#its a lot bigger than i thought it would be. impressive

[eyestrain-addict]

Feeling very normal and sane and not at all thinking about lore or implications (lying)

#chewing my fingers off #elden ring #elden ring shadow of the erdtree #shadow of the erdtree #miquella the unalloyed #messmer the impaler #whoever the fuck that is #heard a lot of new voices in the trailer #its a lot bigger than i thought it would be. impressive #the last voice did sound a lil like melina but she had a different cadance #i dont even wanna theorize cus theres just so much #but i think its notable that messmer whoever he is. is the big boss of the dlc and has a bunch of snakes #snakes come up in two places in elden ring that being the obvious rykard but also the colloseum “enemy of the erdtree” snakes

[bcyhoods]

WITH FIREWORKS! STEVE

synopsis : after a date at the carnival, steve gives you your first kiss! (prompt: “was that your first kiss?”)

word count : 1.6k

author’s note : repost from my old blog! i fixed her up a little bit, endured changing past to present tense just for you so….

“Those games were totally rigged,” Steve huffs as he prods at the small teddy bear clutched in his hands.

You’re situated on the hood of his car, smiley lips tinged blue thanks to the half-eaten cone of cotton candy in your hands. Steve stands in between your legs with a pout as his free hand rests beside your thigh, finger itching to graze your skin as it taps the metal of his car. The summer sun has just dipped below the horizon, but his face is illuminated by the multicolored lights of the fair behind you. Even with a sullen attitude, he just looks so pretty.

It was only your third official date — excluding the weekly, hour-long visits to Family Video, which Robin made sure to tease him for — and Steve figured it was time to rattle his feathers, so to speak. He wanted to impress you by showing off his athleticism, and carnival games provided an exemplary opportunity to do just that.

He envisioned your arms full and occupied by the array of giant prizes he won for you. You’d watch with an endearing grin on your face every time he beat a game. The night would end with your arms thrown around his shoulders and the perfect kiss that had you both swooning.

With fireworks in the background, obviously.

But luck had strayed far away from Steve Harrington’s side. Far, far away.

“Oh, they were, were they?”

“Definitely. ‘You can only throw it with an underhand,’” Steve mocks the game attendant with a husky voice — a terrible impression, really, but he knew it’d make you laugh. “That’s a made up rule. For sure. I’ve never heard that rule before. Ridiculous.”

The boy sighs defeatedly, letting you take the bear from his hand before running his fingers through his, now disheveled hair. The brown locks had endured the torment throughout the night as he increasingly became more and more stressed. And he didn’t want to admit he was embarrassed, it felt entirely dramatic and silly. But he was, and the way he avoided your gaze while his teeth worried his bottom lip was enough of a tell.

He laughs meekly at himself and squeezes the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, I was trying so hard to win one of those gigantic bears — too hard.”

You hum as your eyes scan over the stuffie. It was no bigger than the length of your hand. Its body was stiff and straight and a tuft of cotton spilled out from under its right arm due to a couple frayed stitches. The ribbon around its neck was barely being held together with a glob of hot glue.

“I like this one, it’s cute.” At his scoff, you double down, “I’m serious! It’s got a lot of charm to it. It’s perfect.”

You move your attention from the bear to Steve only to find that he’s already looking at you. His gaze is incredibly soft, smile lines decorating the corners of his lips as his tongue is coyly tucked into his cheek. His eyes are brimming with love, you think you might burst the longer they’re on you. He finally lets himself graze the skin of your thighs as a subtle thank you. The attention was all-consuming, it made it hard for you to focus. It was hard to do much of anything really, with him looking at you like that.

Quickly, you clear your throat and look up into the sky in abrupt thought. “I think I’m going to name him…Eve.”

“Eve? Eve the bear?”

“Mmhmm,” you affirm with the wave of the cotton candy, “Eve ‘The Bear’ Bearington.”

A huff resembling a short laugh leaves his mouth as he drops his chin down. Lowly, he mutters, “You’re unbelievable,” before looking up at you again with a doting grin. He moves to shake the bear’s hand gingerly, holding it between his thumb and his index, and bowing his head.

“Nice to meet you, Eve. You’re looking a little rough, bud. Bad hangover?”

You scoff and protectively pull Eve into your chest as if it were a child. The chuckle that reverberates through his chest encourages your heart to dither as heat rises to the tips of your ears. “That was very rude, Harrington,” you reply, feigning shock while trying to fight off the smile creeping onto your lips. It doesn’t work.

“What? No, Eve didn’t think it was rude. I’ve been there before, I’m sure he appreciates my empathy,” Steve argues, eyes momentarily flitting to the cotton candy that sat untouched in your hand for the past few minutes. As he nonchalantly stretches his hand out to pull a piece of the sweet, you move your arm out of his reach.

He glares at you with a tilt of his head. You raise your eyebrows to challenge him.

“Bullies don’t get sweets.”

A small gasp emanates from him before his lips are twisting into an impish lopsided smile. He tsk’s and takes a small step back. “Well, that’s too bad…because it just tastes so,” he looks away innocently, “…much,” he pauses.

”…Better!” He lunges forward earning a yelp from you as one arm wraps around your waist while the other moves to grab at the cotton candy. His fingers curl into your sides, eliciting a fit of laughs and giggles to fall clumsily from your sugar-coated tongue which makes it that much harder to fight against him.

Albeit, you don’t cease, pushing against his shoulder and still trying to stretch your arm as far away from him as possible. But it was no use as he slightly lifted you up off the car for just a moment to pull you flush against him. Your legs reflexively wrap around his hips and once you drop the bear, your unoccupied hand grips a handful of his polo for stability. The action had taken you by surprise, being too distracted to push him away when he ducks his head down to take a bite of the candy floss.

“Yup, just as I thought. Ten times better,” he preaches, letting it dissolve on his tongue to savor the flavor.

You’re sure you look a mess. Your eyes must be glazed over complimented by your lips still parted in shock. Your chest is rising and falling in a quick, inconsistent pattern as you try to collect yourself. Again, Steve has thrown your train of thought completely off course.

“You suck,” you manage to say. It was a lame attempt at an insult. But the words were practically dripping with adoration, all he could do was smile.

“Yeah?”

You nod meekly.

You’re certain he can feel your heart thumping wildly against your ribcage, certain that even through the background carnival noises and both your uneven breaths, he could hear it, as well.

And despite being so sure of your dumbfounded expression, Steve thought you looked so beautiful like this. In disarray, your sweater fell off your shoulders to hang loosely on your arms and your hand is holding his shirt so tightly like it was a lifeline. His eyes dart to your lips to trace over your cupid’s bow before glancing back up to find your eyes.

And you thought he looked just as pretty. His nearness was entirely disorienting. You could smell the saccharine hint of stolen cotton candy mingled with his ever-prized Calvin Klein cologne. His hair had fallen handsomely over his forehead. The moles and freckles scattered across his face are more fascinating than ever as you count them until you reach his lips. How soft and inviting they looked.

You’re so completely enamored, you don’t even register when he leans in, brushing his lips against your own in a feather-light kiss. Your breath hitches in your throat and before you can even bring yourself back down to earth, he begins to pull away.

“Sorry, I thought…”

He moves to step away from you, but your legs tighten around him to keep him in place as your fingers wrap around the wrist on your waist.

“No! I’m sorry, I…it was nice, it’s just I haven’t…I mean, I’ve never…” You swallow down a lump in your throat as you feel your eyes start to water.

The second you glance up to gauge his reaction, you regret it. You watch his eyes widen in realization and feel his grip on your waist go slack. Hiding your face behind clammy hands, you groan and drop your head to his shoulder. Your entire body felt like it was on fire and you wished the floor would open up and swallow you whole.

“Was that your first kiss?”

You nod timidly, dragging your hands down to your lap to wring out your fingers, your gaze immediately following. And Steve is not malicious, he’d never laugh at you, but you feel just a little mortified that you froze up.

“Hey,” he cooed, delicately cupping your cheek and lifting your head. “It’s okay. Don’t be embarrassed.” The words are hushed and soft, a sweet reassurance that causes your insides to melt.

“Was it…was it good?” he asks.

The question makes you giggle, “I dunno, I didn’t really get a chance to return the favor.”

He nods, the beginnings of a wide smile slowly making its way onto his blushing face. “Right…do you maybe, wanna try again?”

You mirror his expression before you’re the one leaning in this time, a kiss that he reciprocates feverishly. His lips slot against your own as his arm tightens around your waist once more. Your fingers dip into hair and he hums against you at the feeling before pulling away.

You giggle at the dazed look on his face and his kiss-bitten lips.

“How was that one?” he asks, eyes shamelessly journeying over your face.

“It was perfect.”

#the return of eve ‘the bear’ bearington!! #ᝰ cece’s scribbles #steve harrington #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington x reader #steve stranger things #stranger things blurb #stranger things fluff #stranger things fic #stranger things #joe keery

[scenesniper]

☆ norton campbell ; general sfw & nsfw headcanons

pairing / norton campbell x afab gn! reader

disclaimer / overstimulation & breeding kink

word count / 1,159 words

SFW

⭒ norton is not the type to bat an eye on anyone because he has no interest. he almost never falls but when he falls, he falls hard. you must've done something that left a gnawing impression on norton. you'll be the first person he notices in a room full of people.

⭒ norton has attachment issues so its' safe to say he can be easily swayed by jealousy, making him react recklessly. even small things can make him jealous, whether it be miscommunication or not, please help sort it out and remind him of his worth. norton is not the type to take well to criticism and will feel invalidated if not for your affirmations.

⭒ to be very honest, norton is EXTREMELY emotionally unavailable. he has intense thoughts and feelings that of course, he won't share because he knows how intense it can be for the other person. instead, he just wants you to help ground him whenever he's feeling out of it. hugging or holding him tightly, rubbing your hand back and forth on his back, play with his hair, anything to help ground him.

⭒ one of norton's love language is 100% gift giving because that's what he always lacked in his life. he would love to take you out in any luxurious clothing store to have you all decked out in jewelry and designer brand clothing but in reality, he knows he can't spoil you the way he wants to.

⭒ norton is not big on words, mostly because he's a shy person to his significant other. so he mostly enjoys personal time between the two, basking in each other's company and silence if need be. but don't get me wrong, he absolutely loves words of affirmations directed towards him. he'd never outright admit it or ask for it because he finds it embarrassing, but trust me, whenever he's feeling down, he loves to just get reminded of his worth.

⭒ when you're both out in public together, he likes keeping you close to him at all times with his hand around your waist. he's a bit shy but he won't hesitate to call you "mi amor" in front of others. he's shy but he likes pda and it makes him feel proud of himself and a feeling to just simply show you off.

⭒ when you're behind closed doors, he will not bat an eye to wrap his hands all around you. he's a pure golden retriever in private. putting you on his lap, hugging you from behind and his head on your shoulder with his arms wrapped around you so tightly that you can't move.

⭒ his favorite places to kiss you is most definitely your lips. he just loves how soft they feel on his. he also very much likes kissing your neck and thighs, especially marking them.

