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the-mini-muse · 2 years

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Polin Drabble - Quibble

Quibble aka The one that's inspired by BtVS - Dark Colin.

He was behind her. So close but not quite touching her.

Yet.

His lips tickled her ear and a shiver ran through Penelope.

“I can hear your heart beating so fast, Pen,” Colin his fingers ran down the side of her arms - from shoulder to wrists.

Her heart was breaking all over again,”Colin, don’t do this. Let me save you.”

“Save me? I’ve never felt better in my life Penelope,”His arms now hugged her from behind, his body folding unto himself due to their height difference. Almost like a lovers embrace,” and I want you to feel good too. Don’t deny it. Pen-El-O-Pe…”

——

Penelope had moved to Mayfair a year ago. She had met her now best friend Eloise and her odd family.

She didn’t know yet about vampires, witches, and demons.

She didn’t know anything yet of the Slayer.

Daphne was a year older than her and Eloise and already burdened with the task of fighting supernatural creatures that dare to harm humans.

She had been a Slayer for two years now.

Her whole family had rallied behind her - one by one learning of her secret.

Anthony had wanted to move somewhere else - safe. Her watcher - Kate Sharma- disabused him of the idea of Daphne ever being safe.

Mayfair was where the Hellmouth resided. It is where Daphne was most needed.

Most of the time she patrolled with Kate, Anthony, Benedict, Colin, and Eloise - never alone.

Now with the addition of Simon, a Dukes graduate and friend of Anthony’s, and Penelope.

Then Anthony had got bitten by a werewolf this past year.

They had to adjust.

Especially Kate who he was engaged to be married.

Wanting to help, Eloise and Penelope started to dabble in witchcraft and found that they both have the affinity for it. They didn’t know that they would be using their powers for this though.

——

Staring straight at those beautiful green eyes, Penelope watched him draw near and give her lips soft kisses. His arms wrapping around her once more, possessively.

She felt dizzy with want. He always had that affect on her.

But this wasn’t her Colin. Not really.

She raised a hand to his chest and whimpered due to the lack of heartbeat upon her palm. Lips on her neck, nuzzling her skin but missing the warmth of his breath.

Colin.

From the very first time she met him, her heart was forever stolen.

Cressida Cowper had pushed her in the stairs of the outside courtyard of her new school.

She would’ve fallen and been hurt grievously if Colin wasn’t right behind her. His arms shot out and enveloped her in a tight hug, never letting her spin as she fell.

It was the day she fell on and for Colin Bridgerton.

She was in tears at the thought of hurting her savior but he just laughed and laughed and asked her if she was ok. He became her best friend. Her charming, kind, handsome unrequited love. Her only quibble with him is how unfairly good looking he was since all the other girls noticed it too.

His face now showed a mockery of Colin’s charming smile as he flashed her his fangs before going back down to kissing her neck.

“I can give you back your soul!”

With the quickness of a predator, Colin brought his face up so that they were almost nose to nose. His green eyes looking at her with anger and desire.

Always desire.

Her mind going to all the instances that he had been stalking her.

Leaving love letters.

No.

Letters of his desire for her.

His ownership of her.

His Pen.

Every time she turned around, he was there watching. She may not have seen him but he was always in the vicinity of her senses. She always knew when he was near, even before he was turned.

She had started avoiding Daphne because of this.

She knew the Slayer had a duty to kill vampires and when Colin was bitten by Marina, everyone was devastated.

He was able to get away.

But now he’s back and he’s been stalking Penelope. Only Eloise knew and they’ve been researching how a vampire may gain his soul back.

“My. Pen,” He licked her lips before diving deep within her mouth. Tasting her.

“Let her go!” Daphne’s voice rang out.

He pulled back to turn around just in time to see the rest of the gang go through the church doors.

He put Penelope in front of him, one arm around her torso, holding her possessively,” Ah. My sister. The Slayer and you brought company. “

Penelope saw Eloise, Francesca, and Kate run off to the side - creating markings for the spell.

THE spell to return Colin’s soul.

Daphne, Anthony, Benedict, and Simon standing ready to fight.

“I said let her go Colin,” Daphne twirled her stake as a show of intimidation.

