Your ability-”

You halt with a stomp of your foot. “I don’t have one.”

He narrows his eyes in annoyance, “Your ability must be based on some form of speech, as Akutagawa served a good example that night.”

The name barely rings a bell in your memory.

“Question is, what kind of speech it requires? Does it rhyme, should commands work, shall it be sang, like a siren?”

“These are all excellent questions, except for one big missing piece…” you answer. The mention of something missing seems to get his attention. “…That I do not have an ability.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he huffs, the ever growing annoyance levels can tell alone you’re pushing the little bit of luck you have.

“Then how did Akutagawa pass out exactly?” hands back under his coat.

“There was blood on him? Maybe he’s sick? He definitely looked the part.” You say as more of a suggestion than an answer.

“The men inside the building. The one with his internal organs out.” Words get colder with each breathe.

Yours fade as his grow colder, “Maybe the other captured guy did it?”

“You don’t sound sure, weren’t you right next to him?” suspicion of a knowing parent hinted in his voice almost, he already must’ve figured it all out that night.

“I…” the pavement looks gray, stones crooked, countless fights must’ve gone through here before.

“I don’t know.” From the edge that connects the floor to the walls, you try inspecting each dull color behind the lifeless filter, not acknowledging him standing there doesn’t feel any safer but it’s preferable to those eyes.

His lips don’t move but the ‘You don’t know?’ is heavy in the air.

“I don’t know! I don’t remember!” someone’s yelling reaches your ears. “I just!-“

The yelling was yours, your arms fall back, go back up and you hold yourself, “I was… singing? To calm down… And the rest is just a blur.”

When you look up, he looks as disinterested. You consider yelling, asking for an explanation, what he’s thinking; it’s not that hard to piece it all, you think, but this demeanor rubs you the wrong way. The longer the silence goes, the eerier it becomes, the emptiness of the alley you’re standing in stands out. The lack of people, noise, light, it’d almost crash down on you if it wasn’t soin the open ever since he showed up.

“The words you spoke to Akutagawa. Are they from a song?”

“The ‘go to sleep’ you mean?” you finger quote the lyric, “it’s from Beach Life In-“ you stop with a shake of your head, “it’s from a song, yes.”

When you look again, it feels like an adult waiting for a child to connect the dots in front of them, like you’re the only one in the world who hasn’t figured it out already.

“But it makes no sense.” Hands on hips, eyes focused on a pebble near your foot, “I mean- it’s not like I haven’t sung before?” You turn then, start to pace, a hand on your forehead to push back the few strands brushing against your forehead.

It starts to warm up, or feels like it, each strand of hair just there, existing, leaving its weight on you, tickling, annoying, bothering; suffocating-

He cannot be right, can he?

Sure, self-awareness can change for each person but something so important as an ability shouldn’t be missed that easily… being a stranger to yourself when a stranger figured it out in mere seconds- it’s ridiculous, it simply doesn’t make sense, he must be wrong or confuse you with someone else, how can it be that bad, how can my perception be that bad, what else did I miss if all this is true and happening-

“Despite how the Port Mafia appears,” his voice pulls you out of your head, “ability users is not such a common occurrence. And surely the ability to affect your surroundings, or make people act certain ways is one we cannot let go of.”

I should drink some water, a part of you says when you gulp at his implications, ‘we cannot let go’ just gets out of his mouth and stays right in front of you, in bold jet black letters.

“What you should ask yourself is if you felt anything during all these times of singing…” silence feels enough of an answer, hyped up or not there isn’t much to feel, much to wish for. “Or if the words you snag back then were for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” “What did you feel that night?”

“Typical fight or flight response? Adrenaline, instinct to survive?”

“Stop assuming and start being more confident.” (like that night) a part of you yells, in his voice, though his is devoid of any emotion. You don’t want to learn how he sounds when he yells.