⭒ if you're shorter or smaller in size than him, he loves to tease you over it. he loves how easy it is to pick you up and sure, looking down can hurt his neck but he absolutely finds it hilarious that you have to look up at him just to make eye contact. if you're taller and bigger in size than him, he'll love that too!

NSFW

⭒ norton does have experience but not much to know exactly what to do to please you. please guide him! he's a fast learner so he's sure to pick up on it almost instantly.

⭒ he's very insecure over this scars that he gained from the mining accident so at first, it was just a lot of clothed sex. when he finally decides to show you his entire self bare means he's finally accepted you in his life. even though he's still afraid of the thought of losing you, it's his intimate way of telling you he trusts you.

⭒ 8 inches 😶. maybe because i'm biased but that man is tall as hell, i know damn well his dick is too. he prefers to keep it clean down there, shaving a bit but leaving some. if you have any hair down there or not, he wouldn't care at all.

⭒ norton is a switch, 100%. some days, he just wants to relax and admire you taking the reign. other days, he wants you to be the one cowering and whimpering underneath him.

⭒ overstimulating and breeding kink, he loves the idea of starting a family with you. for overstimulating, at the start, he was afraid of overstimulating you as he didn't want you to be in pain in any way. but over time, he knows it's okay and loves the dazed expression on you when he fills you up and dry. if you are uncomfortable with overstimulation, do not hesitate to say your safe word as he'll instantly stop and apologize.

⭒ doggy, missionary, and cowgirl are his favorite positions. when fucking you, he loves to see the effect he's making on you. whether it be from your expression giving you away or the way your body reacts from his touch, he's just so infatuated and curious about you.

⭒ big no to public sex. however, if he's feeling extra jealous that day or simply can't handle his situation, he'll call you over and ask to go to a secluded part. i love to imagine that whenever he's needy, he has that urge to just take you in while you're sitting on a counter, the wall, or a door.

⭒ he is completely infatuated with the noises you make, it's an ego boost to him really. he's the type to be so drunk in your noises, he'll keep riding you and overstimulating you (accidentally) just to continue hearing your moans and pleas.

⭒ he loves marking you in visible places but he also loves marking you in places where other people can't see. just the fact that it's only seen by him and only him really turns him on, especially when he undresses you and see that oh so familiar hickey on your thigh.

⭒ aftercare is him silently getting up to go run bath for you and returning to bridal carry you to the bathroom. he cleans up the bed when you're soaking up in the bathtub. the night is filled of his constant murmurings, "i love you's" in your ear while holding you tightly in his arms.

⭒ he's that cheesy and stereotypical type to be the one that's first awake, staring at you affectionately for hours in the morning. also that nasty guy that just peppers you with more kisses in the morning (nasty ass morning breath, but it's okay because it's norton 🥲).

⭒ thanks to norton, your legs are sore so be prepared to cancel all of your matches the entire week and be absolutely spoiled with attention. norton is, by nature, a passionate man. he has so much love to give so please treat him with your utmost care.

#idv #identity v #identity v x reader #idv x reader #norton campbell #norton campbell x reader smut #idv x reader smut #identity v x reader smut #prospector x reader smut #norton campbell smut #norton campbell x reader #identity v hc #identity v hcs #identity v headcanons #identity v headcanon #identity v smut hc #identity v smut hcs #idv smut hcs

[unexpectedstormy]

Master Sword Pt 2: What half the Chain thinks of the Sword

As I explained in my previous Master Sword post, what Sky thinks of the Master Sword is summed up in this one panel from New Times New Place. But what do the rest of the members of the Chain think of the Master Sword? (FYI, I'm splitting it up and doing Twilight, Legend, and Wild in a separate posts because there's a lot to it.)

Time

In the comic Swords, The Chain is talking about everyone's thoughts on the Master Sword (I'll refer to that comic a lot in this post) and Hyrule, who did not wield it on his adventures, mentions that he is curious about it and Time tells him this:

In Time's case on his adventure he was judged too young too small and the sword changed him to be bigger and older and better able to wield it. Clearly he wasn't a fan of that because in New Time New Place, he says this:

Time recognizes the power and necessity of the Master Sword, but he doesn't agree with it's ways and doesn't want to have anything to do with it anymore because of the trouble its cause him.

Warriors

Maybe I'm missing something, but I've only found one single panel (back in the Swords comic) about Warriors' opinion of the Master Sword when he says this:

Indeed, in his game Hyrule Warriors, that's part of his story arc and the game's plot so I won't say more for game spoiler reasons. But generally, Warriors feels empowered by the sword and there's no indication that he has any negative opinions about it.

Four

In this these panels from Swords...

And these panels from Too Small for the Sword...

We can see that Four has not wielded the Master Sword and does not want to because he knows it is a magical sword and the last magical sword he touched divided him into four pieces in his game, Four Swords Adventures. He doesn't know how the Master Sword would affect him and he doesn't want to know.

Hyrule

Hyrule is another Hero who never wielded the Master Sword because his games predate the Master Sword's invention in A Link to the Past. In Swords, Sky lets him handle the Master Sword and Hyrule is impressed, but he has his own super awesome fire blade and doesn't need the Master Sword.

Wind

There isn't very much about Wind and the Master Sword in LU. He does say this in Swords:

Because in his adventure, when he first drew the Master Sword, it wasn't at full strength and Wind had to find a way to repower it before he could use to fight Ganondorf. Other than that, in Divine Dark Reflections Pt 4, Wind remarks that his primary sword, the Phantom Sword is nothing like the Master Sword, but is useful in it's own way (but he doesn't say whether it's better or worse).

And there you have it folks, half the Chain's opinions in one post. The rest will be coming soon!

#long post #analysis post #linked universe #master sword #lu time #lu warriors #lu four #lu hyrule #lu wild #lu wind #if I've missed something #let me know #I'm writing this series of posts for story research purposes #so I wanna make sure I got it right

[chellestrash]

Pretty and Sweet

Frank Castle x F!Reader

request: Omg I got Drabble in my mind Please write Frank Castle being obsessed with reader wearing Lacey pinky clothes because she looks cute in it and then he says things like“Such a pretty girl” “you look adorable in this I should get you clothes, would you like that sweetheart?”Or him being a soft dom and overstiming the reader in their lingerie“Just one more sweet girl”“your shaking honey” Just like praising her the whole time and being sweet but is being rough 🤭 Frank just gives that vibe he’d be so sweet

warnings: pet names, explicit language, smut, teasing, fingering (f!receiving), sub!reader, dom!frank

word count: 1k

a/n: i haven't done requests in sooooo long I'm not even sure if I know what to do anymore. I know this tool a lot longer than it probably should and I'm aware its not exactly what you asked for anon but i did my best i hope you get to enjoy it. If you end up reading it please let me know what you think!

“You gonna wear all that and then try to tell me you weren't trying to get my attention, sweetheart. Huh?”

Frank's voice rumbles through the air, filling the dark space of the bedroom the moment his body leans over yours. You smile a soft innocent smile, contrary to the current situation you found yourself in. 

“I just thought they were pretty.”

Dragging your finger over the straps of the pastel pink lingerie, you trace your eyes up and back to his face. The warm feeling at the bottom of your stomach gradually grows stronger as you let Frank's eyes skim over your body. His big hands were on either side of your head, his chest hung in the air over your own, one of his knees now wedged between your legs.

“Yeah?”

The firm frown on his face makes the muscles in your thighs twitch slightly and for a second you wonder if he noticed. He did. His eyebrows raise slightly and an unimpressed expression on his face when he glances down and back up into your eyes the second your body betrays you.

“Really?”

You fight with yourself, trying to play this off as nonchalantly as possible but you know, you know with Frank, with the way he knows his way around you, that's nearly impossible. 

“One question is all it takes to get to you, sweetheart?”

“Frank.”

You begin to explain yourself, the heat on your face prickling slightly when his eyes trace over your body one more time.

“Shh shh shh.”

That goddamn whisper. You swallow hard, feeling his thumb brush over the edge of your lower lip. The pounding in your chest picks up slightly.

“Just wanted me to see you in this, huh?”

You nod, a silent confirmation followed by Frank's quiet, low chuckle. 

“Right so, let's say I believe you, yeah?”

With your eyes fixed on his you listen, your chest rising and falling faster than before when his hand finally caresses your body. 

“Do you like it?”

You whisper, your hand now resting on his bigger one. His fingers brush over your sides, over the soft fabric of the lacy details. Frank scoffs, not at your question, only at the fact that you try to question the way he could feel about this. 

“Really gonna ask me that?”

Tracing over the straps, his eyes drop one more time. Following his gaze, his fingers trace over the many straps and buckles of your pastel pink lingerie set. You watch as he lets out a quiet grunt, followed by a hum when his eyes shut for a moment.

“Such a pretty girl, huh?”

Mumbling the praise he finds your eyes again, a split second before your body involuntarily reacts to his words.

“All that for me?”

Squirming under his body, you nod quickly. The need for his touch rises with every other minute he chooses to devote to letting the situation get the best of you. 

“Frankie, answer me.”

Feeling brave, you use the pet name to get his attention. His focus is now on your face once more, eyebrows raised, impressed with your choice of words.

“Oh, look at that, using your big girl words today?”

Moving his knee to the side, Frank pushes your legs apart slightly more. His hands are still on your side, rubbing over your exposed skin. The touch feels reassuring and so do his words. 

“Just want to know if you like the set. I picked it up in the store I thought it-”

“Sweetheart, the only place this thing would look better is right there on the floor.”

He nods his head to the side and you feel yourself getting warmer again. Rising your hips slightly, you gently grind against his leg once, then pause, waiting for his response. 

“You wanna ruin these? Hmm, you think it's worth it, sweetheart?”

Dragging his fingers down your stomach and then over the fabric, Frank begins to rub slow, gentle circles over your center through the pink fabric. Your lips part with a quiet gasp and your fingers wrap tightly around his free hand. The touch you’ve waited on for so long now, finally where you wanted it the most. Thankful for his decision,you breathe out relieved. Relaxing your body into Frank's palm, you confirm your desire for his attention. 

“That okay? Hmm? Can I touch you here, baby?”

The pressure intensifies slightly, your breath hitches, legs pressing together faster than you can even attempt to stop it.

“Mhm.”

You murmur, not wanting his question to remain hanging in the silence of the room.

“Think we're gonna have to get rid of those, huh, sweetheart?”

The question rings out in your head as you try your best to focus on Frank's words once more. Hooking his fingers over the waistband of the lower part of the pink underwear, he pulls the fabric down, his body moving as he leans closer to you. Rubbing his thumb over your knuckles, he presses a gentle kiss right under your belly button. His warm kisses follow the soft sensation of the fabric brushing over your skin while Frank exposes more and more of you with every kiss. 

Finally touching you without the barrier of the garment, Frank chuckles softly, satisfied but not surprised with how much the whole situation got to you.

“Attagirl, you like that, huh?”

Paired with his touch the question has your eyes rolling to the back of your skull and you dig your nails into his palm. 

“Fr-”

You start, but pause, biting your lip once he slips his finger inside you slowly.

“Shhh shhh shhh, that's it, sweet girl, that's it.”