“I think not. She belongs to me. She has ALWAYS belonged to me,”His grip tightened.

“Colin, I love you,”Penelope whispered,” and I’m so sorry -Ignis Incende!”

She directed the spell on the cloak he was wearing. It caught on fire immediately and in his haste to take it off, he let go of her.

She ran towards Daphne.

“No!!! Penelope!!!” Colin yelled in rage.

His face now morphing into its Vampire counterpart before leaping towards her.

Simon grabbed Penelope just as Daphne knocked away the hand that would’ve pulled her back to him.

“This really wasn’t one of your smartest moves brother.” Anthony backed up his sister, sword in hand. Benedict beside him with an axe.

Penelope had tears in her eyes as Colin fought his siblings. She turned towards Eloise and started to chant with her.

Quod perditum est, invenietur.

Not dead, nor not of the living.

Spirits of the interregnum, I call.

Gods, bind him. Cast his heart from the evil realm.

Te implor, Doamne; nu ignoră aceasta rugăminte!

Nici mort, nici al fiinţei,

lăsa orbită să fie vasul care-i vă transportă sufletul la el.

Aşa să fie! Aşa să fie!

Acum! Acum!

They all looked up as a bright light enveloped Colin. It was so bright they all had to cover their eyes.

Then with a loud boom. The room was silent again.

“Ignis Incende”

Penelope and Eloise started lighting up nearby candelabras.

In the middle of the room, crouching on the floor was Colin.

He was shivering and crying uncontrollably. Anthony and Daphne was the first one there checking to see if there was any wounds on his person.

Penelope skidded down beside them and wrapped her arms around him, tucked his face under her chin and pressed her face on the top of his head. Colin just continued to cry desperately as he wrapped his arms around Penelope’s middle.

She looked up at his siblings, all with tears in their eyes. They were glad to have their brother back but it would not be the same.

He was still a vampire.

Colin is part of the Bridgerton family, the vampire with a soul, brother to the Slayer and Penelope’s beloved.

They will adjust like always.

A/N incantations not mine.

#polin #theminimusewrites:polin #colin bridgerton #colin x penelope #penelope x colin #penelope featherington/colin bridgerton #penelope/colin #penelope featherington #btvs inspired #dark colin #the author tried

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thesexiest · 2 years

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Mango shaped space be like: I am going to be one of the only Synesthesia novels out there and make a point to be as incorrect as possible about the experience.

#temporary aura synesthesia from acupuncture???? i think not #aura trails from a cat even when it’s not there??? i don’t think so #the author tried #synesthesia #aura synesthesia

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bitterly-almond · 5 months

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A little comic inspired by @eastbluesaga 'something old; something new' fic. Previously posted on my old blog but I got shadowbanned lol.

#mishanks #red hair shanks #dracule mihawk #one piece #artists on tumblr #one piece fanart #one piece fanfiction #i hope you like it author i tried to send ask but i got shadowbanned sadly #shanks x mihawk #red eyed mihawk in the manga is so pwetty

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secretagentspydetectiveninja · 2 months

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posting this with absolutely no context

#am i a cryptid now? i log on like once in a blue moon to post cringe and then leave again #ace attorney #apollo justice #tikki #random stuff #my stuff #ooookay okay okay okay. anyone reading the tags can have a LITTLE context‚ as a treat #so. sitting on my ao3 currently is an unfinished fic with exactly this premise #i want to finish it so bad. it haunts me every day. people leave such nice comments and everything #but i just have no motivation. trust me i've tried #i thought that perhaps drawing it might finally kick my brain back into gear #i'm so sorry readers i'm sorry i WILL finish it i promise it's not abandoned #it was so much fuuuuun #tikki are you seeing this. cringefail author who keeps playing video games instead of writing lmao #anyway goodbye friends i am gone again. logging off once more

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tea-cat-arts · 13 days

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Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will