“I wanted to get out.” You try again. “Not to survive but to avoid death or whatever was awaiting me until that.” Sounds more like you, you straighten your back. “I didn’t want to stay any longer to see what they’d do to me so I found a way out.” He almost seems pleasant to hear the change in you, maybe it’s time to surprise him a little more.

“So let’s say,” you start pacing again, less like rambling and more like an animal circling, not a prey but a threat, because that’s what he is, what he has been and will be, “that I have an ability that I can use only when my emotional capacity is at a certain level… why would a mafia executive want me to have a better understanding of it?”

The radius decreasing with each step, you end your steps right in front of his face “what makes you think I won’t use it, right now, on you?” each pause between the words to make it clear this is a threat, no more of the power balance he held over you for too long. Your back to the beginning of the alley, you’re ready, in case he is one of them –if not, he might still have a gun.

He doesn’t falter, not a hair on him moves. Until he chuckles, at you and your words.

The vibration in his voice, nor the laughter reach his eyes.

“There are quite a few reasons why this won’t do, like how you cannot use it.”

The confidence in his voice makes the truth more unbearable.

“And besides, even if you managed to use it, it wouldn’t take me long to stop you.”

“Are you that fast?”

“Are you?”

This marks the end of it, as much as it pains to admit he is right, a part of you doesn’t want it, doesn’t feel the same sense of danger and survival to run away.

And regardless of all the threat he possesses, he doesn’t seem all too willing to get rid of you.

Rolling your eyes, you turn and walk away to the blinking store lights from the street. A second set of footsteps catch up to you in few long strides.

“So what is this then? You’re going to help me use my ability and leave me in debt?” reaching the traffic lights, you step onto the road without batting an eye.

“Why would I agree to something like that?” the car drives by, almost brushing your back. The sun has begun to set already, the colors mixing together.

The wind carries away his words but you catch them just in time: “You have a family and a cat, don’t you?”

You stop and look up. “Not a cloud in sight. Was it a sign of a rainy day to follow?” ignore the implications, don’t think about the faces. “A cloudy day perhaps, I always mix up the tells of the sky.”

“I’ll be around.” And he leaves with that.

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a-little-slice-of-fandom · 3 years

Note

In derry girls, what did you think of the episode where clare came out? Im irish (republic) and gay so i love that it was included, but some of the language used makes me uncomfortable i guess? I get that NI in the 90s wasnt very accepting but the directors have said that they already portrayed it through rose coloured glasses so having michelle say d*ke feels unnecessary. I love the show though and can certainly look past it! I was just interested in what you thought :)))

Hey anon!

Personally I love this episode of Derry Girls! In fact it’s probably my favourite episodes. I already liked Clare as a character throughout the series, probably because I relate to her a bit too much, so to have her be revealed as gay was just like the icing on the cake. Good representation for northern Irish characters are few and far between, and gay northern Irish characters are basically non existent. Derry Girls was this hit TV show that provided many with the first chance to see themselves represented meaningfully on TV, and that includes myself.

However, I think there’s a lot of really important stuff in this episode that people either don’t notice or just don’t really talk about, which I do understand because Derry Girls is, at the end of the day, a comedy and it’s much more fun to quote characters like Aunt Sarah saying “you cannot move for lesbians these days” than to think about the darker side of Northern Ireland.

(T/W for homophobia discussion!!!)

(Also this sort of turned into a ramble about acceptance by the end of the post but I just have a lot of feelings on what Derry girls represents and I feel like non northern Irish viewers maybe don’t catch onto that because they don’t have the necessary context)

Derry Girls, as a show, is so interesting and personal to me because it manages to perfectly strike the balance between presenting Northern Ireland as a deeply flawed and divided country, but also presenting it as a place where people can be happy and live their lives to the fullest despite the ever present danger of the troubles. And that’s a genuinely refreshing portrayal of N.I that we usually don’t get. However I’d argue that if Derry Girls doesn’t at least try and illustrate, to some extent, the causal and very rampant homophobia of northern Ireland then it runs the risk of romanticising Northern Ireland at the time, which I think is incredibly dangerous. I do think that the show is intentionally more digestible and does filter things through rose tinted glasses, however I’d argue that simply glossing over the homophobia would have actually been a bit disrespectful to the queer history of Northern Ireland and could erase the experiences and struggles of the LGBTQ community in N.I, both then and now. If the show doesn’t acknowledge that things were shitty then we paint an inaccurate picture of what it was like, and arguably still is like, to be gay in Northern Ireland. And considering that Derry Girls is one of the very few good depictions of Northern Ireland, it’s incredibly important that it’s an honest depiction.