Turning his head to the side, he plants the kiss on the inside of your thigh, the touch even softer than the kisses from moments ago. After pulling them out, he pushes his fingers inside again, then again and again. The repeated motion picks up pace as he begins to work his thumb over your clit.

“Oh f-mmmm.”

You hum, and he scoffs loudly, breaking the overly sweet character. He can't help but tease you and your hips buck up slightly.

“Shit, sweetheart, really? That much?”

“Frank-”

“You wanna say something? Hmm? Think you’ll have to speak up, baby.”

The pet name contrasts with the teasing character of the statement and your body reacts one more time. 

���Cause if you won't talk sweetheart. I think this will take a long, looong time.”

#frank castle #frank castle fanfiction #frank castle x reader #frank castle request #the punisher

[blackmoonlightexpress]

About the mixed response in China & why I think TTEOTM will prevail in the end 💪

Saw the "Badly Received in China?" post earlier and thought to share a longer take on the situation in China, why are there so many antis, and my own predictions on its future.

First, a clarification, TTEOTM has been an massive hit in China. The data speaks for itself in every way you can measure commercial success: viewership, platform membership, app downloads, social media heat index, advertisements, merchandise sales, unintended tourism GDP contribution. The drama has shattered records and outperformed all the recent xianxias, which you'd never dare to expect for a drama with no dingliu (顶流) that airs exclusively in the dead April slot on a platform that's 3rd (sometimes 4th) amongst online streamers. (Some day I'll create a master post just on the stats.)

The only area it falls short on is critical response. It's not just the low Douban rating (opened at 6.x and now dropped to 5.6). The three Bs - Douban, Weibo, and Bilibili (which you can think of as China's IMDB, Twitter, and Youtube) were full of attacks against the show. This included trending topics on how the actors looked (LYX too thin, BL looking old/big/overshadowed by CDL, CDL 照骗 not looking as good as in photo) as well as allegations of plagiarism and drama behind the scenes between cast & crew members. A lot of people watched video edits that twisted the facts and had a poor impression of the drama and even left 1/2-star reviews on Douban without ever watching an episode. (This type of brainwashing is more effective than you'd think. I've been reading a lot of negative posts about the Little Mermaid movie and almost caught myself writing something negative about it without ever watching.)

As all of this unfolded, I kept asking myself, why all the smearing? Who is behind it? And why TTEOTM in particular?

A lot of what appears to be normal user activity is driven by water armies, marketing accounts, and "black" hot search ranking, all paid. This is all backed up by photo evidence captured by netizens. It comes down to commercial interests of rival platforms, productions, actors. This actually happens to every drama that is threatening in some way (almost a proof of success), but TTEOTM attracted more anti $$$. Why? For one, it's seen as the secret weapon that could elevate Youku's status as a 3rd/4th player to a close 2nd to rival and even at times overshadow Tencent. It's no coincidence that, Bilibili, which is owned by Tencent and has way more daily active users than Youku, has promoted hate videos and limited the traffic of fan videos - at some point not even recognizing the drama's Chinese title in search results. (Bilibili used to be a haven for LYX fans and a platform LYX has partnered with extensively. This flipped 180 degrees since he no longer has any unaired dramas with Tencent.)

TTEOTM is also a target for rival productions. It's got big name stars with solid acting reputation, one of the hottest IPs, and high anticipation from all the promotional materials - they've been super loud in letting everyone know that they have better costumes, special effects etc Meanwhile, there's a massive pipeline of unaired xianxia dramas that stick to the old formula and will likely feel dated after people have watched TTEOTM. People even started questioning how some productions with bigger rumored budgets ended up with cheaper-looking promotional materials, costumes, CGI (read: embezzling). So if you've invested in xianxia 101, you'd really want to discredit TTEOTM and stop people from watching it.

But there's also rival fandom jealousy, which is almost worse. Someone asked which fandom is behind it, I would say everyone. There are only so many "resources" to go around in the "entertainment winter" and it's a zero sum game. LYX and BL are both already big stars but still not at the top yet. They are big enough to threaten the dinglius, but not big enough to be accepted as having "made it" by other rising stars. E.g. Yang Mi, Yang Zi, Xiao Zhan receive a lot of hate too, but it's less realistic as a prospect to bring them down. In contrast, the smearing of Bai Lu actually kind of worked. (And I'm really talking about the fans. The actors probably leave it to their agencies/companies.)

Other fandoms are especially bitter in this case because TTEOTM really upset the status quo and commonly accepted truths in a way that kind of discredits everyone else. A lot of the below have been used by fans of dinglius as excuses for when a drama doesn't perform:

Youku is a rubbish platform and Youku exclusive web dramas will never have high viewership

It’s impossible for an actor to break out twice within the same genre

An actor can only develop a big dedicated fan base with CP marketing

Breakout hits are always unanticipated dramas that come out of nowhere

Autumn/Spring is a dead slot. Hits can only come out of the summer and winter holidays.

IMHO A lot of the intense hatred comes from long held beliefs being proven wrong. LYX has always been thought of someone who’s borderline A list and B list, yet the opening viewership of TTEOTM is like double that of dramas led by bigger stars. It would have been less threatening if it started low and slowly gained traction because the drama proved to be good. But the initial hype speaks to the market power of a LYX xianxia, so a lot of people wanted to see it fail and looked for faults everywhere.

Moreover, because TTEOTM had an explosive opening, it did not have enough time for word of mouth to develop before people started bashing it. If you look at Douban ratings, shows that fewer people watched tend to have better reviews because only fans bother to rate it. Starry Love and Back from the Brink, both harshly dismissed as flops by the industry, both have >7.0 on Douban. Meanwhile, people love to hate on a show that is receiving a lot of hype - suddenly they are held to completely different standards even if the budget is similar. Why are people more accepting of the rise of Dylan Wang and Esther Yu in LBFAD? In the end because the expectations were pretty low. They were able to build up a fan base while no one was watching.

Finally, TTEOTM does have lots of production problems, some of their own doing and others not their fault. Either way this left the drama less defensible in the face of scrutiny or tucao (吐槽) culture. The production is very ambitious and took risks, but did not deliver everywhere. It's got parts that look like a blockbuster film and parts that look like a B grade TV show. I personally did not like some of the editing, lighting, cinematography, color grading, special effects, makeup. AND this is precisely the type of production details Chinese viewers LOVE to fixate on. Meanwhile, compared to western viewers, they are more forgiving about things like mediocre acting, dubbing, slow pacing, repetitive tropes or storylines, uninteresting characters. (I think this has something to do with cultural differences around rewarding perfect execution over innovation/risk-taking, sum of the parts over parts that carry the sum.)

And then, there are creative choices that are daring and controversial. These are not problems per se - for every viewer that hates it, someone loves it because it's different. But this perhaps explain why its score has dropped further, even in non-Chinese platforms like MDL, even amongst fans of the show. For example... (spoilers ahead)

Opting for a bad/open ending, knowing that it'll upset some fans, but sticking to it because they feel that it protects the overall integrity of the story (no deus ex machina). Of course, most viewers prefer a happy ending. It would have been easy to just give people what they want. The screenwriter doesn't even have to come up with a new ending for god's sake! However, almost every xianxia that has come before has resurrected the lead character after the big climax. Viewers have been making fun of the cop out: What's the significance of life and death if everyone just reincarnates?

Packing lots of details in a fast-paced, highly complicated, non-linear plot, trusting viewers to be engaged enough to use their brain, rewatch, and discuss outside the show (a bit like Christopher Nolan films). The downside of this is that it's hard to edit out a scene. There's also high risk of viewers getting confused and complaining that the plot makes no sense. Even though most things do if you go several layers down, some rightly point out that they just want to be entertained and the drama should stand on its own.

Making this a male lead centric (大男主) drama, which is rare in the xianxia genre that more recently has targeted young women exclusively. The story shifts from focusing on LSS's mission to TTJ overcoming his fate, perhaps at the expense of the romance (a criticism I see a lot from viewers looking for a pure love story). However, for context, viewers in China (including CCTV itself) have been complaining that the xianxia genre has lost the "xia” (heroism). It's gone from Chinese Paladin, which is about ordinary people overcoming odds to become heroes, to stories that are just about pretty people, who happen to be gods, falling in love since the success of Eternal Love and Journey of the Flower. TTEOTM brings the focus back to "zero to hero" character development, so this is also a change that many welcome.

Allocating a crazy portion of budget and screentime to superhero fight sequences. I agree with all the critics who say these scenes don't add much to the story, the B roll looks better without CGI, and they could have kept other scenes instead. BUT guess which scenes I find myself rewatching and showing off to friends the most? Episodes 14, 15, 32. Because it is thrilling and glorious. Plus after enduring so many Marvel films over the years, I'm pleased to see a version that's genuinely Chinese (not some pan-Asian BS), rooted in our philosophy and martial arts tradition, featuring Chinese faces that have real kungfu training.

Going over the top on aesthetics - colorful costumes, hair accessories, and heavy makeup. A violent reaction against the simple pastel aesthetics that have dominated xianxias over the years. Of course, lots of people hated on the eyeliner and found the extravagant visuals distracting.

However, even with all its flaws, I'm glad it aired and did not wait for perfection. (A lot of May dramas did not go live last minute due to "technical problems" i.e. government censorship. These days, airing = success.) In addition, I predict that over time people will come to appreciate TTEOTM more. Here's why:

1) A lot of dramas now widely lauded as classics started out with poor ratings. Over time, the noise will die down and make way for what really matters - compelling acting and story. Empresses in the Palace (2011) opened with a Douban rating of 2.7 out of 10 (yes, this bad). Viewers didn't like the casting choice. They thought the actors looked bad. There were also issues with the costumes. Over time, its rating increased to 9.4. It's now a show rewatched so loyally that data analysts use its viewership to track market size. Similarly, a lot of the issues people have with TTEOTM are superficial. The things that matter most like acting are good, and even if you dislike the story and editing choices, it did manage to keep 70M people watching and engaged till the end, incl. people who don't watch a lot of TV or like this genre.

2) Moreover, when people look back or rewatch, they tend to focus on just the highlights, and TTEOTM is full of memorable scenes. There are also so many standout memes/gags (出圈梗) that will live in our cultural fabric forever. Fans on Douban were surveyed on who they would have chosen as the director instead and still overwhelming "rehired" Kuk Kok Leung. Biases aside, I think people realize that you could have a better executed drama overall - higher production value, greater consistency, more attention to detail, BUT you might also lose a lot of the things we loved. I don't know if another director would have allowed TTJ go full creepy/evil/weak in the first few episodes or filmed all the steamy love scenes without a modesty backlight. TTEOTM feels so different because it breaks ALL the rules (see above) that I'm not sure if dramas in the future will try to replicate. If they do, TTEOTM would have started a trend. If they don't, TTEOTM will remain the only option.

