𝐗𝐗𝐗𝐕𝐈𝐈. Birth of a thought made manifest in human flesh —Dáinsleif's origins—.

◜The Winged One's regret or remorse gave birth to a thought, and as he imagined the path that could have been taken, a new soul was born.◞

As a result of the war waged against the Second Who Came, Nibelung and the ensuing chaos with the leaking Forbidden Knowledge that had to be subdued lest the world was plunged into darkness, thus left with no chances for survival, Phanes' functions were ruined and could no longer use their absolute authority to suppress the original order of this world. In combination with his severely wounded state, the Usurper glimpsed into the wrongs of his deeds and the ones bound to come after if he were to be deteriorated further due to the influence of the Forbidden Knowledge, the loathing and resentments of the world or other forces that could take advantage of his weakened state.

He who loved his human creations more than anyone, and He who cursed the gods to come after to love humans saw himself mired in hypocrisy the moment his creations were at disadvantage the most and were kept in the highest regard no longer due to his own decisions' and that of his closest circle, who should follow his will. Thus in a moment of weakness and lucidity, his regret gave birth to a thought— to a what if. What if things were different, what if his initial desire continued without struggling against the vicissitudes and personal agendas, what if he was stronger to not let himself be corrupted to this point of apparent no return.

What if he could undo everything that made his sacred plans evil.

From these last thoughts was Dáinsleif born as a soul, nurtured in a seed in Irminsul's benevolent aura out of its kindness and will for the world to cease fighting against its own natural orders and to diminish the loathing and resentments of the world that the Primordial One has caused. One day of the countless moons this seed basked under the moonlight and Irminsul's might, he was born in the material world in Celestia as a human, a manifestation of the origins never known by others of Phanes' closest circle until divine's eyes fell upon him. Unrest was among them, yet only muted at the knowledge that they could do with him as they pleased. So repeating the cycle of a once heiress of Celestia that failed in her task to retrieve the Pearl of Genesis and believed herself to be the queen of the kingdom of darkness, Dáinsleif was sent there with the intent to erase his memories of any ties he could have to Celestia.

Thus he would have no connection with the divine, nor his actions would suppose betrayal to any— for it is them who betrayed them first, abandoned him to his fortune. Unbeknownst to them, he who they abandoned would be the one to silence the source of all sins in the deepest abyss and undo the wrongs that began with the greatest Usurper, as well as reweaving all threads of fate.

It would all begin in Khaenri'ah, where Dáinsleif has drifted with a mission he recalls no more, and where he would mature his views of the world, limited at the time as they may be. His love for humanity and pursuit to defend them limitless as the Primordial Sea from where all life is born, even if his personal beliefs about the laws set in the kingdom and its deeds may differ drastically from what it would be expected of anyone who arrives to the kingdom established along the roots of Irminsul.

Hate to say it, but I am a Severus Snape hater

I've had a crush on my friends, and they dated someone I didn't approve of... but I never called my friend a slur cause of it

astarion is so vtm-coded im tired of not saying it

"unable to disobey his maker, he was forced to seduce and bring home pretty young things for his master to feed/do wild bloodmagic experiments on and any infraction results in torture funtimes" is classic vtm bloodbonded sire and childe. literally at least three clans could and would do this. "his bond of obedience has been MAGICALLY BROKEN and he's hunting for a way to secure his freedom forever and extract revenge" ok, baby sabbat.

also, the idea of him skulking around TAVERNS makes me laugh every time it comes up. like. no babes. you belong in a laser-lights early 00s industrial rave nightclub. he can even keep his camp clothes on and not be out of place.

his twisted relationship with sex and violence is also ground-floor vtm. everything is violent. everything is murky shades of grey. everything is sexy. masks upon masks upon layers of lies and broken identity.

he's just a lil boy who wants to have fun.

sure sure sure. "bad coping mechanisms" but his story isn't about dumping them, it's about freedom.

he hurts people to feel good. he's sadistic and has a level of excitement around blood and gore that's distinctly Uncomfy. he's a bully, a racist, and a selfish dirtbag who can't see beyond "me and mine" as ppl worthy to consider or care about. don't tie yourself in knots trying to talk your way out of your fave being "bad". the fandom police won't come for you. just EMBRACE IT.

