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#every human on that plane will die
thicc-astronaut · 1 year
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I absolutely LOVE the mid-air transfer scene from this movie from like a technical/cinematography point of view. It’s an exactly two-minute long action sequence done in a single camera shot. The camera follows the characters, swings around the characters while they’re in freefall, it slides with the snack cart down the center aisle and onto the wing of the plane. It really makes the scene feel dynamic and moving, it’s a super fun scene to watch. 
And I think is really something that shows what can be done with computer animation - this is something that would be nearly impossible to film in live-action. You wouldn’t be able to use stunt doubles, since the characters remain easily seen and carry short conversation throughout. You would have to fake the falling, and freefall can be faked using strings and fans and camera tricks, but to have them freefall, land, run around on the plane, and start freefalling again would require smoothly and invisibly switching the actors in and out of wiring harnesses. It would also require none of the actors flubbing their lines or the whole take would be ruined and they’d have to start over again. And the most important part of all of this is the camera! Even if you could do all those things, moving around a film camera to record it with no cuts and no shakiness would be the hardest part of the whole ordeal.
It’s absolutely phenomenal, I wish more animated movies tried things like this.
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kneelingshadowsalome · 3 months
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Salome!
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"La Belle Dame sans Mercy" ("The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy") - A ballad by John Keats
"The poem is about a fairy who condemns a knight to an unpleasant fate after she seduces him with her eyes and singing." please
This screams Knight!König x Fairy!Reader to me.
I just know König would gladly die by the hand of such an ethereal being.
"She looked at me as she did love, and made a sweet moan."
"And sure in language strange she said—'I love thee true.'"
That’s it. Thank you.
I swear this artwork kills me everytime I see it....
Ok this became the silliest fairytale ever 🩷✨️
CW: Historical AU blending with mythical/supernatural AU. König being a dreamy mess of a knight who doesn't fit in "normal" society. Reader is part of faefolk. Heavy Arthurian Romance vibes.
König returns to the castle one day. The son of a great liege lord, a warrior through and through, but some people say he should’ve been a poet: so dreamily he looks beyond the battlements at times, sighs after drinking too much wine, stares off into dark corners of the room while tending to his sword and armour as if he can see little pixies dancing there.
His siblings sometimes hit him on the back of his head, or wave a hand over his eyes when he’s about to slip into the fairy world, a forgotten plane that is not supposed to reach the castle. But the castle stones were taken from the moors and the woods, the old land not bending to the priest’s will no matter how many crosses they brought here. Fragile souls are wanton prey for the elves and the fairies who would take them to their land the moment they drop down their guard, and only prayer and fasting hold them at bay. In the fairylands, there is no toil or sorrow; the food is golden honey and wine, the dance and love everlasting, and the fae girls more beautiful than any human maid.
It sounded too good to be true, and it was: God had created men to work and women to give birth, and all the land was theirs to use and cultivate, it was not made to simply run and frolic upon. Some say that these were just old tales and that Christ would banish these creatures away, turn the land to yielding crops and tame firewood.
But some still believed.
When he was a child, the mighty son of the feared lord took porridge and almonds to the woods. “For the fairy people,” he said with bright, trusting eyes. Stole food from under the mistress’s nose, and no one ever dared to say anything about it.
But when this nonsense carried on to adulthood, people had to intervene. There was work to be done, war, harvest and building, and no matter how many coins this man paid to the visiting bards, it would never turn their stories true.
His arm was strong and his strike was true, but his head seemed to be filled with dandelion wine, even when he hadn’t been drinking. Sighed after this maiden or that, wished to travel to foreign lands, courted every nobleman’s daughter who visited the castle, but no one ever took him seriously.
This man had to watch how lady after lady chose some other valiant knight as their husband, some men whose heads were not filled with fairytales and dreams. They did flirt with him, for who could’ve resisted the temptation of making this giant a little sweaty under all that armor? Armor that demanded plate for two people, and a smith who had the talent to forge such a beastly thing.
Nevertheless, he was always left without a warm embrace, and so he was usually found outside, looking at the full moon or spending time in taverns, choosing the company of thieves and rascals over his serious kin.
And now he has returned from the woods, having been gone for months.
People thought he had finally left to fight for some other lord, posing as a simple footsoldier, a disguise that would relieve him of his tedious duties as a knight. Or to court some “lovely peasant girl” he always talked about – such talks were usually crushed by his father, demanding him to be sensible for once in his life.
But he doesn’t prattle about peasant girls now, nor does he ramble about screaming ships at the bottom of the sea. He doesn’t hold a speech about forgotten stone circles in the forest, the ones that already grow moss. No, he has finally lost it completely.
His eyes are wild, as is his hair; his armour is nowhere to be seen, and his sword is without its sheath. He doesn’t talk about what he saw in that forest to anyone, nor is he willing to tell where he has even been these past few moons.
He seems very shaken when he’s told they were worried he wouldn’t make it to the May Day feast, and asks for how long he was gone, drives a hand through dishevelled hair when he hears that he was away for three full months.
“Three months…” he mutters to himself, then leaves to his room, the huge sword dragging against the stone floor as he goes. He has always, always made sure it wouldn’t dull, but now he’s treating it like it’s become a part of him, confused and lost.
He doesn’t eat, hardly speaks after that.
The food tastes like ash, he says, and the ale tastes like bile. But the following evening, when his mother orders someone to pour her poor son some more wine, he looks up helplessly like a child.
“I have to go back,” he says.
A clamour arises, huffed exclaims of “What on earth is he on about” and “Sir, you only just got back!” His father rises from his chair and orders him to stop this nonsense at once. But this time, there is no embarrassed sweep of hand through hair, no red colour that rises on this peculiar knight’s cheeks. His lips only make a thin line before he rises as well and leaves the hall with a weight on his shoulders and dark determination in his stare.
At the stables, a stout Moorland pony and poor stable boy get to witness the drunken bawls of a forlorn knight. The wine sack almost slips from his hands to the dirt as he slumps against the timber of the stall, distorted face coming to rest against a wide, shaky palm.
Luckily, a friend of his knows where to look, and the stable boy sneaks into the shadows, slightly scared of the sorrow of such a big, intimidating man.
But even the companion who always listened to every enthusiastic story since they were kids and ran across the moors, throwing little rocks at his father’s soldiers and laughing when their helmets made a funny clinky sound, can not understand the drunken babble that comes out of König’s mouth this time.
He starts from the middle, which is highly unusual, and talks in strings of sentences that don’t make sense. “She was real, I just know it,” he repeats, over and over again in the middle of confessions about how beautiful she was, how her hair was like the softest spun yarn, her body incredible, naked and wild when she came to him. That her laugh was like the chime of little bells or the sound of the loveliest harp, a song on its own when she walked to him.
She was fascinated with his sword, especially the pommel and the handle interested her, and the curve in the middle of the blade she brushed with her fingers as if it was an entire vale.
He had never seen a woman touch his sword like that… They were never interested in such things, but she was, and she asked him so many questions.
Had he ever felled a tree?
Did he like squirrels?
Were his thighs as hairy as his chest?
She took him down the river, or he followed her; he can’t remember. Her step was so light it didn’t make a sound, and the moss seemed to turn brighter every time her little foot stepped on it. Her hands were tiny too when she wrapped them around his neck, pressed her body against his, and kissed him until there was nothing left of him: no helmet, no sword, nothing but sun and her, her hands and her lips.
Her mouth was still on his when she whispered she didn’t like his armour because it was so hard and rigid and cold, oh, she wondered if there was a man inside there at all.
So of course he showed her.
She giggled at the sight of him, especially his thighs, knelt down on the moss to see how hairy they were.
And would you believe the way she touched him then? It makes him heady even now…
Yes, he took her. But not the way a man takes a woman. She came to straddle him and laughed again, and the things they did together… He can’t even speak about them, but he knows the sun always shined when they rolled on the grass. Her giggles and moans surrounded him, her soft little thighs were stronger than they looked, her breasts so round and soft, so perfect he swore he had gone to heaven.
He bathed in her, with her, all day long. And the nights… You wouldn’t believe the nights: there was song and dance and more giggling women, and also a man dressed all in leaves, so big and thick he first thought he was a tree. An old king, she said, nothing he should worry about. And the wine tasted like summer and honey and gold; it was red, perhaps, but also like sea amber and sun…
She fed him flowers and laughed, caressed his face and said he’s the biggest and hairiest human she had ever seen. She let him lick honey from her fingertips and caressed him with heather and ivy, opened her mouth before feeding him a soft, sweet piece of cake, showing him how he needed to open his mouth as well if he wanted it on his tongue.
She kissed the crumbs from his lips and trailed a finger down his chest, all the way down, until…
Oh, he can’t talk about it.
It was better than he ever even imagined: better than the stories they tell in the taverns. It was like his wedding night, over and over again, it was like he was Lancelot, and she was his Guinevere.
No, no, she was not an enchantress, although everything about her was enchanting... All the stories came alive with her, even the moon was bigger than anywhere he’d ever seen, the deers ran past them while they made love, and the birds sang even at night.
He told her he loved her, but she didn’t know what it meant. When he explained it to her, she looked at him gently, so gently…
He cried from joy then, but she never mocked him. She only said it’s a sign that he’s hers. That he will never forget her. She said he’ll always find her, even when he’s old: she will make him young again. He’s welcome here if he wants: she has so many places to show him.
He thanked all the saints for having found her, Saint George and Saint Mary first, but stopped when her little brows furrowed with sorrow. Her eyes, filled with starlight and love, turned so sad that his heart couldn’t bear it, not for one beat.
The sea is far wilder here: he should come and see the ocean as it was at the dawn of time. The ivy is so strong you can use it to climb the trees and see the whole world from atop the tree, the whole land, covered in forest, such as it was before humans came. There’s no smoke or fire or war: just green everywhere, wild rippling streams and honey bees and berries and fish for everyone who ever feels hungry... They can make love day and night, and she’ll teach him all the songs of old. Humans only remember bits and pieces, but she knows how things really happened, she can tell him everything about heroes, kings and queens.
She said she wanted to sleep, and so he took her from the feast and laid her on the grass… She might’ve sung to him, he can’t remember, but it was like an angel’s caress all over him, somber and sweet before the dreams took him, a dream within a dream.
He slept for ages, it seemed, saw so many dreams, each more beautiful than the last until he woke up and saw that the forest had turned grey.
There was no maiden in his lap, no dance and song in the distance, no scent of flowers and dreams and springs to be found. The sun was up in the sky, but it didn’t paint all the colours with gold or fill the streams with light. The forest was half dead to him, just old, thick trees around him, a green-grey forest floor and a shaggy squirrel who chirped and squeaked at him as if it was his fault that the fae folk were gone.
He searched for her, called for her, but she didn’t answer, and how could she have? He didn’t even know her name. He only knew how lovely she felt, how soft her hair was when it fell to cover him like a veil, how adorable her sighs and tiny little gasps were when he filled her, over and over again.
His armour was nowhere to be found, and his sword was somewhere downstream, half covered with leaves and dirt, rusty and beaten by the wind. It was early spring when he came here; the land was still barren and grey, but now, everything was green. Still, it was not the green he wanted. It was not the green that filled his vision entirely, bright, blooming green that pulsed with lush joy. It was just… earth and grass and dirt.
So you see, he has to go back. He has to find her, whatever it takes. She promised he could always come back… She promised…
He cries once more, head bowed and mighty shoulders trembling from the force of his sorrow, and it is no use to tell him that the fae folk are evil. That they’re from the Devil and only want to make good, decent men like them forget. Forget their duty, their laws, their Christ.
It’s no use to tell him that it is not natural, the place he has seen. No doubt he has been somewhere, but it cannot be anything good… No man can survive on flowers and spring water for three months; they cannot frolic with the faeries for days on end without losing their mind and soul.
And König is already lost; he was lost since he was a child, rambling about how he received flowers, sticks and stones as tokens of the faefolk’s gratitude because he brought them food.