3) Only dramas that inspire passion will stand the test of time. There are plenty of dramas that score well but don't inspire passion - they will fade away over time. The TTEOTM fan community is intense - there's so much discussion and engagement everywhere. Its Douban group is the #3 most active ever (measured by # of comments). Its MDL page has 68K comments, highest of all aired CDrama. Its Douyin topic has close to 29B views, highest of all costume drama. (Interesting to note that TTEOTM has an excellent reputation on Douyin, the platform with the most active users and least amount of toxic fan activity.) Fans have spent >25M RMB on merchandise, an unprecedented amount - 3M RMB on a character that appears for <10 mins (OG Devil God). It's got to have done something right because this is way more buying power than the fans of LYX and BL combined. And in my N=1, I've not been this excited about a franchise since Game of Thrones and then Harry Potter.

Bottom line, you might have liked it, liked it with regrets, hated it... but if you're spending the time to read this post, all the way till the end, you've become a luna-tic (or 烬神病人)!

#till the end of the moon #black moonlight holds the be script #luo yunxi #bai lu #tantai jin #ye xiwu #chang yue jin ming #chinese drama #cdrama

[foxilayde]

100 from the smut prompts is very OTTR Leto hehehehe

[thank you for the prompt, Scout! I had so much fun with this one!]

100. “You’re still so needy, even after I just fucked you”

Needy [OTTR Leto Atreides x Fem!Reader]

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: 18+ ONLY smut

When you’d first seen the bedroom where you and Leto would be spending the holidays with his family, his childhood bedroom, you laughed. You thought it was a joke. Until Leto set your suitcase on the floor, kissed the side of your head, and said, “we’re gonna be real cozy, baby.” It wasn’t so much the room itself, with it’s old posters, track and field trophies, and his mother’s sewing table in the corner. It was the bed. A twin bed. Fitted with flannel sheets and a comforter so small that you weren’t sure it would even cover the two of you.

“We’re sleeping here?” You point worriedly to the bed, eyes shooting wide.

Leto hisses and looks over his shoulder, checking to make sure his mother didn’t hear the affronted tone to your voice from the kitchen where she was cooking a welcome home meal for her apparently prodigal son. You’d never seen anyone greeted with as many kisses and tears, crossing herself and thanking various saints for Leto materializing for his holiday stay.

Leto closes the door quietly, and puts his hands on his hips. “There a problem?”

God, you don’t want to start fighting. What kind of impression would that be? A helluva way to introduce yourself to the Atreides clan gathered together downstairs.

You blink down at the bed, doing mental math, trying to envision what sleeping positions the two of you would have to hold in order to not fall off either side of the mattress.

“No.” You say with a smile, placing a hand on his heart and kissing his cheek. “Looks cozy.”

Leto scrunches his nose in agitation and sighs. “We’ll try it tonight and if it’s bad we’ll get a hotel nearby.”

You nod.

“It’ll break ma’s heart of course. She went through all this trouble—“

“Leto, it’ll be great.” You reassure him, rubbing the back of his black cashmere sweater, giving him a peck on the nose. “Let’s go downstairs, you have to introduce me to everyone.” You grin in earnest this time. You really are excited to meet his family, and warmly honored that he wants you to, and that his mother— without even knowing you— insisted you stay the full week in her house, amidst all the commotion and joyful bustle of so many family and friends celebrating together.

Leto’s eyes soften and he glances back at the bed, “I swear that thing was a lot bigger when I was 18.”

You laugh, hugging him close to you, “thank you for brining me, Leto.”

Leto hums, burying his face in your hair, rubbing your back firmly, “thanks for kicking my ass about going home for the holidays, baby. This’ll be nice. And if it’s not—“

“A hotel, yeah I know.”

—————-

It ends up being very nice. Much nicer than you anticipated, not only have you been ingratiated into the Atreides family with open arms (Leto’s sisters were downright haranguing him for not having proposed to you yet), but the sleeping situation isn’t horrible at all, in fact, its downright cozy. Just like he’d said it would be.

It’s a snowy week in Jersey, a climate that neither of you are accustomed to at your costal home in California, but it’s toasty inside the glowing home, and the heat rises to the top floor where Leto’s room is. Plus the heat of both of you, snuggled cozy in the small bed under the flannel sheets, it’s comforting in a way you’ve never known in your oversized king bed by the sea. Sure, there’s no Egyptian cotton sheets, no down comforter, but there’s also no balcony for Leto to escape to for his cigarette, no way for either of you to scoot to a respective side if you get in a ‘mood’. He holds you close, in his arms, your legs tucked together. He can kiss parts of you without moving much. He whispers how much he loves you, loves seeing you with his family, he strokes your arm, your side, your back, with the tips of his fingers until you’re lulled to sleep. And after so much socializing every day, so much food and drink and nieces and nephews running around, you sleep like a rock through the night.

On the fifth night, instead of assuming your position as the little spoon like you have been the previous four nights, you slip in between the sheets and lay down on your side in bed and face him, stroking his beard. You love that he grows it out in the colder seasons, it suits his face so well. He looks so utterly soft and domestic in his white sleep shirt, no gold gazelle shades or silk button down. You study his face in the low lights provided by the Christmas bulbs outside the window that glow softly through the frosted glass. You try to see the boy his mother showed you in the photo albums the day before. He’s usually so hard and gruff, it’s hard to do, but when his eyes turn up in question at your inspection, you can see him in there in the warm brown depths. You grin, biting your lower lip.

Leto shakes his head softly, grinning back at you, “I know that look, little miss.”

“What look?!” You whisper, scooting closer into his embrace, giggling at his expression and stroking his beard lightly.

“I know that look. You’re thinking naughty thoughts.” Leto pinches your side and you nearly yelp from the tickling, you would have too, if you weren’t acutely aware of his mother’s room being on the other side of the wall.

You slap his chest as best you can in such close proximity, but the lack of leverage only makes your hand cling to his pec in a needy way and Leto glances down at it. “She’s gettin frisky.” He sighs somewhat dramatically in a put upon way, grabbing your hand and kissing the tips of your fingers, “I shouldn’t be so surprised. You’ve been without daddy’s cock for what, 72 hours now? Baby must be starving.”

He’s such a self-satisfied tease, taking total mirth in your affronted expression, encircling your wrist in his palm while you try your best to take a good playful whack at his chest.

“For your information, it’s been… over a hundred hours.”

“That so? Well I trust you to keep score on the t-minus how long its been since you’ve cum, needy, needy baby.”

“You love that I’m needy,” you lay the sultry eyes on him, “because you love giving me what I need.”

Leto’s eyes go dumb for half a second and he loosens his grip on your wrists, allowing you to maneuver your hands around his broad shoulders, gently guiding his body to easily roll over your own.

“Oh yeah? And what does baby need, huh?” He rubs his nose against yours, he’s smiling so big his teeth are showing and you know from experience he won’t so much as kiss you until you tell him. Explicitly.

“I need,” You hear a floorboard creek from somewhere down the hallway. Jesus, the last thing you need is for someone to overhear what you’re about to say to your boyfriend. You put your mouth up next to Leto’s ear and whisper, “I need your big cock inside me.” You tug the lobe of his ear gently between your teeth.

Leto groans in approval, kissing you messily as you both work to rid yourselves of all sleep attire.

“You gotta be quiet, baby,” Leto says between kisses. Your moan of agreement is sharp and needy against his lips and probably already louder than you should be judging by the way Leto chuckles against your lips.

It’s not as though you’re a loud person, or have been historically or anything, you’ve never been a ‘screamer’, but with Leto? Let’s just say the man has been known to pull unholy sounds out of you with nothing but his lips, tongue, and two well-placed fingers. The man just does something to you. Those fingers make their way between your naked bodies to the heat between your legs, swiping at your already substantial wetness.

“Fuck. Baby. So fucking wet. You been horny for me all evening or what?”

You moan again, pursing your lips closed you try your best to reign in your expression of pleasure, nodding. “Yeah. Need you.”

Leto plants his forehead against yours and uses the wetness from your pussy to stroke his cock, teasing your folds with his tip, earning a barely stifled moan from you to his delight.

“What was it, baby? What got you so worked up that you’re that fucking wet for me, huh?” He’s taking far to much pleasure in teasing you, letting his cock notch in and slide up, rubbing your clit with the underside of his cock. “Tell me, baby. Tell me and I’ll give it to you, give you what you need.”

You’re so ravenously horny at this point you don’t care if he knows exactly what it was this evening that was making you hot and bothered. “Seeing you with Joey and Nicky, with the boys, how good you are with them, how… how, oh fuck, how good of a uncle you are, what a good dad you’d be.”

That stops him cold for the flash of an instant, forehead on yours, panting heavily above you. He warms to it almost instantly, running a hand from your hip bone all the way up to your cheek, making you shiver audibly in the process. “That right, baby? Mmmm, fuck, that what you want? Want me to make you a mommy, huh?”

You gasp at the combination of his phrasing and the dark look in in his eyes. You can’t tell if he’s teasing or if he’s taking it in earnest, calling your bluff like he so often does at any and all detriment to himself just to prove a point.

Leto slides home and your replying moan is unquestionably too loud for comfort because Leto covers your mouth with his palm, scooting deep into you and whispering, “What did I say, huh? Shhhh.” He replaces his hand with his mouth and fucks into you slowly, but not without force. Enough force to make the bed squeak softly underneath your hips. You grab him by his backside, fingers divoting the warm flesh of his ass, drawing him further into your throbbing cunt.

Leto’s lips against yours are working twofold in containing both the sounds of your pleasure and his own. You feed them to each other, one hand on the back of his head, one on his ass and maybe its the fact that this is Vacation Sex, or that you haven’t had each other in a handful of days, but Leto is more vocal than usual and struggling, like you, to reign it in. You can feel it in the hunch of his shoulders, the crease in his brow, in the way he wrestles between fucking the way he wants to and straining to mitigate the sounds of the creaky old headboard and squeaky wire box spring beneath you.

All he can do is give it to you hard and slow, easing into every thrust, never making a move that would surprise you enough to punch a shriek into the silent night air.

When you break the kiss to tell him, “I’m close, I’m close, I’— I’m—“

He groans, pained by restriction, burying his face into your neck and galloping into you at as unhurried a pace as he can while still maintaining the effort of “keeping quiet”. Leto can feel when you’re on the brink and he covers your mouth with his palm again, biting into your shoulder to stave off his own orgasm til yours is complete. Your toes curl into the warm flannel sheet and you try your damndest to keep your whine as silent as possible, Leto fucking you steadily through your climax. It goes on for what feels like minutes, the heat through your veins, the tension and shakes, the suffocating feeling of your moans barricaded behind Leto’s palm, as if trapping all the noise inside of you is keeping your pleasure from spilling out at the same time and instead you have to take the force of it in little sips, prolonging the whole experience, thrust by measured thrust.

Leto lets go and cums the moment you start to sag under him, having sufficiently fucked you through the waves of your pleasure. He pushes deep inside of you and kisses your trembling lips, his own mouth beginning to stutter with satisfaction. His eyelids flutter a bit and everything from his breathing to the relaxing of his brow and shoulders reads like utter blissful relief. You kiss him on the warming pink apples of his bearded cheek.

Leto rolls over, taking you with him to rest comfortably on his chest. He kisses your fingertips tiredly and you marvel at his beauty from the pillow of his chest, from his hawklike angular face to the sturdiness of his body under your own.