sorry for speaking my truth it will happen again. i think my main issue with valax’s redemption arc is literally just that there’s never a moment where the mc gets to actually talk to her about what she did—there’s not really a cathartic conversation, so valax and mc moving past what she did to them feels less like forgiveness and redemption and more like an agreement to ignore the elephant in the room

like sure we got to talk about our trauma (in chapter 17 of 20. lol. lmao, even) to the party, but valax wasn’t present for that?? and like, sure, she says once that she is sorry “for the pain she caused [them]”, but there’s a difference Tew Me between “sorry for hurting you ig ✌️😗” and actually being like “yeah, i abducted you and forced you into a magically induced coma and stole your blood and robbed you of a full year of your life and repeatedly tried to murder you, to say nothing of the grief i caused your loved ones. i did all that shit and i’m sorry for it and deeply regret it, and i acknowledge that you don’t owe me forgiveness, but i will spend the rest of my life working to build a better world for my people instead of being my mother’s pawn”, and a difference between “my mother is unhappy with me for saving you :(” and actually like, giving the mc space to talk about the impact of her actions towards them. like girl you are not getting out of this shit with one sentence’s worth of apology and a sex scene lmfao!!!

during the first half or so of the book the focus for mc is not falling the fuck apart bc they have a friend group to tentatively piece together and they’re averse to showing fear in front of valax, so they’re repressing all their trauma—and by the time valax joins the party, the narrative has gone full Valax Cool And Good mode, and fully allows you to flirt with her and tease her and generally stops taking her seriously as an antagonist. which would be all fine and good if we had actually at any point gotten to be like, “hey, you abducting me and keeping me in a magically induced coma and stealing my blood and trying to kill me has actually caused me a lot of lasting fear and pain,” followed by some set of choices wrt forgiving or not forgiving her for all that in light of the revelation that she did all that shit bc her mom tortured and brainwashed her

like why are my friends more pissed off about the time this bitch abducted me and did evil little experiments on me than i am. free valax she did all that shit bc of her mommy issues but i should’ve gotten to call her a cunt just once. pb stop making all your mcs generals in the idgaf war challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

i love zuko. he's my favourite character (though the others aren't that far behind - he like. inches ahead of them by a small margin) but i've read too many instances where people bastardize aang, katara and sokka for being "mean" to him - something he so rightly deserves.

i mean from the moment they met zuko had tormented them. stalked them. attacked them. destroyed almost everything in his path just to get to aang. aang, sokka and katara are justified in their "mistreatment" and distrust of zuko.

the only reason we sympathize with him is because we saw him go through that transformation, we saw the reason why he is the way that he is, we saw him confront his father and realize that the war is wrong. the last time they saw zuko, he had a chance to join them, and instead he attacked them, joined his sister (who was also attacking and stalking them) and took over ba sing se.

they have every right to treat him the way that they did in the western air temple (and compared to what zuko did to them, there is no competition.)

Work is bad and life is hard but sometimes you wake up to beautifully rendered art of your gremlin getting owned by his best friend and a finger trap and then everything is beautiful and okay again

once again minecraft fans be mad for all the wrong reasons

I’ve barely paid attention to YJ this season as I largely fell out of love with it last season and mostly just want to stay caught up (though I still missed like, half of this season lmfao, I’m so good at things like staying caught up, How DO I do it).....

But I’m both LOL at the corner YJ’s managed to write themselves into and a little bit Crankypants myself.

Like first off, I think its absolutely hilarious that the way YJ approached this season, with each of the mains having their own individual arc of episodes, and leaving Dick’s arc to close the season out......they uh, kiiiiiiinda shot themselves in the foot with three long-running plotlines.

See, this season is all about Conner being missing and presumed dead, and this final arc is about Dick leading the investigation/hunt to find him and bring him back once and for all, right?

Which would be fine except that storyline makes it very hard for fans to forget that like.....there’s another presumed dead character who while having ties to multiple other characters, definitely has a special spot in Dick’s relationships and thus storylines....and that fans have been waiting and EXPECTING to eventually come back, for years now:

Wally West.

And of course, on top of that there’s the added problem that there’s ANOTHER presumed dead character who while having ties to multiple other characters blah blah blah special spot in Dick’s relationships and thus storylines, yada yada yada....fans have been waiting and EXPECTING to eventually come back, for years now:

Jason Todd.

See what I’m getting at? No matter what they do, UNLESS Young Justice closes out this season with ALL THREE characters returning now in the last four episodes of the season, all during Dick’s arc.....YJ’s gonna inevitably leave some fans pissed off or disappointed because like, they wanted their fave or their desired reunion.

And like, what are the odds that the show is actually going to close out the exact same plotline, THREE TIMES OVER, all at the same time, within the same span of episodes?

We might get two of the three, but all three? Not likely.

But the sheer breadth of similarities between the storylines, the obvious parallels and overlap, makes it kinda unrealistic for fans not to hope that that’s where they’re going with things.

There’s also the added element that each of the individual arcs this season have progressed the overall story about Conner AS well as giving each of the mains each arc has centered around like, their own individual plot. Zatanna’s arc had stuff about her and her father, and her growth as a mentor herself. Rocket’s arc was about her relationships, particularly with her son. Artemis’ arc had a strong focus on her relationship with Cheshire, etc, etc.