He tries to tell the boy who never grew up, the mightiest man in this kingdom, the dreamiest knight there ever was, that he needs to return to the real world. No fae woman would have him as a husband, they are only after his soul. But surely some human lady would take him into her bed, think about it, for God’s sake, please... He has duties here, people who love him, his father would make him a lord if he only put himself together. What kind of knight would abandon his sword, helmet and armour for the sake of an elf who despises the saints...?
But in the morn, König is gone.
His rusty sword is on the floor, the wooden cross taken off the wall. There lies a honeycomb and a flower on his window, a blossom so sweet it cannot be plucked from any field around here. Too exotic and bright, especially when placed atop the rough, grey stones, it looks like it could never wither from how beautifully it blooms.
The peasants now tell a tale of a man that haunts the woods: a huge giant dressed all in green, donning a leaf cloak of some sort and a beard that grows ivy. But they say he is not evil: he only shows himself to hunters who are about to fall a deer, or children who remember the land with little gifts.
Old men say they saw a green man when they were kids and brought bread and milk to the faeries, they swear to this day they saw a man who greeted them with a smile. And when they looked again, there was nothing but a tree where this giant stook, a young oak, sighing with the wind...
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tabbiwritesgenshin · 1 year
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failing light | various
synopsis: how would they act when you die
genre: angst
word count: 1,119
a/n: I don't have anything interesting to say but can I add how baffling it is the support my previous post got? like damn, i went from 20 notes to 253. tysm y'all omg
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Collei wanted to scream, she wanted to cry, to yell, her whole world had crumbled in only a few glances, yet she couldn’t. She was struck with both fear and shock, you were her most beloved person in the entirety of Teyvat, you were the only person who had shown her any love in a long while and now..you were just..dead. She could only stare at your body for what felt like hours until she eventually lost consciousness.
Eula clutched your body with all she had, she had to make sure your last moments were ones of peace. She tried her best to contain herself, to ignore her tears, to do everything she could to look strong for you, yet, she couldn’t. She was left as a crying mess as the concept of losing the only person who loved her dawned on her mind. 
Again she had lost, again Ei had weeped, again was someone else taken from her, again, she felt hopeless, like she had lost everything she held dear. She wanted to move on, she wished to maintain strong, that’s what you desired, that’s what she promised to you..yet she couldn’t. The pain was too much, the grief overtook her. Again would she retire to her Plane of Euthymia, again would she abandon everyone, again would she despise herself.
Ganyu was afraid, she was scared, terrified of the idea of losing you. She tried everything she could yet nothing worked. The half-Qilin tried every bit of knowledge she had on medicine to try to save you, even those used only by the Adepti, if she could, she’d even give out her life for you. Perhaps it was due to the panic of losing someone again, but during her numerous attempts to extend your life, she hadn’t accepted the fact that you were truly gone.
Kujou Sara was unfortunately experienced in the concept of loss and death so when you approached her with heavy battle wounds, she knew better than to panic. Her pain and grief were incomparable to whatever suffering she had seen before in her life, yet, she kept strong. She didn’t want you to pass in fear or sadness. The moment you died it shattered whatever facade was left in her. She collapsed onto the floor, still clutching your cold body. The mighty Tengu general of the Shogunate was lost..truly destroyed.
The skies were split and thunder roared as The Raiden Shogun weeped to your lifeless body. All semblance of hope..all happiness which she had ever felt in her life vanished as her eyes gazed at the ones which had given her so much with so little in return. No longer would the Shogun hold back against humanity, she would make all who dared harm her beloved pay, none shall be spared. All will suffer for the sake of eternity so no one she held dear would fear again.
Rosaria always acted like she didn’t care, Rosaria always acted like nothing mattered to her, even when she had someone to love, someone who loved her, she still acted with this cold exterior, yet, when she was faced with the news that the most significant person in her life had died every facade she had, every coldness in her heart, they were crushed as a sense of hopelessness would crush her like a boulder. Never again would that be a facade, after you had died, after she was left alone once more, that coldness overtook her heart and no amount of warmth could heat it ever again.
The Anemo Archon Venti would hold you on his lap as you slowly passed away, even in your last moments, his love was there to comfort you. Even after you were gone, he would not leave this position, even when you were buried, even when everyone thought you had died alone, even when everyone thought you two hadn’t even spoken to eachother, he would always be present in the place of your passing. Every night, every month, every year, he would sit there for hours at a time, drinking away as he talked to himself in only praises of yourself.
The Wanderer felt different, he was the creation of a god, mortals were below him, none were equal to him, he was above every single one of those worms, yet, there was one of those so called “worms” that for a single moment, for a brief second, could make him believe he was only a human, that he could feel happy, he could feel everything those he called below him could feel. There was only one person who could make him happy, only one person who could help him forget about his betrayals yet even them suffered, even them were hunted down due to his past, even them suffered because of him. Some would say, that the Wanderer, after so long, would return to who he was, even for a single minute, would enjoy murder once more.
He knew it would happen, a karmic debt was placed on Xiao a long time ago, he knew it, he knew that those around him would suffer because of it, but even then, the mighty conqueror of demons could also fall prey to the enticing and intoxicating love he used to think he was undeserving of. His more rational side was prepared for such an occurrence, of losing his most loved one yet deep down, he knew he wasn’t, he knew the moment you were at the brink of death, he would sacrifice his own to keep you safe..but he was too late, you were dead before he could heal you, before he could save you. Never before had the Yaksha felt such deep hatred, such unfeeling rage, so much was it that when he was done with his vengeance, when he had bathed in blood in the name of love, he felt nothing but a consuming sense of hollowness.
Zhongli grasped your hand with all the softness and grace he could have. He had a rather long talk with you, reminiscing about the fond times you two had, the love you shared, the pain and the happiness you had shared. He knew it would come to this, he knew that this would happen eventually. You were a mortal, a mere human, he was an archon, a god. Once you were gone, once time finally caught up with you, he couldn’t help but to shed a tear. Once again, none who would share his memories, once again, another loved one had been hit with time. Some could say that from that day, the enigmatic consultant of the Wangsheng funeral parlor seemed more distant, more cold, even.
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animentality · 4 months
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can I just talk about Godzilla Minus One and how it was absolutely fucking brilliant for a minute?
It centered around a disgraced kamikaze pilot who hesitated, who was scared to die, so sabotaged his own plane before he could fly out. and because he sabotaged his plane, a crew of engineers had to hang back at the base, to try and fix it.
and then of course, this being a Godzilla movie, Godzilla attacks. kills most of them, excluding him and an engineer, who immediately blames him. says that if he had just died, then the rest of them would still be alive too.
his "cowardice" saved his life, and he was haunted by it, ashamed of "betraying" his country simply by wanting to live.
he spent the whole movie struggling with survivors guilt and feeling like he let his country down just by continuing to breathe.
and he couldn't forget the men he saw die, and he can't escape memories of the war, because he's living in the shattered remains of Tokyo after it was bombed, the place he used to call home, where his community is gone and his family is dead, and there is no escaping the death and devastation.
and the people who are still living? they hate him. they blame him for the loss of the war. they blame him for not dying for them.
and because he's haunted by his past, he cannot live in the present.
the guilt of being alive is too tightly wound around his heart. it can't beat even once without him being reminded of all the people whose hearts were nothing but dust now, and the outcome of the war feels like it's solely laid upon his chest.
and that's all very heavy. and I cried.
but that wasn't what I cried at. Because it wasn't the hopelessness that had the most impact on me. it was the end of the movie, where he was given the choice to redeem himself. to die for his country this time, and save them from Godzilla.
and he said he was ready, he can do it this time, he will be the hero. he will lay down his life this time.
only...
...this time, the engineer, who called him a coward... designed his new plane for this mission. and he gave him an ejector seat.
and the movie says this:
"This country has treated life far too cheaply. Poorly armored tanks. Poor supply chains resulting in half of all deaths from starvation and disease. Fighter planes built without ejection seats and finally, kamikaze and suicide attacks. That's why this time I'd take pride in a citizen led effort that sacrifices no lives at all! This next battle is not one waged to the death, but a battle to live for the future."
And it's like...
Oh it's so corny, it's always corny, when the message of a story is simply, life is precious.
But I don't fucking care.
It was still brilliant. It still hits every time. That's what made me cry. Not the hopelessness or the sad things, but the way the movie could be so heavy... while also being hopeful. optimistic.
Everything about that movie was just so perfect. A Godzilla movie actually set immediately after WW2 is a genius idea. The post war devastation. The criticism of Japanese imperialism, the war, and the way it treated its own people, both at home and abroad. The condemnation of kamikaze attacks and the callous disregard for human life.
And the deeply human story, of a man who was afraid to live, after seeing so much death.
Choosing to die wasn't easy. But choosing to live was even harder.
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creamybeemovie69 · 3 months
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Some of my favourite little details in avatar: frontiers of pandora
The two guards outside the council room in the aranahe hometree that just chat shit? All the time? Even during that last confrontation with Etuwa's father they're just stood chatting about someone's poor foraging skills or some shit it's so funny
The fact that the camera lowers when you're speaking to humans, which I know is probably so we can get a good look at them but I chose to believe it's because your sarentu slowly kneels until they're eye level with them
Nefika and Relun's dynamic of miserable old man and batshit crazy old woman
Whatever the fuck Okul's got going on. Gender? Babes they're clinically insane, they're too busy running into poisonous gas to worry about gender
The sleeping pod things hanging from the ceiling in the hometree. It took me forever to work out where they were all sleeping because there was no way they were all fitting in that one sleeping den
"it is sound proof Priya."
Anqa forgetting her training and getting attacked by wasps because she's too busy thinking about Priya
Hajir and Alex planning to have tea, no one talk to me
Daniella being this very capable badass soldier with a hardened exterior and her himbo husband who's just happy to be there as long as there's wood to whittle and food to cook
The sarentu humming sarentu songs while they cook
Zomey refusing to leave the plane until she saw Eetu get out
The resistance humans wearing clothes that have been altered/repaired by Na'vi weavers
Minang losing her shit and charging the base in the plains despite being the calmer, more collected one? Good shit.
That little detail in the cloud spitter description that says kids make a game of seeing how close they can get to the plant without triggering it
"I can still smell the chemicals" just kill me now I can't take this
Every single individual human having to ask Jake Sully for permission to stay on the planet. Were they forced to go back to the RDA if he said no? Or were they just left to die out on pandora?
The ferals being unable to communicate with eachother and being so angry because they're so lonely
Kin, Relun and the Kame'tire trader all being friends before the Kame'tire were banished
Priya not being able to talk to Alma in her human form because her avatar was her friend
Nor just. Disappearing? Where did he go? Is he okay? Why can't I go looking for him?
The Na'vi naming options for your Ikran being the names of other kids in TAP
So'lek collecting the identity tags of the soldiers he kills
So'lek in general actually. "This dReAmWaLkEr decided to lock you up in a box instead 👀"
Alex being granted permission to stay on pandora because he wanted to keep Grace's legacy alive through his work. Why is this never mentioned anywhere but in his character description?
The comic book pages
The fact that Priya dyes her hair. Are you actually telling me this excitable little climatologist worked out how to make hair dye from pandoran plants before Alex figured out how to eat any of it?
Anqa's fucking "my land was invaded too". Give this head-empty lesbian a break man
Everyone hating Billy because they think he can't be trusted only for him to be one of the most loyal among them
Etuwa's father refusing to fight because he lost his wife, then deciding to fight because he won't let them take his daughter too
"what have they done to you, my beautiful?" Actually sobbing like a fucking baby rn
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y-rhywbeth2 · 5 months
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Lore: The Bhaalspawn
Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index [tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess and it's borderline impossible to cover everything. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest]
I decided to compile all of the information I could find/remember on the Children of Bhaal in one place; drawing on the original games, BG3, WotC "canon", and a magazine article written by the writers of the original games meant for playing Bhaalspawn in pen and paper games. There's a surprisingly large amount of information.
