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markantonys · 8 months

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episode 5 thoughts!

heartbroken by no mat, but i was expecting it since min wasn't credited for this episode on imdb, and there was so much other amazing stuff going on, so i can cope. i do think they must be gearing up for a mat-heavy episode soon because his content has been so sparse thus far! we also didn't have lan this episode, which i'm good with since he got so much last week.

(minor imdb casting spoiler: ayoola isn't listed for ep6, so i'm guessing we may have no perrin next week. they definitely do have a lot of different groups to juggle! but IF mat & lan soon join the cairhien crew, we could condense things)

also sad at not much elayne, but again, the remaining episodes will probably be pretty big for her! same with egwene, that storyline didn't progress as fast as i'd thought it would in this episode, but OOF the preview for next week looks like A Lot!!

back to the beginning! falme looks SO COOL!!! and the opening scene with the seanchan was fantastic, it showed off so many different aspects of their culture in just a few minutes (namely their various Ceremonial Things and ideas of who's allowed to speak to whom)

lanfear just whispering "bitch" the second she revives killed me djkfjg what an icon. and we get confirmation that it is indeed the True Power that she used to revive herself.

Lanfear Unleashed is SO much fun oh my god, i love seeing her in full forsaken mode

moiraine telling rand that he can't sleep because lanfear will get him, girl don't tell him that he's going to internalize it and not sleep for the next 6 seasons. this season is really Wheel Of Time Origins: Rand's Various Emotional, Mental, and Physical Health Problems

elyas saying the ef5 aren't perrin's pack HOW DARE!!! i feel like they're making elyas even more standoffish/human-averse than he was in the books, which makes for an interesting dynamic and contributes to perrin's sense that his human & wolf sides can't coexist.

but hopper follows perrin!!!! the goodest boy!!!!!

AVIENDHA IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHE'S EVERYTHING!!!!! although ngl her fake accent does sound a bit Fake to me lmao but i'm sure i'll get used to it after a few more scenes

hot dain bornhald is also here! he kinda compels me and i'm furious about it. if whitecloak why hot? in all seriousness, i can see already from his intro episode + the basics of his book story that he has the potential to be quite an interesting character if fleshed out more and given more screentime compared to what he had in the books, sort of a liandrin-and-alanna-like Main Secondary Whitecloak for us to follow

also he totally wants to fuck perrin you can't change my mind. buying him drinks and giving him a Cute Nickname, boy you ain't subtle! and then aviendha briefly hits on perrin later and also perrin stops her from killing dain. wake up babe, insane new WOT polycule just dropped djkfjfg

OB!!!! FREAKING!!!! SESSED!!!!!!!! with verin's detective subplot!!!! it is SO much fun, it delivers a ton of great exposition (namely about the black ajah), and it gives us a bigger peek into the brown ajah than the books ever did. i love this squad!! also katie leung was probably my first Girl Crush (not that i was aware of it) when i was like 8 so i was thrilled to see her show up here, god bless

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, IT GAVE US CONFIRMATION THAT GAWYN EXISTS IN SHOWVERSE!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH when i tell you i came extremely close both to screaming and to falling off my bed!!!! i'd been hoping for a gawyn namedrop all season but having it here was SO unexpected! my current theory is that he'll be introduced in caemlyn next season along with elaida and galad, and all 3 of them will head to tar valon to look for elayne because they're worried after not hearing from her for a long time.

also now i want a fic where the wondergirls actually do get special permission from mommy morgase to leave the tower just so that they can attend gawyn's birthday party

anyway, someday gawyn and egwene are going to kiss with tongue onscreen and haters can die mad about it <3 oooh now i have a brand-new meetcute for them to look forward to since they didn't meet at the tower!

liandrin & nynaeve's convo in the ways was so good! they continue to do amazing work with that relationship and liandrin's character. AND WHEN SHE SUBTLY FREED THE GIRLS RIGHT BEFORE LEAVING HOLY SHIT i gasped!!!!! the LAYERS they have given this character!!! because yes she serves the dark BUT she still feels loyalty to her sisters (as seen in s1 too when she appeared genuinely upset over kerene's death) and can't stomach the thought of any of them, even the light-serving ones, being collared!

suroth saying with her whole chest "oh sure you're a forsaken but you're not even of the blood soooooo" god grant me her confidence. also another great illustration of the insane heights to which seanchan high blood take their superiority complexes. good god, what's tuon gonna be like?!

avi's fight scene was just as amazing as i'd been hoping and expecting!! 10/10 no notes. can't wait to see what she can do when she has weapons at her disposal!

and later avi tells us that she is out in the wetlands Looking For Her Man (that she doesn't yet know is Her Man) <33

moiraine saying "get rand some nice new clothes" and barthanes immediately offering to dress him, Sugar Baby Rand lives on! also, anvaere and barthanes definitely thought rand was moiraine's sugar baby after they cleared the warder possibility, you can't change my mind

also also, barthanes is so surprisingly sweet! i wonder if he'll still be a darkfriend, or if anvaere will be instead

lanfear making ishy dream about caressing rand's face in bed is something i will go insane thinking about every day until i die. like oh my god i don't even know where to START with unpacking that, so i won't even try djfkjg

like for real, they ALL BUT made it explicitly canon that ishy had/has a crush on LTT/rand LMAO it's what we deserve

and we get forsaken namedrops! moghedien, graendal, and "the boys." it could be that semirhage did still make it and lanfear just chose not to go on and on listing every single one (slash the writers wanted to give themselves some leeway in specifically naming forsaken in case they don't get enough seasons to deal with all of them), or it could be that one of the statues from last season was actually a man and/or stepin's statues aren't accurate, and we've got 5 men instead of 4 (in which case i'd imagine ishy, asmodean, sammael, demandred, and rahvin)

i'm gonna have to watch this ishy & lanfear scene again to pick up more because i was FAR too distracted by the initial homoeroticism to keep focusing lmao

aww i'm kinda sad not to get elayne & nynaeve hiding out in falme completely on their own, but for their sakes it's nice they've found (been found by) some Real Adults to help!

LANFEAR'S OUTFIT IN THE END SCENE LMAO this season really just went off the WALLS with horniness and kinkiness, and i am here for it. it's what rj would've wanted

now that moiraine and rand are indeed staying in cairhien after all, i really think we might get a cauthor reunion next episode!!!! fingers crossed!!!!

#wot #wot on prime #wot show spoilers #wot book spoilers #the wheel of time

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zwy01 · 2 months

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Blood Moon AU!! Part 1 - Nobles

Time for a second major AU yayy!! I’m still working on Millennium AU as usual, though I want to get started on another one that’s been on my mind since years ago but never really got the chance to put on paper.

So here we are. I’m calling this Blood Moon AU. The nobles and werewolves basically have a race swap in an almost brand new setting. Lukedonia and werewolf island still exist; it’s the characters that have changed.

All characters reference their canon counterparts to various degrees. Some are similar or even near identical to the original, while some are vastly different. This could apply to names, looks, personalities, heritage/family, moral alignment… etc. It’s gonna be fun! I’m going to let myself get crazy with this and change things up quite a bit, haha.

As for the story. To be completely honest, at this point I just want to start off this new AU as more of a simple artistic approach. Right now I’m much more interested in designing and drawing the characters rather than writing the story itself. Maybe I’ll come up with something much later but it won’t be nearly as complicated as Millennium AU, and it’ll be fairly straightforward. Even then, I don’t want to rush it so that’s for the future. If I end up liking this new AU more than I do right now, maybe I’ll give the story an honest shot and turn it into more of a long-term project, but time will tell.

(Fyi “Noblesse” does not exist in the world. Too early for details but they either never existed, are a now permanently extinct special type of noble, or they simply peaced out and ditched Earth and returned to their special heavenly realm… etc. Honestly doesn’t matter. In this AU’s setting, they are absent. “Raizel” and his brother do exist but they’re both human. Actual normal human beings, with a normal life, currently students at a normal high school, stuff like that. Just your average human. The trio are also unmodified normal human beings. They are scattered across the world and never meet each other. Basically, unlike their canon counterparts, their existence is minimal and contribute to almost nothing in this universe. It’s weird, I know! That’s just how this AU is set up)

I’m going to split the noble and werewolf characters into two parts. Doing the (originally werewolves) nobles first! Posting the werewolves in a future post aka. part 2.

The characters!

Lucretia Natalina “Lunark” Drosia: Leader of the Drosia Clan. Kendrick’s twin, and on-and-off lovers with Julius. A rather carefree woman who is primarily interested in having fun, and shows little to no concern for the future of Lukedonia as a whole. When it comes to her people, she is a decent Clan Leader and manages her family efficiently. Lucretia’s efforts only apply to her clan, and her interests in other noble affairs are almost nonexistent. She has a habit of ditching meetings and whatnots. Sometimes, she even tries to ignore the Lord’s summons but ends up going anyway because her lovely daughter makes her show up. The only thing that can get Lucretia’s blood pumping with true passion is an offer to spar. Lucretia is an excellent fighter. People have to be very careful to not interrupt her fights unless they want to unleash her wrath, because she hates it when people invite themselves into her business. She also likes to flirt with her opponents during spars. Lucretia has a bit of a weird relationship with Julius, who is the father of her daughter. They seem to have positive feelings for each other, but that’s only when both of them are very bored and have nothing better to do.

Kendrick Tian-Chen “Kentas” Ru: Leader of the Ru Clan. Lucretia’s twin. A prideful, stubborn man who believes that the stronger should rule the weak. Like his sister Lucretia, he likes to fight and enjoys a good spar. Sometimes, people can choose to settle a quarrel with Kendrick by offering to spar with him and he would gladly accept. You can trust him, because he’s a man of his word. No more grudges, no hurt feelings. Done. In a way, he’s quite simple. Unlike his sister, Kendrick does care about the future of Lukedonia. He has a strong moral code of his own, but that can be overridden by his belief of submitting to the strong. That is why Kendrick is extremely loyal to their Lord and never questions him even if the latter makes some controversial decisions. As of now, Kendrick has no children.

Marcus Duruvan “Maduke” Siriana: Leader of the Siriana Clan. Erica’s older brother, and the Lord’s advisor. The only person who truly has everyone’s best interests at heart. You can say he’s the most “good person” leaning guy in this entire AU. Marcus is quite worried about the future under their Lord’s reign. Life is pretty comfortable inside Lukedonia, which is by itself very isolated from the rest of the world. However, Marcus foresees the destruction of planet earth if no one stops the Lord, since the latter doesn’t care about other races and is only concerned with the prosperity of nobles. Though, he doesn’t want to overthrow the Lord and instead wants to convince him to step away from his current path of darkness. He believes there is still hope. Simultaneously, Marcus is secretly gathering followers and supporters who all share his beliefs and formed his own organization. Together they work to transport resources out of Lukedonia and deliver them to humans and werewolves in need because the Lord refuses the share.

Marcus is struggling to plan for the future of the Siriana Clan, in case the Lord gets tired of him and decides to kill him one day for “meddling” too much, because his younger sister Erica is insane and cruel which makes her the worst possible candidate for the next Clan Leader of Siriana. Marcus loves her, but also fears her. He doesn’t know what she is capable of. Marcus is trying to look for ways to bypass his sister and hopefully be able to hand over both his position and Soul Weapon to another pure-blooded Siriana who isn’t his sister.

Marcus had a son, but he was assassinated sometime after his coming-of-age ceremony and now Marcus is once again childless and without an heir. To this day no one can figure out who the culprit is.

Erica Siriana: Marcus’ younger sister, and next-in-line for the position of Siriana Clan Leader. Wife of Lord Maximilian, and mother of Ashlynn. Erica is a ruthless, bloodthirsty woman. She is actually the person who orchestrated her nephew’s assassination. She made sure he was killed, then got rid of his killers, whom she sent, with her own hands. No one is going to suspect a thing and they’ll never find out no matter how hard they try. Erica did this to eliminate brother Marcus’ heir so she can regain her position as first-in-line. She’s been after her nephew ever since he was born, but waited for two whole centuries before doing the deed. To Erica, she’s just getting back what she’s entitled to, which is the full power, control, and privileges of a Clan Leader. Marcus is trying to be discreet but if Erica ever finds out that her brother intends to bypass her and give his position and Soul Weapon to someone else, she might actually just kill him and take over the clan immediately. Erica is truly a terrifying, power-hungry woman who will do anything to reach her goals. She does not care for anyone aside from her daughter Ashlynn and husband Maximilian, whom she genuinely loves. As messed up as Erica is, she is capable of being very loving and committed to whom she treasures. She and her husband are absolutely addicted to each other and he would let her do anything her heart wishes for, even if she continuously breaks Lukedonian laws.

Vivienne Branwen Di Ashlynn: Name means “lively and blessed raven of dreams”. Daughter of Erica Siriana and Lord Maximilian, and the next Lord of Lukedonia. On the surface, Ashlynn isn’t as straightforward as her mother despite their similarities. Ashlynn is just as ruthless and bloodthirsty as Erica, but the former puts on a facade in front of her people and pretends to be a sweet, altruistic future Lord. The perfect angel princess. And she’s very successful at it. Ashlynn is energetic, talkative, and empathetic around her subjects. She always tells them about how she wants her father to teach her power so she can protect not only her subjects, but also people around the world so they don’t have to suffer from hunger and war. In reality, she doesn’t care about any of them and she honestly thinks of them as a burden. They’re nothing more than cockroaches to her, and she’s only doing this because she enjoys deceiving her people and pulling on their puppet strings. She welcomes the love and respect they give her, and at the same time pities them for not knowing better, for she’s had them fooled this entire time. The world is her stage, and she’s the center. Ashlynn only drops her act and returns to her true self around her parents, who not only tolerate, but also accept and even encourage their daughter’s behavior. Well, their entire family is insane. Erica and Maximilian are totally overindulging Ashlynn while being completely aware of the fact that she is just as insane as them with no attempt to correct her, because she’s their little princess and hey, if she wants the world, then they’ll give it to her. Like Erica, Ashlynn doesn’t care about anyone who isn’t her family. Ashlynn loves both of her parents to the moon and back, and she might as well kill anyone who dares to speak ill about either of them. No one is allowed to disrespect them in front of her. Not a single word.

Ashlynn has a crush on Dominic and wants him for herself one day.