He scratches and strokes your back as you nuzzle into him, kissing his warm, slightly perspiring neck, and sucking little marks where no one but you will see. Your hand rests comfortably on his softening, sticky cock. You curl and unfurl your fingers, gently stroking his sac. You suck a little mark in the valley of his chest and squeeze your hand a little more forcefully around him, earning a rumble from the chest under your lips.

“You’re still so needy, even after I just fucked you.”

His voice is deeper than usual. You prop your chin on his chest to gaze into his black glittering eyes. You are needy for him. You can’t deny it, there’d be no point. But that’s why you work, isn’t it? You need him and he needs to be needed. He relies on your reliance as much as you rely on, well, him. You’re half fucking tempted to trade in your California King for a twin bed the second you get home, because this has just been utter heaven being wrapped up in him like this. There’s no space on earth small enough to accommodate the amount of space that you don’t want in between the two of you.

You scoot yourself even closer to him, he welcomes the intrusion, grabbing your hips like he dares you to try and leave his embrace.

“Yes, Leto. I always need you.”

And he can’t fuck the neediness out of you, but he can sure try.

End

#OTTR Leto Atreides #Off To The Races Leto Atreides #x reader #x you #Oscar Isaac characters

[tokyo-debunkers-headcanons]

Eyo I've been looking forward to seeing blogs pop up for this game since I started playing, now as we know the mc is a fairly short/average height female so I was wondering for either vagastrom and/or frostheim reacting to a reader who is taller then them. Which ironic considering how tall a couple of them are😂 can be platonic or romantic idrc -👾

I don't think I can do a drabble with this one, so sorry! but I can write the little blurbos! And I'll do both! And I'm just gonna go ahead and give the MC here a big height difference because I think its funny. For the sake of comedy, this MC is 6'9

JIN KAMURAI

Platonically: I think he wouldn't like it. He's not necessarily the tallest, but he's not used to that big of a height difference. To have a sudden 'honor student' be forced to come along on missions was already a pain in the ass, but with the added height, it made recon a lot hard. On the up side, longer limbs meant easier access to their stigma enhancement.

Romantically: he'd get used to it but he's not a fan of the Frostheim elite gossiping about how tall his partner is. More than once has there been a ball at Frostheim and he's used his eyes like daggers to shut someone up. He'd use his stigma but dealing with the consequences would be too much of a pain. He again, like the longer limbs though, but now its more for hand holding and kissing their palm to embarrass them.

TOHMA ISHIBASHI

Platonically: I think Tohma is one of the few that don't necessarily care all too much. As long as they get the job done and don't get themselves or the second years killed then its whatever to him. He will however keep their height in mind for any future purposes.

Romantically: He still doesn't care. He's more of a brains type of person. Of course everyone has their preferences, but Tohma's ideal partner doesn't have a specific height range to them. He would want someone more intelligent to play chess with and talk.

KAITO FUJI

Platonically: Platonically speaking i think he'd find their height an inconvenience, not that he'd ever tell them that. At the very least he wouldn't be able to lose them in a crowd. When he tries to impress them however, he finds their height taking some of the wind out of his sails. But in certain situations he is using that "big dog energy" that they give off.

Romantically: he's not even hiding the fact that he's using big dog privileges anymore. And now he loves that their height draws attention to them, like look at his amazing partner! They're a couple! They chose him! He pretty much brags about how great their tall partner is. He will fight anyone who makes fun of his partner though, no questions asked.....or he might tell Luca to do it, but its the thought that counts

LUCAS ERRANT "LUCA"

Platonically: Luca here is another one that I don't think would care. The biggest difference though is that he doesn't intend to use their height to his advantage. He might ask them to use their height to help with something but he would be straightforward and tell/ ask them about it.

Romantically: okay, if they manage to get his one track mind off of his brother to get all romantic with him, then they're absolutely in on the plan now too. He starts adding them and their height into his plan to subjugate a demon to help find his brother. If they actually go along and take it seriously it's some serious brownie points with him.

ALAN MIDO

Platonically: two words. Sparring! Partner! Because of their height, he will want to spar and get some practice with something bigger than him. He will want to spar in the pit each and every time they come to Vagastrom.

Romantically: he will actually not want to spar with them anymore, or at least he say he won't. He's more of a protective kind of guy. Height doesn't necessarily matter to him, just so long as his partner is safe.

SHOHEI HAIZONO "SHO"

Platonically: number three in guys where it doesn't really matter what height MC is. He might ask them to grab a few things from top shelves while he cooks, but other than that and asking with lifting some stuff. He hesitates to take them out for rides on Bonnie (his bike) however, because of their height.

Romantically: In a relationship, he once again doesn't care his partners height. He does however make them more food, to make sure his partner has enough energy to get through the day. He's more likely to take them out of a ride on Bonnie but he still hesitates and makes sure their long limbs won't accidently touch something that could get them hurt, all before he even CONSIDERS taking his partner out on a bike ride

LEO KUROSAGI

Platonically: he would 100% make jokes about their height. He would also constantly want help getting things from top shelves, even if he can reach it himself. If he's gonna keep them around, he's gonna make sure they're useful for something.

Romantically: okay, i hope his partner is ready to be a pair of hands in his posts. He would try his best to convince his partner to make a tiktok account with him. If not, then he would absolutely get them to take pictures for him. Congratulations! They're his new personal camera person. He's the type to not post it unless its PERFECT, so they might be there for a long time.

#tokyo debunker #frostheim #headcanons #Vagastrom #jin kamurai #tohma ishibashi #kaito fuji #lucas errant #luca #alan mido #leo kurosagi #shohei haizono #sho

[loveyougoodbi]

"something ive been thinking about today for sure" and then you leave us in SUSPENSE

Hahah I usually don't put my thoughts here as soon as they appear cos I don't want to make any statements in the heat of the moment since I know people on tumblr tend to grasp onto everything they read and take it as facts. BUT nevertheless here are my thoughts on Max pushing Charles off every time they start on the front row. This is gonna be a mess.

(I do not know how to write a short response)

I like everyone else was slightly surprised that Charles was so easy to forgive Max after he apologized in Vegas. I genuinely thought this time he would at least.. discuss it in a more heated manner (I'm thinking max and checo in Austria after the sprint). I wasn't sure about the state of their relationship after and I know it would not be austria 2019 but I did not expect charles to brush it off the way he did.

Thinking about it now after the race is over I kinda understand why he did brush it off. It did not affect his race that much, he was able to retake the lead, he was gunning for a win anyway, Max got the penalty, it was all fine. The safety car was the bigger issue so of course he's gonna focus on that instead of put his already new and fragile relationship with max in jeopardy over this.

That being said, I do not condone Max acting like this every time. It says something that when the race started before t1 even happened I was expecting Charles to be pushed. I think Max was genuinely scared in Austin but when Charles brushed that one off he is now more relaxed in trying riskier moves with Charles. And the thing is, Charles doesn't care now. He's car is shit, he rarely has a chance to win when Max does this so it's easy for Charles to say "it's okay this Max and Race Max are different, I want to maintain this friendship so I will forgive" now that he's p7 and essentially not fighting for anything in the championship.

But would Charles feel the same way if they were fighting for a championship? I don't think so. And it worries me because by that point they will be closer as friends probably and Max will try riskier moves and all of them will be brushed off by Charles but at one point I think it is bound to snap. And I'm scared that the more it goes on and the more times it happens its gonna be more serious on Charles' side. As in he's gonna be more hurt by it but also the strain in the relationship would be bigger.

I may be wrong and I may be reading them completely wrong. They may surprise me again and have a clean championship battle with no drama and there is nothing I would love more than that. And so far all I've been doing is praying for a championship battle and not thinking what that Entails but now that this has happened multiple times and now that Max has the impression that he can do what he wants on track as long as he says sorry and bats his eyelashes after, I think Max is not suddenly gonna start clean racing. He's gonna play even more dirty if they're fighting for a championship. I'm not saying Charles won't, I'm saying they both will but seeing this I do not think anymore that it's gonna be a clean battle. I'm still gonna enjoy and pray for it but with a hint of caution bc like I said what im seeing now (as cute as it is from a shipper perspective) worries me a little.

Hope this manages to paint a picture of my thoughts a little. Cos they're mostly just jumbled together pieces of "what if this happens what if that happens". But this is the general direction I'm going in. What if Max continues doing this when the stakes are higher and what if Charles doesn't take it as well as he is now when he is actually fighting for something? That's a lot of what ifs 😂 but yeah..

#lestappen #charles leclerc #max verstappen #hope i managed to explain it well #nothing against max obv #for those who dont know im a max girl and i will not stand for max hate in my inbox #i am dicussing the state of the friendship od my 2 fav drivers here #f1 #f1 discussions by me

[27thfirefly]

hi. i just read the last chapter of your fic went blind last year and HOLY FUCK it is so good. i get it if you don’t want to like spoil things about your fic but i have many many questions and thoughts so im just gonna write a bunch of them.

the whole thing with like. dirk tapping into ultimate dirk and part of canon and then being shoved out? and then kind of realizing that he is a small part of something very big and wanting to be a bigger part of it, and then getting orange eyes representing a stronger connection to dirk-ness? fascinating. and is daves eyes turning red then symbolic of him becoming closer to dave-ness? and speaking of that- dante??? great character, very interesting. is he like somehow a version of dave? and what was he talking about on the swings? is he also in some sort of a loop? and what was it that dirk did at the end of chapter four? he did something with the sword, right, did he make dante decapitate him and then somehow come back to life?

and hal. and cal! holy shit, i can’t believe it but you kind of made me LIKE cal somehow? in the sense that he can be violent and outrageous and insane and vengeful when dirk can’t and its kind of cathartic.

its interesting to see where things stay the same as in canon and where they dont. like dave has chat logs with rose in 2014 and 2015? but hes only fourteen. so he’s technically both older and younger than he is at the beginning of homestuck. and dirk was like 13 in 1997, which is about when daves meteor should have dropped? but did they come with the meteors at all, in this world? dirk came with lil cal on his meteor in canon, but here he got him when he was 12. but dave still seems to be somewhat in touch with his time powers, and dirk with his heart powers, so some things carried over from the game?

god. this is all so fascinating and good. i will be probably rereading the fic and eating drywall until a new chapter comes out. you are an amazing writer.

wahhh thank you very much! for what it's worth i too have been thinking a lot about went blind last year. glances at the +50k word txt document of story notes and wip chapters. so i do love getting to talk about it even if working on it is very slow at the moment! i will put this under a readmore cos i got carried away but

there's a lot of things i don't want to spoil yet yes... but i think i've laid enough of the groundwork that these things won't feel terribly out of place within the story.

one thing i do feel comfortable in divulging is that any connections to canon are deliberately tenuous... how far can a character diverge from canon while still being understood as fitting the mold for that character? when a character is deliberately obscured, how much does fanon interpretation impact what feels in-character?