You specifically asked about Michelle, but I think it’s important to talk about Michelle and Erin in relation to one another, and how they are both products of their time and of a deeply homophobic society.

(Now I’m going to briefly discuss Michelle’s use of the d-slur here however I just want to acknowledge that I’m probably not the best person to talk about this since it’s a lesbian specific slur and I’m not a lesbian. I welcome any additions to this post!)

I think Michelle sort of represents the overt and “loud” homophobia that’s present in our society. Michelle saying the d-slur is far from the first homophobic thing she says. I mean It’s literally a running gag in series one that she calls James “gay” constantly. And the sad thing is that Michelle’s off handed comments throughout the series are incredibly realistic to what you’d hear in Northern Ireland even today. I remember the f-slur being chanted during break time at my primary school, without anyone fully understanding what that word meant. Michelle is a representation of the homophobia that’s deeply ingrained into N.I to the point where it’s not even thought about or even seen as an issue. I mean...no one ever really talks about Michelle’s comments. Now whether or not they had to include her saying a slur specifically to illustrate the homophobia of N.I is not for me to say. You could change that sentence in the script and I think the point of Michelle representing “loud” and homophobia would still stand.

On the other hand...I think Erin represents the much more insidious and “quiet” homophobia.

Firstly, she has no issue with capitalising off a very personal essay for her own gain, shrugs off any protests that this might be wrong and doesn’t consider how her actions may hurt the writer of this piece (who is later revealed to be Clare).

Even the language she uses is a bit uncomfortable, saying that “a real life lesbian walks among us”. Are lesbians wild animals or mythical creatures? That seems to be what Erin is implying here. Plus Erin tries to make it out to others such as Sister Michael that she’s doing this because she genuinely believes in equal rights and wishes to stick up for the LGBT community, but when Clare actually tries to come out Erin is clearly confused and she reacts very badly. I mean, Erin literally says she doesn’t want Clare to come out and demands she get back in the closet, and you can see how hurt Clare is by this reaction. And this scene is kind of played for laughs and I think that straight viewers probably found Erin’s reaction quite funny...but this scene hit way too close to home for me. It’s the classic “I have nothing against gay people, but I’d just rather I didn’t have a gay friend/child/co-worker because they make me uncomfortable” that’s way too common in Northern Ireland. It’s the idea that people can present themselves as liberal and open minded, but when finally confronted with something that doesn’t fit their narrative, their societal conditioning kicks in.

As a queer woman, it was never Michelle’s causal homophobia that made me uncomfortable, it was Erin’s reaction...because it hit way too close to home. It’s a perfect representation of the “quiet” homophobia that’s still a massive issue in Northern Ireland today.

(Also the context of when Derry Girls was released is super important! Series one of Derry Girls was released in 2018...but Gay marriage wasn’t actually legalised in Northern Ireland until January of 2020 and even then it was quite contested by conservatives. Now I’m not saying there’s social commentary here but that’s absolutely what I’m saying.)

Now I’m not saying that Michelle or Erin themselves are homophobic, nor am I saying that they’re bad people. I think that they are teenagers that have absorbed a lot of homophobic rhetoric due to the time and the society that they live in. Although Erin’s reaction to Clare trying to come out was painful to watch because it felt so real, I don’t think her reaction was malicious. Erin is a teenager who has grown up in a homophobic society and now doesn’t really know how to react to this new reality and probably didn’t realise how hurtful she was being to Clare. (This isn’t me trying to excuse her reaction, again I am part of the LGBT community and I’ve experienced that exact same reaction from people, it’s me trying to understand Erin’s reaction). Erin and Michelle have both absorbed rhetoric from their deeply homophobic society, and unfortunately this rhetoric continues.