Eutimio Friedrich Di Maximilian: Name means “good-spirited and peaceful ruler of the greatest”. The current Lord, husband of Erica Siriana, and father of Ashlynn. Maximilian firmly believes that nobles are the most supreme beings to exist on this planet, and that they have a right to rule over every other species. Humans, werewolves, whatever… well, for now he’ll let them be for as long as they’re still useful. He won’t hesitate to unleash his power on them if he loses his patience. From a world view, Maximilian would be categorized as “evil”, but he doesn’t think of himself as such. In fact, he believes that he is doing good for his people, who are his priority. Which is true from a certain perspective, especially to the nobles who share their Lord’s vision. To them, Lord Maximilian is the greatest Lord in all of noble history. To others who strongly disagree with him, he is the most terrifying and coldblooded Lord in existence. Maximilian is only concerned with the prosperity of Lukedonia and doesn’t quite welcome the idea of distributing resources with the rest of the world. He doesn’t want the nobles to simply exist alongside other species; he’ll make sure the nobles are on the very top of the food chain. Everyone else is irrelevant and they’re all at his mercy. Generally, opinions are very divided and you either side with him, or you don’t. Life is very, very comfortable inside Lukedonia, and indeed, to some nobles, that is all they care about. Those with more empathy see beyond the obvious and are concerned with what goes on outside Lukedonia. The thing with Maximilian is that despite showing neither mercy nor any sign of remorse for his deeds in the outside world, he is actually quite lenient and loving with his subjects. You can say he has two extreme sides to him. He’s very kind to his nobles, but only them. He doesn’t mind if Lucretia skips meetings; he’d let her be. Or when his servants make mistakes, when someone does something offensive, etc... it’s alright, no big deal. In a way, Maximilian’s Lukedonia is teeming with freedom like never before under the rule of his predecessors. This is where Marcus comes in. He is just nervous and overthinking about getting killed if he says the wrong thing, but in reality Maximilian doesn’t mind voices of objection. He’s not going to give anyone a treason sentence or kill them for saying what they really think of him. You can tell him you disagree with him, he’ll just shrug it off and laugh. Say all you want, he knows you’re trying to persuade him, he doesn’t care. He’ll just keep doing what he’s always been doing. Maximilian knows he’s the Lord, and ultimately it is his decision to make. Just don’t let Ashlynn know, because she’ll come after your head if she figures out that you had doubts about her precious Daddy.

Maximilian is a very loving husband and father to his family. He is obsessed with them just as much as they are obsessed with him. On a personal level, while Maximilian himself doesn’t crave for the blood of his own kind like his wife and daughter do, he doesn’t mind letting them do whatever they want for the funs and thrills. Erica and Ashlynn are free to break the law all they want. Though, they’re smart and strategic with it and don’t commit murder in broad daylight. Still, Maximilian is aware of his beloveds’ occasional killings, and he lets them be. He’s the type of person who would let them burn down the entirety of Lukedonia to nothing more than a pile of ash if that is what they wish to do. It’s no big deal, he’ll just rebuild Lukedonia to be even grander and more luxurious than before! To Maximilian, they are the only two existences in this world to come before Lukedonia. How sweet.

Zivon Tradio: Leader of the Tradio Clan. An elderly sorcerer who is quite the hard worker, and spends most of his time studying existing spells as well as coming up with new ones. He’s from the previous generation of nobles, and he stayed behind because he’s just too damn cool to die. Just kidding, his love for magic is why he’s still rocking it. It’s still too early! Zivon’s ultimate goal is to push the boundaries of noble magic and to create what has never been seen before. A true spectacle to behold. Zivon is one of Lord Maximilian’s favorite subjects and the latter even has an entire wifi system built and set up in Lukedonia as a gift just because the former has the hobby of streaming and likes being an “influencer”or whatever the humans call it. Zivon is quite an internet celebrity and Lord Maximilian is supportive of his work of “spreading superior noble influence over humans”. Zivon is also Princess Ashlynn’s tutor, who calls him “teacher”.

As of now, Zivon has no children.

Julius Loyard: Leader of the Loyard Clan. On-and-off lovers with Lucretia. An elegant man who is well-received by his fellow nobles. Julius is a man of few words and usually doesn’t express himself beyond the bare minimum required to be polite. While Julius does admit to enjoying the lavish lifestyle that was a gift from the Lord to all nobles, he is beginning to see why this is a problem for beings outside Lukedonia and starts to sympathize with them. It isn’t easy for him immediately to give up what he’s been used to all these years, but he’s starting to steer away from that lifestyle in support of the less fortunate. Julius was one of the first members to join Marcus’ secret organization of smuggling resources out of Lukedonia to help those in need. Currently, he’s responsible as the leader of the food distribution sector. In his free time, Julius is a jewelry designer and Lord Maximilian is a fan of his work.

Julius’ heir is his son whom he had with Lucretia. He is fond of her but doesn’t entirely agree with her rather carefree personality. They seem to have positive feelings for each other, but that’s only when both of them are very bored and have nothing better to do.

Giada Agvain: Leader of the Agvain Clan. Like Kendrick, she is extremely loyal to their Lord. She’s been by his side since the beginning, and they are childhood friends. Everyone knows that Giada used to feel one-sided love for the then-Maximilian and now Lord Maximilian, but what they don’t know is that she is still in love with him. Well, maybe it’s better for them to continue to believe that she has gotten over him. It’s not like he’ll ever like her back anyway, and you’ll never know what Princess Ashlynn will do if she finds out that anyone other than her precious Mommy is “coveting” her beloved Daddy. Giada is one of the few people who knows about Ashlynn’s true nature despite the latter’s angelic facade. While Giada does love Max on a personal level and is loyal to him, she doesn’t agree with his actions. She is also one of the first members of Marcus’ organization. Currently, Giada is responsible as the leader of the money distribution sector. In her free time, Giada tends to a small spider lily garden.

Giada’s heir is her daughter whom she had with an unnamed noble woman.

Dominic Raffaello “Dorant” Blerster: Leader of the Blerster Clan. A calm and rational man who remains unfazed in extreme situations. He is also the youngest to become Clan Leader, because his mother and predecessor saw so much potential in him, she passed over her title and Soul Weapon to him as soon as he came of age. Dominic pretends to be fairly neutral, and most people think he isn’t dedicated to anything or anyone, but he’s actually Lord Maximilian’s right hand man in the shadows. On the surface, he is simply Clan Leader of the Blersters and does a good job of managing his clan. When he no longer needs to act as Clan Leader, Dominic goes to the castle and reports everyone’s moves to his Lord. Dominic is actually a member of Marcus’ secret organization and oversees the medical distribution sector… as a double agent. His allegiance is with the Lord and he’s only there to watch what everyone else is doing to report back to his master. That includes a long list of who is working with Marcus, what resources they have been smuggling out of Lukedonia, who is on the receiving end… etc. Every. Single. One. So Lord Maximilian is very much aware of Marcus’ “betrayal” thanks to Dominic. Curiously, Lord Maximilian tells Dominic to just let them be. Perhaps he finds this to be amusing. Nobody knows what he’s thinking. Dominic, on the other hand, is in total awe of his Lord for his immense generosity for the “traitors” even though they clearly don’t deserve it.

Dominic doesn’t know that Ashlynn has a crush on him.

As of now, Dominic has no children.

Undine Mergas: Daughter of the leader of the Mergas Clan. A woman with a short temper who is also easily provoked. Undine’s father, the current Mergas Clan Leader, believes that she is unfit to become Clan Leader due to her personality and tendencies to boss the knights around instead of being a responsible and respectful leader like she is supposed to, but he is hopeful that she will change one day. Undine is best friends with Mimi and the two of them are almost always seen together. On one of her travels to the outside world, Undine met a human named Michael Travis Osborn by chance and she has had a crush on him ever since. He’s pretty cute. Maybe the Lord will let her capture him and bring him back to Lukedonia, she thinks.

Mimi Elenor: Daughter of the leader of the Elenor Clan. A woman with a similar personality to her best friend Undine, but less impulsive and more calm. That’s why they get along and are best friends because they have much in common. Mimi has an older brother so she likely won’t become the next Elenor Clan Leader, but she’s fine with that. In fact, she’s glad she won’t become Clan Leader because all those responsibilities, hassles, sitting in meetings all day, blah blah blah… ew, just too much work. She just wants to have fun, so her brother better be competent so she won’t have to bother with her clan at all. Mimi, like Undine, also has a crush on Michael Travis Osborn. They chat about how cute he is. Both of them want to capture him and bring him into Lukedonia. They’re thinking about discussing this with the Lord. If Lord Maximilian hears about this, he’d approve of the capture and tell them to go ahead and enjoy themselves because of course he wants all of his nobles to get their hands on everything they wish for. Plus, these two remind him of his daughter Ashlynn so he’d be even more generous towards them.

Kushaal Kertia: Leader of the Kertia Clan. Cousin of Galileo. A respected fighter known for his immense speed and agility even amongst the Kertia. Kushaal is also honorable. He dislikes dirty fighting and is fairly open to acknowledging his own weaknesses and strives to become even stronger and faster. He has heard about a certain blonde werewolf warrior who is the fastest of his pack, and wishes to fight him one day. While Kushaal enjoys and supports the luxurious lifestyle given to him by their Lord, he believes that humans and werewolves could use some help from Lukedonia. After all, if they’re all gone, he’s not going to have anyone interesting to fight with anymore. Kushaal would love to spar with the werewolves, so he hopes that they’re doing well. In his free time, Kushaal likes to collect rare werewolf artifacts to display in his home because they feel familiar to him, for some odd reason.

As of now, Kushaal has no children.

Galileo Kravei: Son of the leader of the Kravei Clan. Cousin of Kushaal. A man who has a bit of an inferiority complex because his abilities seem to have hit a wall, and he can’t get stronger with his own strength. Galileo is probably going to get by just fine, even though he himself is more impatient than anyone in terms of wanting to gain strength. Other than that, no one really knows much about him since he tends to keep to himself. In his free time, he plays with his three supernatural pet aquatic snakes: Ramen, Ramyeon, and Lamien. Galileo has a huge love-hate crush on Kendrick, and people will tell you he’s both extra mean and extra nice to him. He sends him cheesy “let’s fight” love letters written on rose scented paper. Yeah. He’s totally in love.

And that’s it for now!

Again, very open to questions and discussion. Quite happy about my second major AU! While this post only touches the surface of what I have in mind, I have a feeling that I will grow to like this AU even more. Maybe I’ll even create brand new OCs specific to this AU lol.

Thank you for reading and stay tuned for future posts!

#noblesse #manhwa #myart #fanart #kori’s blood moon au #alternate universe #lunark #kentas #maduke #erin #muzaka #zaiga #ashleen #juraki #garda #dorant #gayare #kuharu #urne #mirai

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amageish · 10 months

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Thinking way too hard about the queer possibilities of X-Men ‘97

When X-Men ‘97 was first announced, I’ll admit I was kind of ambivelent to the entire project... It felt very nostalgia-focused and was just less interesting to me then an all-new X-Men cartoon that could do its own thing without being burdened with established canon...

...and then I listened to the X-Men 60 Uncanny Years event earlier this year and hearing the executive producer of the series discuss what the X-Men meant to him as a kid as a gay black man in Florida basically changed my mind about the entire project. Now I’m excited for it!

The X-Men are so fucking queer. Even ignoring the ways that the mutant metaphor have been used to discuss queer issues before queer issues could be discussed textually, Marvel’s merry mutants just have... so many queer members and even more when you expand the list to include sub-textual and intended queerness.

So, with all that in mind, I did a little thinking and decided to take some guesses about who could make for queer representation in '97... Let’s dive in!

Part One: The Comic Canon Gays

Let’s start with the characters who are explicitly no-subtext-required queer in the comic books themselves. These are a few of the characters Marvel uses in Pride events and generally parades around every June.

Northstar

Jean-Paul Beaubier may seem like the vanilla ice cream of this rainbow sundae, but there’s far more going on with this character then the “Marvel’s first explicitly gay superhero” title that he is so often boiled down to. A French-Canadian superstar athlete, he’s lived never being entirely sure if his skiing career success was a result of his talent or his mutant abilities.

While his depiction in X-Men The Animated Series just had him be painfully French-Canadian with an on-the-nose accent and French exclamations, there’s a mean catty gay under the surface that is just waiting to be unleashed. They could also adapt his famous wedding arc, wherein he married his husband Kyle Jinadu...

Also he hates cops, so y’know... Maybe Marvel did nail the queer experience on their first try?

Iceman

Bobby Drake is arguably the most famous queer character at Marvel. A member of the original five X-Men, he was famously confirmed as gay when his teenage self was transported to the present and, with some unsolicited help from a teenage Jean Grey, questioned why his older self remaining closeted, even in a world that was (comparatively at least) accepting of queer desire.

In the original show, he showed unrequited interest in Polaris, as he had in the comics before his coming-out. This reboot could potentially give a more grounded and less fantastical take on coming-out then what he had in the comics... or maybe time travel will be involved again - who knows really!

Prodigy

David Allyene, aka Prodigy, is one of the most notable bi men at Marvel with one of the most distinctive coming-out stories. His mutant powers cause him to instantly learn things that other people know, hence the name Prodigy, and, through his powers, he also learned his own sexuality. How’s that for a crazy journey of self-discovery.

Prodigy is a newer character who did not appear in the original animated series at all, so there’s no continuity concerns there...

Mystique and Destiny

Destiny, also known as Irene Adler, met her lover Mystique when he was presenting as male and operating as a consulting detective in Victorian London.

Yeah uh. This is implying what you think it is.

The two of them have been lovers for centuries now, though both took other partners at different points during their relationship. Their love is something special though and together they raised Rogue as a child - as well as maybe sired Nightcrawler together? That was once intended to be Nightcrawler’s origin, but it was famously scrapped due to Marvel editorial not wanting to depict a child that is a product of a queer relationship at the time... but now this November a new comic will explore the “true” origin of Nightcrawler, so maybe Mystique/Destiny having a biological child is back on the table!

Mystique was, of course, in the original series. I’m not sure the actual odds of her relationship with Irene being acknowledged in ‘97 - partially just because I imagine Marvel would be concerned about backlash to queer villains... but also they’re adorable and good to me so I’d like them!

Captain Britain and Askani

Betsy Braddock and Rachel Summers are two incredibly complicated characters to summarize. Rachel is the time-displaced daughter of Scott and Jean from a hypothetical alternate feature, while Betsy Braddock spent like 30 years of her publication history trapped in the body of Kwannon, a Japanese assassin. While these two characters are some of Marvel’s most actively in-your-face unquestionably queer characters - the last Betsy story had a surprising amount of implied sex for only five issues - they’ve never really had a chance to shine in a multimedia way (well, at least not with Betsy in her own body and not being merged with Kwannon).

In the original show, Rachel cameoed briefly as a prisoner of Apocalypse while Pyslocke appeared without being named - assumedly they didn’t want to bother explaining the body-swap storyline. Personally, if they were to be in the show, I’d suggest that Betsy should be introduced as having inherited her brother’s title of Captain Britain, with Pyslocke of the original show being revealed to have been Kwannon in her own body all along...

Part Two: The New Mutants

There’s so many queer New Mutants that I’m just giving them their own category here... plus, with Sunspot being in the main cast, I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the time got (Sun)spotlighted as well!

Note that the sapphics of the first generation of New Mutants can also be mixed and matched when it comes to shipping. I present them based on the pairings that are currently canon/teased in the present comics, but Dani/Xuan, Xuan/Kitty, Kitty/Rahcel, etc. are all valid too and could be within the cards for the show.

Karma & Galura

The first explicit lesbian of the X-Men line, Xuân Cao Mạnh is a refugee of the Vietnam Boat Crisis, a thing which makes no sense when you consider that she is still canonically like 20-something years old in 2023. Her coming-out was a much lower-key affair then Jean-Paul’s, with her friends just casually running into her at the Exploding Person festival (i.e., Burning Man) with a shaved pink haircut and already travelling with her two “girlfriends”.