#svsss #scum villian self saving system #shen qingqiu #shen yuan #the fact that people think scum villain #-a series that examines and criticizes common tropes in fiction-#is somehow against criticism or being a little hater is wild to me #especially since shen qingqiu never gets punished for being a hater #heck- he's still a little hater by the end of the series #he mostly gets punished for treating life like a play and like he and the people around him are characters #(or in other words- he suffers for denying his own wants and emotions and his own sense of empathy)#I think some of y'all underestimate how much writing/art is inspired by creaters being little haters #like example off the top of my head-#the author of Iron Widow has been pretty vocal about the book being inspired by their hatred of Darling in the Franxx #I think my interpretation of Shen Yuan's transmigration is also supported by the fact that this series is an examines writing processes #side note- though i understand why people say Shen Yuan is lazy and think its a valid take it still doesnt sit right with me #i am probably biased because my own experiences with chronic pain and depression and isolation #but ya- i dont think Shen Yuan is lazy so much as he is deeply lonely and feels purposeless after denying parts of himself for 20ish years #like yall remember the online fandom boom from covid right?#being stuck completely alone in bed while feeling like shit for 20 days straight does shit to your brain #the fact that no one came to check on him + he wasn't exactly upset about leaving anyone behind supports the isolation interpretation too #+in the skinner demon arc he describes his life of being a faker/inability to stop being a faker now that he's Shen Qingqiu #as “so bland he's tempted to throw salt on himself” and “all he could do is lay around and wait for death” (<-paraphrasing)#bro wants to be doing stuff but is stuck in paralysis from repeatedly following scrips made by other people #another point on “Shen Yuan isn’t lazy” is just the sheer amount of studying that man does #also he did graduate college- how lazy can he really be #he doesnt know what hes doing but he at least tries to actively train his students #and he actually works on improving his own cultivation + spends quite a bit of time preping the mushroom body thing #+he's experiencing bouts of debilitating chronic pain throughout all this #but ya tldr: Shen Yuan's transmigration is an encouragement to write and not a punishment and also i dont think its fair to call him lazy

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megahertzmaroon · 3 months

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Snow Angels // 9-2

Silly EXTREMELY abridged fanart for the killer fucking fic THE END OF ALL KNOWN LAND. Please be warned it is explicit and to please only read if you’re 18+ otherwise go wild it’s gorgeous and beautiful and-

#gabriel ultrakill #ultrakill #v1 ultrakill #gabv1el #OK. THING FIXED. DOOR STUCK #please go read the original fic if you’re over 18 pelase pelase pelapelwpalepe #megahertzart #also hello author of you see this i didn’t know if you’d be fine with fanart and i tried looking up your user and nothing was coming up 😔#so pls reach out !!

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lyss-sketchbox · 3 months

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That last bit didnt exactly happen like that but i like making dramatic comic shots. STILL yall should read this fic. Its such a wonderful experience that people should know about, I PROMISE ITS GOOD

Bonus scene

Now you HAVE to read it :)

#this fic makes me feel things #im serious #it reads like a max0r video #its so funny then it hits me with the saddest facking lines of all time #please go read it im literally begging you #also the author is writing blind wrio #but i dont think i depicted it well #sorry bout that i tried #lyss' sketch #genshin impact #genshin fanart #genshin #wriothesley #neuvillette #wriolette #neuvithesley #fontaine #comic

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r1z3n · 1 month

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More Batfam thoughts

You know I agree with the takes about Tim "I have parentified to a Insane Degree" Drake would look at most adults' authority over him including Bruce's with scoff and dismissal. Expect: Dick Grayson. And maybe Jason Todd. But not Batman or Bruce. Not his parents. Not Alfred. Not police or military. Not the president (Especially if it is Luthor). Not a single member of the Justice League even Wonder Woman. Tim will respect them all as people (mostly), as experts in their field and sometimes as missions leads. Dick Grayson on the other hand has the special place of being basically the only adult person that Tim Drake will respect as an authority. (and I also want to be clear Dick Grayson not necessarily Nightwing and Tim Drake not Red Robin as that is a different conversation) Which imagine how horrifying for people to realize that. Like image if will gotham rouges and Titans realizing that Tim Drake may technically be Batman's Robin III, but that is Dick Grayson/Nightwing's kid. The Gotham rouges/goons like Batman already on thin ice for the no kill thing, but most can rationalize it as grief, but Nightwing? First Robin? They trust but they don't forget that Robin is the reason they know there are worse and more horrifying things to experience then death. Also sure pissing Batman off is bad, but no one wants Nightwing hunting them down. Like no one was genuinely shocked about the Joker brief meeting with Hades. and the Titan or League realizing that Dick basically is the sole person standing in the way of Tim being the Best Villain in the world.