Plus I just want to comment on this idea of acceptance and change in Derry Girls. Derry Girls is set in the time of great change in Northern Ireland, where people were sort of starting to accept that people are allowed to be British or Irish or both. But this process was messy and it wasn’t instantaneous. And the acceptance of the LGBTQ community in Northern Ireland was the exact same. It didn’t just happen overnight. It was a slow and messy process of change, of people re-evaluating their previous beliefs and being given the chance to grow as people and to learn how to accept others. That’s not to say people haven’t made mistakes in the past, because they have, but they’re willing to take the steps to change. I‘ve always thought the LGBTQ subplot of Derry Girls is sort of a parallel to the overall process of change in Northern Ireland in a political sense. And I think that flies over so many people’s heads because they don’t have that context of the political situation in N.I.

(And this theme of acceptance is seen again in the series finale of series 2 with James! ✨ Thematic consistency ✨ )

Because at the end of the day, Clare is accepted by the group. In fact, we see both the teenagers and the adults actively take steps to make her feel loved, welcome and accepted. My favourite moment will always be Granda Joe saying “you’re a very talented people” to Clare in the most earnest voice. Clare is still loved by her friends and although they don’t exactly know what they’re doing, they do try and show their support for her. They absolutely make mistakes, and they did hurt Clare, but they’re trying and I think that stands for a lot, especially at the time.

And I think all of what I discussed was absolutely necessary to Derry Girls. Derry Girls might be a somewhat rose tinted portrayal of Derry in the troubles, but it never tries to romanticise the situation that the teenagers were in (because no one should be romanticising the troubles). I think that this stance of portraying the harsh reality of homophobia in N.I is equally important to the narrative of Derry Girls. I see my own experiences in Clare, despite the fact it’s 30 years later, so if they didn’t at least attempt to show the homophobia in Ireland it would have felt disingenuous and too “perfect”. Again, I’m not saying that Michelle using the d slur was the right way to go about showing the “loud” homophobia of Northern Ireland. That’s not my decision to make. However, just because Derry Girls is making efforts to present Northern Ireland in a more digestible way to audiences (especially non northern Irish audiences) doesn’t mean they shouldn’t also acknowledge the reality of Northern Ireland at the time.

(This all kind of makes it sound like I want Clare to get hate crimed which I obviously do not want. I think the way that Derry Girls showed the issues in Northern Ireland were perfect and very much necessary, minus the use of the d-slur specifically which wasn’t necessary to the plot.)

Anyway thank you so much for the ask anon! This was much more rambly than my usual posts but I just really have a lot of opinions on Derry girls because it does mean a lot to me and it often does hit close to home.

#derry girls #michelle mallon #erin quinn #clare devlin #enya discusses: derry girls #long post

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pla-teau · 3 years

Text

WANDAVISION SERIES FINALE THOUGHTS

WHOEVER’S CUTTING ONIONS NEEDS TO S T O P.

hayward | i was one of the many few who really wished death on the man cause he’s just the worst. this man emptied his clip at two children. i’m glad jimmy was able to pull a fast one on this dick and that darcy hit him with the ice cream truck and very happy to see the man being taken away in cuffs.

vision vs. vision | while i would’ve enjoyed seeing them fight it out until one completely lost, it wouldn’t be vision without some philosophic conversation. it’s true vision fashion. he doesn’t fight unless it’s a last resort. he’s logical and can assess other means in which to deter a foe. truly enjoyed the scene and now i’m just curious as to where tf white vision yeeted off to after regaining the memories from hex!vision? some have speculated possibly wakanda since that is the place where he died. twice. i would love to see him possibly interact with shuri since she would’ve appeared in the memory montage that hex!vision provided him with alongside other events from infinity war.