After the musical festival, she proceeded to fall in love with her roommate Kitty Pryde and then her co-worker Dani Moonstar, both of which were never (textually) requited. Recently, she’s started dating the winged mutant Galura and finally gotten to do stuff like “kiss a woman on-panel regularly” after two decades of being a lesbian denied a girlfriend...

She has cameoed in X-Men ‘92-related media with a design that is truly terrible IMO, but I think she could be rebooted and appear in this series in her full glory... especially after the New Mutants movie left her out entirely!

Mirage and Wolfsbane

Introduced in the original New Mutants run, Dani Moonstar and Rahne Sinclair share a unique telepathic connection, helpfully described as them being “soul-mates.” The Comic Book Code prohibited depictions of queer people, but uh. This first run is incredibly not subtle, even as Rahne nominally has interest her male teammate Cannonball.

Unfortunately, post-Claremont, their relationship was more or less abandoned for a few decades (coinciding with a massive downward spiral in Rahne content in general) climaxing with Rahne being killed off entirely in an allegory for transphobic violence... Thankfully, she recovered from her death and has recently been written by a non-binary author and now a trans author, both of whom have leaned back into the idea that these “soul-mates” may, in fact, have romantic feelings for each other.

Oh, also they were explicitly gay in the movie. So. Good for them for that!

Magik and Shadowkat

Another classic pair of X-Men “roommates,” Illyana Rasputina and Kate Pryde are another Claremont-created “soul-mate” duo - albeit without the telepathic bond. After decades of queer-coding, both were able to do queer-adjacent things explicitly for the first time in the Krakoa era, with Illyana asking a group of people of various gender presentations to make out with her and Kate kissing a tattoo artist who looks suspiciously like her bestie on-panel.

Pryde famously lost the spot of “Teen X-Men PoV character” to Jubilee in the show, but maybe X-Men ‘97 could give her a second chance... plus Illyana is one of the most popular X-Men characters not given a full spotlight in the original show, in spite of her more or less being an A-list X-Men in 2023. I don’t know if Marvel is brave enough to make this one canon, but I do think these two are two of the most obviously missing characters from the ‘97 line-up.

Escapade

Shela Sexton, aka Escapade, is a transgender sapphic who debuted in Marvel Pride last year and has since then had a starring role in the most recent New Mutants series. She has the incredibly unique power of the ability to “steal” things from people - including everything from stealing physical objects like their wallet to stealing abstract concepts like their emotional or physical state. Her character also generally has embodied the intersectional approach to mutant identity which has become more and more prevalent in the modern era - her mutant identity and trans identity are both important to her character, but neither are allegories for the other.

I think she’s probably too new to be added to the X-Men ‘97 cast pragmatically, but maybe they could have snuck in a cameo at the last minute? Idk. I figured I’d include her on the list.

Part Three: Let’s Get Wild!

Okay. Fuck it. Let’s talk about some comic book justifications that could be used to queer up the actual main cast from the original classic X-Men The Animated Series.

Jubilee

Jubilation Lee, the teen PoV lead of the X-Men, has been written as queer a handful of times, but never explicitly in 616. Most notably, she was gay in an AU Runaways story (written by N.D. Stevenson), where she dated a bisexual version of Pixie as well as an ice-powered sapphic named Frostbite. Monet also had a crush on her in the X-Men ‘92 animation-inspired comic book series. In terms of 616 content, her relationship with Laura Kinney has often been read in a sapphic way, especially in Liu’s X-23 series where Laura notably breaks up with her boyfriend only for Jubilee to be waiting back at her apartment to go out with her.

Storm

Ororo Munroe, aka Storm, famously has had a subtextual Sapphic fling with the bundle of chaos that is Yukio. They two met for the first time when Ororo went to Japan and their time together was almost immediately followed by her famous punk Storm era, which is very queer when you consider that context. Yukio was also later made explicitly queer in Fox’s Deadpool 2 movie, though the movie character doesn’t share much of the personality and thrill-seeking antics of her comic book counterpart...

Storm is the central protagonist of the original Claremont Uncanny X-Men and will be central to the ‘97 series as well. It’d be really bold to confirm her as queer, but I’d say this is the kind of move that would be worth it if they want this to stand out among X-Men adaptations.

Wolverine, Phoenix, and Cyclops

Finally, Jean Grey, Scott Summers, and Logan were implied to have been in a poly relationship throughout most of the Krakoa era - though they have fallen on hard times recently in the run-up to Fall of X.

I’ll be blunt: I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that Marvel corporate would approve this being textual... but I’m willing to be proven wrong, I guess!

WHEW. Okay. That’s my list. This is nowhere near definitive of course - I didn’t discuss Shatterstar’s bisexuality, Deadpool’s pansexuality, Gwenpool’s aroace identity, et al - but also basically every X-Men character is either textually queer or could be justified as being queer based on comic book lore. This entire brand has a queer poly energy that even the straightest writers weren’t able to fully shake off of it... so, while this is my list, they could really do anything they wanted (and that Mickey Mouse lets them do, at least)... We’ll see what happens!

[PS: In light of the strike and the general shitty way that megacorporations in entertainment have been treating their workers for years now, I’d be remissed if I made this post and didn’t encourage people to consider donating to the Entertainment Community Fund as well!]

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papakhan · 2 months

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Character Ask Game: 2, 6, 10, and 29 for Boone. Go on, be a hater. Unleash it. 👀

oh my god i think i reblogged that meme back in January and only just saw these I'm Soooo sorry :'( I will do them now as well while I'm here. Also thank you so much for enabling me to be a little hater <3

Character Asks

2. When I think I truly started to like them (or dislike them, if you’ve sent me a character I don’t like)

I mixture of 2 things made me into a true Boone hater. No.1 is When I first played New Vegas I thought the Khans were kinda wack, not really evil but I didn't really like them either. Then I got the line from Jack about Papa being "a softie at heart" and it immediately made me rethink them. And me being more sympathetic towards them made me question the rest of their treatment at the hands of other characters in the game, one of whom being Boone. No.2 was seeing how wack his fans were about defending his actions and how much they will make shit up about him to justify his actions. Like idk I saw fem!courier number 8784589 loving stroking Boone's arm and tearfully say "its soo sad you were forced to kill those raider children but don't worry I forgive you" and I just snapped ig

6. My least favorite ship of them

I hate Manny/Boone with a firey passion for real there is a special place in my heart dedicated to hating that ship. I just hate everything about it, Manny's conflict with Carla is interesting enough just stemming him being from a poor family in North Vegas and her being from a more well-off family from the Strip, you don't need to add romance to it to make it more ~spicy~. At no point does he even allude towards being in love with Boone, he's just pissed off because he hates his besties wife. I hated my bestie's boyfriend and it wasn't because I was in love with her it was because her boyfriend was a prick. And I feel like there's a lot of people really into it who don't really seem to notice the connotations they're cooking up. Like seriously can we not have the canonically gay brown/latino man be the spiteful jealous ex-lover who is trying to steal the poor innocent white soldierboy away from his loving wife guys cmon do these people not know how bad this makes them look. I'm gripping these people by the shoulders and shaking them very hard. Anyway I hate it so much let my OC fuck Manny instead <3

10. Describe the character in one sentence

A boot-licking war criminal who learnt nothing and who gets too much credit.

29. How do you think they would be as a parent? (and if they are a parent, how do you think they would be if they weren’t?)

Awful. Not only is he emotionally constipated but he's also former military, basically a marine, so I think he'd just order his kids around and be like :/ when they don't do what he says. And that's me being nice about it, I've had plenty of ex military men scream in my face as a child for crying, I don't think he'd be that bad but he wouldn't be good. Maybe it's hot take but I don't think it is considering he shot his own wife and also countless Khan children so I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think he doesn't take any special considerations when handling kids. He'd expect them to function as NCR recruits or would just ignore them <3

#txt #i feel so muhc better now thank you LMAO

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summercourtship · 1 year

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this is my second time posting this here- I had to fix a few things with it so here it is again!

contamination, pt two. (originally called first day)

DBD!Wesker x Reader | mature | warnings: canon typical violence, some sexual themes, my stupid glove kink(TM) | word count: 3250

part one | ao3 link

After your first time meeting Wesker, you thought about him more often than you would ever admit. His identity hadn’t remained a secret for long, what with at least six survivors knowing him.

And word spreads fast in the Fog. It's not like there's anything else to do.

Soon, everyone was privy to the various misdeeds from his past- from not showing up to (most) of the STARS teams’ bar nights all the way to trying to unleash a bio weapon onto the world.

It was quite a rap sheet he'd built up.

Even though your interest was piqued, you rarely found yourself asking those who knew him for more information. Not because you didn’t want it, no. You craved it. But even you couldn’t figure out why you were reluctant to acknowledge his existence to others. Was it because you were afraid that they might see through your carefully neutral face right to the real reason why you wanted to hear more about him? Maybe.

Or maybe you wanted to pretend like you were the only one who knew of him, that you had something special. You didn’t want to hear that he toyed with everyone like that, or that he probably didn’t even remember you. That it was all just part of a larger game that you couldn’t see.

For just a little while you wanted to pretend that someone wanted you. You had so few things going for you anymore that you almost felt owed this. You overanalyzed his words to you, the way his gloved thumb traced your lip and held your face, how he watched as you dangled on a literal hook in front of you.

Maybe you’d run into him and realize you had read much too into it. But for now, you only had your memories to hold onto, to try and seek answers from.

Over and over you ran through it, barely stopping when you were called into a Trial. You allowed yourself a few gloriously anxious moments to hope for Wesker to be your chosen foe only for it to be revealed that it was the fucking Nurse. Again.

By then, you’d all but give up. You wouldn’t let yourself die, per se, but any spark- any true fight- you had would leave the moment you realized it wasn’t him.

It was a vicious habit, one that would not sustain itself for much longer. You were on the verge of going foraging only to throw whatever plants you could find into the fire in the hopes that it might appease the Entity and let you see Wesker again.

“You okay?”

You looked up from where you had been staring into the flames of the Campfire. Chris stood next to you, the orange glow casting his face in a shadow.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’ve been keeping to yourself lately.”

“Have I?” You were obviously distracted, from life in general and this conversation. Your feet still itched to go- to enter the woods and find some flower that would do the impossible and match you in a Trial with Wesker.

Chris gave you a look- the kind that said don’t kid yourself. You didn’t know what to say in response, so you kept your mouth shut.

“Just-” He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, “if you ever need to talk…”

“Got it.” Just give him a thin lipped smile. Enough to say I appreciate it but I’m not in the mood to chat.

“I mean it.”

“Okay. I’m fine, Chris, really.”

The way he stood there squashed any desire to forage. You were sure that if you left, he would follow you. And nothing is more awkward than that, right? Someone thinking that you’re in a worse place than you really are and so they think at any moment you’re gonna try and off yourself.

Jokes on you, Chris. That doesn’t work here.

That, or he suspected something else. Maybe Chris was more astute that you first realized. ___

The cold of Léry’s was different from that of Ormond or the Red Forest. It was dull, the kind of cold that you don’t realize has set into your bones until you begin to shiver.

You quickly begin to search the labyrinthine halls of the hospital for a generator, knowing that getting one out of the way early could help you later. If you couldn’t find one quickly, you’d just head to the center room where there was almost always a gen waiting. Sometimes when you were feeling particularly brave (as you weren’t right now) you would seek out some sign of the Killer. Just so you could know who you were up against, what you had to do to avoid being Sacrificed. The quiet Killers thrived here and the long hallways sometimes actually helped the ones with projectiles.

But something in your gut told you to lay low. Do not seek out trouble right now, it said, it will find you soon enough.

So you listened, sitting down at the first generator you saw. The window above you rustled from the constant gusts of wind, letting in small bursts of biting cold to add to the wintery ache you were already in. The only warmth came with the sparks hitting your skin from the wires and gears inside the generator. And that barely lasted a second, tiny pinpricks of heat burning you for a moment before they disappeared.

Your ears picked up the sound of someone walking towards you. Tensing, you look out of the corner of your eye and only relax when it's clear it's just Chris and he is alone. Wordlessly he kneels next to the generator and picks up two wires.

“Any sign?” You ask, your voice quiet underneath the slow crescendo of the gen.

He sighs and you’re not sure if the furrow in his brow is from frustration with the situation or concentration on his task.

“Wesker.”

Your hand slips. The generator blows, the noise echoing in the dusty hallway. Waving the smoke out of the way, you dive back in, ignoring the curious look Chris threw your way.

“How-” Your voice cracks and you clear your throat. It’s just the dust, right? “How do you know? Have you seen him?”

“No but I got this.” He removes his hands from the gen, pulling a green aerosol can from his side. He’d kept it in his now empty gun holster and you envy it- extra pockets were nice. “D’ya want it?” He had caught how you were eying it. Truthfully, you didn’t necessarily want the canister- there were plenty around the map, you were sure. But your eyes where fixed on it and that was because it was tangible proof that he was here.

“Keep it.” He nods and turns back to the generator, which was almost done. Somewhere across the map a chime rings out. It seems your other teammates have been busy, too. But their completion of their generator triggered the Entity’s claws to spring up around the machine you’d been working on, you and Chris both jumping out of the way to avoid being cut. They hissed and clicked like some sort of insect, the generator chugging on underneath. So close to being finished, but thwarted at the last second.

It seems that Wesker has learned some new tricks since you saw him last.

Chris sighs. “C’mon, let’s go find another.”

You knew that with every passing second the likelihood of running across the Killer was larger and larger, especially since it seemed he had no attention on anyone else. Then what, exactly, was he doing?

“Hey, Chris-” You paused, your ears perking at an unfamiliar sound. He turned around, and you barely registered his eyes widening before you took off running, vaulting over the nearest window. You landed in a shower room, the air dank with stale water. By the sound that followed, Chris was right behind you. Part of you wanted to yell at him not to follow you but you figured he had a plan. You paused for him and only started moving when he grabbed your arm, almost throwing you forward. But your feet felt cemented to the ground.

“You go, I’ll take the heat!”

You need to run. You need to, but you can barely lift your feet for a few seconds. Chris is still standing there, obviously to get Wesker’s attention.

“Chris!” It was his voice, the voice that had haunted you, snide and sneering, and you couldn’t help yourself. You looked behind you, desperate to confirm that it was him.

He was vaulting over the window into the room, his boots scuffing on the loose tiles. His knife was drawn, and his hair slightly tousled. You couldn’t tell where his gaze was fixed through his dark glasses but a silly part of you hoped that he at least glanced your way. Like this was a normal interaction in a normal world where the only thing you had to worry about was the object of your infatuation not thinking about you.

Chris looked back at you and you couldn’t tell if his expression was exasperation or desperation. But he yelled your name and a quick “Go!” before he ran right toward Wesker. And as much as you would like to see what happened next, you knew that to keep standing here would be a certain death sentence. You finally turned and ran, only stopping when your heart stopped racing from Wesker’s presence, when you couldn’t hear his and Chris’ exchange of words. You had no doubt that Chris would run soon, given the (unfair) advantage that Wesker held. But the Chris you knew also wouldn’t hesitate to physically fight Wesker, no matter the advantages given to him by the Entity.