So it doesn’t help that so far, in the first episode of Dick’s arc, the focus has JUST been on the Conner storyline and bringing everyone else together under the banner of closing out that greater season-arc, with Dick in the leadership position and heading the charge.....

But without any real nod towards Dick’s own individual storylines. So one episode into his individual arc, and there’s already a lack of focus on him as an individual....meaning there’s that much more work for the rest of the episodes to do, IF they’re to actually give Dick his own focus and storyline outside of just his role in the season-long arc.

And that means....likely leaning into or building on legwork the show’s already done elsewhere throughout its entirety, falling back on pre-existing dynamics or storylines already established for Dick....like his feelings about Wally or Jason and what their losses did to him, the toll they took, and thus how their returns would impact him and/or the lengths he would go to see them returned.

But again....doing it with BOTH characters, at the same time? Not likely. So whatever way you look at it, its like YJ has primed fans to HOPE for, and even EXPECT, a resolution to one of those long-running storylines, the deaths of either Wally West or Jason Todd.....with a real unlikelihood that they have any intention of delivering on BOTH, at the same time.

And that’s a very interesting....choice, I gotta say.

._.

Cutting meat out of your diet is so much easier than people make it out to be. And you don’t even have to replace it by eating a shit ton of soy or anything. People act like it’s such a bigger deal than it actually is

*slides into your DMs* hey babe so are you a "life has been unfair to and filled with abuse" traumatized or a "consumed by loss regret and guilt" traumatized?

Yet another beautiful day to have the Maxwel tag blocked (can't see half of the posts in the Wendy tags)

john green quit tumblr because of the cock monologue

No, he didn’t.

This all happened a long time ago, and my memory is imperfect, but here’s my memory: The cock monologue certainly hurt my feelings! But when people are trying to force someone out of a virtual space, they sometimes resort to behavior that is similar to bullying except it’s not completely identical to bullying because the person they’re making fun of has a lot of power. (As someone who got bullied a lot in school, the feeling was similar in 2014 but it wasn’t identical--because I was aware of the fact that I was okay, that what was in danger was certain aspects of my identity/self-value that I treasured but not my entire personhood itself.)

Anyway, it hurt my feelings, and still hurts my feelings when I see it shared (it feels to me like a joke about my sexuality, although I understand other people don’t see it that way; but yeah, you don’t know much about my sexuality and I don’t really want you to but it feels like a joke about that to me, which just bums me out). 

But all of that stuff is a side effect of my job and having been successful at it, and I like my job. It is a great job. All jobs have aspects that suck. My job has fewer such aspects than other jobs I’ve had.

So yeah, I did not quit tumblr because of the cock monologue. (I also did not ask tumblr to make reblogs un-editable.) .

I quit tumblr because a few people started to make extremely specific threats. One might, for instance, send me an ask that featured a google streetview screenshot of my home alongside a plan for breaking into it.

I was super scared of these people (or possible person pretending to be a few people?) because they seemed to have a lot of knowledge about me and my family. We lived in a normal middle-class neighborhood in Indianapolis and I felt very exposed and nervous all the time in my real life, and eventually the freaked-out feeling just got too big and that’s why I quit tumblr.

(Edited to add: I am aware that prominent people sometimes use death threats against them to portray themselves as victims and protect themselves against justified criticism for their bigotry or abusive behavior or whatever. I don’t want to do that; it’s important to note that I have a lot of resources and power and so was able to, for instance, move to decrease the threat, which a lot of people can’t do. But I also feel like not talking about the experience honestly has not really helped me or anyone.)

I SHOULD’VE quit tumblr much earlier--I needed to realize that people weren’t comfortable with me in their virtual spaces and that to them I came across as cringey or even creepy, but at the time, I wasn’t nearly self-aware enough to leave for any of those reasons, and plus there was a lot of pressure from movie studios etc to stay on the social Internet so I could continue to promote my books and the stuff around them. So I didn’t quit when I should’ve, and as a result had and caused quite a few negative experiences for people. I’m sorry about the role I had in causing those negative experiences. I should’ve had a better understanding of not just how I experienced myself but also how other people might experience me. That’s something i’ve worked on over the years but still come up short on sometimes.

At any rate, I might delete this later because it makes me feel a bit like all my nerves are exposed to the air but I did just want to clarify that the, like, Tumblr Legend of this whole thing is at minimum a bit over simplified. 

thinking abt Showtime Henry and Joey ngl, they might be some of my favorite characters I have.

You are really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really REALLY g-

Ah, finally hit the word count limit! Nice! It's been almost a year now. A card I made for this week's contest:

inspired by and as a direct follow up to this post by @strangersteddierthings:

Eddie is horrified. He remembers the day Steve is referring to, though clearly not as well as Steve does. He calls out as Steve raced up the stairs and hears his door slam.