agatha (aka not mephisto) | overall, i loved agatha as a character and i’m glad she wasn’t killed off by the end of the series. i know she was more villainous in the show but i’m glad they somewhat neutralized her even if it was by cruel punishment brought upon by wanda to keep her trapped in westview as a nosy neighbor. it keeps the door open for us to see more interactions between her and wanda. i’m also glad that she was the foe wanda had to go against. i know many (like myself) speculated mephisto would appear and be revealed but i’m happy i was wrong about that. this is the first entry into phase four and to spill out a big bad right away? probably not the best move. i know ant-man 3 is planning on introducing kang the conqueror so i wouldn’t be shocked if mephisto is used as a red herring to distract us from the actual big bad of the phase, kang the conqueror (while still keeping mephisto around obviously for future battles and possibly use him as a big bad down the road).

family is forever | i was sobbing when seeing the hex start shrinking down in the distance outside the boys’ window. i love that wanda and vision made the move to put them to bed as a way of saying goodbye so they wouldn’t have to see them disappear. i hope to see these same boys come back cause i think no matter what your theory was on them, viewers fell in love with them. if planning for young avengers, i cannot wait to see them be a part of it. given that these boys weren’t real and not actually wanda’s children, i think they’ll go the route that they’ll find each other even if not as a blood related family but reincarnations that know that wanda was their mother in one instance and see her as a mother figure (alongside their actual mothers, of course). i just love them and i really wish they stuck around but i know this won’t be the last time we see them!

wanda’s outfit | i love it and i think pays homage to her comic book costume while still fitting the aesthetic of wanda and the mcu. love the attention to detail and the pattern on her headpiece. someone on here also pointed out in a post how it resembles magneto’s suit and it makes me love it more because of that. in conclusion, this is the scarlet witch and she’s hot.

wanda and vision’s farewell | if i was sobbing at billy and tommy’s fate, i was wailing by the time these two started saying goodbye. we learn that the main reason vision was able to be created the way he was by wanda was because of the mind stone. while she is the scarlet witch, she was exposed to and enhanced by the mind stone that ended up becoming vision. like she said, it’s a part of her. he lives on in her and overall, this scene just cemented that these two are meant to be together. they are going to be that power couple in the mcu moving forward, together or apart. we know these two are meant for each other and have so much love for each other and will find their way back always. while they may change, the one thing you can bet your ass on is that they fucking love each other.

ralph bohner | the twist that no one saw coming - peter is ralph. it’s clear that he was being controlled by agatha because the moment monica took off the necklace, he woke up from her spell. a lot of people are swirling around to say that he’s probably woo’s missing person. we don’t know that and it’s something that’s left unconfirmed. while i would’ve enjoyed the reveal to be peter actually being peter from the x-men universe, i’m also happy he isn’t. yes there was a lot of fanfare and hope for this series to introduce the multiverse but in retrospect, it would’ve been too much to throw at us at the beginning of phase four. throwing in the multiverse right away would’ve taken away from the series being about wanda (separate point i’ll get to at the end). do hope to see evan peters in a future mcu project, though!

wanda’s story moving forward | i hope wanda becomes a sort of anti-hero for the future. this does set up her appearance in doctor strange 2 and i can’t wait to see what she does. while agatha said she’s destined to destroy the world and her power exceeds the sorcerer supreme’s, i hope the writers don’t make wanda into this villain that loses her logic because of extreme power. wanda has proven agatha wrong already by acknowledging the error in her ways. when she realized she was hurting the people of westview, she let them go and stopped hurting them. she learned that yes, she is hurting them without knowing so what she has to do is let them go. wanda has learned throughout her years with the avengers the consequences her powers can have on people. we know she’s never been trained by a witch and yes, that makes her dangerous with her chaos magic. the second post credit scene shows us that she’s determined to teach herself even if it’s through the darkhold. in seeing what she’s done and the power she holds, i think wanda will be this gray moral character. she holds a great deal of power, the most powerful being on the planet at the moment, and that can cloud her judgement at times. despite being an avenger, this show has really shown us that wanda is alone. while she was with the avengers, what have they really done? they kept her in check and helped her utilize her powers for good but then when civil war happened, she was detained and treated like a weapon of mass destruction. the avengers are clearly nonexistent and those that are around, haven’t bothered with her. i also hope that this new phase of marvel kinda tears down the original avengers and their actions because while intentions were good, not everything or everyone was perfect and there’s consequences. and i hope those consequences are shown through the main characters of this phase like wanda.