You pressed yourself against a wall, the tiles cool against your back- even through your clothes. Just need to catch my breath, then I’ll continue on. Maybe find that generator, it should be fine by now, right? You didn’t bring anything into this Trial but you now wished you had, if just to have something to distract your hands with. Gradually your breath slowed and you could continue on down the hall.

Another gen chimed and you thought that if you got out, you would have to remember to thank your teammates. It was a good team, to be fair. You, Chris, Adam, Jake. A team of serious men… and you. But you weren’t going to let being the only woman on the team freak you out. Sure, with a Killer like the Clown or Doctor it could suck since they seemed to relish in torturing you because you were female. But you hoped that Wesker wasn’t like that.

But then, given what your mind had been like recently, would you have truly minded? Yes, you answered yourself. Because deep down you wanted him to be intrigued by you, not your sex or something as superficial as that.

Your thoughts were interrupted by one of the worst sounds in the Fog- the cry of someone being downed, which was (normally) followed swiftly by their shriek after being hooked. Surely enough, Chris’s guttural scream broke through the hospital. You immediately turned and started to run to him, guilt gnawing at your gut when you realized he was in the Basement.

He, like Jill, yanked Wesker’s attention away from you and ended up on a hook because of it. And you weren’t able to save Jill last time- maybe you could help Chris, give him a temporary reprieve from being the target. You could handle it.

There was no sign of the Killer as you entered the center room, not hesitating in running down the wooden stairs that seemed oddly out of place in the cement and metal room. The stairs creaked under you, their uneven boards squeaking and groaning. You could hear Chris’s moans of pain, and hurried into the dark room.

There Chris was, hanging from the furthest hook from the entrance. He, like most smart Survivors, simply hung there, not bothering to try and lift himself off. That was an action you only took when you had no other hope of escaping.

You rushed over to him, not hesitating to put your hands on his hips. You lifted, grunting as Chris did his best to aid you in lifting him off the hook. You practically drop him after, gasping from exertion. But Chris was already pulling you towards the stairs, his other hand holding his wound. You stopped on the landing, moving so you could see what he needed to be patched up. Chris wasn’t having it, tugging on your arm again. You didn’t doubt that if he needed to he could physically drag you away.

“C’mon, we need to get out of here-”

“Just let me heal you-”

“I just left to find you.” A third voice, a hauntingly familiar one, chimed it from above you. “But it seems you’re faster than I gave you credit for.”

You raise your gaze up the stairs, even though you knew what you’d see. Wesker stood, looking down at the two of you, his frame lit by the orange glow of the basement.

Chris pushed you behind him, shielding you from the heat of Wesker’s eyes. But no matter what happened, you both were trapped. If you made a run for it, it was likely you’d both be downed before you could even leave the center room.

“You think you can protect her?” Wesker chuckled. “That you can distract me just so you can stab me with a hidden shard of glass you have tucked away in your pocket and then you both get away from me?”

“Chris, let me distract him, please.” Your voice was barely audible to your own ears but you knew he heard you from the way he glanced at you from the side of his eye. A subtle nod. Your plan wasn’t smart and wasn’t guaranteed to even do anything. But you had to try, at least so Chris could leave and heal himself.

Wesker had started to walk down the stairs, languid in his movements. He knew you two were fish in a barrel. He didn’t need to move quickly. You took a deep breath before darting around Chris and running straight to Wesker. You thought he’d be surprised, and maybe he was for a second. But he didn’t show it, instead immediately grabbing you by the throat, pulling you towards him and twisting you down, your back hitting the stairs. Pain blossomed where the edge of each stair dug into your flesh, Wesker’s grip tight on your neck.

You pulled at his hand, trying to get him to loosen his grip. Chris was still at the bottom of the stairs, yelling something. Your head was ringing and you couldn’t be bothered to try and figure out what exactly he was saying.

Wesker leaned over you, his face twisted into a snarl. “First Jill, now Chris. Why are they so intent on protecting you?”

You couldn’t speak. Even if you could, you wouldn’t know what to say. The only thought running through your mind was let me go. Chris might have been echoing the sentient, you didn't know.

“I’ll make you a deal.” Don’t listen to him, your mind supplied. But it was impossible not to hear the words he was hissing in your ear. “If you can hide from me until I kill the others, I’ll let you go.”

What’s the catch, you wanted to ask. Maybe he saw it in your eyes because he chuckled again, the dark sound echoing in your mind.

“No catch, I promise.” He pulls back slightly, but still speaks so quietly that Chris cannot hear. “But if anyone gets out, I’ll see that you pay for it.”

With a final squeeze of your throat he lets you go and you greedily gulp in air even as he still looms above you. Your chest heaves as you gasp and struggle to pull yourself into a slightly more comfortable position. Wesker turns to Chris.

“I’ll give you a five second head start, for old times sake.”

___

But despite the head start, it didn’t take long for his scream to break the eerie silence of the hospital again.

This time you just turned your head away, ignoring the pull in your gut to find and help him. This is your fault.

You wander through the halls, freezing at every noise. Wesker had never said what would happen to you if he found you before the others were dead. He had only offered two options- freedom for their deaths or punishment for their lives. But nothing about the third, obvious outcome.

Besides that, there wasn’t much you could do to keep the others from escaping. You weren’t about to sabotage them or their generators, no matter what threats Wesker threw your way. So the only thing you really could do was pray to the Entity, of all things, that Wesker proved more than capable of taking Adam and Jake out before they completed three more generators. You hadn’t seen either of them all Trial and doubted that they had gone to save Chris. With how quickly he had been put back on the Hook, it would seem like the Killer had tunnel vision for him.

Passing by a dull Totem, you shrug and kneel by it. Cleansing had never really been your thing but you had nothing else to do now that you were officially playing Wesker’s game.

You just finished pulling the bones apart when Jake’s short yelp reached your ears. And then Adam’s. You froze, waiting for their screams of being hooked.

But they never came and you realized the catch to your game. You knew neither of them had the ability to pull themselves up from being on the ground which meant they’d be bleeding out slowly over the next few minutes.

Wesker had only one goal now, and that was to find you. And you had no idea what would happen when he did. Would he simply kill or torture you? Or would he continue to toy with you, give you more of a reason to think about him when you were back at the Campfire?

Shakily, you stood and crossed the hallway into one of the long rooms with hospital beds. For a moment you considered hiding underneath one, when a force struck you from behind, lifting you.

The sensation of being literally thrown through the air was one that was hard to get used to. Your shoulder caught the brunt of the momentum as you hit the nearest wall, your entire right side crashing against the tiles with a sickening crunch. You slid down onto the floor, too disoriented and weak to consider picking yourself up to continue running.

Two black boots stepped into your vision but you couldn’t lift your head. Just pick me up and get this over with. You’d lost.

But instead, Wesker kneeled in front of you. You started to lift your head to look at him but he beat you to the punch, his hand coming to clench in your hair with a vice-like grip and wrench your head up. You stare up into his face as he looms over your crumpled figure.

He had no right to be as handsome as he was.

“Such a mess.” He tutted, the sound sending shivers across your skin. His thumb stroked against your jaw, almost comforting. But you knew, even through your disoriented haze, that it was a mocking gesture.

“You tricked me.” It sounded petulant even to your ears.

“I never said it would be a fair fight, dear.” Teasing. You swallowed, and you could faintly see his gaze behind his glasses flicker as your throat bobbed.

“What do you want from me?” It came out a whisper.

He hummed, as if he hadn’t thought of it. As if you hadn’t thought of what you would give him. But then he grinned like a cat that got the cream, a cruel glint in his eye.

“I’m going to break you. And I’m going to make you enjoy it.”

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guywrestlingaddiction · 8 months

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What Turned me Gay (Not Really) - Superheroes

While I know that a lot of attention has already been paid to gay men and superheroes, what I will add is that superheroes were also a gateway to my fascination with gay wrestling.

What turned me gay (not really) ...

Superlad (eyeofthecyclone)

This post, inspired by the sidelineland.com blog, takes a tongue and cheek look into "what made me gay (not really)" and in hindsight, it's hard to imagine anything more obvious than superheroes turning me gay. In fact, there are whole college courses and studies devoted to queerness and superheroes that typically cover the obvious:

Hot, muscular men in skin tight outfits;

A "secret" identity and unleashing one's true self;

Flamboyant outfits;

Being perpetually young and beautiful

Now while those are all key reasons to be drawn to superheroes, but to me, above all, it was the over-the-top and exaggerated fights and struggles that turned me gay (not really).

The first superhero movie I recall watching was the Punisher. As a young boy, I happened to catch the scene of the punisher stretched out for interrogation by the bad guys and this was enough to ignite a spark inside of me. From then on there was no turning back; superheroes would forever be an outlet for my awakening.

The Punisher 1989 with Dolph Lundgren

Sure, a lot of my friends were into superheroes but like their love of pro wrestling, my straight friends and I came away with different experiences.

To be clear, the recent iterations of superheroes do not interest me. In fact, superheroes today are really just action films and what I long for are the old fashioned, man-to-man fights. Sure the stakes were smaller, the fate of a damsel in distress or something, but it all seemed much more meaningful.

In a lot of ways I think superheroes were an outgrowth of my love of tarzan movies - himself an early superhero archetype and much of what I liked about Tarzan overlapped with this obsession.

Tarzan and the Lost City - Mike Henry

While I was too young to enjoy the Wild Wild West when it came out, I grandfather him in as a superhero/action hero. The man had it going on.

Wild Wild West - Robert Conrad

Later when I discovered Bgeast and Can-am (hardheroes) in the early 2000's and found their collections of superhero fights, it all suddenly came together. All at once, it was the final piece that seemed to link my obsessions. Superheroes led to exaggerated fighting, which led to wrestling, and most importantly gay wrestling.

The Black Spider v Dragonfly (bgeast.com)

The Black Spider v Archangel Ace (bgeast.com)

Nowadays I'm lucky to have the opportunity to find all the gay superhero wrestling I can find across multiple studios.

Superlad (eyeofthecyclone)

Kid of Steel v Muscle boy (undergroundwrestler)

Jungle Man v Nick Justice (herohunks)

White Wolf v Dozer (herohunks)

So forget your superheroes with ungodly power and disregard fights with expensive special effects; what really made me gay were those humble (and intimate?) scenes between men in masks. While I've always thought that wrestling was really just a story told through a fight, my obsession for superhero fights provides even further proof. You see this story, whether it's heroes versus villains or heels versus jobbers, has shaped me into who I am today and without a doubt turned me gay (not really).

For the original post check out:

#gay wrestling #gay superheroes #bgeast.com #hardheroes #hero hunks #eyeofthecyclone #undergroundwrestler

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cyberdragoninfinity · 3 months

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I want to hear about your Postcanon Primo Aporia AU with the twins 👁️👁️

BATTING MY EYELASHES... ABSOLUTELY TOUCHED AND HONORED when folks are interested in the bonkers little AUs im always cooking up..thank you ;_; this one especially is rly dear to me, it's starting to grow into quite the, Project. slash pos

here's some notes and rambles about what the fuck's going on in my 5Ds Postcanon Au That's Grown Deeply Out of Hand/Rinascita AU/if i ever write something about it will give it a proper name BUT

"Rinascita" is Italian for 'rebirth' or 'revival'.... "Primo Rinascita" (name I've been calling this AU's Primoporia) plays off of "Primo Reprisa" (Primo Recovery/post ripped in half rebuilt Primo) :^)

the tl;dr I've touched upon with this AU is it's really just born from "what if Leo tried to salvage some of Aporia's mechanisms to bring him back after all the Ark Cradle chaos, but the hardware is so damaged only a third of it can be rebooted, so now Primo has to be alive again whether he wants to be or not"...there's a couple other defining Canon Divergences in here too though!!

Namely the twins elect to Stay in New Domino with Yusei rather than go live with their parents like they do in canon, partially because of the Secret Robot Harddrive(s) Leo has been sitting on for the last six months, and also partially because Fuck the Twins' Parents All My Homies Hate the Twin's Parents THEY ALREADY GOT A DAD!!! HIS NAME IS YUSEI FUDO!!!!

(but also Akiza drops out of medical school to come back to NDC and really buckle down on pursuing turbo dueling professionally... good god let the girl RIDE A MOTORCYCLE!)

Anyway, Primo in this AU is.. Mostly Primo but yeah he is also Aporia too, he has all of Aporia's memories (and fainter, more dreamlike recollections of Lester and Jakob's memories) and for a solid while Leo especially Treats him Like Aporia Primarily, which makes Primo EXTREMELY agitated!! What do you do when your memories both are yours and aren't yours, what do you do when you're a copy of a copy of a copy, what do you do the things 'you've' done are making you feel a whole lot different towards the people you so violently tried to destroy when you were last alive and it's making you feel WEIRD!!!!

he's just going through it. a lot. He has no mission he has no god he was supposed to be able to REST. and now Team 5D's is letting him stay in their garage like some kind of charity case!!

Primo eventually gets uploaded into a Ghost body Yusei and the twins recovered from a Satellite dump (it sucks <3 one eye doesnt work <333) but I think he can also partially exist in some other technology (possibly Leo's Duel Disc and the Yusei Go.... Aporia really did just like throw his whole halo into Yusei's bike and granted it flight there is DEFINITELY Apo Data in that thing's system.)

"You remember how in Homestuck, um, Bec Noir had that instinct to always protect Jade because he was partially her dog?? That's Primo in this AU, with the twins." The Aporia in him's protective instinct is logged the fuck IN

god there's just. A Lot. it's all fun and games until the little AU suddenly has a timeline and themes and. duels. and related OCs. I need to draw them but there's a small faction of scrappers that specialize in recovering the 258939285 stupidass Ghost robots Primo unleashed on the city and getting all the good tech and metal outta them. They'd like to get the tech and metal outta Primo too :)

really it's this sort of character study AU about what happens when a living weapon is allowed true and real free will, whatit means to really be a person, and about Primo coming to terms with this chance to be who He wants to be, not simply what he was created to be, and this nature of who he is vs. who Aporia was vs. who exists at the overlap of those points. Aporia may be dead but he is haunting that fuckin narrativeee his claws are all over everythinggg and it's giving Primo Gender Feelings that he DOESNT HAVE TIME TO FOCUS ON RIGHT NOW!!!! *the looming Postcanon Gender He/They Experience lurks behind him like a phantom*

there was even slowburn yuseiprimo qpr maneuvers. smiles.