Also prodding a bit at the distinction between a Bhaalspawn, as in a quasi-deity, and their tiefling descendants, who are also called by that name.
As with all D&D lore, sources may conflict, but nevertheless, here it is.
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There are technically two variants of being that can be referred to as bhaalspawn (three, if we count the Dark Urge as something separate).
The term "Bhaalspawn" is usually applied to a Child of Bhaal, a quasi-deity who has the Lord of Murder for a father. Most are Demigods, born of a mortal parent, although Bhaal has seemingly also produced at least one Titan, who has no mortal lineage at all (hi, Durge). With the exception of that last one, they were all sired before his death during the Time of Troubles. Many, if not most, had Bhaal's priests as their mortal parent - willingly conceived as part of the greater plan to resurrect their god.
As is the norm for half-planar-half-mortals, the offspring of a Child of Bhaal will be of the planetouched (tieflings, aasmiar, genasi). As Bhaal is an evil-aligned god, his grandchildren and descendants are specifically tieflings (or some humanoid equivalent, if they have children with non-humans).
Each Child carries the divine essence of their father, woven into their very being (the god himself specifically derides them as having "borrowed" existences). This divine essence wasn't distributed evenly, and some carried more of Bhaal's taint than others. Some were aware of his influence acting on them from birth, and others never knew what they were until their more powerful and ambitious siblings came knocking to tear their essence out of them.
Being so tied to Bhaal, the souls of his children are inherently tied to him and the Throne of Blood - when they die their essence returns to him and takes their souls with it. A Bhaalspawn can worship another god and receive spells as a divine spellcaster if that deity accepts them, but there is no other afterlife waiting for them except for their father's domain. Specifically, this is the Throne of Blood, a section of Banehold (Bane's domain) which should be on the first layer (Khalas) of the plane of Gehenna (also known as "The Bleak Eternity of Gehenna"). Every single game has placed the Throne of Blood on a different Lower Plane (the Hells, the Abyss, the Grey Wastes), but none have used the one actually given in the tabletop canon, for some reason. Mount Khalas is an active volcano, hundreds of thousands of miles high with slopes of at 45° at their very flattest. The slope is generally more like a sheer cliff face, and falling may "completely shred" the would-be climber. The mountain floats in an infinite void by the border of the Nine Hells. The ground is full of bottomless black chasms and magma flows fed by "waterfalls" of the stuff, and the ground glows crimson from the heat of the molten rock. The air is clogged with pyroclastic ash and it's impossible to see further than a dozen feet in any direction. It also features the River Styx, a river polluted by all the filth and evil of existence that flows through all the Lower Planes. The next layer of Gehenna, Mount Chamada, is visible overhead, glowing faintly, "burning like a small, bloody moon." The spirits of the dead who are sentenced to this plane are those who were consumed by greed and a ruthless and insatiable lust for power in life; in death they are selfishness embodied. The domains of the deities who reside there are carved into ledges on the slopes. Banehold - also known as the Barrens of Doom and Despair - is "an inhospitable locale, filled with vast deserts of black sand and huge plains of dark granite." The sky is blood red and sunless. The only source of water on the plane is the Styx.
Some Bhaalspawn feel the pull of their father's domain so strongly that their soul can be pulled into Gehenna before they die. Should these individuals become sickened or injured enough they will fall into a coma as their connection to life weakens and their soul is dragged into their father's realm in the Lower Planes. It will return to their body once they're healed and that the pull of life is strong enough.
Some Bhaalspawn have reported the ability to "feel" deaths occurring around them, which is also said to be a pleasant experience that calls to them.
Due to their inherently divine nature, every one of them has the latent capacity for sorcery, though not all will manifest it.
It was originally claimed that all the Children perished in the Bhaalspawn crisis, however a small ttrpg supplement published by the writers in a magazine article (meant for playing Bhaalspawn as tabletop characters) claimed that while many died, including all the most powerful of their kind, many "weaker" Bhaalspawn survived the crisis.
There is conflicting information about the free will of these survivors following the foiling of Bhaal's first resurrection. As per the original game's canon, Bhaal's command over them is gone once broken, and these Children were free to act out their lives as they saw fit - bar stuff like the occasional nightmare and inherent urge to go on a killing spree. The power in their blood is their own to repurpose.
Baldur's Gate 2 presented the possibility of a Bhaalspawn being totally cleansed of their father's taint and rendered fully mortal and free of all divine meddling. 5e has retconned this in both tabletop supplements and BG3 canon, and posits that while one of the Children can (seemingly) be unchained from most of Bhaal's control, his divinity is an inherent part of them and they may still become pawns in his designs.
Judging by the first two games it seems that a Bhaalspawn's ability to resist their father's control is related to their own willpower and how tied to death and negativity they are. Being sheltered from death and suffering allows themselves to distance themselves from him, while exposure and harbouring feelings of hatred will destroy the barriers and push them closer.
One of the things Bhaal may try to push his children into doing is interfering with the plans of Cyric, who originally killed him during the Time of Troubles and temporarily usurped him as god of murder.
Bhaalspawn grow in power with age and experience. While signs can start early, by the end of their adolescence they will all have begun manifesting various abilities and signs. What defines "growing in power" is rather nebulous - in game mechanics it's tied to character levels. Technically, a Bhaalspawn could manifest the ability to create supernatural darkness and turn into the Slayer at age 17 and, by the time she's 18, have manifested as much as eleven more powers (and a plethora of dark influences plaguing her to go with them, including an addiction to killing). Or she could go her entire existence never having more than those two traits, a nasty temper, and some horrific nightmares.
Quasi-deities are immortal - ageless and unable to die from natural causes. While theoretically, a Bhaalspawn might not manifest this trait, it would conflict with other established lore on half-deities (because D&D lore loves conflicting with itself). Bhaalspawn immortality tends to kick in at any point in adulthood, at which point their age freezes. They could be in their twenties - and is more likely to manifest at a younger age, but theoretically it could kick in when they're 87 or older.
A Child of Bhaal can usurp their father and take his godhood for themselves: They must prove themselves worthy of being Lord of Murder by deliberately orchestrating a thousand innocent deaths (the method can be anything). They must seek out a portion of their father's flesh. Remnants of Bhaal's slain avatars, such as the remains of the Raveger in the Moonshaes, or traces remaining in the Winding Water from the Time of Troubles are recommended. Bhaal's actual corpse would've been in the Astral Plane, pre-Sundering. What one is meant to do with this chunk of flesh is unspecified. And then one is meant to present themselves for judgement by the overgod Ao, who will decide if they deserve the job. This seems to involve some kind of epic quest in a very dangerous location to prove oneself.
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The term "bhaalspawn" also seems to be applied to the tiefling children and descendants of the true Children. Tieflings descended from Bhaal show no outward signs of their heritage the way most other tieflings do, appearing as regular members of their species under physical examination and lacking strange quirks - such as those seen on tieflings descended from the god Mask, who cast no reflections. That said, planetouched descended from deities are known to bear birthmarks in the shape of their divine ancestor's holy symbol, so that might be the exception. Like many of the non-Asmodeus tieflings, they bear the taint of the lower planes in their being, and from birth they often feel it pushing them to bend to their whims. In the case of bhaal-spawned tieflings, these urges would be murder ideation and an obsession with death. God-descended tieflings are no more inherently powerful than the regular kind descended from fiends like devils, demons and night hags.
As with all of the non-Asmodeus tieflings, after the first tiefling grandchild the blood tends to go dormant and hide itself for generations, until it suddenly manifests in a child born to an unsuspecting normal family who is unaware that the taint of the god of murder lurks in their bloodline.
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There are various abilities (and side-effects) a Bhaalspawn might manifest. Interestingly, while a Bhaalspawn can manifest the vast majority of them, they will never manifest all the possible powers available to their "family." Meanwhile, the most powerful of them will manifest all of the dark urges and traces of evil that threaten to consume their kind.
There are no rules given for their tiefling descendants. Tieflings have been known to manifest a variety of quirks and spell-like abilities, such as those that have been provided for the Children of Bhaal, it's not unthinkable that their heritage may cause them to manifest one or two of them. Going off of the tiefling creation chart from 2e, a tiefling will randomly manifest one advantage, and one drawback.
So a grandchild of Bhaal might have poisonous blood and be unable to control herself from going berserk from bloodlust in battle. One might heal at an unusually fast rate and give off an aura of death that causes strangers to respond to them like they're a monster. Another tiefling may be able to temporarily boost his strength to impressive levels, but be consumed by the urge to murder.
While only the most powerful manifest every trait, the signs of being a Bhaalspawn include:
The undead can sense a Bhaalspawn if they're within 60ft of each other - so clearly that they can pinpoint their exact location. Even protective magics that should hide them from the undead's senses won't keep them from being aware of their presence, it will only prevent them from being able to know exactly where they're standing. In BG2, a vampire named Phlydian describes it as being able to "smell the murder in [their] heart."
Being around the Children of Bhaal triggers the fight-or-flight instinct and makes others uneasy; they give off an unsettling aura that causes those nearby to subconsciously pick up on them as predatory, and Bhaalspawn have a harder time convincing others to like and trust them. Divination spells that reveal alignment and intention will detect them as evil, regardless of whether they truly are or not.
Bhaalspawn are harmed by holy weapons, and those who are particularly murderous can also be harmed by holy water.
Bhaalspawn blood is black and viscous, and the divine essence within it calls out to the lower planes. A bleeding Bhaalspawn leaves a "scent" that calls to all fiends of the Lower Planes, including devils and demons. Even if it doesn't have the texture and colour, the blood is poisonous. If their blood enters the bloodstream of another being it will immediately cause weakness and fatigue. If the blood is not purged, the individual will weaken into a coma and eventually die. Of course this won't affect beings immune to poison. According to Phlydian vampires find the divine blood of the Children of Bhaal irresistibly "sweet."
They experience chronic, horrific nightmares that are traumatic enough to impair the demigod's daily functioning. These visions can occasionally be resisted through willpower, but not staved off indefinitely.
Bhaalspawn always want to kill, and may lose control of themselves in physical conflict, trying to strike at everything within reach. They struggle to restrain themselves, and limiting attacks to non-lethal damage requires will saving throws. They are reckless in combat, paying attention to little except slaughtering their opponent/s - not even caring about their own safety, The urge to kill can be a fundamental need, If not met, thoughts of murder slowly overwhelms their willpower, thoughts and their awareness of their surroundings, until they're finally driven to kill somebody. This urge cannot be sated by anything except for the murder of a sapient being. (This is similar to the effects of some hungers that affect the undead, causing them to devolve into mindless, feral animals driven by hunger - it may look the same.)
They are possessed by a constant undercurrent of rage, and when humiliated or frustrated they must keep a grip on their anger or slip into a state of violent killing rage not unlike that shown by barbarians in combat - their strength and endurance is greatly strengthened as they attempt to attack the subject of their ire.
They may actually find their sense of free will is innately weaker than that of regular mortals.
They are drawn to the sight of the dying and the dead, and take involuntary pleasure in the sight.
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Bhaalspawn are also known to manifest various quirks and spell-like abilities (which they can cast as three times per hit dice/character levels a day. So a level 12 Bhaalspawn with "death knell" can cast it 36 times a day). Again; not every one of them manifests every ability, many will probably never have more than two, but powerful individuals may still manifest most of them.
They are able to boost their strength to impressive or even superhuman levels (depending on base strength) for anywhere between 1-20 minutes.
They are immune to all poisons and toxins.
They are resistant to being wounded, unless the wounds are caused by an object made of or plated in silver. Complete immunity to being harmed by unenchanted weapons is also a possibility for the most powerful individuals. (I've never been clear on what damage reduction looks like - I suppose either it's harder to break their skin, or else the wounds simply close up or at least heal up a bit automatically.)