the complaints | while i loved this show so so much, i did have some issues. while i enjoyed that this show fleshed out more of wanda’s past, i’m sad that they didn’t confirm or at least try to make wanda jewish since they completely erased her romani roots from the comics. this goes back to my whole thing with representation which i’ve mentioned before in response to an article. while i love elizabeth olsen’s portrayal and care she has for wanda, a romani actress still should’ve been cast from the beginning. the least they could’ve done was at least make her jewish even if ever so subtly because that is the other half of wanda’s identity, even if it’s been retconned often. if they are never going to confirm her as magneto’s daughter in the mcu, at least honor that aspect of her identity if you’ve erased one major one already. representation matters and i wish they tried to do right by the character since they clearly paid close attention to other aspects of her comic book history and took a deep dive into her mental health. come at me for these thoughts but i’ll stand by them. another is just directed at the press for the show (i’m looking at you paul bettany). while fans went ham on the theories and marvel will do anything to misdirect you, i think there should’ve been a clear up from marvel about bettany’s claims of a big cameo coming in the series when it was about himself. i get you don’t want to spoil the show and the big surprises it may hold for the audience but still. i think there should’ve been someone behind the scenes or bettany’s publicist could’ve kinda told him to stop hinting at a super duper big cameo. yes, fans got carried away but i think when you’re doing press for marvel, it should be somewhat common knowledge that fans are going to analyze and try to figure out wtf is gonna happen. it’s fun theorizing, don’t get me wrong but when it’s gone the way it has for this show, i think it leaves a lot of people unsatisfied. i’ll admit i was being a clown thinking i’d see patrick stewart as professor x again since he’s an actor paul’s never worked with before and would be a huge fan service for the audience like in the mandalorian season finale. tldr; crazy fan theories comes with the territory. my final grievance actually has to do with the set up for monica’s engineer. i was also hoping we’d someone big or someone that could be big in the future, possibly it was a skrull at the end but the tone and way monica talked about it, i think it was underwhelming to see a character that we came not to care too much about.

final thoughts | overall, i loved this show and it was refreshing to see marvel embrace the magical side of their universe as it continues to expand. the cast was amazing. everyone in the cast and crew deserve awards because this really gave us a show about wanda. i think a lot of people lost that (including myself) with all the theorizing; goes back to my complaint about press for the show. it gave us a show that dealt with trauma and grief in a way we haven’t seen before in marvel’s cinematic universe. i’ll admit i didn’t care much for wanda as i did with the others but this show made me care for her a lot more and made me a bigger fan of her and vision’s story. it grounded itself in dealing with wanda’s grief and trauma in a new way while also exploring her character more. so i’m happy that we didn’t get a super big cameo or that the multiverse wasn’t confirmed because then the tone and attention would’ve shifted away from this story being about her. i hope marvel can give us shows like this that make us care about a character’s emotions and feelings rather than just how cool and badass they look in a suit. it was clear that the cast and crew made this with such love and care that had good storytelling and kept us on edge every week. i hope that marvel can show us these types of stories and ranges from characters in future movies as well.

#scar’s thoughts and rants #scar’s theories #wandavision #wandavision spoilers #marvel #mcu #peter maximoff #monica rambeau #darcy lewis #jimmy woo #agatha harkness #vision #billy kaplan #tommy shepard

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