LORD THAT'S A LOT SORRY and that's really just me sputtering some basic stuff off the top of my head...there is. a Lot going on. Didnt even get into the guardian angel symbolism and how Z-one slots into all this and the. um. entire fan duel monsters card archetype im cooking for Luna out in this thing. tl;dr This Rehabilitated Pit Bull Has a New Lease on Life and It's Stressing Them The Fuck Out But They'll Be Ok.i believe in Primo's innate big brother instinct and you can too. i like him SOO MUCH

#SOO DELIGHTED TO FINALLY BE ABLE TO TALK MORE ABOUT HIM PUBLICLY theres. so much going on #i didnt even get into the 65 year old butch who wants primo dead #asks #anonymous #lavenderr-starrs #rinascita au #primo 5ds #ygo posting #placido #ygoart #long post /

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shortpplfedup · 1 year

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My School President Episode 7: Rules are made to be broken

I know I'm saying this every week at this point, but this show owes so much structurally to Bad Buddy and emotionally to Love Sick, as well as just overall to the first season of Glee, that it gives me the feeling of being warmly embraced by an old friend. This week Yo (I KNOW!) is the driving force as the Hot Wave rule gets stretched to the limit, discarded and reinstated in a way that actually doesn't make me want to pull my hair out.

Verse: Dreams come true

I'm in heaven With my boyfriend My laughing boyfriend There's no beginning And there is no end Feels like I'm dreaming But I'm not sleeping

Mariah Carey | Fantasy (1995)

Man Tinn is living his best life right now, walking on sunshine. Gun might not technically be Tinn's boyfriend yet, but Tinn sure as shit is Gun's boyfriend. Now that it's clear that they like each other, Tinn is unleashed and he is flirting with both barrels, in the corniest fashion he can muster. He wants to shout to the whole world that he likes Gun and Gun likes him, but the Hot Wave rule is severely cramping his style.

Chorus: Friends to lovers

Oh, I can't be elusive with you honey 'Cause it's blatant that I'm feeling you And it's too hard for me to leave abruptly 'Cause you're the only thing I wanna do

Mariah Carey | Honey (1997)

Gunn for his part is trying his best to play things cool. Tinn's full court press is absolutely doing its job of making him feel special, loved and supported, but also...slightly panicked? Gun spends the episode adjusting to this new super-enthusiastic, forthright, ultra-open version of Tinn and trying to decide how he feels about it. The 'Just Being Friendly' runner is still very much present in this episode, which I found interesting because I'd thought the matter settled at the end of episode 6. But somewhere during that aquarium 'date', probably around the time Tinn shoved three of Gun's fingers into his mouth and bit them (listen, I can't even...), Gun decided he wanted this just as much.

Bridge: Softly softly

Sweet destiny Carried me through desperation To the one that was waiting for me

Mariah Carey | Vision of Love (1990)

Yo's insecurities taking centre stage was unexpected but instructive. It's not lost on me that he chose Tinn as his avatar, because despite Tinn's inherent weird nerd-ness, from the outside he must seem really cool. It's also not lost on Gun that his careless critique about Yo's skills sent his friend on a spiral that ended with a slap to the face. Gun does feel guilty for his part in the ensuing mess, and goes out of his way to help Yo try to make right what he did wrong. In the end, despite the club eventually voting down the rule, or at least voting to exempt Yo from the rule, the Hot Wave rule remains intact due to some adorable plot mechanics that I will totally allow.

Outro: Lay all your love on me

My every wish and every dream Somehow became reality When you brought the sunlight Completed my whole life I'm overwhelmed with gratitude 'Cause baby I'm so thankful I found you

Mariah Carey ft. Joe and 98° | Thank God I Found You (1999)

But even discussing the rule within the club stirred up a lot, as our sweet baby Por engages the hamster running his brain long enough to notice that Gun's sparkle is even sparklier than usual lately. I wrote about the positive reinforcement loop that Gun and Tinn have created propelling Gun upward, and others are starting to see it as well. Por vocalising that to Gun, and Gun seeing Yo work harder to prove himself to Yak as a worthy suitor for his sister clicks the final piece into place for him, and this time he crosses the friend zone line in a full and final acceptance of Tinn's feelings.

Ad Libs

New opening and closing credits and themes this week! The new opener is fine, but I miss 'You Got Ma Back'. At least we still have it for the interstitials.

Chinzhilla's little hero walk into the cafeteria made me tear up a little. I think about how proud my little slackers must feel and I--

I loved Tinn using ja with Gun, very flirty.

Gun's rapid fire little blinks every time Tinn gives him the flustered kilig feelings are ADORABLE.

Fun little meta moment with Tiw playing literally every character in Romeo and Juliet except the leads 🤣

Win and Sound's constant bickering would usually thoroughly irritate me but something about them is making me crazy in the good way.

I spotted you checking your hair before the date Gun.

The fashion on this show is gonna make me resurrect my gensemble/gay apparel posts.

I love Chinzhilla but I also love seeing Gun having one-on-one moments with the other boys in the band, it really just brings forward that these guys really are friends.

Win and Pat voting to keep the rule out of saltiness cracked me up so bad.

I did note that Sound didn't vote the first time around.

I never expected to see Yak in the show's main timeline, so that was fun, and it makes sense that his objection to Yo dating his sister would be the thing that made them reestablish the rule.

The dance number was just perfect. Exactly the kind of thing that would get you a high school girlfriend.

Seems like one of the scenes from last week's preview got cut?

Next week: the first performance round of Hot Wave!

#my school president #chinzhilla rocks!#bl meta series

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istanbulite · 8 months

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also i need to decide on my Astoria MCs backstory n work her being a titan into the story...i think i decided at her being 27 (still 2 years older than the canon™ age bc she was with Hydra before Hades ms worldwide)

Um so....Theia changes sides during the war (Titanomachy) leaves her baby children (Selene and Helios) and her husband (Hyperion) — centuries pass

She lives a fine if guilty life - up until her furious husband finally escapes Tartarus to hunt her down

...at least thats his intention.

They do make up though, and the result is... Eos! Theia hides while pregnant and no one knows a young titan is about to be born. Until the last day. When she does, Theia dies during birth because of the titan poison which has never harmed her previously, its a punishment for aiding Hyperion - who btw manages to escape...for now (and in a way abandoning the baby the way Theia did the first time.)

Eos is secretly taken in by Hera who will later trust her with the MC's Mom (the canon one) she even has special artifacts made just so she will appear human and wont be hurt by the same poison confining Astraeus, Selene, Helios to Tartarus.

The only one who knows is Ares and while he doesn't blackmail Eos he's especially interested in her, wanting to unleash Eos' true feracious, chaotic nature repressed to hell and back. They have a brief affair which ends with Eos barely escaping Aphrodite's wrath (with a minor curse) thanks to Alex who also gets their heart broken by the events but (tries to) move past it.

Eos as the MC is...far more angry and passionate than the game version, and she's shorter at 5" because i couldnt deal with the text suggesting how big Astraeus' 5'9" self is compared to her when she was 5'5" but thats just me nitpicking. She also surely did morally and legally questionable things and knows many other titans on Earth who remained neutral during the War (like Prometheus who aids her a lot or his sister Ankhiale her actual bestie for life)

Her first love is Hydra. She breaks up with him bc frankly he's just too mean and she s not about to be treated like that even if it's with 'love', especially after finding out Hades' interest. With him....its a manipulation of sorts. She never really loves him but her underlying hatred of H.E.R.A starts to show and she wants it gone even before the main events... She does fancy him a bit bc cmon

Then of course - Astraeus. I believe they both feel a staggering, panic inducing connection at first sight which Astraeus clings to like a lifeline and Eos is just...scared of it... which causes the in-game reactions. He is not unwelcome, its never really an enemies to lovers. Just... inconvenient to be 'kidnapped' when ur planning a coup lowkey and ur almost there u know

honestly what first gave me this idea (besides Astraeus' connection to Selene and Helios n then i read he s married to their sibling n its so neat in canon lore??? Like... 👌 dusk, dawn, moon and sun - ) is this portrayal of Eos so... anachronistic esp. for a goddess??? n then noticed mcs design is close lol

they r the same

#astoria lost kisses #astoria: fate's kiss #afk mc #astoria mc #hades afk #hydra afk #astraeus #eos #astraeus afk #lovestruck #greek myth retellings #oc: eos #yessss glad to have this one stone...#i thought all the resurruction shit made it all ridiculous...might use it for my own Eos stuff #but in Astoria? this works. to the point #been on my drafts for forever....i am... free #lovestruck voltage #lovestruck game

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oftlunarialmoon · 3 months

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Monster High Electrified Review

originally posted on www.onlyfunthings.org on March 19, 2017

Ciao lovelies! Recently I watched the new Monster High movie, Electrified! I decided to do a review since Monster High is one of my special interests!

WARNING- Spoilers below!

This movie is the second movie in the new reboot canon. In the Monster High fandom, there are now 2 canons (or official universes), the old canon (before the “Welcome to Monster High” movie) and the new canon (the reboot, so far its “Welcome to Monster High” and “Electrified”).

This new canon’s backstory is a bit different, and I honestly don’t love the backstory here as much. But I do like certain aspects: mostly how it’s

1. SO GAY OH MY GOD I’m SO HAPPY MY OTP (one true pairing, my fave couple) HAS A CHANCE TO BE TOGETHER THANK GOD FINALLY I MAY HAVE SOME REPRESENTATION IN MY FAVE FANDOM and

2. Probably going to usher in the scene revival (along with Suicide Squad, but more on this will be in a different blog post.)

I want to review the new movie Electrified in depth today! I plan on buying it on DVD when it comes out (but for now, I’ve watched it via streaming because I’m a bad kid and couldn’t wait!).

For this review, I want to review different aspects of the movie in comparison to the other reboot movie, “Welcome to Monster High.” I may occasionally also compare things to the old canon. So let’s go!

OVERALL STORY (HUGE spoilers in this section! Reader beware!)

Electrified was a fun movie because it brings back some elements of the old canon’s movies that I like so much, specifically having subplots going on alongside main plots. In Electrified, Clawdeen is following her dreams of making fashions for both Monsters and Normies (humans). Her squad (the main ghouls- Draculaura, Frankie, Cleo, Lagoona, and surprisingly, Ari) team up to help her, and they begin turning the old power station where Frankie used to live into a salon.

Meanwhile, Frankie meets a new ghoul named Twyla. (I’m so glad they brought her back!). Frankie notices that Moanica and her Zomboys are acting strange and Twyla offers to spy on them. Frankie agrees to this but expresses concern for Twyla, and later saves Twyla from being struck by lightning, but Frankie gets struck.

She seems normal at first, but becomes more and more jittery, absorbing power from her surroundings and begins to glow blue.

She ends up adding the extra “spark” to Clawdeen’s designs, also creating a small, not very cute (in my opinion) electricity-creature named Znap:

While the designs are being electrified, Twyla finds out that Moanica is using Frankie’s science experiment from the beginning of the movie to steal power from the normies, all under the power station that the ghouls are turning into the salon. Moanica explains that since the normies are afraid of the dark (as explained by Dracula in one of the human studies classes), she wants to make a blackout and terrorize them.

Moanica’s first attempt to trap the power fails, and when she sees Frankie absorbing electricity, she lets Twyla go. Twyla leads Frankie to Moanica’s power stealing device, and Moanica uses Frankie as the new host for all the normie electricity.

Meanwhile, the salon opening is going well. The normies are loving the new “monster inspired” fashions, and think that all the ghouls are wearing costumes. At the height of their success, Moanica activates her device, now using Frankie as a conduit, and causes a blackout, and then unleashes the Zomboys. They all go and wreak havoc.

The main ghouls go under the power station and find Frankie, full of electricity, in shock. They manage to get her out of it by getting her to create more Znap creatures. They all go to stop Moanica, and a small, rather fun looking battle occurs, resulting in Moanica and the Zomboys being forced to clean up the salon they destroyed as punishment. Clawdeen’s salon has a reopening.

Overall, this storyline is pretty good, and having the multiple dimensions to it keeps viewer interest. I didn’t include all of the subplots in that summary though.

Here are the subplots that didn’t get mentioned:

-The girls rescue a new ghoul (Silvi Timberwolf).

-Silvi, Venus, Wraith, Deuce, and a few other monsters form a band. They spend the entire movie bickering over the name and music style. Silvi and Venus get new electrified outfits. The band settles on incorporating every members ideas at the same time.

-The Dracula and Clawdeen’s mom romantic subplot is strengthened.

-Clawdeen’s inner struggle with the difficulties of creativity and fear of failure.

My Favorite Little Moments That Made Me Smile

-Moanica admitting that she can’t stay mad at the Zomboys, and that they can all go out for ice cream afterwards.

-The Zomboys flirting with a brain that suspiciously wears glasses that look like Ghoulia’s.

-Dracula screaming and running around, imitating a human afraid of a spider (gif from @monsterhigh-gifs )

-Twlya’s obvious crush on Frankie

Overall this storyline for me gets a 4/5. I found that the band subplot was too distracting and kind of irritating. I liked the overall story though. Especially the extra character development it gave everyone.

FASHION

So….This one is…iffy. I liked how the electrified outfits looked on some ghouls:

Frankie’s makeup for it made her/them look soo cute!

I also liked how it looked on Cleo, and Ari.

But it looked awful on like EVERYONE ELSE. I mean seriously, LOOK AT VENUS! My sweet Eco-punk child looks like a hot mess.

I also agree with Raythe in that why didn’t the guys get electric inspired stuff? As bad as it may have looked on most ghouls, I was still curious on what it may have looked like on the mansters.

And why can’t poor Moanica ever get new clothes or hair? Why is it that only the main ghouls got new looks? (and I guess Silvi and Venus, and arguably Dracula).

Also, poor Lagoona, this look does her NO justice..

Overall, the fashion in this movie (and the dolls) was 3/5. While I liked that they introduced different types of makeup, hair, and fabrics, these looks were hot messes!

MUSIC

So, I have a definite fave from this soundtrack, and it’s “Me and My Amigos.” It’s so sassy, catchy, and perfect for Moanica!

youtube

However, that was literally like the only song that was notable.

“Electrified” by the band created in the movie was….not exactly..good, in my opinion.

youtube

“Electric Fashion” isn’t really good either. It’s catchy but it’s too simple.

youtube

Overall the music was 2/5 compared to the old canon and “Welcome to Monster High.”

DOLLS

The dolls for this movie could also use some help.

For 1, once again I haven’t seen any male dolls released for the reboot. Not even for Electrified.

For 2, the only version of Frankie I can find is the version with Znap, and this sucks, because that version is pretty expensive, and also is less versatile, as you can’t change her/their clothes. (She’s/they're wired.)

For 3, all the dolls have that crimped hair, and it’s not very soft. The Ari that

I got, her hair was very coarse and not fun to handle.

I will say, there’s a lot of detail on the dresses, including all of the different patterns, colors, and textures you see in the movie. They also come with extra hairclips!

Another thing I like about the reboot dolls in general is that the joints are stronger. And the bodies feel more durable (and heavy.) Not to mention, they fit Ever After High doll clothing more easily (though still not perfectly.)

Overall, the Electrified dolls are 4/5!

OTHER MERCH

I haven’t seen any other merch for this movie other than the dolls, which is incredibly disappointing. Let’s hope that more comes out when the movie comes out on dvd.

1/5 for hope’s sake!

OTHER TIDBITS

-I don’t like Znap, I’m sorry, I don’t think he’s cute. If the reboot is going to do pets, they should at least give Frankie a stitched together pet like the old canon (Sparky the dog and also the stitched teddy bear).

-They’re slowly developing Frankie and Draculaura’s relationship which I like. Once again, they refrained from shoving in any un-needed male love interests for either of them, let’s hope it stays that way!