They can cure moderate wounds like a divine spellcaster.
If they touch a dying creature they can drain the remaining life-force from them, killing them and temporarily strengthening themselves (as in physical strength and hit points, as well as boosting the power of their spells) Some may manifest the similar ability to drain the life force from a target by looking at them, stealing their vitality to heal themselves. The target doesn't need to be dying, and may be perfectly healthy
They are unaffected by any but the most extreme of temperatures, to the point where they're resistant to elemental damage of that kind (this could be cold or heat, or both). Some Bhaalspawn are also resistant to electricity and any magic cast on them.
They can strike mortal dread into nearby beings.
They can use divine energy to smite their foes - or they can maifest it as a 20ft area of darkness and tangible evil ("cold, cloying and greasy" to the senses) that damages non-evil beings within it.
They can create supernatural 15-20ft clouds of impenetrable blackness that extinguishes all sources of light, as per the darkness spell.
One Bhaalspawn manifested the (involuntary) ability to instinctually teleport to safety whenever he panicked - this is just speculation, but I would assume this works the same as the ability available to Bhaal's Deathstalker priests; they can teleport to the Throne of Blood in the Lower Planes, and from there teleport back into Toril at any location not protected by warding magic.
And, last but not least, Bhaalspawn are known to be able to transform into the Slayer when particularly favoured by their father. In one, exceptional, case a Bhaalspawn was known to manifest Bhaal's other avatar; the Ravager.
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lnsfawwi · 4 months
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bucky is anti-peggy: their relationships with steve and why bucky will always overshadow peggy as love interest
hardly anything novel but I have to get it out of my system. interpretations are strictly in-universe just to be fair. also seb headcanons are canon, I won't hear otherwise!
the difference between stucky and steggy can be summed up by their respective reactions to beefed-up Steve. someone on tumblr points out that these two scenes also serve as analogies of their relationships. steggy would always be about peggy reaching out, their relationship would be under the spotlight, be the center of attention while stucky is the reverse. I just want to add to that.
Peggy was literally dazzled, she tried to touch his naked body, she was eager to see what this body could do (sexually, among other things). that's the first time she saw steve as sexually attractive, the first time she saw steve at all if we are honest, and what she saw was this jacked-up version of him, an icon-to-be, someone whom steve never really accepted as himself. In essence, the first time she really paid attention to steve as the love interest, was the moment steve became someone else.
Bucky, who was tortured for days, if not weeks, still delirious, was confused bc that was not his steve, he probably didn't even think Steve was real at first. Bucky was experimented on, he likely knew there were similar human experiments aimed to enhance, he knew science like that was possible, but whose science? so that's the first question, 'what happened?' Steve joined the army, okay, so this was not forced onto him, probably. then the next thing he asked was, 'did it hurt?' he didn't care how strong it made Steve, he only wanted assurance that Steve was fine. like, what if the process hurt? what could bucky possibly do? nothing. it's not about whether it hurt, it was just bucky simply giving a shit about steve's wellbeing. we don't even need to get into the 'little kid from brooklyn' line.
peggy witnessed a magical transformation and was amazed by the eventual product but bucky saw his best friend who must've gotten through something excruciating. peggy could never fall in love with skinny steve when that's all bucky saw, until the very end (sebastian said bucky probably never got used to big steve).
another contrast would be the final plane crash. sebastian was asked whether Bucky would've gotten on that plane with Steve or stayed behind like Peggy. seb's answer is that Bucky would've tried to get on that plane cuz he felt responsible for steve, and he'd fall again.
the thing is that, had Bucky been on that plane, Steve never would've crashed it. he would've done anything to save Bucky. he didn't have to crash that plane which was canon (pointed out by rhodey). steve could've got out but he didn't. Bucky being there would've given him the motivation to do so. any other person would tbh, but only Bucky would be willing to be on that plane bc Peggy canonly wasn't. in addition to bucky's willingness to follow steve literally into the jaws of death, in this hypothetical scenario, Bucky would be the reason for Steve to live in catfa.
that leads to yet another contrast.
'just go! get out of here!' 'no, not without you!'
steve, who had no idea what he was capable of, jumped through fire for bucky.
'don't do this, there's still time, let me find a way...' 'a lot of people are gonna die if I don't do this, peggy. this's my choice.'
despite peggy's pleading, steve crashed the plane.
the word choice appeared several times in catfa. the first time was when peggy told philip that it was steve's choice (to die trying to save bucky). the second time was when peggy told steve that bucky made a choice (to die fighting with him). and the third time was when steve told peggy it was his choice (to sacrifice himself). it's no coincidence that each and every time the choice was each other, steve echoing the word at the end made it clear that he was doing this for bucky.
a relationship goes both ways. steve and bucky are canonly willing to, and did, die and live for each other. peggy simply doesn't have that level of impact on steve. in fact, steve literally repeatedly chose bucky over her in catfa.
put it simply, bucky and steve care more about each other than themselves, peggy didn't even care about skinny steve in that sense. she also literally couldn't because she only met skinny steve twice. briefly.
plus as I said previously bucky is the only one standing in between a traditional cishet hypermasculine image of steve and the real steve, peggy is the one element that fulfils the false image.
everything bucky is, peggy is the opposite. the differences quite literally result in different interpretations of steve. and who can say honestly that endgame steve is better than cap trilogy steve?
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plutowon · 6 months
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enhypen as mythical / supernatural
creatures ˚ ༘♡ ⋆。˚
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pairing: enhypen x gn!reader
genre: fantasy, fluff
warnings: blood mention, fantasy violence, reader is somewhat described as short ?
happy halloween!!
🍰 ೄ🩰ྀ࿐ 🧸ˊˎ-
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heeseung- banshee
  heeseung was always emotional. 
  that’s how you met him.
  sitting atop of the old hill in the town park he cried and wailed with flowers clutched in his hands. you being the kind and gentle spirit you were, went up to ask him what was wrong, to which he responded “i don’t know”. usually when people see heeseung they don’t mistake him for human. your approach startled him a bit, even more so when you grabbed his cold dead hands and drew him into a hug. 
  you run your fingers through his hair and tell him everything is gonna be okay. then, you took him out to eat. of course you two got a few stares—holding hands with a banshee tends to draw in attention—but you seemed not to notice. you hold his hand and listen to his sorrows. you caress his cheek and you don’t flinch at the lack of body heat, paying no mind to the coldness that surely makes your hands freeze slightly.
  mourning death all his life, he finds your kindness and comfort refreshing.
  your boyfriend is a bit pessimistic. he looks at the glass half empty rather than half full. like when you watched coraline for the first time and he cried for half the movie believing there was no way she’d make it out of the beldam‘s hands alive. or when he sulked for half a day because he felt the sad lady from next door would never find love, resulting in the death of her love life. you told him to keep his head up and a week later, she comes into your home, bringing cookies and talking about a handsome man she met two nights prior. heeseung supposes there are some happy endings. but even so, he’s sweet and sings you songs all the time. his favorite thing to do is sing you lullabies and watch your sleep consume you. you look so beautiful while you dream, he wishes he could be in your dreams with you. he wonders what you dream about. he wonders if your dreams are as beautiful as you are. you like to take him on happy adventures and show him the world is not as bleak and depressing as it seems. you did make the mistake of taking him to a theme park, more specifically the rollercoaster, where he cried and called it a big death and torture machine. even if you left him outside he refused to let you ride it by yourself, certain that you’d fly out and die (he saw it on the news). needless to say that was the last time you went to six flags…disney world was fun though! you try to make him try new things as much as possible. heeseung finds it exciting. he looks forward to your little rendezvous. 
  he still cries and wails, mourns death every sunday at the top of the old hill, but after all his pain and anguish has been tossed into the atmosphere, he comes home to your warm and loving arms, where you hold him with love.
jay- ghost
  you knew your house was haunted. you knew the moment you walked in with the realtor.  would that stop most people from renting a house? absolutely. did it stop you? no.
  the house was dirt cheap and you really needed a place to stay after your ex boyfriend kicked you out of the house. your parents are 900 miles away and you’ll be damned if a little ghost made you sleep in boxes on the street until you could get a plane ticket.
  jay’s first attempt to scare you ended in a scoff. you laughed at him. how insulting. but it doesn’t get any better when he ramps up the scare factor. he’ll get you to jump, maybe a tiny shriek, only for you to come back and be like “wow that one was really good you’re getting better” with a smile etched into your face. seriously, what the hell was wrong with you? why was it so hard to scare you out of his house? he tried everything from making your dishes fly to making the lights flicker to making you see visions of dead people but nothing worked. he even flinged your knives into the wall (not that he would ever physically hurt you but perhaps if you thought he would you’d finally leave…you did not).
  one night though, he shows you his face through the bathroom mirror. instead of a scream, you swoon, clasping your hands together across your chest. you call him handsome and beg to see him again. you beg for days and days. it tires him out, so he appears again. he’s much taller than you, which has you giggling and twirling your hair before you offer him a shy “hi”. he thinks you’re insane.
  your ghost boyfriend has now devoted his already dead life to protecting you from other supernatural entities. once, a goblin came into your house unannounced and…well jay didn’t take too kindly to that. he gets jealous when you have friends over. perhaps it’s the fact that your friends have physical bodies to touch you. not that you can’t feel his touch, but it’s not the same. he also just doesn’t like mortals entering his property, and he’s now extended that possessiveness to you. he’s still sweet though. watches over you while you sleep to make sure no demons come by. most creatures that come by don’t expect jay to be so tough and intimidating–he’s just a ghost–but they always end up leaving the house in fear, trembling. he has a habit of sneaking up on you to tickle you, the sound of your laughter that once filled him with rage now fills him with glee. he wishes he could feel you better, but still, he loves the touch of your skin. his favorite time to see you is in your dreams, where you are both on equal planes. he can feel your soft hands, kiss your pretty lips, and have normal dates with you. it’s also great that he can defy laws of reality.
  jay has been dead for years and years now, but having you in his home makes him feel alive once more.
jake- angel
  you meet jake while he’s on a thrilling adventure exploring the mortal world. he bumps into you at the mall, knocking you over. of course, being the literal angel that he is, he helps you up. you’re just a small fragile human—he could’ve killed you for goodness sake! (he couldn’t have but he still believes he could’ve)— he calls you gorgeous, as he failed to realize that most humans tend to restrain from saying every thought that comes to their mind, no matter how good the thought may be. but to his luck, you blush and say thank you and he thinks you’re the cutest flower he’s ever seen. you give him your number on the back of a receipt and jake is too ecstatic to realize…ah…he doesn’t have a phone.
  he buys one just for you though! and after that you two are inseparable. jake being the literal angel that he is, takes care of you like his life depends on it. your sick? jake’s here. hard time with school? jake’s here. your friend’s being a bitch? jake will be there to listen intently to allll your drama, and not just because he’s a little nosy. 
  of course, he’s begged god to make him your guardian angel, to which god reluctantly agreed, so long as he does not take his guardian duties too far or too lightly. there’s also monthly check-ins with the head guardian angels to make sure jake doesn’t go too far. you ask him if it’s too much of a burden, to which he smiles and tells you he couldn’t be happier.
  he’s still a bit naive when it comes to humans. he doesn’t often think that human beings can be so cruel and evil, but when he witnesses this firsthand, he’s worried about you! what if you fall victim to these cruel and heinous creatures! his fragile little flower…he’d never forgive himself. he protects you with his life. he asks you a great many questions about human beings and their history, what they’re like and such. you think it’s cute. jake is so sweet it makes your teeth ache.
 the first time he shows you his wings you’re in awe of the way they span across his back. they’re big enough to be a makeshift shield. his beautiful pure white feathers are soft to the touch. you run your fingers along the point in which his wings sprout from his back only for jake to laugh and fall to the floor. ah, he’s ticklish. he loves to hold you with his wings and shield you from the world. just the two of you together. per his guiding duties, he’s a little bossy. he tries to steer you away from bad decisions and protect your pure innocent eyes from seeing horrendous things, which you appreciate, but you also wish he would let you go crazy and stupid. you know, for the plot.