when you read fanfiction or fancomics or whatever kind of work about a specific character, your mind creates a superposition of the character as they exist in the original work and the character as they exist in the fanwork. as long as the "shape" of the character in the fanwork doesn't stick out too much from your perception of the canon "shape", you can accept that character--as written by someone else--as the same as in canon. some of the choices i have made are deliberately contradictory to the text of homestuck the webcomic. i have made these choices in order to tell the story i want to tell. even so, the basis for the characters in wbly are understood to be the same as in homestuck, creating an expectation for what these characters will act like, what their baseline is, and how you as a reader approach them. your feelings about cal changing within the context of wbly is an interesting case of this in my mind--the cal within wbly is presumably still close enough to canon that you can call it the same character, but the role of cal is changed enough that your impression of him is changed. that kind of thing is FASCINATING to me.

the reason wbly would not work as an independent work is the same as why the homestuck epilogues do not work without the pre-existing fandom of homestuck: there need to be expectations for these characters and relationships in order for me to challenge those expectations.

another thing i will divulge is that went blind last year is not the full title of the story in my mind--i won't tell the full one, but it does tie into just about every conflict in the story.

thank you again for reading my overly complicated fanfic! hopefully you'll stick around even if it'll take me a lot longer than expected to complete. if not, that's fine too.

also every time i send updates to my friend i get lamentations so you know stuffs going great

#dirteater69 #ive been reading umineko and its seeping into my vocabulary and way of talking #but to be fair if you read wbly i think you should already be primed for the amount of bullshit i can spew #I HAVE MOST OF THIS FIC PLANNED OUT I JUST NEED TO GET IT DOWN... #this answered nothing but how i think about this work #which might be interesting! i spose #if you dont already know me that well lol #kris.txt #wbly

[thestylesindependent]

Seemingly inescapable whenever you turned on the radio last summer, Harry Styles’ As It Was was one of the biggest hits of 2022, and remains on heavy rotation today. It topped Spotify’s end-of-year list of the most popular songs, and hit number one in the US and UK.

The song was co-written by Tyler Johnson alongside Kid Harpoon and Styles himself. Johnson and Harpoon both have production credits on the track - as they do on Watermelon Sugar, another Styles mega-hit - but as Johnson explained to Music Week [Paywall] last year, the creative process behind the two songs was very different.

“[Watermelon Sugar] took a while and As It Was was more speedy, right out of the gate,” he says. “Harry was sitting on the Moog One and I liked what he was playing, so I sat down and played as he started to write the melodies and the lyrics. Tom [Hull, aka Kid Harpoon] did a half-time beat around it, we were like, ‘No, it’s not right.’ So then Tom played the double time beat, which felt very good.

In terms of harmonic structure, As It Was has been compared to a-Ha’s Take On Me. As John Mayer demonstrated during a recent live performance, the two songs share a similar chord progression - ii-V-I-IV - but As It Was has a very different, highly distinctive topline.

“I said to Harry, ‘We need a lead line’ and he just came up right away with the ‘Dah, dah, dah...’ part,” reveals Tyler Johnson. “He didn’t hesitate. Then he started writing the second verse and referring to himself in the third person. So much of this song just came from Harry’s heart. And then Tom, as he does, with this magical sense of hooks that he has, came up with the idea of doing, ‘You know it’s not the same…’ after the chorus, which I was very impressed with. That turned out to be a very smart move.”

The song came together quickly, then: “Really, the record was about where it’s at now after three or four days,” Johnson recalls. “It didn’t go through a lot of [changes], there was never anything drastic. I had a guitarist friend, Doug Showalter, add electric guitars and some transition sounds. Then we got the tubular bells - another Harry idea - and I’ve got a video of him playing those. We had Mitch Rowland come in to do some live drums. We chopped those up for the ending to give it a more bombastic feeling.”

The best thing about As It Was is just how effortless it is, how it just flows over you and gives you a good energy.

Having a real drummer, it turns out, is important for Johnson, Harpoon and Styles. “For As It Was, we were thinking 2008-2012 indie rock, MGMT, Phoenix, Passion Pit. We want to be referential and for the music to sound familiar, but our process is that we don’t do as much drum programming as live drums. That’s what people in that era were doing to make things sound big, but not too programmed. Our engineer Jeremy Hatcher really helped shape that, those drum tones are unique in pop.”

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Kid Harpoon threw another influence on As It Was into the mix: “I’m sitting there on the drums and I was like, oh, this could have a Strokes kind of vibe,” he said. However, while he acknowledges the debt that As It Was owes to other artists and songs, he also firmly believes that it has its own identity.

"You get to the end and you hear it and you go, oh, it’s got the sort of A-ha references and the Strokes references and maybe there’s a bit of Talking Heads in there and then it becomes something bigger than the sum of its parts.”

Perhaps the relaxed vibe of As It Was stems from the fact that it was recorded in the living room in the home of A&R man Rob Stringer’s house, a place conducive to chilling out, you would have thought.

“The living room was actually a very perfect size for a control room, nice and tight but kinda long,” notes Tyler Johnson. “The back of it had a couch, an upright piano and windows that looked out over some fields, and in the front we had the desk. We rented a ton of gear, all the walls were lined with preamps and compressors. Even though we were going kind of bedroom-y, Tom and I just love lots of microphones and we do live drums, analogue synthesisers, multiple guitar amps… We love that whole element to recording.”

It was Styles, it turns out, who pushed for As It Was to be his album’s lead single. A wise move, it turns out, given its subsequent success.

“The best thing about As It Was is just how effortless it is, how it just flows over you and gives you a good energy,” thinks Tyler Johnson. “It has a gentle conversation with the listener while being upbeat. It’s easy to consume, but it still has depth and Harry brings so much character to it. Really, pop is just about people living life with music to garnish it.”

#harry styles #june 2023 #tyler johnson #kid harpoon #music radar

[clarks-letterman]

i was scrolling through your account and saw you talking about Johnny’s balls and ball hair and it was so hot. can you maybe talk about Leland’s? do you think he’s super hairy? does he trim or fully shave? does he have low hangers as well? is he hung? cut or uncut? we know he doesn’t have chest hair but does he shave it or just not have much? how about his pits? is it a bush or trimmed? how do you think his pits smell. or his balls. etc. anything else you want to add.