So that’s my review on Electrified! I can’t wait to get it when it comes out on DVD!

Have you all seen it yet? Do you plan to? Let me know!

#agere #age regression #sfw agere #sfw littlespace #age regressor #sfw age regression #monster high #monster high electrified #monster high movie #monster high movie review #monster high electrified review #monster high g2 #Youtube

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mrfandomgage · 1 year

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Re-contextualizing

It's a really fucking cool thing I love in media. I don't have too many examples on hand in my brain, but I do know 2, one not so great, and one fantastic.

UNDERTALE you know this one... right? Like, everyone knows Sand, you know it. Anyway, Undertale re-contextualized EXP and LV. Everyone knows EXPerience and LeVel right? It's an RPG, kill monsters and grow in power. Well in undertale, EXP is kept the same but Level is now called LOVE. As we all know, it's because EXP is EXicution Points and LOVE is Level Of ViolencE (ViolEnce? It only takes one of those 2 Es I can't decide which). It's a neat bit of information, and it's the lesser of the 2 examples... see it's fine but... what uh what does that really change in our view? This information is only given to us for a True Pacifist run, establishing that Flowey was actually honest in the beginning, but it's also... it uh... it's meaningless. Yeah this speech is a set up for Sans to tell us a pun that signifies we actually earned his respect, and all it does is show that monsters actually do have a danger system to understand threats... it doesn't actually change experience and level, it just explains how monsters view experience and level, which is a re-contextualized understanding, but not really a significant change to how we understand it. In fact, True Genocide does a better job to contextualize that grinding and level hunting is fucked up with multiple factors, 1. It removes flavor text from save points, 2. It changes flavor text from intractable objects, 3. It not only increases the amount of time it takes for you to grind implying there's more empty space in the chase of a monster for random encounters, but after all monsters are dead, I think it increases the amount of random encounters to tell you have no one is there, 4. Music fucks right off. I'm pretty sure even while you're set on this path, Snowdin is already a bit more somber in its tone (not entirely sure), and when everyone is dead, the music is nothing more but an empty noise every few seconds, 5. Characters, even the blind are scared of you, and even jovial Papyrus, the most lovable guy to exist who can put up with just about anything, gives up when it comes to you, Papyrus stops his Jovial Play, he's sincerely concerned about you and your mentality to the point where he drops his needs for yours, he notes you're covered in dust, you're scaring people, and he truly and wholeheartedly believes that you can grow, become a better person and change for the best, he spares you seeing the best in you despite your destructive actions and wretched behavior. So... I don't like Undertale's re-contextualizing that much, it doesn't actually change your view or give much to really think about. It's an RPG context that you can only really see for Undertale, but maybe it's because it's using something not actually unique to itself, maybe the failing in the story aspect here is because it lacks a special amount of pure connection to it.

OMORI. If you don't know, I'm love game where funny haha your sister dead game, how can you live with yourself? In Omori, there's a quiet re-contextualized mechanic specific to Omori, the Energy Meter. See, throughout most the game, it's only in Headspace, except when you fight Basil. When you fight Basil, and the meter reaches 10, it starts telling you everything will be fine, with your emotion chart becoming "Stressed Out". This tells us the Energy Meter is Sunny's stress, and everything that drops that meter is how Sunny relieves that stress. It's an interesting detail that actually re-contextualized most of the games interactions. Sunny views entering a fight stressful as you always start a fight in headspace with a 3 in the energy meter, Sunny seeing his friends interact or even interacting with him calms him down, and Sunny when pushed to his limits, when he can't hold back his stress and emotions will unleash it, in an all out attack... Sunny was holding back against Basil. Yeah, believe it or not the simple action of showing the Energy Meter but nothing else associated, tells us that Sunny is Holding back against Basil, because Sunny's own energy uses (in the form of Omori, his headspace self) is "Trip" "Attack Again" "RELEASE ENERGY". All of Sunny's energy uses have him attacking and typically dealing more damage than any other method. Sunny already beats Basil to the point where his health is a concern and he's hospitalized, without Sunny doing anything to release any stress. It's actually a very interesting context, that Sunny, even if he strikes harder, he keeps himself from losing it and breaking Basil to his fullest. It's an amazing way to make you rethink events in not only headspace but even question the very fight you're playing that very moment. It's such a simple mechanic with simple differences that makes a world of difference, that doesn't even call too much attention to itself (*cough* LOVE *cough*).

I love re-contextualizing in media. It's something that can make you see elements of your favorite works in another light that can wildly change how you can view your favorite works or even interactions to the smallest degree. It can be insanely meaningful changing some of the most basic interactions... or in Undertale's case, at least giving you a thought to play FallOut without killing anyone (again, it isn't a meaningful change that helps change your view of your many interactions, it's a setup to a kind of joke really)

Note, I love both these games to the Nines. Just some thoughts and opinions.

#undertale #omori

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olivereactsaboutgarbage · 1 year

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Higurashi When They Cry - Watanagashi Chapter 2

By the way... remember that rule about how I wasn’t allowed to use roleplay asterisks unless golf was involved? Complete nonsense. I’d already broken it multiple times before I’d even started claiming it existed. Check THIS out:

It turns out there’s a special Toddler-Free portion of school where only people who aren’t Toddlers are in school. How interesting.

I... I’m pretty sure I just heard the voice actor say “swimming” in English as if THAT was the punchline... this must be the battle between good and evil Higurashi is about... a battle between localizers and puns...

Oh also the teacher with her freakish blue hair and pro[per]noun assaults Mion.

The Toddlers reenter. The Toddlers are ready for Kaiji Joke 15, but Mion says to lay off on the Kaiji Joke Parts for a little bit.

Hngh... I can’t allow myself to overanalyze every instance of Rena seemingly shifting from first-person to third-person, especially when the voice acting doesn’t even seem to be backing it up (not that I know Japanese)...

I’m glad the laugh track is built-in now?

that’d be funny if true :)

Oh, got it. Keiichi is a rich person... no wait, that doesn’t work, because Rena is OBVIOUSLY rice, which would make the Toddlers Zoros, but... Zoro beats rice beats rich people, not rich people beat rice beats Zoro!!! But the Toddlers obviously aren’t rich people, so... I’m kinda stuck here...

That is... unless... Higurashi is a world where the exact inverse of One Piece’s laws apply. This was already foreshadowed by Rena gaining Rena Points instead of Sanji losing Sanji Points, but now this bizarro-world version of the weapon triangle has confirmed it.

Cool, Keiichi is a rich person, who beats Rena who is rice, who beats the Toddlers who are Zoros, because Higurashi is opposite world. Now I can move on with my life.

Could it be... Mion is this world’s Prophesied Trinity God...? But, in this world... a God is a Devil...

Oh, wait. There IS going to be a Kaiji Joke Part 15 soon. It’s just that the sequel to Kaiji Joke Part 14 won’t be anytime soon. Jeepers, Mion really had me going for a second there...

Also young girls can read blue text, but that’s been well established by this point, so how about the writing stops wasting time?

Kaiji Joke Part 15 is a go!!! It’s, uh... “Sympathy”. I have no idea what that is.

Oh, they’re playing the game where you have to say the boringest possible member of a broad category or everyone points at you and calls you weird. Well, that’s great and all, but I still have no idea what “Sympathy” is.

But seriously, Kermit is THE Muppet, right? Like... “Muppet” is a bit too easy of a category because you can literally just write “Kermit”, no? ...Sorry, I got a bit heated there. This game... this accursed game...

Mion doesn’t say “Muppets” she says “Shaved Ice”.

Keiichi you dipshit. The name of the game is “say the thing that’s bland”, not “say the thing that’s great”. ...Sorry, I got a bit heated there. This game... this accursed game...

Well, Toddler 02 was even dipshitter than Keiichi. Wait... dipshitter than Keiichi...? Is that possible...?

no you idiot don’t unleash that

Oh, it’s fine, he said something that wasn’t fetishy at all. But then everyone got bored and made it fetishy. That’s really sad...

RENA is the only person who wishes everyone was acting more normal?! RENA is?! Well... “Respect,” I guess. Rena has earned a coupon for one free fist bump from me. She should use it wisely...

Eurgh even when she’s not gigantic I freaking hate it so bad when Toddler 01 puts her fists in front of her face. Stop doing that. I hate fists!!! I hate faces!!!

be fucking nice

Is Toddler 02 going to staunchly refuse to be a normie and get zero points. Is that the running subjoke of this Kaiji Joke Part. Also

Since when is NOT showing your answer ALLOWED??? Come now. Come on now. Being a protagonist doesn’t get you special privileges. Stop being a little twerp and just behave in a normal fashion. An ACTUAL normal fashion, not the normal fashion of behavior you use to avoid getting murdered.

I still don’t know what “Sympathy” is, but I hope Keiichi dies faster this time than he did last time.

What the fuck is your damage, Keiichi? YOU’RE NOT SPECIAL. JUST PLAY THE GAME NONCHALANTLY.

Now I see why he sucked so hard at not getting murdered I mean being normal I mean being so normal it prevented him from being murdered.

Oh, Keiichi is officially doing worse than Toddler 02. Fucker thinks he’s special when he’s not even doing as good as Toddler 02...

Keiichi and Rena switch genders for some odd reason. Well, those two can do what they want, I don’t really care...

Without WHAT forced explanation?! The voice acting went away during Keiichi’s entire rant! What are you talking about, Mion?!

What the hell are you talking about... don’t do old people dirty like that... I used to think you were cool, Mion...

Bah! Humbug! The joke yet again is that Keiichi is suffering! Stale and predictable!!! Get better jokes, Ryukishi! Subvert your own patterns and surprise the audience! Do it NOW!!!

As opposed to the TERRORS of wearing girl’s NUDITY in front of INANIMATE CARDBOARD CUTOUTS.

...Oh, sorry. My original intention was to make fun of the word “actual” being in that line, but after typing the words “As opposed to” I blacked out and apparently got a little carried away.

Ah, that’s why Keiichi and Rena swapped genders. It was foreshadowing. I’ll be keeping an eye out for when Rena becomes her own ideal man... presumably it’ll be way less stupid than this entire scene.

Ah, in that case this next scene will be an important test. If Keiichi possesses the power to activate Ultra Turbo Mode, then he truly is cute...

Hmm... well the scene was very uneventful to the point of being quite vague about Keiichi’s power level, but... he might be cute... maybe...

...Pardon? I know I should be analyzing the text for clues but what the hell kind of clue is this.

Oh or I guess maybe it’s an incest joke???

Keiichi and his dad are getting an EXTENDED MEAL SCENE, just like Keiichi had with Ooishi last time... that means Keiichi’s dad is important, just like Ooishi! That means Keiichi’s dad is evil, just like Ooishi! I knew it from the start!!!

Wait so I was joking but is this actually the same restaurant Ooishi went to. Scary... I don’t like it! :(

Are no male characters in Higurashi good and pure? Keiichi himself, Keiichi’s dad, Ooishi, Toddler 03, Toddler 04... all utter scum. I don’t think I missed any male Higurashi characters. No... I DIDN’T miss any male Higurashi characters. And that’s a promise!

Hmm... actually... are there any male UMINEKO characters who are good and pure?

Hmm...

There’s.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

the guy whose favorite song was Monochrome clock from Umineko. Perfect boy. Excellent taste in music. Guy Whose Favorite Song Is Monochrome Clock did nothing wrong.

Heh... I bet you thought I would come up empty, didn’t you? Fool... don’t underestimate me!!!

That’s not an equivalent situation, idiot. An equivalent situation would be “I never hit my own father”. For your foolishness, I sentence you to eternity in Hell. Wait never mind I sentence you to eternity in Heaven. If Mion is the devil then Mion is in Hell therefore Heaven is worse.

“What a complete loser my father is. What a reprehensible trait I don’t endorse. How disgusting and distressing his personality is, to me, a person who is better than him in a meaningful way.”

Anyway. Keiichi finally notices that the waitress has a character sprite and green hair, and decides to enter Maximized Cruelty Mode.

disco elysium be like

Keiichi dies of blood loss and gets replaced with a dog until I temporarily get amnesia and start calling the dog Keiichi, like what happened in my Nana posts.

This is just like in the first arc when a waitress said “I’m not an evil person” and Keiichi said “...Wha? I was taken aback at the evil person’s confusing words.”

Well the first arc didn’t have a waitress in it, but IF IT DID, that’s what would have happened.

Wait, OLDER sister??? You’re EIGHT and you have a JOB???

Oh, like Umineko.

what’s keiichi’s dad’s DEAL!!! why doesn’t HE get blue hair and a proper noun!!! I already know Keiichi’s dad is the real most important character, you can stop pretending otherwise, alright? Show me his CHARACTER SPRITE. Show me his HAIR COLOR.

Meanwhile, in Side Story Land...

Oh, right. “Younger twin”. So Shion’s not eight. That should have been obvious, probably. Anyway, Keiichi has manipulated Toddler 01 and Toddler 02 into getting into a debate about the existence of Shion, I guess.

if that’s neither significant nor brushed aside i will be BAFFLED

...By which I mean “both” is what’s obviously going to happen.

“Uncharacteristically”? Keiichi you FOOL. You IDIOT. Mion gets embarrassed ALL THE TIME. Wait, you’re literally the one who thinks she and Shion are definitely the same person, you REALLY REALLY shouldn’t be using the word “uncharacteristically” here. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you, Keiichi!!!

Wow... a sentence perfectly crafted to maximize its own hellishness!

Man... Higurashi really brings out the beast in me in these posts, huh? I feel like in my prior Soul Eater NOT! and Nana posts and my current One Piece posts, I trend towards respecting the characters as people and gently caressing the creators and exceeding a minimum level of pleasantness and all that good stuff, and my vitriol and negativity are finely targeted solely at that which I have chosen to find distasteful.

With Higurashi my cruelty enters into Spray and Pray Mode and I start dropkicking arbitrarily chosen characters and continuing to kick them until they’re dead.

Or maybe I’m literally just talking nonsense. When I started making Nana posts I was regularly beating myself up over how tiny they are, but having recently reread through my entire blog... the Soul Eater NOT! posts which preceded my Nana posts were also quite tiny.

#higurashi #when they cry #is what i'm consuming

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thatotherfanfic · 2 years

Text

Chapter 1: Kazuichi Soda Is Doing Great

Contains: stuffing, hiccups, belly rubs, poor life decisions

One night in mid-September, Teruteru started bragging again. Kazuichi hated it when he did that.

"I don't think you appreciate how special my talent really is," Teruteru said, smoothing his hair back. "My skill in cooking rivals that of the fabled fairy courts. One bite and I can make even the most temperate of men give in to his primal gluttonous nature. I can influence business dinners, political decisions…the whole future of the world, really."

From his place a few seats down, Kazuichi scoffed. He sat slumped over his plate, his beanie pulled low. "Yeah, right. It's just food."

"Just food!" Teruteru's eyes narrowed. "How dare you! 'Just food.' You're lucky I don't unleash my full power on you!"

Read on AO3

"Full power?" Kazuichi snapped. "What do you mean, full power?! You're starting to sound like that Gundham freak!"