  your cute angel boyfriend may think you to be the most delicate dove in the whole world, but you also can’t help but hold him close to prevent him from flying away. he holds you against him with his wings covering over you so you can rest easy. he’s not going anywhere.
sunghoon- siren
  sunghoon has no intention of drawing anybody into his waters, but when he sees you on the sand he can’t help but stare. when you lock eyes with him, he knows it’s wrong to tempt and tease you, but he’s selfish by nature and he wants you all to himself. you must forgive him for this.
  you are his most valuable treasure.
  when you’ve submerged yourself into the water and make it to his arms, he sings to you. he holds you tightly and carries you across the waves and you both fall in love together in the deep, salty waters that you don’t even realize you’re in right now. he brings you back to the sand, kisses your legs and hands all the way up to you forehead, but your lips are left lonely. he makes you a promise. till death do you part and you shall see him again.
  surprisingly enough, the next time you see sunghoon is on land with two legs. of course, you question him and he laughs at your innocence, “yes, my love, i can walk”. the shocked expression on your face is too cute. he kisses your nose and you shyly hide yourself in his chest. he finds the way your cheeks heat up magical. sunghoon is a siren that hides upon humans before he makes his way back to his home sweet home, the chilling sea.
  dating sunghoon obviously entails walks on the beach while the sun sets. he loves watching the moon rise with you, loves the way you look when the light hits your pretty face. he always sings you songs. karaoke at least twice a week is definitely a must. he loves hearing your voice too, whether you’ve been singing for 15 years or 5 months, he loves it. he loves to tease you. loves the way he can fluster you just by staring at you for a bit too long. it gives him a huge ego boost. the way you melt into his touch makes him sore, he feels like he’s become a creature of the land, sea, and sky. when he does go back into his waters, he misses you. longs for the hours in which he can see you again. he loves when you visit him so he can swim with you and hold you for just a bit longer. you find that sunghoon likes to be up at night. you find that usually he comes to you in the late afternoon or at night. he brings you beautiful jewelry and treasures. pearl necklaces and pearl embroidered dresses. gorgeous hand held mirrors and diamond earrings. how he obtained the items is something you don’t have to worry your pretty little head about. he loves to spoil you rotten. when you do see him during the day, he just wants to cuddle up against you and rest.
  being lovers of different domains is hard, but to sunghoon, loving you is the easiest thing he’s ever done. to him, you’re more valuable than all the jewels in the world combined. 
sunoo- dragon
  you should not be in this cavern alone all by yourself. this you know, but cannot bring yourself to care. you’re far too curious to stop now. but when you’re deep into the cavern, you see something glow in the distance. you walk closer, too close, and you hear a loud growl. which makes you jump back. there that stares as you is a fierce dragon. he inches closer and closer to you as you tremble in fear. he asks what you’re after, to which you panicked and told him you were just nosy and thought this was where your peers were meeting to share their secrets.
  he looks at you quizzically and sighs before he turns into a much smaller man.
  although he’s still bigger than you, almost towers over you and his shoulder span is twice as big as yours, it’s still much less anxiety-inducing than a big fire breathing dragon.
  especially because he’s gorgeous.
  he gives you a death glare that has your knees weak. he rolls his eyes at your shameless display of attraction before he takes your hand and pulls you, guiding you out of the cavern. to sunoo’s surprise, you keep talking. you ask him questions, ask him about what he does, tell him about your life, and sunoo would like to say he doesn’t care, but he does. a lot. when he leads you out, you promise him you’ll be back. he gives no visible reaction, but inside he smiles a little bit. your warm his heart.
  your boyfriend would describe human beings as incompetent and selfish beings—minus you, of course—and you tell him he should be more open minded, but sunoo has dealt with (and severely injured) a great many humans that don’t know their place. you think it’s cute. you call him your hot emo boyfriend, something sunoo thinks is annoying and corny but he endures it for you. he’s snappy, takes no shit. he’s more patient with you, but the average worthless human being that tried it with him? it takes everything in him not to burn their eyebrows off. thank god he has you. if not, he’d probably burn your city to the ground. he’s also grateful, but concerned that you find his temper attractive. perhaps he should send you to a therapist.
  his favorite thing is when you think you’re being sneaky and you creep in his cavern while he’s sleeping and slip yourself between his body and his tail and cuddle up against him, falling asleep until he wakes you up. he finds it adorable. he loves to guard you with his tail. loves how safe and secure you feel around him. despite what others might think, sunoo is incredibly caring. before you leave the house he makes sure you’ve got yourself together. tidies up and smooths out your clothes, tucks your hair behind you ear if it’s down and makes sure it’s out of your face. he cooks for you, cleans with you, and makes sure you’re safe and happy.
  although sunoo usually hates being disturbed, he’s glad you woke him up that day. because of you, he always has something to look forward to. and if he can help it, for the rest of your day’s you’ll always have someone to protect you…and someone to burn the hair off your enemies.
jungwon- fairy
  the leaves and sticks crunch beneath your feet and you find a place in the forest where the sun’s light seems to beam down brighter than the rest of the forest. the sun feels nice on your skin. you take in the smooth air and breath out, content.
  when you turn around, you see a man with beautiful translucent wings that glitter yellow, but the tips of his wings are pink. he looks at you wide eyed. his smiles before he runs up to you, taking you in his arms and spinning you around, “oh my god, a human! you’re sososososososo cute~~”, he goes on and on excitedly. he sits you on his lap, inspecting every aspect of you from your cute little nose to your pretty eyes to how ticklish you are. you truly are the most adorable thing he’s ever laid his eyes on. unfortunately–or fortunately, i should say–because of fairies interest in humans, he’s decided that you are his human and his only, like a little kitten he gets to love and take care of! it’s a dream come true. 
  he takes you deeper into his side of the forest, where jungwon’s fairy friends come up to you both and ask about you in awe. when they try to touch you though, he swats them away and hisses at them…you had no idea fairies had fangs… .when you tell him you must go home, his face falls for a second before he smiles again and says you may go, so long as he get to go with you. and when his wings flutter happily and he’s bouncing, how could you say no?
  although jungwon has declared that you are his cute little human that he shall protect and care for, outside of the forest, you find yourself being the one watching over him. you no longer allow candy in the house because if it’s in a 10 mile radius jungwon will eat it all, resulting in a very sugar high fairy bouncing off your walls. before jungwon had a concept of human society, he went inside of a candy store and ransacked the place…never had you imagined yourself in a police station like this. it didn’t help that jungwon kept asking the cops about scary criminal stories and why and what a taser was for. they ended up letting him go on a warning. being around a lot of humans is also very exciting for jungwon…but he had no concept of personal space. he used to go up to random people and inspect them, pointing out his observations to you. he did this especially when he saw pretty humans, which made you a little jealous but he assured you that you were the prettiest, most adorable human in the world. 
  in the forest, he is much more protective and possessive. no other fairy is allowed within 10 feet of you and touching you is a crime punishable by death. though, he doesn’t like other humans touching you either, he’s more lenient with them. one unlucky human tried to kiss your cheek and almost got his face bitten off…never happened again. and of course, he takes you flying across the sky.
  to jungwon, you are the most precious thing in the world, his most prized possession from the moment he met you. and although he believes your his little baby, you know he’s just as much your baby as you are his.
niki- vampire
  niki is very clumsy for a vampire, if he’s being honest.
  he’s trying hard to beat the edward allegations, but perhaps he should learn how to prioritize because while he’s growling and tearing up in the woods, ripping bark off trees to chew on to dull the ache in his teeth he makes eye contact with a very pretty person, watching him in awe. awkwardly, he spits the bark out of his mouth, his glowing red eyes still looking at you. he tries to think of anything to ease the tension, so he asks you if you come here often. to his surprise, you say yes. you ask why he’s chewing tree bark to which he, embarrassed, says “i’m teething..”
  you coo.
  you come up to him and ask to see his fangs. you ask him if it hurts. he kicks the dirt under his shoes and nods. he licks them and takes a blood substitute for kids box out of his pocket.
  you think he’s so cute. he thinks it’s annoying how you’re cooing at him when you’re a foot shorter than him but he loves the positive attention. you drag him to a target. he notes how small your hand is in his and squeezes it a little harder. you take him to the wooden spoons. you give him one to chew on and take him back to the checkout, where you scan it out and pay. now he shouldn’t have to rip the bark off trees. niki promises to repay you, writing his phone number in your phone before he takes off because his mom was gonna kill him for being out at 1 in the morning.
  niki loves to visit you at your window at night. he’ll tap on it lightly and wait for you to answer. he asks how you are, if you’re safe and if any other vampires have tried to mess with you, to which you giggle and tell him no. he loves to sit and cuddle with you, of course he prefers to be big spoon, but if you pout and say please he’ll give you anything you ask, even if little spoon is embarrassing for him. you spend a good amount of time teasing him, but when he teases you back, suddenly, you’re quiet and he loves it. he loves to pinch your cheeks and carry you on his back. he loves knowing you can depend on him. niki’s very soft with you so you often forget he possesses superhuman strength. a man made the mistake of putting his arm around you and ended up in the hospital with broken ribs once… .he gets shy asking if he can feed off you. he feels bad about it even when you assure him it’s fine. after he’s done, he makes sure you’re taken care of. licks your wounds to the speed up the healing process and gives you a little snack with juice before he cuddles you and soothes you to sleep.
  niki’s very clumsy for a vampire, but his love and devotion to you comes to him as naturally as breathing does. he will love you till the end of time.
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haileyywrites · 2 years
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-> I am like you - so never abandon me. In this world, it will be me and you side by side.
-> gn!reader (no pronouns mentioned) with platonic brother Scaramouche! Spoilers for Scaramouche and Ei's backstories! Scaramouche is referred to by his real name!
-> Small mentions of death - not detailed! Unhealthy family dynamics?
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Kunikuzushi came into this world as a mere experiment into the making of pupets. He wasn't meant to resemble the Electro Archon as he was merely a test to the limits of such technology.
While Ei didn't expect much to anything from it, yet she was still disappointed in him or rather disappointed of how he turned out. He was too emotional, too human perhaps, for her desired outcome. An imperfection.
This did not deter her, however. The second time she decided to create a puppet, she wanted something closer to the end result she wished. So, she created you. But even you were not what she hoped for.
Yes, you did resemble her - like how a child would resemble their mother, but that was not what she wanted. As neither of you aged or changed it was easy to mistake Kunikuzushi as your twin - the resemblance between you two was even more apparent than with your mother!
But what Ei seeked was a clone-like puppet to rule Inazuma in her stead - under her command, while she would seek Eternity for Inazuma in the plane of Euthymia. Neither of you fit into her standards, as she saw you to be too kind hearted, too human to rule the nation of eternity.
So you were cast out. Simply thrown away like used toys after she finished playing with them... She saw this as a kindness - but it seemed more like she felt guilty. That she felt like she owed you two that much after giving you life when you clearly felt like any other human.
Together you would stumble through the country side as wanderers, all while trying to learn everything about the world around you. Endlessly seeking something. Something to give you meaning to your existence, a reason to life. But if your own creator - your own mother turned you away, what purpose could your life possibly serve?
No matter where or how far you wandered together, it never ended well for you or those around you... They would either betray you or die - which your brother saw as another form of betrayal. Especially when the small boy had promised to...
At least through it all, you had each other. During the freezing nights spent sleeping outside - huddled together to avoid the biting winds, or days were you had to resort into leaning against one another after not having eaten in days. Helping each other through every nightmare...
Though you might not have completely noticed it, but all your hardships had changed Kunikuzushi over time. He was colder and more suspicious of others - always asking after their intentions. He smiled and laughed less... It was what he had to do to make sure he would never be betrayed again, it was to keep you both safe.