#riz do be speaking #dick grayson #tim drake #tim drake is a menace #tim drake is dick grayson's biggest fan #Tim and Dick both have that separation between mask and person #Tim breaks out in hives when anyone else tries to have an authority over him as an adult to child #unhinged dick grayson #unhinged tim drake

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genericpuff · 6 months

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All That Glitters is Not Feminism - An Analysis of LO's Brand of "Feminism" and What Remains of its Fanbase (The Twist)

Alright y'all, I've been waiting a hot minute to talk about this because I wanted to see how it fully panned out before saying anything about it. And it's not even specifically about LO, but I do think it's very adjacent to it in a way that I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear. Much of it speaks to how we prop up white writers even at the expense of POC.

This is 'the twist' attached to my first post that I made just a couple hours ago that concerns an entirely other topic but I feel ties into this subject very well.

If you haven't heard, there's this author who recently fucked around in the Del Rey publishing scene.

Her name is Cait Corrain.

In the original tweet calling this person out, names were not dropped, but it was made very clear that what Cait did was unacceptable behavior.

You can read the entire thread that started it all from Xiran here:

There's also a GREAT recap thread from one of the affected authors, Bethany Baptiste:

I want to make it clear that Cait Corrain isn't just a debut author.

Cait Corrain is - or now, was (foreshadowing is a literary device that-) - a debut author who had an agent, a publishing deal with Del Rey (an imprint of Random House which is a MAJOR publisher) and even an upcoming Illumicrate deal - meaning, her book was going to be packaged in a monthly loot crate subscription shipped directly to people's doors, quite possibly one of the best marketing deals a debut author could ever get, usually unheard of in this industry. All the pre-reviews were strong and positive.

Cait's book was literally set up for success. All she had to do was sit back, relax, and watch the fruits of her labors roll in. She had written the book. It was ready for release. The hard part was technically over.

But I guess the racism brainrot got to her because as it turns out, since April - for EIGHT MONTHS - she's been making alternate accounts on GoodReads to review bomb the indie and debut works of her friends and peers, most of whom were POC and did not have the same opportunities set up for them as she did. There are loads of receipts to back this up that you can find in those above threads ^^^

To say that this is appalling is an understatement. This was an intentional and deliberate act of racism by a white queer writer who claimed to be "jealous" - of what, I can't imagine - so much so that she deliberately sabotaged her peers, people who had supported her and her book.

And then when she got caught? She doubled down on it and claimed it was a "friend", also an alternate account she made up.

The exchange between her and this made-up person is actually the funniest shit out of this entire thing, it's so poorly written and as soon as people noticed the time stamps were out of order, that was when it truly cemented her newfound clown status.

"oooooh he's standing right behind me, isn't he?" energy right here LMAO

yes keep expositing cait, that's really selling the "this is a genuine conversation that really happened with a real person" bit 🤡

Anyways, it became abundantly clear that Cait was just going to continue to dig her heels in over something she caused.

This has been a hot topic in the UnpopularLO Discord, not just because of how crazy of a situation it is that we had to talk about it - and we have people within the community who work in the literature and media sector - but because we noticed one very telling thing in the list of series that she had review bombed in her very own personal act of wrath.

You see, Cait made one fundamental mistake that led to her undoing - she didn't just review bomb the works of her peers, she positively reviewed her own book and others.

What's her book about though?

It's an Ariadne x Dionysus retelling set in space.

It's literally another "modern retelling" of Greek myth.

And wouldn't you know it, guess who else created a modern retelling of Greek myth that she included in her positive review raiding while she was sabotaging the work of her actual peers?

Now, I think it goes without saying that what I'm about to say should be taken with MOUNTAINS of salt, I'm sure a lot of you are reading the headline and going, "Ugh, really? You're gonna make this about LO? Could you give it a rest already???"