sorry for this long and weird ask 😭😭

Glad you liked the other post! And NOOOOO DON'T APOLOGIZE THIS IS AN AMAZING ASK!!!

~~~

Let's start with his body hair. I feel like it could go one of two ways: either he has none or has light amounts over his arms and legs that thickens towards the middle with his crotch and happy trail. While his in-game model doesn't suggest or show him to have much body hair--because look at the open shirt, his skin is so smooth--I feel like it wouldn't be a conscious choice for him to shave it. So, if he were to be hairless, it wouldn't be the result of him choosing to shave or trim it off. They live in the Southern US in the 70s, where body hair was much more of the cultural norm than it is today. It's why he has a full head of hair too. It was simply just the style back then so I think he'd be the type to keep whatever body hair he can grow and barely try to tame it.

Personally, I think that he's not as hairy as Danny but still has a good amount. I mostly mean that in the sense of his facial hair being an indicator for it--Leland is clean shaven on his face and that's probably the only part of his body that he shaves. He wouldn't touch his pits, which are pretty thick with hair. The same goes for his happy trail and pubes. And this should go without saying, but most of these hairy spots are the same shade as his hair. Possibly a little darker just because the sun doesn't hit them as frequently and so the melanin isn't affected.

Now, for his balls, I feel like it's a bit more straight and wiry compared to his pits and pubes. They're a bit more curly and bushy but the hair on his balls is straight and a lot stubbier. And for the backside, he definitely has a tracing of hair between his cheeks that stops just below his tailbone.

That's just if he has hair, though. It could go the completely opposite way and he could have none, but those are my thoughts if he did have it. I figured that I'd divide the hair and actual dick and ball sizes into different parts so that people who don't seem him as having body hair can read this next part easily!

Do not let this man take off his jeans because he is packing a Texas rat snake in there! His dick is so big--bigger than Johnny's for sure. I'd say that he carries about nine inches of pure girth off his hips. And he definitely has foreskin, given that circumcisions were on the decline during the 70s. His balls definitely sag, and if he isn't confining them to a pair of underwear or jeans, they swing quite a lot. Even while confined in something tight like his wrestling singlet, they still leave an impression for everyone to see. It's almost impossible for him to hide how much he's packing.

For smell, I feel like his pits smell rather sweet. Referencing my last post about his scents: the combination of sweet deodorant and his musk would leave anyone wanting to smell them. If he's not wearing deodorant, there would definitely be hints of something more sour, but I still think his musk would be overpowering with its sweetness. His balls follow a similar pattern, smelling sweet but the funk born out of being crammed in a hot pouch like his underwear or wrestling singlet would permeate through it. He wouldn't smell as good down there, the more sour and muggy smells of his musk would shine through. TL;DR: I would hate (love) to be engulfed by Leland after a wrestling match or harrowing escape from the Slaughter's properties.

Loved this ask, let me know if I missed anything or if you want more head canons about other parts of him!! <3

#leland mckinney #leland mckinney x reader #leland tcm #leland mckinney x male reader #x male reader #x reader #tcm #tcm 1974 #tcm game #the texas chainsaw massacre #texas chainsaw massacre #headcanon #leland mckinney headcannons

[ruthlesslistener]

Do you have any vessel oc’s? If not, what are your vessel head cannons?

I have one (well, technically 2), but I don't really do much with them because fandom ocs are admittedly not really my thing unless I'm accidentally turning my player character into one (Aeris Sharphawk my beloved). My vessel ocs are a pair of twins called Hawthorne and Thistle, but Thistle was killed when they were both teenagers, their mask shattered beyond repair, so Hawthorne took their shade into themselves. They now wander the wastelands between kingdoms to bring gentle deaths and quiet burials to those who are lost, and are mates with a firefly called Flicker, who WAS a graverobber before Hawthorne caught them. I don't really do much with 'em other than think of them fondly sometimes.

As for vessel headcanons, here we go!

-Vessels who are capable of surviving outside of the egg (true-voided, or at least mostly-voided) have a body that is basically void doing its damned best to mimic the internal organs and function of living bugs. It's material that's working off of the genes left behind by PK and WL to construct a Creature, but since it's still just primordial goop trying to be a living being, everything is a little more elastic or flexible than a flesh-and-blood entity. Hence why Hollow could do their tentacle attack, and why Ghost could '''eat''' the crystal heart by just...idk, absorbing it through their chest

-Technically breathing and organ functions aren't 100% essential, but since they started off as biological beings that then were formed of void-goop, their bodies will panic after a long time without it. Just because they're made of void instead of proteins doesn't mean that they don't still need some semblance of a living vessel. Blame PK's genes holding a biological memory of being a wyrm pre-ascension for that one

-They don't need to eat unless they are lacking in void, though, so hunger isn't really a thing that bothers them. The only time they really feel it is if they are about to go through a molt and need a hell of a lot more void to grow bigger, or if they've been severely injured and need to regain a lot more of it. What they eat doesn't matter- they're capable of turning everything from bug chitin to steel into pure void

-Their masks are sort of the main thing holding them together because it's a strong reminder of what their form is supposed to be. Without it, their exoskeleton will dissolve and they will just sort of melt out as an amoeba-like being of void, which is what the shades are. Not being able to find their masks again/the masks being shattered beyond repair is what causes a 'death', where the shade is unable to return to their mortal shell and is instead damned to live in a transient state until someone dissipates their form. Entering another's mask cannot be done without explicit consent

-Because they were all formed from the remnants of a long-dead ancient god, they all share a sort of telepathic link, as if they were all still singular parts of one massive entity. Cutting themselves off from one another is possible, but it is distressing to the individual. This is also why they are far more social than the other gods; technically they all view themselves as one unit rather than individual parts

-Their communication is not based on an exchange of words, but rather on a lack of it. You can't really call void communication 'voidspeak' because of it. Even if they call or hum to each other, it is more of a vibration through the void sea or a deafening of silence that forms their communication, if they aren't just directly impressing their thoughts and feelings into the other's void so that they know what each other are thinking

-Speaking of that, they don't think in words, but in shapes and sensations. Technically speaking, translating those shapes and sensations into sentences is possible, but it would always be taciturn, awkward, and lose a lot of the inflection behind it, because you're trying to turn a three-dimensional parcel of information into a two-dimensional sentence with past or present tenses. It just doesn't work very well, and this is why very voided beings like Ghost or Hollow probably wouldn't speak very often even if they had the ability to do so. Same with sign; I headcanon Hollow to learn sign, but only speak in very simple sentences or single-word fragments, while Ghost knows sign but just doesn't use it at all. Better to impress their thoughts onto an other's mind than to bother with something that loses so much of their meaning

-Attempting to understand a void-impression on your thoughts is also quite difficult without practice. You have to actively listen and allow their thoughts to mingle with yours to get an idea of what they mean. Most of the time, it manifests more as you subconsciously understanding what they are telling you with a glance or body language than being actively aware that they are touching their mind against yours

-Void is tied to regret, the lack of all things, death, and entropy/lack of entropy. Void beings, then, are capable of sensing the shadow of regret within other people, the areas where their bodies are not, and what is set in active decay and what is held in stasis. In a way, they view people less as a form existing in empty space, and more the area where there is no empty space- if that makes sense

-This is also why void beings tend to be more passive gods. The Pale King, White Lady, and Radiance all needed active worship of their different elements to receive sustenance. In contrast, there will always be death, regret, fear, and silence given freely from the populace, whether they are aware of it or not. Active worship is nice, but it is not necessary, because there will always be someone who fears or is becoming one with the void

#hollow knight #vessel headcanons #hollow knight headcanons #vessel oc #oc: hawthorne #anon #reply

[ravenrune]

A request for @flbrokensoldier! Okay okay but... Carlos x GN reader adopting a cat as a short fic or head cannons, just sheer fluff because yesss I love this request so much! I hope you like it. &lt;3 No warnings. Short(ish) fic. 1192 words. Note for those who don't know: Ronaldinho played football/soccer for Brazil's national team, that's where the name comes from.

The Kitten

Finally, the day had come. It had taken you about a week or so, but you'd finally managed to convince Carlos to adopt a cat with you. He had never thought about getting a cat before. He was a dog person, or so he said. He was worried he wouldn't be too good with cats, because he didn't really understand them. 

Upon being asked about where these ideas came from, Carlos had just told you he'd never spent a lot of time around cats, and that their staring creeped him out a little. It's not that he was afraid, but there was just something about the animals that puzzled him. That's why he'd never considered getting one. 

After spending a lot of time talking to Carlos about how cats communicate and after showing him an obnoxious amount of cat videos, he'd conceded. He'd admitted they did look pretty cute, and that if it would really make you happy, you'd be adopting a cat. 

Today was the day. Today, you'd finally be picking out a furry little friend. From the shelter, of course, because you both agreed that adopting would be better than shopping, even if some specific breeds were almost irresistible. 

"It's bigger than I thought it'd be," Carlos said as you walked into the animal shelter. 

"There's a lot of them here," you replied, sounding sad. "There are so many animals that need a forever home. It's kind of heartbreaking, really." 

Carlos placed a hand on your shoulder and squeezed it a little. "We'll be bringing one to their forever home today, babe."

After a conversation with the people who run the shelter, they brought you to meet the animals. Immediately, you were overwhelmed. There were just so many of them. Some of the cats lived together in larger rooms, whereas others were locked inside of cages. There were cats of all colours, ages and sizes. Some approached you right away, while others hid at the sight of strangers.

"How the hell am I supposed to choose one?" You muttered as a cat rubbed against your legs. "They're all cute. Every single one of them."

Carlos didn't respond, so you turned around to see if he was still there. 

He was. He was standing near the side of the room, cradling a kitten in his hands. 

For a brief moment you forgot about all the cats around you, captivated by the sight of your strong, very outgoing man holding a kitten so very gently. 

He looked at you and smiled before looking down at the kitten again. It fit right in the palms of his hands and looked a shade of beige. You had to see it yourself, so you approached your man and the cat. 

"Carlos?" You asked. "You like it?" 

"I want this one," Carlos muttered softly. "It's so soft, and it's making these wonderful purring sounds… There's something weirdly comforting about it, or somethin'."

You smiled. "Can I have a look?" 

Quietly, he handed you the kitten. It looked adorable. Its hair was short, but there were slightly longer tufts of hair coming from its ears. You didn't remember ever having seen a cat with that particular colour in real life, and you had to admit you really liked it. 

Something seemed off about it, though… There was something not quite right with the cat's little face. 

"I think there's something wrong with her eye," you said to Carlos while softly stroking the cat.

"It's a boy. And he's blind in one eye. There's a little tag here that states it got badly infected as a result of an injury, and it had to be removed." Carlos looked at you and shot you the most impressive puppy dog eyes you'd ever seen. "Come on, Y/N, we gotta adopt him." He pleaded. 

You looked down at the kitten again and felt your heart melt a little bit. You wanted to take him home, too, but you also wanted to make sure that Carlos would have some more time to meet all the other cats. 

You sighed. "We can't just make a decision that quickly. There are dozens of cats here. Don't you want to meet more of them?" 

"But look," Carlos protested. "he's got a handicap, right? So he's much less likely to get adopted, because most people want a cat that's like, perfect or somethin'. I don't care if he's missing an eye. He's soft, he purrs, looks cute as hell, and he fits exactly in the palms of my hands."

"He will grow. You know that, right?"

"Of course I do. He'll grow into a badass motherfucker if we take good care of him. And I know we will."

You couldn't suppress a laugh. "True. True, we definitely will."

Carlos smirked. "You said we will, so I guess that's a yes, then?"

The kitten moved in your hands, curling up into a little ball of fur. "Fine. It's a yes."

"Good." Carlos haphazardly tried to give you a hug, careful not to squish the kitten. "We'll be good cat parents to little Ronaldinho." 

You frowned. "What? Ronaldinho? We're adopting the cat, but we're going to discuss his name, because Ronaldinho won't be it." 

Carlos laughed. "I was kidding, don't worry." He patted you on the back and started leading you to the exit of the building, where you could officially adopt your cat. "I got you there, though." 

"Pffff." 

After filling out the necessary paperwork and receiving a letter that would allow you to have the kitten neutered for free, you made your way to the car. Carlos was holding the pet carrier and carefully placed it in the back of the car before sitting down next to it. 

"You're not sitting in front?" You asked. 

Carlos was leaning over the middle car seat and playing with the kitten with his fingers. "Nah, gotta keep an eye on the kitten," he replied. 

"I thought you weren't a cat person?" You couldn't resist teasing him a bit. 

He smirked and shrugged. "Maybe I was wrong."

You chuckled and started the car. "I guess you were, huh?" You paused for a moment. "I feel kind of bad we didn't look at any other cats, to be honest… There are so many of them who also need a forever home."

"That's okay," you heard Carlos say in the back of the car as you drove off. "Maybe we can get another cat someday, when we're all settled with this cutie."

"You mean that?" You asked, hopeful. 

"Hell yeah. Ronaldinho did play in a team, after all. We only need ten more!" 

You didn't even know how to reply to that. But damn, you were sure glad that you could call Carlos yours. He was one of the best things that ever happened to you, and now you two had a cat, too! What more could a person want?

"Isn't that right, Ronaldinho?" Carlos was whispering to the kitten. "You do need a team, right?" 

Yep, you were glad to call Carlos yours. But you sure hoped the kitten wouldn't be used to that name before you'd get him home. 