You were the only one to never betray him, and the only constant in his life... He knew he could always count on you, but he was becoming more paranoid. He kept thinking and dreaming of you either dying - with him unable to protect you, or you joining with the rest of the world in betraying him.
In a twisted sense, he was rather glad you were meek and dependent on him. It lowered the chances of you betraying him, unless influenced by someone else - which he wouldn't let happen. As well your own fear of abandonment wouldn't allow that to happen. But not to worry, as he was just as loyal to you. He would never let anyone or anything harm you, just as long as you stood by his side loyaly.
As he decended from his hopeful, happy and naive personality, he would come to cherish it in you. He wanted protect this part of you at all costs. You could still see the world in that sweet innocent way after all that happened to you, while he couldn't afford to do so - lest he put you both in danger. It was a sacrifice he was more than willing to make for you.
Even when the Fatui picked you up and he became the Balladeer, he wasn't opposed to hurting his fellow Harbingers or any Fatui member if they dared to threatened you or your life. You were his light in the darkness and the reason he actually wanted to create the world the Tsaritsa spoke of.
He never let you see that side of him though, you never met Scaramouche and for good reason. To you he was simply Kunikuzushi - your older brother, who protected you - even if his protection meant essentially locking you inside, unless with him of course.
The Fatui and its Harbingers essentially hated and despised him. He was cruel and never in a good mood, often screaming for any reason to anyone. While with you he was sweet and gentle, making jokes and doing menial tasks to keep you entertained.
You were the last piece of Kunikuzushi he had left and he would let you - and only you, keep it.
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After seeing his backstory I've just been wanting to hold and comfort him - so I'm just milking out content from that, but I do have others coming ^^3
Feel free to reblog :)
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nhescio · 2 months
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Okay I have a visceral need for a hannigram time travel fic but instead of the typical Will or Hannibal fix-it, the person that time travels back is none other than Frederick fucking Chilton. Like imagine Chilton wallowing around all crispy and stuff after being human torched wondering what he’s done to deserve everything he’s been through. And when he’s finally okay enough to be discharged from the hospital to go home, an anvil falls on him or smth. And as he’s lying there incredulously, he’s like, yknow what? Im not even upset about this. I think Ive suffered enough near death experiences. Please just let this one put me out of my misery. And as his eyes finally drift shut, he hears an alarm blaring in his face. An alarm from his phone. His phone which, when he goes to shut it off, displays an impossible sequence of numbers— the plastic screen shinning with a date from four years past.
So after freaking out and confirming that he is indeed in the past, (and weeping in joy over his unmutilated body) Frederick does the obvious— he packs his bags, pays a visit to the bank, and gets on the next available flight out of the country.
And then his plane crashes and he dies.
But of course he doesn’t die because that seems to be a common theme in Frederick Chilton’s life!
So he’s jolting out of bed again to that same alarm and he tries not to tear his own face off (not that he would ever actually do that cause he knows how easily he could lose that precious face). And (after a few more tries) since this time loop bs isn’t letting him run away, he does the next best thing— phoning the FBI with a tip so that they would investigate Hannibal Lecter and put him behind bars for good. But of course Hannibal somehow finds out and discretely shakes the FBI off his trail while simultaneously sending one of his murderer protégés after Frederick. And so not even a month passes by before Frederick finds himself dying and waking to that infuriating alarm again.
And he keeps going through different loops trying to avoid being “murder tableau of the week”, but failing miserably every time. After dying for what feels like an infinite number of times, he’s realized two main consistencies. Number one, he can’t personally expose Hannibal Lecter as the ripper if he doesn’t want to be gutted, and two, the sooner Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter begin their weird courtship, whether from Frederick’s deliberate meddling or from ripples of unrelated actions, somehow he’s left with much less blood and chaos in the aftermath. In one incredible timeline, Frederick even managed to only sustain one life threatening disembowelment for three years before accidentally making a rude comment about Will Graham’s lack of a social life, thereby leading to a cold death in the Atlantic.
After this revelation, he vows to get Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter to bang each other as soon as possible for the sake of his own self preservation— going through elaborate plans like befriending and recruiting the FBI’s forensics team, or snapping Jack Crawford out of his obliviousness so he’d bluntly give them a nudge, or even once flirting with Will Graham himself to get Hannibal Lecter jealous (note: that attempt did NOT end up well).
And one day, after a shocked text from his “Sassy Science Matchmaking Squad” group chat proclaiming that Hannibal and Will, lovingly dubbed Hannigram by the group, had spontaneously quit their jobs and run away to Europe together, Frederick suddenly realizes he hasn’t been stabbed or burned or maimed or drowned or disemboweled once! He thinks back to his early success in this timeline— silently high fiving with Beverly and Jimmy (Zeller, the spoilsport, had refused to partake) while voyeuristically watching Will and Hannibal shyly having their first kiss in the shadows of a filthy crime scene. In fact, he didn’t think anyone in their immediate circle had been stabbed or burned or maimed or drowned or— well you get the point.
And as one year turns to two to four to eight with no word from Hannibal or Will except the occasional postcard, a sort of cautious optimism starts building in Frederick’s heart. The years continue to fly by until one day, Frederick finds that his hair has turned a snowy white, and that his legs are too weak to support his aching body. He tries to take in a breath to laugh but it comes out as a wheeze. He’s at the end of the line once more, but this time at the end of a healthy, fulfilling life. His only wish is that he’s finally allowed to move on. And as he feels his life slowly drifting away from him, Frederick wonders if he’s accomplished whatever divine mission that godforsaken time loop had wanted him to complete. It really feels like he did the best he could this life, preventing every possible death on the East Coast by sending Hannibal and Will packing early. Sure, he feels bad for the poor suckers in Florence or Paris that were probably flambéed for a pretentiously fancy brunch, but realistically, those two would always leave a body count no matter where they went.
All Frederick wants now is to pass in peace. With a heavy sigh, Frederick willingly closes his eyes one last time, content to move on into whatever lies in the beyond.
And he dies. For real this time. Woohoo!
The End
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kirkenovak · 9 months
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I’ve watched the Dungeons and Dragons movie too many times for it to be healthy and I decided to make it everyone else’s problem.
Honor Among Thieves/Dreamling crossover?
The Endless exist in the DnD setting but they don’t concern themselves with the affairs of gods and mortals, they just ARE. They exist outside the planes and influence all of them, albeit in different ways. They aren’t worshipped and usually aren’t well known.
Dream and Death do their visit to the mortal realm and meet Hob Gadling, Dream and Death have their bet and Hob becomes immortal. Now, in the DnD, unnaturally long lives aren’t that unheard of. There are elves who had already been adults when Hob became immortal, who are still alive. Arguably, Hob could pass himself off as a weird half-elf hybrid and no one would be too surprised he’s been knocking about for several centuries. But a human that not only lives long but doesn’t die? At all? No matter the manner of death, no matter the damage done to him, he just gets up again and keeps on trucking? No. That’s not normal. That shit’s weeeeeird. You don’t want to be advertising that unless you want every evil wizard warlock lich sorcerer and whathaveyou knocking on your door. So Hob still has to hide.
He of course still meets Dream every 100 years in the inn (every paladin and cleric with divine sense in the area does a little >_>). He still pretends to be his own son. He still does hundreds of different things. He still has a fight with Dream that causes Dream to walk out on him. He still buys the White Horse and waits for Dream. Dream is still captured by Burgess, a mighty wizard who really REALLY wants to conquer death but doesn’t want to be an undead because yuck.
Meanwhile, Xenk Yendar has met Hob in his travels several times already and is absolutely not buying the “I’m his son, I’m the son’s son, I’m the son’s grandson” excuse but Hob seems harmless, commits no evil acts (that Xenk knows of *coughscoughs*) and doesn’t register as anything otherworldly or undead so Xenk leaves him alone. That is until he walks into The White Horse one day, sees Hob for the first time in years and immediately senses that this is a temple, the land is consecrated, this man is the priest. The problem? A priest of what exactly? Normally it’s not really his business but given that Hob is a bit shady to begin with, it just doesn’t seem right. He asks Edgin for help, after all, who better to charm and swindle his way into Hob’s good graces and get some answers than a professional conman/thief/ex-Harper/bard who just doesn’t do magic, no seriously, what’s the deal with that.
This is where Ilmater decides to intervene. Sure, normally he wouldn’t stick his Devine nose in the matters on the Endless but he is the god of suffering, and both Dream and Hob are suffering, albeit in different ways. He sends his favourite paladin a vision of Dream and Hob, who then confines in Edgin and his crew and so, the DnD version of the fishbowl heist is born!
Starring: Xenk, the hottest paladin in existence; Edgin the spell-less bard; Edgin’s barely concealed lust for Xenk; Doric the most OP wildshape in existence; Simon the Sorcerer (no not the game, the game is great tho. Available on iOS. Try it. Starring Chris Barrie of the Red Dwarf fame as the voice of Simon. It has a sequel too tho not as good); Hob Gadling, the immortal but he can’t reveal he’s immortal and also has no idea who Dream is or what his true nature or even name is… wow he’s kinda useless in this setting and nobody trusts him; and Holga the carrying everything on her broad shoulders.
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mslanna · 27 days
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Can I ask for Raphael having a 'Wait, why am I jealous?' realization of his romantic feelings for Tav? (For the record, Tav is romantically interested in him, too, because I can't handle angst right now 🥲)
Ask and you shall receive. 🥰
Served Cold
(Served Cold on AO3) enby Tav without body configuration cold and comfort hot devil is hot Karlach cameo
Conquering all nine hells was a lot of work for one devil. Even with his armies and followers, Raphael had few subordinates he trusted. So asking Tav to join had been only logical. After all, they had delivered the Crown of Karsus to him willingly.
He had been right, too, as Tav greed easily to his request. They helped him conquer the hells and he, well, there was a certain uncertainty about his part of the deal. Just make sure I don't die seemed like a sensible request. It was not much of a prize, though. The exchange seemed barely equal.
But he wouldn't look a gift Tav in the mouth. It was also to be expected that Tav would enlist the help of their friends. The tiefling should not have been a surprise, especially since she could not return to the material plane with her hellfire heart.
It wasn't that he didn't trust his human to get the job done, despite the biting cold of Cania and the wide icy plains. But this was his father's domain. Mephistopheles knew he was coming for him and his security was increased.
Tav was smart for taking the circumspect route to his palace even if that meant several weeks of trekking through the cold. The entrance wasn't secret as much as unexpected. A place as big as Mephistopheles court had a whole system of venues to accept or remove wares and services. A place as old as his father's had also gone through several system changes. Dead ends happened.
And Tav knew how to talk to servants and debtors. As a paladin they exuded and air of trustworthiness. The time they spent undercover in his father's realm had not gone by easily. Raphael had worried every day. So much of his plans rested on Tav's success.
But they succeed as he knew they would. Tav was reliable, more so than many of his subordinates. Subordinates who were making a lot of noise under the command of Yurgir right now. Mainly to keep Mephistopheles attention on them and allow the small group to slip in through a discarded and ignored back entrance that should have been decommissioned and closed centuries ago.
Raphael considered standing with the armies. But the prospect of seeing the expression on his father's face when he turned up in the centre of his secure home was a strong argument for travelling with Tav.
He was accustomed to the burning cold of Cania. The storms of blade-like winds and freezing snow were inconvenient but manageable. The tiefling was doing fine with her hellfire heart as well. It kept her warm under the layers upon layers of clothes.
Tav on the other hand suffered miserably. It didn't matter how many layers they put on, the result was a shivering heap of furs that moved slowly through the cold landscape. The view was pitiful, but Tav didn't complain once. Their dedication to his cause was admirable. And when nobody watched, not even his own inner devil, Raphael allowed himself to admire them.
Not now, of course, as the human sat huddled up like a shrimp at the small fire. They shook violently and stuck their hands almost into the flames. If he didn't know better, Raphael would have thought them a blemish, worth no note. His thought were of a very different nature though.