I need you to understand, with the current state of Rachel's fanbase and 'modern' Greek myth literature as a whole, at this point Lore Olympus - and the works that are literally inspired by it such as A Touch of Darkness - has basically become the shopping cart litmus test of basic decency. It's like when someone says they like Harry Potter - you can't take it automatically at good faith anymore, because there isn't a whole lot separating someone who simply liked Harry Potter as a kid and still rewatches the movies from time to time from someone who fully supports the politics and agenda of J.K. Rowling. No, not everyone who still watches the movies or reads the books fondly is a TERF by default, but it's justifiably a reason for suspicion when the consequences are often too dire to risk.

There's this thing that's been happening in the LO fanbase that I frankly saw coming, but has really recently started to hit its peak. It's what I call the "Kanye Effect", where the comic has become so absurd and backwards in its misogyny and white feminism that the only people who seem to be left supporting LO are the people who are legitimate white feminists and misogynists - because all the normal level-headed people fell off the comic ages ago (or transitioned into the critical side of the community).

I mentioned it in my last post, but it bears repeating - Rachel's fanbase has literally been shipping Hera, a victim of abuse, with her abuser, Kronos. I'm really hoping a lot of them realize how fucked up that is now that Hera herself has called it what it is - abuse - within the comic, but I also can't count on the LO fanbase picking up on that or even noticing it with how quickly people swipe through it each week, it's very apparent at this point that most of LO's readers don't know how to chew their food and don't pay attention when Persephone and Hades aren't onscreen.

But I'm digressing. Or am I? We're talking about Crown of Starlight after all. The debut Dionysus x Ariadne sci-fi/fantasy romance that was quite literally advertised using Lore Olympus as its baseline-

This. This is what the ongoing cultural erasure and white feminist uwu-fication of Greek myth is doing to the literary zeitgeist surrounding Greek myth as a whole. This is why we criticize Lore Olympus and works like it that are created by disingenuous people who only seek to use the assets of Greek myth material as a way to shoot themselves up into fame and stardom. This is why we demand better standards in the literature and webcomic industry, so that people like Rachel and Cait can't use their privileges to quite literally erase the source material that they used to make themselves famous in the first place.

If anything, Cait's actions didn't just affect the people she negatively review bombed, or the people she was affiliated with, but also the people she positively reviewed. While I don't support what Rachel creates, she wasn't the only one who Cait went out of her way to review positively from her alt accounts, there were many others as evident in the Google Doc - but all this really does is tarnish the legitimacy of these books and their ratings by artificially jacking up their numbers that are advertised to others.

Making Greek myth fanfiction or fun creative retellings was never the problem, but it's now being sabotaged alongside so many other genres and mediums by toxic white individuals who can't even keep themselves from committing hate crimes, let alone create something purely for entertainment that's transparent in its illegitimacy, lest it destroy the illusion that these people are qualified to speak over those whose voices are being stifled, often by these very same people. Many of these writers get caught and are still allowed to continue what they're doing - that was certainly what we feared with Cait.

Until today.

It was revealed today that Cait's book will no longer be featured in the Illumicrate May 2024 box.

Del Rey has dropped Crown of Starlight from their publishing schedule.

Daphne Press will be hopefully following suit.

And, most telling of all, Cait's own agent has severed ties with her.

For anyone not familiar with the inner workings of the publishing industry, Cait has essentially been blacklisted. Without an agent or a publishing house, she'll have to entirely rely on her own resources through self-publishing. Unless she manages to sneak her way back in under an alias (which I wouldn't put it past her to try) she no longer has access to the mainstream publishing industry that was already guaranteed for her before she let her 'jealousy' get the better of her.

Her career was already made for her. She had a red carpet laid out for her debut. Her book was getting good pre-reviews and she had quite literally nothing keeping her from her success. The best thing she could have done was nothing. Somewhere in her head, she made up a threat that didn't exist, and sealed her fate in acting on it, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think in these situations such as with Cait Corrain, Rachel Smythe, and - also recently and relevant - James Somerton, we need to become increasingly aware of how white voices are still overpowering POC voices, not just in their actions, but in the opportunities they're given over others which they then use to further stifle the voices of those they feel "threatened" by or feel entitled to speak over. While neither James nor Rachel have used sock puppet accounts to "take out the competition" (at least as far as we know lmao) James did quite literally steal the words and voices of queer writers who were deserving of their time in the spotlight, and Rachel's work is being quoted as "rewriting Greek myth" as if its blatant gentrification and appropriation should be marketed as some sort of positive.