A few seats down, Sonia cleared her throat delicately. Kazuichi slumped in on himself a little bit.

"I do not contest that your cooking skills are most impressive," Sonia said. "You assisted in the preparation of this meal, did you not?"

"Indeed I did," said Teruteru proudly. "Part of my education here –"

"Is to train under the chefs and hone your craft to perfection, blah blah blah, we know ," Kazuichi huffed.

Teruteru stared at him. So did several other of his classmates. The back of Kazuichi's neck flushed. He wasn't usually this pissed off, but Miss Sonia and Gundham were pretty near eyefucking each other, and now she'd complimented Teruteru – Teruteru , the most annoying guy on earth! Why would she do that if not to spite Kazuichi personally?

"I mean, yeah, it's good shit," he said, mouth full of perfectly grilled salmon, "but it's not magic or anything. If what you said was true, we'd all look like Byakuya by now."

He gestured with his fork toward the end of the table, where Byakuya sat in regal silence. He'd already cleared eight plates, yet his white suit was as spotless as ever.

"You certainly would not," he said haughtily. "It took years of dedication to craft this body. You , of all people, could never attain its equal."

Kazuichi slammed his fork down. "What's that supposed to mean?!"

Teruteru sniffed. "I believe he means you're a plebian with no taste. Anyway, the reason you all don't stuff yourself silly at every meal is because I haven't crafted it specifically for you. I could, if I wanted, but then nobody would ever get anything done around here."

"You could not!" Kazuichi retorted, standing up.

"I could too," Teruteru countered.

"You could not !"

"Guys!" Hajime broke into the conversation. He sat at the end of the table elbow to elbow with Nagito, as fucking always.

Everyone turned to look at him. Kazuichi's expression grew even more sour, if possible. "What?" he snapped.

Hajime gave him an odd look. "Um, what if instead of arguing about it, you tried it out?"

Teruteru's face lit up. Kazuichi didn't know what that meant, but he got the vague feeling that he was being threatened somehow.

"You mean, I cook for Kazuichi…" Teruteru said, stroking his chin…

Byakuya also looked intrigued. "And Kazuichi sees if he can resist your creation. A very interesting proposal."

"What?!" Kazuichi glanced from face to face. "No! Like I'd want anything he made for me personally! He might put something weird in it!"

"Scared, are you?" Teruteru taunted.

"I'm not scared!" Kazuichi shrieked. Several other students looked over. "I'll tell you what will happen! I'll eat as much as I want, and that's all. It's just food!"

A determined gleam came into Teruteru's eye. "Just as much as you want, you say?"

"Exactly!" Kazuichi gulped. "A-and not a bite more. You'll see."

Teruteru smiled. Kazuichi's stomach twisted up. "Well, well, well. I accept this challenge. Shall we meet, say, Saturday? There's a private dining room I can convince the head chef to reserve for the occasion. It's all part of honing my talent, you see."

"F-fine. Saturday. Noon," Kazuichi added, wanting to control at least part of this arrangement.

Everyone was still looking at him. He grit his teeth and pushed his plate away.

"You'll see. You're not that special!" With that, he turned and stalked out of the cafeteria.

He heard people laughing as he left. It figured. It fucking figured.

He marched up to the first vending machine he saw, bought a Coke, and slammed it back. That's mostly what he did these days – drank Coke, ate chips, and tried not to think about the fact that he was almost halfway through his third year and he still didn't have any fucking friends.

It wasn't like he wasn't trying. In his first year, he spent every waking moment chasing after Miss Sonia, the love of his life. One fateful beach trip later, he eavesdropped on her talking to the other girls about how much she disliked him – despised him – wished he would just drop off the face of the earth and die.

That wasn't exactly what she'd said, but it was close enough. It hurt his stomach just remembering it.

And then in second year, he thought he'd made a real friend in Hajime Hinata, a reserve course student. Hajime listened to him. He let Kazuichi show him his machines. Being with him made Kazuichi feel warm inside, happy, whole. He was the best friend Kazuichi could have asked for. The only real friend he'd ever had, actually.

But this year, Hajime started hanging out with him less and less. Kazuichi stalked him to find out why, like anybody would do, and then –

Then it turned out Nagito Komaeda – fucking Nagito Komaeda, who famously thought nobody mattered unless they were an Ultimate – had stolen Hajime from him. Hajime blew Kazuichi off at every opportunity to go hang out with that lunatic. And then –

Kazuichi's throat tightened up. He bought another Coke.

Then he'd listened in on the wrong conversation again. And he found out that Hajime hated him. Because he was annoying. And creepy and weird. And he never shut up.

That was in July, and now it was September. He hadn't spoken to Hajime since summer break (well, except to snap at him), but his so-called friend hadn't gotten the message. And now he had the nerve to suggest Kazuichi take Teruteru up on some stupid competition?! So much for being bros.

Kazuichi drained his third soda and slammed the bottle into a recycling bin. He felt painfully bloated. Three Cokes on top of a big dinner was not a good combination.

He burped into his fist and stalked up the stairs to the third year dormitory hallway, and if he was crying a little bit, it was only because his stomach hurt.

At least I can stick it to Teruteru on Saturday , he thought that night as he sat in bed in front of his laptop, trying and failing to get off to a woman fucking her pizza man. It's not like shit can get any worse.

On Saturday, he walked up to the private dining room feeling like maybe shit was about to get worse.

"You ready?" cried Ibuki, looking like she was hyped up for a concert. She wasn't alone, either. Akane, Hiyoko, Mikan, and Byakuya stood outside the door, apparently lying in wait.

Kazuichi started back. "Huh? What the fuck are you guys doing here?!"

And why are so many of you girls? He dreaded girls. Girls made him feel like shit. That only got worse as he got older.

Akane laughed. At him, definitely. "To see the show! Besides, if you can't eat everything, I'm gonna play clean-up crew."

Byakuya adjusted his glasses. "I am here to make sure the challenge is carried out fairly, and to ensure that there is no cheating on either side."

Mikan twisted her hands together. "I-I'm here in…in case anyone gets hurt…"

"I'm not gonna get hurt!" Kazuichi yelped, sweating. Maybe this was a terrible idea after all.

Hiyoko twirled her ponytail around her finger. "I'm here for posterity," she said, casually scrolling through her phone. "It's gonna be so sad."

Okay, this was definitely a bad idea. Kazuichi pointed at her, gritting his teeth. "Y-you'd better not take any pictures!"

Byakuya shook his head. "Certainly not. I will not allow any blackmail material to be gathered under my watch."

Hiyoko pouted. "Boo, you're boring. Whatever. I don't have anything better to do anyway."

Kazuichi was just considering making a run for it when the door to the private dining room swung open. Out stepped Teruteru, dressed in his stupid smug little red apron and his spotless chef's uniform, as always.

"Ah, Kazuichi! Just in time," he said with a wicked smirk. "Do come inside."

Hiyoko snorted. "I don't think his food is that good," she whispered to Ibuki.

Kazuichi wanted to yell at her, but he didn't. He had to concentrate. He had to prove to at least one person that he wasn't some pathetic, friendless, out-of-control loser.

Teruteru held the door for him. Kazuichi stepped inside, and his jaw dropped.

A round table, set for one, was piled with the most delicious-looking food he'd seen in his life. There was a huge tray of burgers – fancy burgers, but they still looked good – fries, somehow also fancy, and ramen, and stew, and teriyaki chicken skewers…

He whirled on Teruteru. "How did you know what kind of food I like? Have you been spying on me?!"

Teruteru clicked his tongue. "Takes one to know one. But no. You're remarkably transparent, and I've known you for two years, after all. Have a seat."

Kazuichi swallowed hard. The smell was intoxicating. His stomach let out a loud growl.

Teruteru's smirked widened. "Eager to begin, I see?"

"No! I – I skipped breakfast!" Kazuichi spluttered, trying not to look at the feast. He hadn't been sure how to prepare for this, but he figured skipping breakfast would give him an out in case he did end up overeating.

Maybe that had been a mistake.

Byakuya stepped up to the table. "Before we begin, I will sample each dish," he announced. "That way we shall be absolutely certain that there was no tampering involved."

Teruteru's smile slipped for the first time that day. "What? Are you suggesting I would drug a dinner guest?!"

But Byakuya had already started on a hamburger, finishing it in record speed and moving on to the chicken. Teruteru spluttered indignantly.

"Hmm, maybe your food isn't magical after all," said Hiyoko, looking bored. "Byakuya doesn't seem like he's spiraling into madness."

Teruteru started to sweat. "That's because I didn't make it for him! Don't you listen to a word I say?"

Along the side of the room, the girls sat in cushy chairs along the wall, chattering among themselves and staring at him. Had Teruteru known there would be an audience?

Kazuichi suddenly got the sick feeling that this was all some sort of joke. He tightened his grip on the chair and scowled.

When Byakuya had finished testing, Mikan shone a light into his eyes and took his pulse and temperature.

"Th-there are no symptoms of any sort of drug use," Mikan said, nervously putting her instruments away. "N-not yet, anyway…"

"Of course there aren't!" Teruteru snapped.

Byakuya dabbed at the side of his mouth with a napkin. "And if Kazuichi and I happen to develop matching symptoms in the future, we will know who is to blame."

Teruteru glared. "This is unbelievable. What do I have to do to get a little respect around here?" He smoothed his hair and adjusted his hat. "Anyway, now that all that…unpleasantness is over, I believe it is time for our challenge to begin."

Kazuichi threw him a dirty look. He took a deep breath – a mistake. The tantalizing array of smells overpowered him, and he reached for a burger almost before he knew what he was doing.

He bit in. Tears sprang into his eyes. This was good. This was really, really good. It reminded him of his favorite diner here in the city, and the one his mom used to take him to back home, and the burgers his dad grilled sometimes when business was good –

It was gone before he knew it. He grabbed another one. And another.

"H-he's eating too fast!" he heard Mikan say through a kind of fog. "H-he's going to choke!"

Hiyoko scoffed. "Who cares? You can just resuscitate him."

It broke the spell long enough for Kazuichi to remember he had an audience of cute (therefore terrifying) girls watching him. Plus Byakuya. Plus Teruteru, who was watching him with satisfaction written all over his plump little face.

Kazuichi swallowed the last of the burgers and let out a loud burp. "That was good," he admitted, reaching for the plate of teriyaki chicken skewers. "I'm not done yet, though. Like I said, I skipped breakfast, and I'm a pretty hungry guy, so…"

Fuck. He couldn't stall much longer. The teriyaki chicken looked incredible.

Six skewers later, he was having some trouble. Sure, he could pack it away when he wanted, but his stomach already felt as packed as it could get, and he hadn't even started on the fries, ramen, or stew…

"Full already, Kazuichi?" Teruteru drawled from a seat of his own. He crossed his legs like a stuck up little prince. "Maybe you want to think about slowing down a bit, huh?"

Kazuichi glared at him as he reached for the fries. "Sh-shut up. I'm just getting started. I can stop whenever I want, you know."

He hiccuped. His hand flew to cover his mouth, but of course it was too late.

"Of course you can," Teruteru said, smirking. Kazuichi swallowed hard against another hiccup and reached for a large goblet full of…

"Is this Coke?" He gaped. "I thought you – hic! – I-I thought you didn't approve of junk food," he muttered, flushing hot.

"It's a similar concoction," Teruteru replied. He looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

Kazuichi tried a sip. Jesus Christ. How did this motherfucker even manage to improve Coca-Cola? Would he even be able to drink normal Coke after this?

He better not have ruined Coke for me, Kazuichi thought, and set the goblet down with a clunk. It was empty.

He shifted his weight in his seat, which triggered a long belch. He was not feeling his best.

"I'm definitely gonna – hic! – uh, stop soon," he said, trying to sound casual. He pulled the plate of fries forward. "But I wanna tr – hic! – try everything first. I just gotta…pace myself a little."

Hiyoko snickered. "You're doing great so far."

Kazuichi glared at her. He shoved a handful of fries in his mouth. Fuck , they were good.

The next thing he knew, the fries were gone. And now his hiccups were getting really bad. He could hardly breathe between bites without hiccuping loudly enough to alert the whole school.

Akane looked impressed. "Damn, Kazuichi, I didn't know you could put it away like this!" She pumped her fist.

"M-maybe you should stop," Mikan said, twisting her hair. "Y-you're gonna make yourself sick…"

"I'll – hic! – I'll stop when I – hic! – when I wanna stop!" Kazuichi exploded, reaching for the ramen. If he slurped the noodles fast enough, he could drink the broth more slowly and maybe that would stop his hiccuping, at least…

But something else was happening. At first he thought he was just too full, and that's why his throat kept closing up and his stomach had started to hurt. But then his eyes stung, and he had to swipe a tear off his face. And then another. And then another.

Mikan looked extremely distressed. "P-please stop this!" she cried. "Y-you're hurting him!"

"I'm fine!" Kazuichi snapped, followed by another painful hiccup. He slurped up the ramen, and for a moment he felt better. But then he had to take a break to breathe, and his eyes filled with tears.

"You – hic! – you did s-something to th – hic! – to this," he whimpered.

Ibuki leaned forward in her seat. "But Byakuya's not crying!"

It was true. Byakuya looked as stern as ever, while Kazuichi was reduced to sobs in between sips of broth.

His stomach really hurt now. Every time he hiccuped, he thought he might throw up. Maybe I should. I'd have more room then…

What was he thinking?! That would prove Teruteru right!

But maybe he'd already won. Kazuichi pushed the empty bowl of ramen back and grasped for the stew, vision blurry with tears. This food…it brought back so many memories. Happy memories, times he'd really, truly felt loved and peaceful and safe – when was the last time he'd felt like that?

As long as he was eating, he was fine, but every time he had to stop…loneliness slammed into him like a brick. No one liked him here. No one loved him. Maybe no one had ever loved him, and the only way he could feel it was through this dumb, stupid food…

"Give – hic! – g-give me – hic! " Fuck, he could barely speak. "Water. I – hic! – have to get rid of – hic! – these goddamn – hic! – hiccups…"

Teruteru graciously offered Kazuichi a goblet of water. He chugged it. Fuck! That didn't help. It only filled him up more…

He lifted a bite of stew from the bowl. It felt unbearably heavy. The smell alone made him weep with longing. He put the spoon in his mouth and sucked on it like a pacifier, shaking with hiccups and sobs.

"Alright." Teruteru stood up as Kazuichi made a feeble attempt to go at the stew again. "I think I've proved my point, haven't I?"

Kazuichi wanted to argue, but he couldn't speak anymore. He grabbed the bowl and pulled it close, so Teruteru couldn't take it away. He'd stick his face in it if he had to. He'd fucking drown himself here.

"W-we need to stop him," Mikan said distantly. "He could rupture his s-stomach if he k-keeps going like this!"

Then let it burst! Kazuichi thought, trying to lap the stew up with his tongue. He definitely felt like he was about to explode. His distended belly pushed tight against his jumpsuit, stretching painfully every time a hiccup seized him. He could feel the last few bites of stew threatening to come right back up whenever he so much as moved.