#resident evil #carlos oliveira #carlos oliveira x reader #ravenrune writes #resident evil x reader

[grlquartz]

enjoy this little thing because i can't seem to get through writers block right now <3

1.9k words of primo and theo (oc) being cute about an old picture of him; a few drug mentions and a bit of suggestiveness under the cut but nothing too crazy hehe

Comfortable silence had blanketed the sunlit study for a while before either of them realized that the music had stopped playing. Another record had spun to its conclusion.

“Why don’t you put something on,” Primo said eventually, giving a slight gesture towards the general direction of the record player without taking his eyes off of his book.

It was only polite of him to offer, Theo thought, since he had chosen the last few. She yawned deeply as she sat up off of the chaise lounge and set her own book aside. Flipping through the illustration books of old botanical studies had been interesting at first, but now she was glad for something else to put her mind to.

She stood and wiggled from side to side to stretch out her back, then padded over the soft rug in her stocking feet over to the far wall where the turntable and speakers were. Primo had a fairly modest system- not that she really knew much about them anyways- but she thought his collection of music was rather impressive. The bookshelf next to the player supported multiple wire racks of records, each one stuffed to the brim. It was always a treat to discover what he might have hidden amongst the classics.

The sunlight warmed the floor in front of the shelf, where she plopped down criss-cross and began to ghost her fingertips along the ridges of the record sleeves. “Anything in particular?” she asked him, and he answered with a simple hum from his place in the wingback chair.

“Your choice, cara mia.”

Satanas, that narrowed things down. There was so much to choose from… she began to thumb out a couple at a time, sliding them down to get a glimpse at the covers. Some she knew by sight alone. A few familiar covers made her smile to herself- they had almost worn out Rumours, mostly thanks to her. His beloved collection of Tina Turner’s discography was neatly organized in its own section, in the rack that she preferred to peruse; where ABBA and Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles were just a few among some of her frequent picks.

The other shelf was a trip to the wide expanse of hard rock spanning the decades, and from the dawning era of metal; Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult… just a sampling among countless other artists, many she wasn’t quite as familiar with. Hmmm… maybe she ought to close her eyes and just pick one.

She did, trusting her intuition as she smoothed her fingers over the thin spines, and out came one of her favorites. She gave a little huff, though; she didn’t think he would really be in the mood for it today.

“How about Foreigner?”

He was quiet for a long moment- must have been deliberating- and then he answered somewhat nonchalantly. “Mmm, maybe not.”

She was right. So much for her choice. With a little private roll of her eyes she put the record back on the rack and put her intuition to another test.

Ah, that was better- a Pink Floyd album seemed a much more fitting soundtrack for this lazy, comfortable afternoon they were sharing. When she slipped the record from its well-loved sleeve, something happened to catch her eye; a corner of something, maybe a note, had almost come out with it. No reason to stifle her curiosity…

Oh, it wasn’t a note, it was an old photo. She set the record and its cover down beside her on the floor and flipped over the photo; it was hardly bigger than an index card, and the image quality wasn’t the clearest, but the subject matter instantly made her stomach flip in surprise.

“Hey, ah…” she started, entranced by what she was looking at. “What were you up to in seventy-three?”

From behind her she heard him turn a page slowly before he answered, a little facetiously. “Hmm… a lot of sex and drugs, I imagine.”

Satanas in fucking hell, she could imagine, too. In the picture he absolutely looked like a god of the former and someone who knew his way around the latter. He must have been in his late twenties, she calculated quickly, and she found herself stroking her fingertips over the papery surface of the photo as she stared down at it. 

“Why do you ask?”

“Oh, uh… just…” she couldn’t keep her train of thought on the right track. Holy fuck. She had wondered about what he might have looked like as a young man, and she had some good guesses, but to see it for herself like this was so exciting that she could feel her face starting to flush warm. Whoever took the picture must have caught him at an interesting time, because his expression looked a little sour. But his face, fresh and bare of any paint, was unspeakably handsome- his angular jaw, strong nose, and piercing eyes set under his brow made her heart flitter even now. His skin looked so youthful and more tanned here- she thought she could even notice the shade of a few freckles across the bridge of his nose- and he seemed to glow in the bright sun, maybe from sweat. 

And if that wasn’t enough to draw her attention, then his outfit had captured it. A silver earring sparkled in his earlobe, since his long, wild blonde hair had been tucked behind his ear on that side. A cropped, sleeveless shirt hardly concealed his lean arms crossed over his chest, where he dangled a joint lazily between his fingers and a hairtie clung to his wrist. Or his midriff, where a trail of light hair down his belly caught the sun and led the eye to the low rise of his red athletic shorts, which… left absolutely nothing at all to the imagination. Lucifer almighty.

“Um,” she managed finally, enraptured with the image of him. “Do you still own these?”

“Own what?” he questioned, and now with the record momentarily forgotten she got up to bring the photo over to him.

As she approached he flicked his mismatched gaze up to her, and noticing the telltale color dusting her cheeks, he put his book down. She could only smile shyly as she handed it over to him.

He looked at it for a while as recognition sprawled slowly over his painted features, and eventually his wrinkles creased deeply with a knowing smile. “Where did you find this?”

“In the Dark Side sleeve.”

“Ah.” She could tell that he seemed amused, both at the memory the picture stirred and at her reaction to it. “Yes, that makes sense. Terzo took this,” he explained. “I remember he was so insistent. He was in quite a phase with that camera of his.”

“Oh, yeah?” That piqued her interest- maybe that meant there were other pictures like this one, hidden away in Papa Terzo’s office in a forgotten photo album or dusty storage box… maybe she could sweet-talk someone into getting a glimpse at them, a peek into the past where her amato was experiencing life as a young man. A very, very attractive young man.

But for now she was happy to soak up the image of him in this one; sweating away the heat of some long-passed summer, in shorts that would make even a most devout sinner blush and glance away. What that would make her, she couldn’t say.

He kept smiling, taking in the details of the old photo before finally holding it back out for her to take. “He would tell you I made a terrible subject. But, in my defense, he always picked the worst moments. I believe I had just finished repairing something here, I don’t recall what… look, you can see how filthy my hands were.”

She took the photo again and sure enough, his hands were indeed dark and smudged with the remnants of whatever work he had been doing. She hadn’t even noticed at first glance- an understandable miss, considering what other details there were to admire.

“Satanas,” she finally murmured to herself. “You were so…”

How exactly could she describe him? It was like seeing him at his truest; unhindered here by the slow marching of time. This was the man she knew, unfiltered by age or responsibilities or the hardships she knew he had experienced as his life had gone on- and perhaps much more uninhibited in his self-expression. It only added another level, formed another facet of her attraction to him. In the simplest of terms- he was so fucking hot. Holy shit. She thought she could stare at this forever. Maybe he’d let her keep it to put on her bedside table.

He waited patiently for her to come to her conclusion, and when she didn’t he let out a deep chuckle. “Oh, Theo.”

“Seriously,” she insisted. “I… I think you should let me see the rest of Terzo’s pictures.”

That really made him chuckle then. “Be careful what you wish for.”

“The ones of you,” she said with a little giggle of her own, and now she moved closer to sit slightly against the arm of his chair.

“Maybe one of these days. We can take a little trip down memory lane, yes?”

“I’d like to,” she answered, smoothing her thumb carefully over the photo she still studied thoroughly. “I really like seeing you like this.”

“Young?”

“Well, yeah, but also just… yourself.” She was trying to convey her meaning- how she truly loved learning about his life as himself, as Primo, not just as Papa, and seeing him for who he really was… she wasn’t quite so articulate, but he got the jist. His hand came to slide around her back, settling at her hip, and she let her hand rest against his. The creases and wrinkles in his skin were so pleasant to trace with her fingertips, and she did so absentmindedly.

“You flatter me, dolcezza.”

“Oh, come on. You look amazing. And you still do,” she continued, turning to smile down at him, and when she noticed his eyes softening she felt her own heart do the same.

“I’ve changed a bit.”

“Well, yeah. Haven’t we had this conversation already?” She quirked her brow at him. “Something about aging, and wine…?”

He smiled again, that magnetic smile that even when hidden under layers of dark paints could light her up with excitement and affection. “Oh, yes, you and your metaphors.”

“Oh, pfft. You know I mean it.”

“I do know.” His hand, settled against her hip, squeezed softly around her flesh there. “And I appreciate it very much. You are awfully sweet to me.”

She felt fresh warmth blooming in her cheeks, and to that she didn’t know what exactly to say, so she just squeezed his hand. They sat like that for a few moments- the room still blanketed in that comfortable silence, the honey-gold sunlight still illuminating the space- until she glanced back down at the photo one more time, and couldn’t help but smile.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Mm?”

“Do you still have these?”

He looked slightly puzzled at her, until he realized exactly what she was referring to, and now he really laughed. 

“Theodora.”

“What? I just want to know.”

“Even if I did,” he countered, rumbling with deep laughter, “I doubt they would fit.”

“I mean... we could at least just see if they do.”

“Mm. Certainly you have no ulterior motive.”

She couldn’t defend herself against that, and he knew it. At her slightly sheepish-looking smile, he laughed again and took her gently to pull her down for a kiss.

#the band ghost fanfiction #ghost band fanfic #papa primo #primo emeritus #papa emeritus i #primo x oc #em writes #fotv #well this is fotv-adjacent i guess #primo x theo #need a regular tag for them #if liz gives me permission i'll add the picture in question :-)

[faejilly]

writing patterns

Rules: List the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern!

tagged by @junemermaid, no-pressure tagging anyone who would like, because I have no idea who's seen and either done or passed on this one lately. PLEASE PLEASE DO IT AND BLAME ME IF YOU HAVE EVEN THE SLIGHTEST INCLINATION, I love seeing these things, I'm just brain-dead re: tagging today. 💙

1. Vakarian makes Shepard feel old.

Chicory, Mass Effect, Weaver Shepard, not on AO3 yet because I'm trying to turn it into a series of first/early impressions of the ME1 crew from Shepard's perspective. But then I've done Kaidan's first impression of Shepard already, so I can't decide if I should do her version of that or figure out another one. But also should I add Joker? I should always add Joker. But then in what order? (You can see the overthinking process here, can't you?) SOMEDAY I WILL WRITE WEAVER & TALI AND IT WILL BE DELIGHTFUL. She adores Tali. But also wishes to keep her safely in engineering 99% of the time. BUT ALSO...

anyway. back to sentences. ->

2. Emmett had known that he would see her.

Almond Blossoms, 7kpp, Emmett/Sheltered Princess & a lot of chaperone POV's. Also I posted that in September last year so this is clearly going to be a little depressing in terms of my ongoing 'am I a writer anymore?' existential crisis

3. “Don’t move.”

Never Again, Shadowhunters, Malec, sort of omegaverse, sort of weird magic bonds, a very belated prompt fill from the @knotinmyname anti-ai-scraping event.

4. The Matchmaker may have announced them, they may consider themselves engaged, this might be exactly what they should be doing as these connections are exactly what the Summit claims to be for… but Nathalie’s a 'known’ seductress and suspected murderer, but Clarmont’s only 'allowed’ here for the Royal Family to keep an eye on him, to make sure he knows how generous they are being with their mercy.

Relief, 7kpp, Clarmont/Ambitious Widow (Revaire feels!). Yes, that is just one sentence. Yes, I did that on purpose. No, I probably shouldn't have, but idc. 😅

5. Alec hasn’t even been Marked, still technically a fledgling rather than a Shadowhunter, when he learns that most nephilim can’t hear their weapons sing.

untitled eldritch angel powers prequel, Shadowhunters, Alec Lightwood & Politics is my jam, even when he's like 10 or something. As is weird magic and angel lore that I get to make up! Not on ao3 because I think it's going to be in a bigger thing, but I haven't actually done it yet, but I also get really tired of trying to rearrange my AO3 stuff because then I lose links and comments and brain power that should have been used for maybe writing something again some day.

6. All the dealers know Magnus’ name.

Fluff for @foodsies4me! Malec Auctioneer AU on the floor because it made me smile. (I used to be an auction block clerk.)

7. A familiar flare lit up his apothecary, and Magnus reached out to catch the fire message.

working title is 'wtf the clave is competent' and this is another playing-with-lore Shadowhunters prequel (that will eventually be Malec) started off via a Tangential Tuesdays prompt (which is a thing I would like to properly do again, but I keep not writing which makes it tricky)

8. An Omega heir to two old bloodlines in line for a Headship was something the Nephilim hadn’t seen in almost a century, and ought to have been prestigious enough for Alec to have chosen any path or mate he wanted. [x]

9. That was Magnus. [x]

These are both omegaverse prompts for the aforementioned anti-ai event and actually posted on time last June. Both Shadowhunters and Malec and just little bits and pieces of almost things. And fun on their own, imo, but. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

10. Cullen thought he’d gotten used to seeing this new Hawke in Haven.

Gladiolus, Cullen/Hawke, Dragon Age: Inquisition (Hawke as Inquisitor). Another prompt fill, a ficlet for a collection I have on AO3; its continuing existence is almost entirely @jadesabre301's fault.

Well, picking chapters and scenes posted on tumblr rather than my ao3 was probably good for my sanity, since my ao3 is a bit of a mess.

I seem to start with very declarative sentences this past year or so: we are here and this is what we're dealing with. Which is not... how I have previously concluded this meme, but I'm not sure that it's really any different than usual, just more obvious. It's a habit developed, I think, in writing relatively short-fic and also playing with lore or setting, because I very much need to set up my framework if I want anyone else to follow it.

I definitely should try and play some ME and/or watch some Shadowhunters and clean up some of the bits that I would really really like to have as finished stories though. This has successfully reminded me that I do, in fact, usually like writing and still think like a writer, so that's probably good!

/thank you june 🥰

#writing memery #junemermaid #10 first lines #writing patterns #I know I've done this one before #but can I tag consistently? #no #on writing