It's all too common for these deeply-rooted prejudices to rear their ugly heads and for the people who carry them to act out in this way while justifying it as "jealousy" or "a mistake". This isn't jealousy. This isn't a mistake. This isn't someone "starting drama". This is genuine, targeted hate, with the intention of snuffing out the voices of others who should be empowered, not silenced.

All that time and effort, and for what? Racism and petty jealousy? It just goes to show, it doesn't matter how many opportunities you're given, how high up on the ladder you already are - it won't fix the deeply-rooted insecurity and racial pettiness that spurs people on to do such horrible things.

I've spent enough of my time and words today talking about Cait, and James, and Rachel. So to end this off, I want to join in with all the others who have highlighted the books that were review-bombed by Cait, and help in uplifting them so they can have successful debuts. I'll be pre-ordering a few of them, so I'll be happy to make dedicated posts for them in the future after they release. Please consider purchasing them for yourself if you want some new reading material <3

The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste:

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole:

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X Chang:

Mistress of Lies by K.M. Enright

Voyage of the Damned by Frances White:

(I'm sure there are plenty others so if I missed any here, please let me know so I can add them here and check out their books!)

If there's any silver lining to this, I hope that it makes people aware of the media they consume and who it's being created by. I hope it makes people more willing to seek out the books that aren't getting the same opportunities as Cait Corrain and Rachel Smythe. I hope it's a wake-up call to the industry that matters like this need to be taken seriously and that POC writers are still being silenced under their own noses. And most of all, I hope it's a reminder that we shouldn't even need at this point that this behavior is not okay, no matter what level a person climbs to - that just because someone is part of one minority doesn't mean they're not capable of sabotaging another. It sucks that that has to be said, it sucks that despite these groups being so intersectional there are still people within them who submit to their deeply-rooted insecurities and find ways to feel threatened that they use to justify hateful behavior.

Having a platform is a privilege. It should never be weaponized against your own peers or those who you simply feel "threatened" by for no reason beyond your own imposter syndrome or doubts or internal struggles. Because as much as you may feel like you've earned where you are, that never gives you the right to weaponize your opportunities against others who were never given those same opportunities in the first place. "Feminism" is not using your power to crush "other women". "Progressiveness" is not exclusive to the progress that only benefits you.

I wish only the best to those who were affected by the actions of Cait Corrain. You deserve to be heard and seen and appreciated for the work you do and the abuse you've had to tolerate. I look forward to your debuts in 2024 <3

#cait corrain #support POC writers #crown of starlight #the poisons we drink #so let them burn #the voyage of the damned #mistress of lies #say isn't it funny how all the debut books cait tried to sabotage accurately describe her and her actions LOL #that's what we call irony #debut authors 2024 #booktok #webtoon critical #lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus

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canisalbus · 6 months

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To me, Machete kind of has the energy of a secondary villain/coldhearted side character in someone else's story that a lot of fans latch onto, moreso than the protagonist. Question is, would he be the villain in anyone's story?

Why, thank you! I'm actually glad to hear he gives off that vibe. I don't think he set out to become a villain but a lot of people certainly view him as one.

#in the 16th century canon he starts out as an introverted but sincerely well meaning guy that never quite manages to find his social niche #he was a sensitive kid and when subjected to enough pressure #his insecurity fearfulness and powerlessness mutate into distrust resentment aggression suffocating repression and self-restraint #I don't think he's a bad person in fact he consistently tries very hard to do the right thing #do his job properly avoid letting people down and get through life with a sense of dignity #but he is supposed to come across kind of cold impersonable and difficult to be around if you don't know him personally (and very few do)#people can sense there's something wrong with him and are put off by it #Vatican is a nest of vipers and as the stakes rise he retreats deeper into his coldblooded untouchable work persona #he has no choice but to start lying scheming blackmailing and eliminating his enemies #in order to maintain his position keep Vasco safe their relationship under wraps and his own head above water #essentially playing by the same rules everyone else in the holy see has been playing with for centuries #eventually he loses his spot as the secretary of state and is manipulated/forced to take on a role in the roman inquisition #and if people were sort of iffy about him before being the authority overseeing trials torture excommunications and executions doesn't help #and since he has so few allies and such an infamous reputation he's an easy target for scapegoating whenever necessary #towards the end it dawns on him that he's become the kind of twisted cruel corrupt person he used to fear and despise #and the guilt moral injury and abject self-loathing had largely sapped him of his will to live by the time the final assassin gets him #answered #anonymous #Machete #Vaschete lore #he thought his dream of priesthood would make him a better person more worthy of admiration safety and love but he climbed too high #and got roped up in the dangerous games that take place under god's nose and slowly got strangled to death