Someone grabbed the bowl and firmly pulled it back. He tried to fight, but all his energy was going to his groaning, churning stomach, and the porcelain slipped out of his fingers.

"Oh, wow," said Akane, somewhere above him. "This is good!"

Kazuichi lay slumped over the table, sobbing. He'd tasted true happiness, and now he'd never have the chance to taste it again. It was over. He blew it. What a fucking loser , he thought, and cried harder.

"Should we take him to the nurse?" Ibuki asked, sounding underwater.

Hiyoko laughed. "I don't think he can even stand up right now. What an idiot!"

"Well, that's what he gets for doubting me," Teruteru said cheerfully. "He'll be alright in a few minutes. Trust me, I've seen it before."

"Should we really leave him alone like this?" Ibuki wondered, but it didn't matter. Soon enough, Kazuichi heard them all leave. Like everyone always did.

He sniffed hard and tried to raise his head. He felt dizzy. Another hiccup rocked him, followed by a long, wet belch.

"Impressive!" Teruteru said.

Kazuichi jumped. Then he pressed his fist over his mouth to keep from throwing up. "You're – hic! – you're still here?" he muttered weakly.

"Did you really think I'd leave you in this state? Honestly." Teruteru put his hands on Kazuichi's shoulders and pushed him gently so he sat up against the back of the chair. A sharp cramp shot through his stomach.

"Shit!" Kazuichi sucked in another hiccup. He accidentally swallowed a huge air bubble in the process, and his stomach gurgled. He gripped his belly and groaned. "I – hic! – I hope you're happy, you – hic! – you piece of shit…"

"Incredibly so." Teruteru reached out and poked Kazuichi's stomach. "Goodness, you really packed it in tight, didn't you? I have to admit, I'm impressed. I didn't think you'd make it nearly as far as you did."

Kazuichi wanted to retort, but all he could do was let out a sick-sounding burp in Teruteru's face. It hardly felt like revenge.

So this was it, then. Teruteru had brought him in here to humiliate him, poke at him, and laugh at him. It figured, didn't it?

He sniffed. Not that it helped; his nose was running and his eyes still dripped tears all over his face. Pathetic. Why didn't Teruteru just say it and get it over with?

"Well, no sense in just sitting there," Teruteru said. If Kazuichi could have moved, he would have punched him in the face.

"I can't –" He hiccuped weakly. "I can't walk , you – hic! "

He didn't feel like finishing that sentence. What was the point? Teruteru was laughing at him anyway.

Teruteru smirked, but he shook his head. "Of course not. No, I just meant that because I'm a very kind person, I'll help you out with this little predicament you've gotten yourself into."

He pulled over a chair for himself. Then, he slid his chubby hands onto Kazuichi's swollen stomach and started massaging circles into his skin.

"Wh –" A sharp hiccup followed by a burp interrupted Kazuichi's indignant yelp. "H-hey! What are you –"

Another belch rose out of his throat. He clamped his mouth shut and tried to swallow back the air rising out of him.

"Don't be silly," said Teruteru, shifting his attention to Kazuichi's left side, which hurt the most. He must have been able to feel how bad Kazuichi's intestines were churning and cramping. "You ate enough for six people, and at a frankly indecent speed, besides. If I don't do this, you'll be laid up with a stomachache all weekend."

It was hard to imagine a world in which Kazuichi's stomach didn't hurt, but he didn't have the strength to argue. Teruteru pushed his fingers into an especially sore spot, and Kazuichi hissed, belched, and moaned.

He flushed. Where had that come from?

"Feels good, right?" Teruteru looked way, way too pleased with himself.

Kazuichi grit his teeth. "Y-you just want – hic! – to feel me up, you pervert…"

Teruteru doubled down on kneading Kazuichi's stomach. "Well, I'd never say no to that," he said, waggling his eyebrows. "Call me an opportunist. But…"

He stalled his hands. Instantly, the pain in Kazuichi's stomach doubled.

"I'll stop if you want me to," he said, still with that stupid, shit-eating smirk on his face.

Kazuichi's face contorted. What was he supposed to do, anyway? Just sit there and suffer while Teruteru laughed at him?!

"K-keep going," he said through gritted teeth. He sucked in a sharp hiccup. "Y-you can't just leave me like this!"

Teruteru nodded and started rubbing in small circles again. Grimacing, Kazuichi slouched in his chair, trying to push his stomach farther into Teruteru's hands without being obvious.

The worst part was that it helped. Every belch relieved some of the excruciating pressure that had built up over the meal, and Teruteru's steady fingers rubbed away the worst of his stomach cramps before they became unbearable. His hiccups slowed down, then stopped entirely.

"You know, not everyone reacts as strongly to my cooking as you did," Teruteru said, pressing his fingers into the swell of Kazuichi's stomach. (He looked pregnant. As if he wasn't embarrassed enough…) "It does make me curious what was going through your mind."

Kazuichi scowled. It had been pure bliss, eating Teruteru's food. He already missed it. Even though he was stuffed sick, the aching void inside of him felt emptier than ever. But he wasn't gonna tell him that!

"Nothing," he lied. He burped into his fist.

"Nothing?" Teruteru arched an eyebrow.

"That's what I said," Kazuichi snapped. "I – all I could think about was stuffing my face until I popped, alright? Because you were right about your stupid talent! Happy?"

Teruteru hummed. "And the tears?"

"It fucking hurt!" Kazuichi spat.

Teruteru clicked his tongue. He worked his way around Kazuichi's swollen sides, then skated his fingers across the bottom of Kazuichi's belly.

Kazuichi sucked in a sharp breath. "H-hey, what – watch where you put your hands!"

"Hm? Why?" Teruteru smiled innocently. Kazuichi scowled at him and scooted back a little, but sweat dripped down his face. Why was this giving him a hard-on?!

With a sigh, Teruteru stood up and rolled his shoulders back. He started gathering up the dishes. "Don't think I haven't noticed, Kazuichi."

"N-noticed what?" He shifted in his seat and burped again. Now that Teruteru wasn't rubbing his belly anymore, his stomachache was coming back with a vengeance. Not to mention that he was also uncomfortable for…other reasons.

"That you've kept to yourself ever since summer break," Teruteru said, as if he were discussing the weather. "That you hardly bother Sonia anymore. Or Hajime, for that matter. Or any of us. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were depressed."

Kazuichi swallowed. His throat hurt. He wrapped his arms around his stomach and folded forward. (Shit, he didn't realize how much Teruteru had been helping.)

"I'm not depressed," he said, more thickly than he would have liked. "I – I grew up, that's all. What's the point in talking to people who – who hate your guts?"

He sniffed. Shit. What he wouldn't give for another one of those burgers.

Dimly, he watched Teruteru putter about the room. "D'you think…uh, do you think maybe you could…make some of that shit for me again sometime?"

Teruteru looked up, his little eyes wide with delight. He laughed. Kazuichi cringed back into his chair.

"My, my! I didn't realize you were that into my cooking, Kazuichi!"

He walked over. Kazuichi gulped. Hunched over like this, he actually had to look up at Teruteru, which was a weird feeling.

Teruteru smirked. He cupped Kazuichi's cheek, then ran his hand under his chin and tilted his face up so their lips were hardly an inch from each other's.

"But I don't work for free, you know," he said. He ran his thumb over Kazuichi's mouth.

Kazuichi's mind blanked. His stomach tried to somersault, but being as full as it was, that just pushed out another belch.

Teruteru laughed and let go as Kazuichi pulled back, flushed up to his beanie and spluttering.

"D-don't – wh-what are you talking about? I'm not – that's gay!"

"And so am I. Big surprise, right?" Teruteru started loading the dishes onto a cart Kazuichi hadn't noticed before. "Well, if you ever change your mind, let me know. I'll be more than happy to oblige."

He wheeled the cart to the door, then turned his head. Would it kill him to stop smiling like that?!

"Thank you very much for the entertainment," he said, eyes twinkling. He left before Kazuichi could sputter enough to form a sentence.

"Asshole!" Kazuichi whimpered to the empty room. His heart banged against his ribs. Combined with his rapidly developing heartburn, this sucked ass. "Who does he think he is? He can't just give me food like – like that and then say I can't have it again unless I – hic! "

He slumped, pressing a hand over his mouth. Sure enough, he hiccuped again a few seconds later.

"Great," he mumbled. "Just great."

#teruteru x kazuichi #teruteru hanamura #kazuichi soda #bloating #feeding kink #burping #don't like don't read #takes one to know one fanfic

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zaph1337 · 1 year

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Monster Hunter Rating 39: Silver Rathalos, the Silver Sun

I got Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin for Christmas, and that was the spark I needed to start working on these again. With how long it’s been and with how much more experience I have with the games (I hadn’t even played Rise outside the demo when writing the previous ratings, and since then I’ve beaten Magnamalo in Rise), don’t expect my opinions to necessarily stay consistent with the reviews I’ve posted thus far. Other than that, though, these’ll be more of the same reviews you saw before, so I hope you enjoy!

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If you didn’t think Rathalos would get a second subspecies after Rathian did, then I don’t even know what to say. I mean, that might have been a possibility if Rathalos wasn’t basically the series mascot, but we don’t live in that timeline. I’m getting off track, so let’s just move on to talking about Silver Rathalos!

(How it appears in Monster Hunter Freedom 1)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter World: Iceborne)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak)

Appearance: The problem with silver as a color is that unless you deliberately make it look metallic, it just looks like grey, and what should be flashy then becomes boring. From what I’ve seen, whether this is the case with Silver Rathalos or not depends on the game. Unfortunately, not only does it compete with Gold Rathian’s impressive appearance, it also competes with Azure Rathalos, which, in my opinion, beats it without even trying. Even the regular variety of Rathalos looks better than the silver kind unless the latter is shiny enough, so I’m going to give this a 7/10.

Behavior/Lore: Much like Gold Rathian, Silver Rathalos are the apex predators of any habitat that doesn’t have Elder Dragons in it, and even then, they’ll fight such godlike beasts without fear, and sometimes even to a draw--and that’s just when they’re fighting on their own! Silver Rathalos can call their golden mates to their side with a single roar, and the two together can send an Elder Dragon running for its life--if it hasn’t lost it, that is.

It’s not surprising that Silver Rathalos are such a threat--they’re not only stronger and more aggressive than other Rath subspecies, they’re smarter, too; they kinda have to be, considering the monsters they compete with for living space. Yet, for some reason, the Hunter’s Guild (of which region, I don’t know) looked at such a dominant beast and decided “hey, we can make a killing by making people fight these things in special events,” so they go out and capture Silver Rathalos to make Hunters fight them in an Arena. Now, all this is coming from a single sentence on the Silver Rathalos’ wiki page, so its credibility is dubious, but if it’s true. then the people who decided on this course of action are either dumb as dirt or very, very prepared for a dragonic tantrum.

Normally I wouldn’t be a big fan of a subspecies just being “the monster you know but stronger and meaner,” but the fact that Silver Rathalos can hold off Elder Dragons, the legendary Pokemon of the MH world, leaves an impression that earns it some points. The guild’s potential dragon-napping is also interesting, though I still have some doubts about it. I’m giving this category a 7/10.

Abilities: Like the Azure Rathalos, Silver Rathalos have stronger versions of the normal variety’s attacks, but their attack patterns are unique; they prefer to use their tail for grounded attacks rather than bites or tackles, but prefer to attack from the air with agility that their red and blue versions can’t match. This allows them to corner their prey/opponents very quickly before unleashing a triad of fireballs. Interestingly, they can also use an ability once thought unique to Rathans: fiery explosions--though obviously the ones created by Silver Rathalos’ are much more powerful.

Thought they are intelligent, their aggressive temperament leads them to enter a rage more often than the other varieties, but they can also go even further and enter a mode called the “incandescent state,” which is marked by even more heightened aggression in their attacks. While this should leave them more open to attacks from smart opponents, the scales on a Silver Rathalos are incredibly tough--perhaps even metallic--so they can afford to get a bit sloppy. As durable as these scales are, they ironically may be responsible for the Silver Rathalos’ one shortcoming compared to the other subspecies (at least in the earlier titles): a heightened weakness to Thunder-element attacks, especially on their wings. God help this thing if it ticks off a Rajang (which is unfortunately very easy to do, to my knowledge).

As I said with the Azure Rathalos in this department, I appreciate how Silver Rathalos’ attacks aren’t so similar to regular Rathalos’ as to be identical. Their better understanding of tactics allows them to more effectively use the tools at their disposal, and said tools were already impressive; their specialized rage state and superior defense doesn’t hurt either. 7/10.

Equipment: As you’d expect, many of the weapons made from Silver Rathalos parts also have some Gold Rathian in them. Since I’m biased, we’ll start with the Insect Glaive from MHG/U--the Blossomajesty:

This makes good use of the gold and silver parts. I like how the “blunt” end of the glaive looks like a Gold Rathian’s tail, and the fact that the blade has little silver dragon wings is a cute touch to a weapon made from some of the most dangerous monsters in the series. The description reads “A legendary Fire Wyvern Insect Glaive. Fly through the air on golden wings of fire,” and with how the Insect Glaive plays, I think that tracks. Next up is another example of a gold and silver weapon, the Expert Hammer, also from MHG/U:

Okay, so there’s more Gold Rathian than Silver Rathalos in this, but still. I question why the chains are there, considering the halves of the hammer are screwed into the handle and the chains don’t look like they do anything stability-wise, but the weapon overall still looks cool. Finally, it’s about time I show off a weapon made from only Silver Rathalos parts, but since I like to have at least one really weird weapon in these things, you get the Hunting Horn from Frontier. The Rathians had bells on a flute, while the Rathalos’ have:

A saxophone. A freakin’ saxophone made out of the scales of the MH mascot’s ultimate incarnation (to my knowledge, anyway). It even has parts of it that are directly modeled after Silver Rathalos just to hammer that fact in. God, I love this series sometimes. Onto the armor, let’s start with the Blademaster set from Freedom Unite:

It’s okay to make comparisons to Shredder, we all thought it too. These are both cool, and really let the wearer give off the powerful vibe you’d expect from someone who killed a massively powerful dragon to make them. I guess I also can’t complain about the chestpiece the woman’s wearing, since it doesn’t stick out much farther than the one the man’s wearing, so overall, these are a success. As for the Gunner set:

It’s... alright, I guess. It just doesn’t look as imposing as the Blademaster set. I actually can’t think of much more to say than that. The colors remind me too much of the standard knight armor to really help here.

Admittedly, rating these all is hard. The standard and azure equipment all look cool in their own ways, and to be fair, so do these! But the colors just don’t work for me as well as the others do. I feel like I’m supposed to like the equipment more than at least the ones for normal Rathalos, but I just...don’t. It’s not bad, it’s just not as good. It still gets a 7/10.

Final Thoughts and Tally: For something that’s so much more powerful than the garden-variety Rathalos, my feelings on the Silver kind aren’t very different. I guess that’s to be expected from something so similar, but I feel like I’m wrong to not be more awed by these guys. Guess that’s an ish-me and not an issue, though; there’s nothing wrong with being a different flavor of the same cool. 7/10.

#Monster Hunter #Monster Hunter rating #zaph1337

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