There had to be a way to help Tav. It was not the most devil-like thought but it was well founded. Tav was a valuable asset, a tool well worth protecting. It was only natural that he considered his options to keep them at peak performance.
The problem was how to get warmth to his mouse without attracting attention. A bigger fire was out of the question. That left very limited options. But, for the success of his campaign, he was willing to make sacrifices. Even personal ones.
He was still mulling over the best way to phrase his idea so it would not appear to be personal, when Karlach moved. She rounded the fire and came to sit next to Tav, worry engraved on her face.
"You'll catch your death, soldier." The tiefling nudged Tav who moved towards her unthinking. Drawn to the warmth, no doubt. "Yeah, that's more like it. Gods, you're cold."
Despite her words, Karlach wrapped Tav into their cloak. And his little mouse, leant into it. Raphael took a deep breath. The way Tav softened and their body slowly ceased to shudder. It was a good thing. There was no reason for him to be mad about it.
Yet the anger simmered in his stomach, bitter and bubbling. That had been his offer to make. A sacrifice for the greater good. Yet the tiefling offered it as if it was nothing, a small act of friendship and care. He should be grateful for that. His dignity stayed intact.
But his dignity was not rumbling dangerously low in his chest. To think that it could have been his arm around Tav's shoulders, his arm they leant against, grateful and content. The fury surprised him, as did the pain. What did it matter who kept Tav warm?
But it did matter, and it mattered that it wasn't him. Raphael carefully avoided putting a name on the rage. The last thing he needed now was complications. The fight against his father was difficult enough without worrying – uselessly – about one fragile mortal.
It was not worry he felt, looking at Tav who dozed off in the sudden warmth. Trenches dug by the cold over the last days softened. Their mouth relaxed and opened slightly. They looked at peace. Peace he should be giving them.
"If it proves too much of a strain on your infernal engine, let me know." Raphael was proud of the nonchalance of his tone. "I am willing to carry my share of the burden."
"Tav is never a burden." Despite her cheery tone, the threat in Karlach's voice was clear. "And I'd rather freeze to death with them than burden you with them."
Raphael sat back. "If this is how you treat offers of help-"
"If you want to offer help, offer help. Don’t style yourself as a martyr for the most minuscule act of decency."
Looking at his little mouse – eyes closed, breath soft and regular – Raphael wondered if they were indeed asleep. What would Tav think, listening in on this conversation? And what did it matter to him? He was a devil! He did not care what mortals though of him.
Except for Tav.
The realisation was uncomfortable and unwanted. It was true nevertheless.
"Don't mind him," Tav murmured, adjusting their position against the tiefling. "He's just jealous."
Jealous. The word stunned Raphael. He was not jealous. He was a devil! He stared at the lips that uttered such blasphemy. Lips that were once again of a soft pink instead of pale blue. He had a pretty good idea what he'd like to do to them, traitorous, insolent lips.
Unfortunately, his ideas supported Tav's claim. Ridiculous. They were an asset. A tool for his victory. Nothing more.
Yet.
"Well." Karlach pulled Tav closer. "Even jealous devils have to behave themselves. Maybe a 'please' wouldn't go amiss."
"If you think I will beg, you are severely mistaken," Raphael huffed and folded his wings closer around him.
"Do as you please. But I don't think Tav is a burden and I know how it feels to have them breathe down my skin when they sleep – and drool a little." The tiefling dropped a sloppy kiss onto Tav's forehead.
"Devils are not to be drooled upon."
"I'm sure you can make them lick it off again." The tiefling delighted in teasing him.
Still Raphael could not deny the appeal of the vision her words conjured. "Oh, hand them over already." He gestured impatiently.
To his surprise the tiefling actually obeyed. "You know I will kill you, if you hurt them," she smiled as she draped the mortal against his side.
Raphael snorted. "I'd like to see you try."
"I don't," Tav murmured and turned to press their face into his arm.
A surprisingly efficient argument. Raphael dragged his little mouse into a comfortable position, resting their head against his chest and wrapping them both in his wings. At least tiefling couldn't see his face any longer that way.
"You are mine," he murmured into Tav's rear. "Mine alone and don't you forget it."
"Jealous," they replied sleepy, but with a smile touching their lips. "I like it."
Raphael growled and dropped kiss onto their head as he had seen Karlach do. What an insolent little creature he held. It would be impossible to pry them from his grip.
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hiorisgf · 8 months
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##Reincarnate, love, die, and then repeat the cycle!
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↪ft. Ei, Xiao, Venti
↪How do the long living characters act with a reincarnator lover?
↪No, I don't know where I was going with this so please don't ask. TT
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Raiden Ei
Ei finds you a confusing person to consider. Being the farthest, and yet also one of the closest to eternity-you are a variable Ei doesn't know how to handle.
Ei doesn't know - no- actually, she does know; she knows every single you that you've reincarnated into(she cherishes you too much to truly let you go), but she makes no moves to approach you, to try and return back to the times where she'd call you her lover.
She doesn't do anything, only watch you through the Shogun's eyes as you go on about your life, unaware of the past life you spent as the very same lover of the god of thunder from a tale of Inazuma.
She watches and watches, the plane's clouds clearing up ever so slightly at the sight of your smile. A sight she once admired firsthand.
Ei was alright being just your god, this was how it ought to be in the first place. You were human, and she was a god, an esteemed archon and the ruler of Inazuma - the line that differentiates the two of you is clear as day. (But that doesn't stop her from reminiscing the past with a somber mood)
Although eversince the appearance of the enemy of eternity, and Yae's incessant chidings, she was forced to change her views, forced to acknowledge the feelings she's long since barreled up.
She admits that she longs to converse with you, to fall inlove with you once more, to feel the familiar sensation of jitters as your skin makes contact with hers, she's conflicted, arguing over which side of her she'll allow the honor of following their desire.
And with a final push from her familiar, she ultimately decides to approach you, you who tended to your stall, selling her favorite kind of sweets to interested passerbys. She clears her throat, stopping the growing anxiety and excitement from being visible on her face.
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Xiao
"In every lifetime I'll have, I promise to find you and love you again." Were the words you've parted this world with. A ludicrously beautiful promise- a ridiculously impossible vow.
It's become some sort of a past time for Xiao to wait for you by the balcony of wangshu inn. Day after day, he sits by the balcony when night falls, waiting for the time you'd prove yourself true and appear infront of him.
Of course he knows it's impossible, chances were that even if you did have a second chance in life, you'd have already forgotten the lifetime you spent with Xiao, forgotten the promise you uttered using your last breath.
But to wait for you by the balcony has become a past time he'd seek solace in - a moment he could spend remembering the memories he'd made with you. Because at the very least, even if you couldn't keep, let alone remember your promise, he'd keep his own and remember you vividly no matter how much centuries have passed.
By now, Xiao knows not to get his hopes up. But when someone walks in, donning the same attitude and looks as you, he can't help but approach. Gingerly, he'd call out your name. And his heart skips a beat when you turn around, grinning with a smile too wide to be natural.
"Yes?" You take a step closer, stopping only when you were a step away, and leaned in close enough to feel your breath on his ear. Xiao finds himself glued to where he stands, a myriad of questions running through his mind. But the next words you utter sheds light inot his eyes, and a grin he'd rarely ever show to the world.
"Did you need something, General Alatus?"
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Venti
Venti makes it a point to watch your every reincarnation, keeping watch and giving you his blessings. But the extent of his affections remains there. He doesn't approach, only ever watches you by the side, hearing about you through the winds' memories.
Don't get him wrong, venti loves you truly. But to tell you of your past and try to mingle with you once more would only serve to bind you to him, force you into a relationship with him solely because of your past relationship.
Venti values your freedom more than anyone else, so he doesn't tell you anything about the past he oh so treasured, allowing you to do whatever without the shackles of your past binding you and restricting your movements. Because despite his strong desire to stay with you throughout your lifetime once more, he'd rather see the smile on your face he's grown used to before, the smile unrestrained by anything, that free and jolly grin you'd make he'd always fall in love with; even if it meant that it wasn't him who'd bring that kind of expression to your face anymore.
But if you do choose to follow the footsteps of your former self, approach him and befriend him. Maybe even fall inlove, then Venti would be more than happy to indulge you. He'd tell you his odes, his proses and poems, songs and tunes, dedicate each and everyone to you. He'll let you fall inlove, let these feelings foster alongside with his, and he'll be there, waiting for you with a patient grin.
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luna-rainbow · 25 days
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Allow me to present the defense case for Peggy Carter.
I don't mean the PC who is in What If BTW. I don't know who she is, but she's not Peggy. I mean the original version from 2011-2014, especially from recently re-watching The First Avenger.
Peggy comes off as being very aloof, detached and rather condascending at times. I argue that's because she had to be. Its very hard for women in the armed forces even today- but back in the 1940s it would have been even more difficult for a woman to hold her own in a male dominated context like the army. She'd have had to worked many times harder to prove herself and to gain the respect which her male counterparts took for granted purely by virtue of their gender and rank. If she showed any kind of emotional vulnerability or it seemed like she didn't know what she was doing, the men would have pounced on it and taken it as "evidence" she was just a weak and feeble woman who didn't belong in "thier" world. Even then... we still see people being insubordinate and talking down to her. When she punched that soldier who was making lewd remarks (can't remember his name) I don't see her being a bully. I see a woman having to deal with the type of casual sexism she probably experienced on a daily basis. When men who were far below her in rank treated her with contempt or just saw her as a sex object. No way that soldier would *ever* have spoken to a senior ranking male like that... She was also dealing with it in a very masculine way. Like another soldier would. In regards to Steve: again I don't think Peggy is ever intentionally mean or cruel to him. Yes, she's sassy and snarky, but I think she had to learn to be like that to hold her own among men. Her interactions with him in the movie are actually quite positive overall: she smiles when he uses his ingenuity and jumps on a dummy grenade, she doesn't talk about how weak he was she views him as a proper soldier when a lot of others don't: including Colonel Phillips. Even after the Serum Philips just sees him as some glorified performer whereas she trusts his judgement: reluctantly at first but willingly afterwards.
For his own part, Steve never talks down to her or views her as inferior. He was probably one of first men who did that only after Howard Stark perhaps.
When she said that Bucky was probably dead: again I don't think she was being uncaring. That line came after just after saying the 107th had been through "more than most" upon seeing an ambulance bringing an injured soldier back from the front. It seems to me she didn't want to see *another* man die in what she had every reason to think was a suicide mission. I mean, its very likely she'd lost friends before, maybe even had family members killed. Besides of which, she ended up helping Steve go on that rescue mission by persauding Howard to drop him near the HYDRA facility on his plane. Then didn't apologize for her actions afterwards even though Colonel Philipps basically threatened to basically demote her.
Finally, that scene where she fires her gun at Steve's shield: again I don't see that as bullying. When he kissed that other woman (*who did it very deliberately in front of Peggy*) it was quite obviously an attempt to make her jealous. (Not on Steve's part, but the other woman). I think in that moment she felt betrayed, because she believed Steve was different to the other men she encountered. Men who just saw her as a conquest or an airhead. She thought he was behaving "just like the other soldiers"- i.e treating women as objects, and she had an emotional reaction. She was actually wrong, but that proves she's flawed. She's human after all!
So yeah, Peggy in The First Avenger is great. She's sassy and snarky but she does seem to genuinely care for Steve as well. I see them as having a lot in common: both people who struggle to be accepted by others but find their place eventually.
Okay, before I start, I want to say that I did like her mannerisms when I first saw CATFA, because I like no-nonsense female characters. However, movies!Peggy was not a fully formed character — just as movies!Bucky wasn’t. One was the token love interest, the other was the token best friend. Hence, there are specific traits embedded in Peggy’s characterisation, or rather her story roles, that are factors of a male author writing a female love interest for a genre about macho superhero men. Which in itself is a product of the misogynistic nature of 2010 MCU.