“Fuck.” He stares blankly at the wall in front of him. He can’t believe things went so bad so quickly. He’s been trying to get to know Steve better, get closer and damn if he didn’t just blow the hole thing. He’d shown up early, told Steve he needed to prepare as an excuse to spend some time with him. Despite everything that happened over spring break, Steve had remained guarded, standoffish no matter what Eddie tried. At least now he knew why. He’d fucked things up before he’d known there was something to fuck up.

He feels even worse about calling him a bully. Sure, Steve had looked the other way and even laughed at some of the mean jokes others had made, but he was far from the worst. That dubious award went to Billy Hargrove, but even without him, there was plenty of people who did far worse than Steve did. Especially because Steve is right. He did hit first, metaphorically at least. He can justify it all he wants as trying to protect himself, but that doesn’t make it right. Steve all but admitted that as he said the same thing. He feels nauseous at the realization that maybe he was just as bad as those he decried. That for all his talk about accepting outcasts and defying convention, he was just as prejudiced. Swallowing hard, he heads back to the dining room and looks at the clock. There is no way he is going to be able to run the campaign today. He’s not going to be able to focus or even play without thinking about how things might have been if he hadn’t driven Steve off all those years ago. He grabs the phone and dials Gareth’s number. “Emerson house, Sheryl speaking.” “Hi Mrs. Emerson, it’s Eddie.” Eddie is proud that he manages to keep his voice even. “Is Gareth there?” “Oh, yes! Let me go get him for you.” “Thanks Mrs. Emerson.” Eddie focuses on breathing while he waits. “Eddie? Hey man, what’s up?” Eddie breathes out. “Hey Gareth. Look, I know its last minute, but we’re gonna have to postpone Hellfire. Something came up.” He could hear Gareth’s frown through the phone. “Postpone? What happened, did Harrington do something?” As if he couldn’t feel worse. “Nah. I’ll explain later, but can you call Jeff and Frank, let them know? I gotta call the freshman, too.” “Alright, but I’m going to hold you to that.” “Fair enough. Talk to you tomorrow.” Eddie promises before hanging up. He weighs his options for how to tell the Party. Eventually, he decides on calling Mike, know that the younger teen won’t push too much. He’s dialing the Wheeler home before he can second guess his decision. “This is Mike.” Eddie feels a rush of gratitude that Mike is the one who answered, rather than Nancy or one of their parents. “Hey Mike, it’s Eddie. Listen, Steve’s not feeling great and having Hellfire here isn’t going to help. Can you call the rest of the Party, let them know we’re gonna move it to another day? I’ll keep an eye on Steve.” Eddie knows Mike is a confused, given how adamant he’s been in the past about not canceling or moving Hellfire, but as he expected, Mike accepts what he says at face value. “Sure. Need us to bring anything?” “Nah, I’ve got it. Pretty sure he just needs some peace and quiet so he can rest. But thanks.” They say their goodbyes and Eddie puts the phone back on the hook.  With that done, he checks that the door is locked and faces the stairs. Now for the hard part. He’s not sure what he’s going to say, if there is anything he can say that will fix this, but he has to try. Even if doesn’t change things between him and Steve, Steve deserves at least that much. Every step feels like it takes effort, chest heavy with guilt, but it only takes him a few moments to get to Steve’s door. It’s closed, which doesn’t surprise him. He takes a moment to gather his thoughts before knocking. Nothing. “Steve?” If it wasn’t for the quiet sound of Steve’s breathing he could hear through the door, Eddie would think he had left. He glad that he at least didn’t drive Steve out of his own home. He rests his forehead on the door. “I’m sorry.” Eddie hopes Steve can hear how much he means it. “You’re right, I fucked up. I made an assumption and took out my anger at other people on you. And that wasn’t fair and it’s not okay. But I want you to know that I’m sorry. Even if it wasn’t you, I shouldn’t have done that.” He lets out a hysterical laugh as he realizes - “And despite that, you still humor the kids when they talk about D&D and agreed to let us play here and didn’t punch me in the face, which makes you a better man than I.” He falls silent, listens as Steve’s breathing slows. He isn’t sure how long he stands there. He wonders how many other people he hurt this way, without even realizing. Knows he wants to do better, be better. He sighs, feeling his shoulders slump. “Anyway, I canceled Hellfire for today. I told everyone something came up, don’t worry about that. I’ll make up some story, make sure they know its not your fault. And uh,  let me know if you want to hang out again or something. I know I’ve been around a lot; didn’t realize that I was making you so uncomfortable, which is probably another thing I should apologize for. Anyway. Yeah. I’ll see you around, okay?” He waits a moment for an answer, but when none comes, he backs away from the door and walks downstairs to gather his stuff. It hurts, but he knows Steve deserves space and to be the one to initiate contact. He has some thinking to do, anyway.