#think pan

my brain keeps thinking about Soul and Heart pacts in Gods Calamity and the side effects of being a vessel for a crowned bishop

like the effects of the crown are often explored but i think it’d be funny silly if you experienced the Horrors (tm) in which you go through multiple growth pains, your body decided to go through metamorphosis but then went “mm, nah, let’s go back i want a different form” and forced your body to go back to a silly little lamb, and also you CAN have children but the process will probably not be normal and you will regret making the decision because birthing a god is not a simple process and also your spouse is not even a cat he’s an eldritch abomination

Heart Pacts ensure that you are one with your bonded god/vessel and that’s gay as hell sure but i think it could drive someone insane to know what someone else is thinking about them all the time, everyday, of every week and every second. You feel their pain and they feel yours so you’re forced to be vulnerable and let your guard down and you know what they’re going to do when that happens. sometimes gods are Not the Best (see: greek, norse, etc. mythology) and they Will fuck you up and abuse this little heart pact. And sometimes they’ll corner you in your silly little lamb outfit and stare you down and you’ll wonder why your heart’s racing and when Narinder smiles you’re like Oh Fuck He Wants To Hunt and you have a 3 second window before he pounces.

Soul Pacts are weirdly funny to me because it could amount to nothing in the end if you just straight up die. ‘Vessel don’t die’ and then they die and you have to start from Zero just to regain all the lost progress you made with your funny little bird. Shamura why’d you pick a BIRD of all people come on bucko. And then you tell them if you die then they’ll become a god and they stare at you with the biggest, more disgusting eyes in the world and go ‘You Won’t Die :)’ and you don’t know how to fucking feel about it because What Do You Mean By That and they don’t elaborate and proceed to tell you love ballads in the form of scripture and you just have to live with that. You literally go This Alliance Could Be Broken if One Of Us Dies and they go Guess We’ll Defy Death Then :) and you’re mortified by their commitment (you totally don’t have commitment issues and this won’t be talked about in couple’s therapy)

Lady Bone Demon from Monkie Kid, Emperor Belos from The Owl House, Su Daji from Investiture of the Gods, and so many more. Even Azure Lion is interesting because we've never had a character be written so antagonistic in a way where he tries to make you see him in a positive light? When the narrative tells you he is good and misunderstood and does these things because he cares but then you realize... if he wanted to do something good, he could have. He could have. He was a celestial with the power to go against the Jade Emperor - and you tell me he wasn't able to help the mortal realm as is?

We see him build an entire palace and area for people to thrive in and then we see it in ruins and that is so interesting.

We see Emperor Belos be this weird, fucked up man who in the end dies in the most horrible way possible — I think about the way he is written everyday, I think about the fact he was just fucked up and mentally unwell and unable to see himself in the wrong and he was too far gone for the show to try and fix him in such little time. But he was so well-written and left such an interesting perspective to me on how modern day villains are portrayed.

Su Daji was acting out on orders from Nuwa and she was so fucking cruel and it was wonderful to see her slowly start overtaking the empire of King Zhou and make her way to the top and be brutal the entire time. It was awesome. It was wonderful. It made me want to learn more about her, made me excited when she appeared on the page; and she was such a good villain to boot. Such a good villain that modern media still use her for antagonists (see: the Poppy War books)

Macaque did a lot of terrible things to MK and the crew and while he was acting out because he didn't have a choice, he still chose to go that route and still actively went far into his role of being the antagonist and it was good and enjoyable.

I do adore the LMK villains, I adore how they're written and how they're handled and I will adore the future villain characters when they show up even if they're not redeemed by the narrative. If they show me the hundred-eyed-demon or something and he ends up being the most absolute worst character they have introduced, I will happily add him to my collection of favorite characters solely because I know they'll treat him well.