Firstly, she’s never actually had her rank or her professional role specified. She introduced herself as an “agent supervising all operations of this division”, but all she does is hover around Howard and Philips in their offices. She’s not on the battlefield with Steve (no matter how her own series tried to rewrite it). She’s not in the field acting as a spy/agent. We are told she’s important, because somehow as an agent she’s giving orders to military trainees — a weird role but we can give her that suspension of disbelief — but we are never shown her doing anything important to contribute to war efforts. More than this being Peggy is a useless person, it’s a symptom of the writer not knowing how to handle a female professional in WW2, to the point of calling her an agent but having her both being in the science division and giving military trainee orders but hanging around looking like a secretary. And why exactly could Philips threaten to demote her? Who does she even work for? He could demote her if she’s military but she’s not. So it’s never clear that those soldiers are her subordinates, because they’re not. She’s not in the chain of command! And so why should they respect someone who’s not in their chain of command telling them that she’s going to give orders? She does have to earn it.
You and I remember that kissing scene very differently. Firstly, Lorraine pulled him into a kiss, Steve didn’t kiss her. We need to get the instigator clear here. We can debate how much of a willing participant Steve was, because that scene can be read anywhere from “Steve was unsure at first but then started to enjoy it” to “Steve was in shock the whole time and his hands came up to push her away”. Secondly, there’s no suggestion that either Lorraine or Steve knew Peggy was within watching distance, so I don’t agree with the interpretation that anyone did it to make Peggy jealous. Thirdly, Peggy and Steve were not an item at that stage, so it’s rather presumptuous of her to “feel betrayed”. What did he betray? He said he was waiting for the right partner, he didn’t say the right partner was her. She’s the one who’s taken it upon herself to demand his faithfulness. He never indicated he was happy to enter into that social contract. Fourthly, you’ve acknowledged that her emotional response to another woman kissing Steve was “flawed”, but object to that violent retaliation being called “bullying”. So let’s call it for what it is: unprofessional, unethical, unromantic, and bloody unhinged.
I’m sorry, there is no possible justification for discharging a gun at a man (and specifically in this case a man who is not in a relationship with you) over a kiss in an enclosed space at work where other bystanders could get injured.
But you know what? That scene is another symptom of male writers not knowing how to write a strong female love interest. In 2010 everyone knew it would be bad form if a man hit a woman for being kissed by another man, but violent anger from a woman directed at a man? That was seen as cute and funny and sweet. And that view exists because of the infantilisation of women. Female anger is seen as “not that hurtful” and “not that important”, dismissed as a momentary “emotional outburst” because women are prone to emotional outbursts, it’s a womanly thing to suddenly lose grip on logic over a jilted love. Where in a man that emotional volatility and violence would be a major character flaw that would turn him into a villain, in a woman that’s…cute and harmless.
So you know, Peggy was at the same level of neglect that Bucky-with-two-birthdates was. She was not a character they cared enough about to even give her a proper professional role in the army. She’s there because the movie needed a love interest. She’s there to show how unwanted Steve was before the serum, and how desirable he became after the serum. She appears, every now and then, to remind the audience she exists, but never in a way that directly affects the plot. @amarriageoftrueminds has multiple excellent metas explaining why the story could have proceeded without Peggy being present. She’s a character we are continuously told is important, but the narrative gives her only counselling type dialogues, and while those conversations are placed at narratively important milestones, none of her suggestions make any sway on Steve’s original plans before he started talking to her, making her someone who has minimal impact on Steve’s arc and on the story as a whole.
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jwirecs · 9 months
Text
RECOMMENDED NCT FICS OF JULY 2023💖
hello, hello! here are my nct recs of july! hopefully these beautiful stories get more recognition as well as the writers 💝
** anything in parentheses and bolded are my thoughts that can be disregarded if needed **
🔞smut || 💔angst || 💕fluff || ✅completed || 🔄ongoing || 💯favorite
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Baseball (& Other Disasters) || @tqmies💕✅
↳ Everyone admired Mark Lee, starting pitcher of your school’s baseball team and famed ladies man. You, on the other hand, only know him as the boy who broke your dorm lobbies microwave the first time you met. Too bad that was all it took to grow an embarrassingly huge crush on him. So when he comes to you, in need of a new baseball manager, how could you say no to that face? (Spoiler: You couldn’t) 
Let You || @waerie💕✅💯💯
↳ jisung would never let anyone ruin his game, so he says to his friends. but the claim deteriorates when you come. (stop this is the cutest jisung fic that i have read in this month. fcking enjoyed this fic so much with all of the cuteness)
Reminiscing || @ihaechans​​​​💕✅
↳ Time flies. Especially with best friend and nerdy ride or die Mark Lee. Reminiscing on the rooftop leads to foreign emotions and forgotten memories to rise to the surface, and the obvious tension between you two can no longer be avoided.
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April Showers || @lelengerine💕✅
↳ you never liked staying out while it rained, but perhaps you’d be okay with being all soaked if it meant being with him.
Caramel || @nctmiami💕✅
↳ jaehyun can’t wait to get home to you after a boys trip
Exhaustion || @xrenjunniesx💕✅
↳ moving houses is tiring, but it’s easier when you’re with your loved one.
Flustered By You || @lelengerine💕✅
↳ your boyfriend surely knows how to make you flustered, even when he’s the one who should be.
Fucking Up The Sheets || @ah-ga-seven​​​​🔞✅
↳ (no summary, but its just jaehyun casually fcking up the sheets.)
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Rule Number 1: Don't Fall In Love || @jaylaxies🔞💕💔✅
↳ your ex getting a girlfriend after just two weeks of breakup was enough to infuriate you to the point where you had to step up and make him regret breaking your heart. solution? fake date his best friend and make him jealous!
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How About Now? || @nctsplug02🔞✅
↳ Anon Req: Recently I been thinking about romantic sensual sex with Johnny but it lasts like the whole night. Different positions, cuddles, cream pies UGHHHHHHHH I WANT THIS MANNB 😭😭😩😩😩
Lowkey || @onyourhyuck🔞✅
↳ You and Jaemin are best friends but behind the close doors you have a lowkey relationship that no one knows about.
Wicked Games || @cherryeoniis​​​​💕✅
↳ And even as your heart breaks, you can’t deny that having him against you feels like your own small piece of heaven.
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After You || @ryozaki21🔞💕💔✅💯💯
↳ Na Jaemin had it easy. Loved by everybody, the man of everyone's dream. He's a perfect mix of a charmer and a player. Girls begged to be his, and he loved every part of it. Life used to be so fucking perfect for him. Then comes you. You're like an old book, ink fading, cover tearing, but he swears you're worth the read. Before you, life was easy. After you? He wasn't so sure.
Blue To Orange || @seren1tyhaze🔞✅
↳ your break up leaves you with a plane ticket to Greece on a couples trip with your best friend and her partner. she convinces you to still come on the trip and you meet two strangers who leave you with memories of long nights under a stunning starry sky.
Dog Sitting Gone Wrong || @onyourhyuck🔞✅
↳ You were hired by a rich man to babysit his daughter, when you arrive you realise his daughter is a dog and you’re now dog sitting while he is out running errands.
Hotel Paradise || @jaesheart🔞✅💯
↳ you visit an exclusive brothel for the second time to satisfy your needs.
My Little Doll || @haechansdoll🔞✅💯
↳ Humans have hormones, you understand that much. But does that explain why you can't stop the filthy daydreams that fill your head whenever you see a specific redhead? Does it excuse you for getting turned on by him simply breathing in your direction? And to make matters worse, he is off-limits, if your father found out you were messing with his prized boxer? You would be chained to a tower and your red-haired crush would be used as mincemeat.
Sunday Sinner || @smileysuh🔞✅💯
↳ “Everything is wrong,” Mark sighs. “Doing this with you two is wrong. Wanting you this badly is wrong. Getting hard in Church is wrong. What I want to do to you is wrong. But… as crazy as it sounds, it also feels right.”
The V Week Spy || @smileysuh🔞✅💯
↳ Every year, seven days before Valentines day, sororities and frats are paired together, and eligible himbos, hoes, bimbos and fuckboys alike volunteer to be raffled for a chance to become the year’s V Week Spy. V Week is open season, with outings and parties tailored to be the perfect excuse for sexscapades, with the knowledge than 1 boy and 1 girl are undercover, grading sexual performances. Once the week is over, at the annual Valentines Day Party, the evaluations are presented- It’s a bad time to be unsure about someone’s feelings towards you, and an even worse time to fall in love. (get out, this literally screams the mafia game but sexedition. i love it)
Wanna Ride? || @onyourhyuck🔞✅💯💯💯
↳ (if you enjoy reading biker!au's, yall should really read this series. cause sht was wonderful af and spicy)
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Strawberry Sunday || @doiesfav💕✅💯
↳ You realized that your daughter would feel awkward with his own dad sometimes so you decided to do a picnic to help them improve their relationship.
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Dirty, Little, Traitor || @onyourhyuck🔞✅
↳ Wherein you asked your roommate Mark to help you out with rearranging your room but ends up rearranging you instead.
Ice Cream Thief || @tddyhyck🔞✅
↳ someone has been eating haechan's favorite ice cream so he decides to put a hidden camera in the kitchen and living room thinking it's a shared space it shouldn't invade anyone's privacy... right?
Safety Zone || @cherryeoniis​​​​💕💔✅💯
↳ Mark Lee. The most perfect roommate and best friend that you could have asked for - except for the fact that he constantly messes up your laundry and can’t cook eggs very well. Even then, that doesn’t quite stop you from falling for him in your final year.
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Finding Cinderella || @justalildumpling💕💔✅💯
↳ it wasn’t often jeno showed emotions of love and affection, let alone kissing a stranger at a party that he doesn’t even remember?! determined to find his nameless cinderella, he began searching the campus far and wide but as hidden secrets started surfacing, he started to wonder whether the midnight spark was meant to be pursued after all.
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*i think half of my reblogs for july for nct were all texts, and i am fine with that. so for this, imma rec the ones that had me choking on my spit from cackling.*
Getting Picked Up Texts || @ohmygs-blog💕✅
↳ Anon Req: "hi, can I request where the dreamies are picking u up from school/work? cause everyone at work was picked up by their partners and I’m here waiting for a taxi cab lol y isn’t haechan picking me up smh 🤦‍♀️ thank you so much! I really love your works, and I really look forward to your new posts, they make me happy! ^^" ("you can ride on my handlebars" i cackled a bit too hard that i choked on my spit.)
Pulling Another Member's Photocard || @onyour--ash💕✅
↳ (the title says it all. haechans is fcking too real. my guy i like looking at mark too. but also jaemin having a jeno collection, im ngl he probably does have a folder on his phone dedicated to jeno.)
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Fuck The Police || @loudstan🔞✅💯
↳ Your ability to read people's minds is very useful for the police during interrogations. And that's how you meet Yuta, a werewolf accused of stealing a car.
Do check out all of the other NCT Fics that i have reblogged as well!!
** if there is any fics that you guys would like to recommend, please do! i am slowly running out of fics to read **
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janahanooo · 5 months
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This just happened to me so, have some angst(?)
Yuu: *baking cookies with Grim and the ghosts*
Grim: Hey human, you look a bit pale
Yuu: oh fuck
Yuu: *sits down immediately*
Grim: human? Are you okay? Human, can you hear me? Hum-
Yuu: *faints*
Grim: !!
Grim: Human!
Yuu: ugh, my head...
Grim: Human! You're alive!
Yuu: yeah, but I feel like I did die for a moment
Ace: Prefect! You're awake! Phew, I really thought you were a lost cause. I already planed a funeral.
Yuu: rude much
Ace: then don't scare Grim and us like that next time
Yuu: ...we'll see about that in the summer
Ace: what was that? Hm?
Yuu: ...nothing
(I usually faint because of the stress I experience through out the school year. Every goddamn year. But I'm fine now.)
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