#vamp posts

Cronan slowly walked up to the stage, his hands shaking as unsheathed the sacrificial dagger in his robe's pocket. His fearful face hid behind a deep red mask with their cultist symbol etched into it so that he could see.

Looking out into the crowd, hundreds of people, young and old, stood in the gallows and steps of the colosseum-like stadium, and as Cronan looked back down, a banquet table stretched out in front of him.

It was lined with a beautiful white lace cloth, and on top was plate upon plate of different delicacies; steamed livers and grilled muscles and fried intestines, creating a gory and delicious scene of an Overlord's diet in front of him.

And, dead center, was his sister, lying with her feet and claws tied to the table, her fangs removed and her robes taken away in turn of fake, unsharp teeth and a lace white gown the exact color of the cloth beneath it.

Cronan could tell Celandine had trouble speaking by the way she moved her mouth to do so. The silent hums of the crowd almost covered up her pained whisper.

We need to get out of here. Please don't kill me. Please.

Cronan could feel his mother towering over him, right behind him, and his brother to his side, trying not to meet either of their eyes.

We were supposed to escape, Cronan. We were supposed to get out of here, and then I was chosen, and--...

His mother moved forward to give her sacred speech, one which used to give Cronan hope and joy and now only left him with bile bubbling in his throat.

We were supposed to go to the real world, or to whatever world we could find. Supposed to crawl our way out of these rings and find a new home. A home that wouldn't kill us for stupid reasons like an unholy god that barely speaks to us and probably barely exists.

The speech kept going on in the background. Everything other than Celandine's voice turned to an incessant droning of staticky white noise.

We can make it out of this somehow, Cronan. I don't have to die, y-you don't have to execute me-- we can run away together!! Cronan, Celandine, and Cerberin, everyone's favorite Overseer siblings? The heirs to the throne? The- the ones all of the peasants and guards and townspeople love? Loved?

His mother stepped back from her speech and went behind the table once more. Cronan stood silently. His hands shook, his legs shook, he couldn't bring himself to move, to speak, let alone sacrifice his own sister.

Please. Please. Please.

Cronan slowly raised the knife at a nod from his mother. He knew the drill by now from sacrificing random peasants and strangers.

No. No. Please.

He never thought they'd find Celandine's escape plans. He never thought this was how they would punish her.

Cronan. Cronan. Cronan.

He relished in her voice calling his name. Even if it was rocky and hoarse from fear, he'd never be able to hear that rocky, hoarse voice again after this.

Cronan, please, we can stop this. We can end this.

Gently, he placed the dagger on her heart and hummed their strange song, the nursery rhyme they were taught the moment they were born that stayed with them until it turned to a song only associated with a horrifying childhood.

Cronan...

Slowly, the whole stadium tuned into the song, an acapella of noise and joy, mixed with a handful of weeping children in the crowd, not used to seeing their food be hunted in front of them.

C...Cro...n..aann...

The dagger slowly, slowly dug through her skin, a wound that spread quickly as he tried to get it over with as fast as he could. Not wanting her to suffer like all of the rest gone to the winds of death.

And as he plunged the dagger in with her final cry echoing around the stadium, all he could hear was car alarms and bike bells and the rolling of rain in the stone streets, and he missed his home away from home in the suburbs of hell where he was able to be taken in by townspeople and play with the children of the streets, running around in robes that weren't adorned with blood.

He missed the feeling of waking up knowing that there'd be a new prank from Celandine or a poorly made trap by Cerberin hidden around their abode. He missed the feeling of doing chores knowing that the both of his siblings were there to complain with him. He missed the feeling of eating rarer foods brought in from the different rings of hell and spitting them out while laughing because they'd all never tasted anything worse in their lives.

it’s played for humor, but shouto’s lack of social skills and lack of knowledge about fairly common things--he didn’t even know what a concert was--speaks to a pretty intense level of isolation. 

A+, A- MID.

B+, B- TRASH!! I NEED MY FANGS DEEP CLEANED AFTER THIS

AB-, AB+ GOOD but not GREAT (ID HAVE IT AS A SNACK)

O+ AMAZING!!! DELICIOUS DINNER!!!

O- i would sell my soul and kill millions for a single drop of this. without a second doubt

watching the responses to her these last few chapters............the misogyny and people’s inability to care about a battered woman made my stomach churn. people have become so quick to jump on her before questioning the writing at all. 

I wish she was written with more care and actual thoughtful, complex characterization--I think her relationship with shouto sorely needs to have actual work put into writing it because what she did to him was pretty awful and traumatizing even if there were obviously extenuating circumstances. shouto doesn’t blame her, but with ten years of distance between them after the incident to stew in their feelings and suffer alone there’s a lot to explore when they reunite. and I think healing from trauma your mother caused because of your mutual abuser is much more worth exploring than putting all kinds of screentime into forcing him to build a better relationship with his dad, but a lot of what seems like obvious baggage he carries from his relationship with his mother has never been unpacked. 

same goes for her relationship with touya. I'd be interested in exploring his anger towards her more but we’re probably not going to get that, because these days she’s only relevant when she can be used to make endeavor look better (and before that as an accessory to shouto’s character). the way touya reacted to both his parents was very different despite resentment that built towards both(desire to please endeavor mixed with resentment over being tossed aside vs. what seems like complete dismissal of his mother), and I think that’s worth looking at. also I think, with what you can extrapolate from her relationship with her parents and then the way endeavor abused her, her inability to help touya is partially learned helplessness(on top of the fact that...there’s only so much she could do when she was being abused the way she was). 

over and over again I hear endeavor fans celebrating the idea that horikoshi “disproved” the idea of rei being raped, as well as people who don’t like him saying “but don’t worry, I won’t be one of those fans that’s out there crying rape!” and most disturbingly, people outright victim blaming rei and criticizing her for “letting” endeavor coerce her into sex with the intention of conceiving a child. 

so, I think we really need to talk about how this issue is discussed.

first off, as this post states, endeavor raping his wife has been implied by the comic itself multiple times. you’re intentionally plugging your eyes and refusing to face reality if you ignore this. 

secondly, sexual assault does not only consist of violently forcing a woman to have sex with you. any basic guide to consent will say as much. rei explicitly told endeavor “no” and was coerced into it by endeavor insisting her son’s health depended on her giving him more children. 

so let’s look at how health websites talk about coercion and consent:

and, very specifically relevant to this particular situation:

(sources: I’m a bit troubled by this one’s limited definitions of rape/sexual assault but it still considers what happened to rei rape, and also here)

I am really begging you guys to understand that rei todoroki was literally incapable of consenting in this situation. even if horikoshi himself did not realize this (though, as I said, he himself has implied marital rape more than once), it would not change the fact that that’s what happened here. sexual assault doesn’t stop being sexual assault just because someone doesn’t think it “counts,” whether that someone is committing the act or writing a mishandled story about it.