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canon-gabriel-quotes · 2 days

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Transcript:

Machine... I told you I wouldn't handle that they/it robussy.

Audio source

#it took. all my strength. to not just name this one after that one fic #I kind of did it anyway #hi author. i think you hang around here. thank you for rewiring my brain #this one had a bit of an audio glitch. i tried my best to fix it #suggestive #ultrakill #gabriel ultrakill

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hallasammal · 2 days

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>"You're... a ghost?" "... I am, aren't I...? Sure. Kind of. And this tree is my grave. Let's say that." (So, then...) >"Whose ghost are you?"

Isatmonth entry 5. Ghost

I thought about drawing the actual ghosts or MDP, but this line has been living rent free in my head since my first playthrough. Though, i think the direction i ended up going is pretty vague...

#isatmonth #isat #in stars and time #isat spoilers #isat loop #yeah so just to be clear the skeleton is not meant to be isat siffrin but like. loop's old self. you know #though that's just the intention. death of the author and all that #also my first time trying out digital art in a while! i'm so rusty ughh #the background still looks unfinished but WHATEVER: nothing i tried looked good and i lost my patience so. here it is #isat two hats

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lord-squiggletits · 3 months

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I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

#squiggposting #pharma apologism #i'm sure the doylist reason for the writing is just that pharma was a designated villain #so since he's a villain and 'crazy' it's fine for everyone even the good guys to treat him like complete trash #i just think from a watsonian perspective taking a sympathetic approach is way more interesting and logically consistent #what i mean is like. from a meta perspective one of the best ways to show that a character is super evil and not worth saving #is when even the good guy heroes. the ones who are supposed to be kind and compassionate and wise. see him as dirt #and this is also kind of a necessity in most plots bc TF is the kind of series that just needs action villains and long-term antagonists #so not every villain is written or has a plot to be made redeemable. and pharma is one of these bc he's not important or a legacy character #so from a doylist (meta) perspective you could read the autobots' disregard of pharma as a sign of #'this guy is not meant to have your sympathy as a reader. pay no attention to him'#but from a watsonian (in universe) perspective it paints a miserable picture of pharma being utterly forsaken by the ppl he served alongsid #and like yeah i'm super autistic about pharma so of course i view him with sympathy but like #the idea of being a loyal and good person for years only to be subjected to a Torment Nexus of #being blackmailed into breaking all of the oaths you held sacred. under threat of you and all your comrades dying horrible torturous deaths #then when your comrades find out about it they focus solely on the 'harvesting organs' and not on the 'blackmail' part #and then you get literally left for dead by your comrades and best friend hating your guts #and then you get rescued by a guy who uses you as a test subject for his evil machine #this is a fucking nightmare scenario like pharma could hardly be suffering more if the author TRIED to make him suffer #and for me it's like. the evil pharma did can't be decontextualized to what drove him to that. as well as the question of like #how easily ppl can write someone off as evil and turn a blind eye to (or even find satisfaction in) their suffering bc theyre evil #and either brought it on themselves or it's just karma paying a visit #like. i feel like if pharma WERE a shitty doctor and a terrible person his whole life then the delphi situation would feel like karma #but the way it's written and the lore retroactively put in makes it feel more pharma getting thrown in a torture carousel #and THEN becoming evil. but then being treated as if he was always evil or was some sort of bad apple #bc like i'm not opposed to LOLing when a villain gets a karmic torture/death related to the wrongs they committed #but in pharma's case it feels less like karma and more like endless torture + being abandoned by ppl who should have been more loyal

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