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averageallogene · 9 months

Note

Resubmitting because my WiFi weirded out when I was posting.

Jean convinces Diluc to dump you for her, because you are, in her own words, 'Not noble enough'.

With nothing holding you back in Mondstadt, you return to Inazuma to take up your Clan duties.

Less than a year later, you receive Diluc and Jean's wedding invite and you attend with Ayato as your plus-one.

At the reception, Eula instantly recognizes your Clan crest on your obi belt.

Jean proceeds to mock you as she makes her rounds to greet her wedding guest and Eula defends you, stating that your Clan is the overseer of the Tri-Commission *and* the First Clan of Inazuma, out-ranked only by the Raidan Shogun and Yae Miko. And you are its Clan Head.

Diluc ♡⊹˚ Not Enough (SFW)

fem. reader (3rd person) ; angst. cw for jealousy, heartbreak. Implied Ayato x reader.

4k words.

notes. Alright I am back with a bag of piping hot telenovela drama! I had a lot of fun writing this, even if I fear my Jean and my Diluc turned out a little ooc? Oh and Ayato is a petty menace. Well, suffice to say I took some liberty with this one- I hope we can just slide past through it and I’ll get better at their portrayals eventually <3. Enjoy!✧˖°

The tranquility of Mondstadt, accompanied by the welcomed breezes it brought daily, was enough for anyone to fall in love with the country. The land of the Anemo Archon was blessed with peace, as well as a beauty to behold as its people were one of the most welcoming [F/N] had ever come across. It had been enough to compel her to stay a little longer when she’d begun traveling around Teyvat, with it bringing something more that urged her to remain there.

Diluc Ragnvindr, an otherwise very well known bachelor of Mondstadt, had certainly caught her eye. The feeling seemed to have been mutual, for [F/N]’s appearance and Inazuman style of clothing definitely stood out amongst the usual crowd. It had begun friendly enough, the winery tycoon seeking information regarding the Inazuman palette when it came to alcoholic beverages. Of course, as a businessman Diluc had plans of expanding to other nations, with or without vision hunt decrees meddling in the middle. During that time, [F/N] had remained in Mondstadt, visibly stressed with the fate of her country. Thankfully, she had a friendly shoulder to rely on on the same wealthy bachelor. It turned out Diluc wasn’t all appearances, his very being burning with a gentleness that was enough to swoon the young woman off her feet.

[F/N] was far from her family during said time, and exchanging letters was difficult. She’d never been exactly too open when it came to them, yet no one wished to pry. With the borders closed, she had next to no possibility of returning without possibly being detained, regardless of status. War reeked with personal vendettas after all, and to someone of high status as herself, many would indeed covet to take what was hers amidst the chaos. Unbeknownst to her, it had been these early signs of trouble that had helped her in convincing her father of letting her seek out the world whilst she could, sending his only daughter off to the land of the free before she too were to be caged down by duties and unfortunate circumstances.

Homesickness was terrible, but thankfully she had Diluc to aid her. Together they’d spend time together, whether that was in Angel’s Share as the bustling tavern closed its doors for the night, or whenever he offered her to have a tranquil walk through the Dawn Winery. His estate had quickly become one of her favorites, the scenery and the sound of the rustling leaves bringing an inner peace strong enough to temporarily wash away her worries. With the more time they spent together, they found more in common that they had, including dreams, plans for the future, even hobbies. It wouldn’t be difficult to find the pair reading by the fireplace, or even discussing various topics while enjoying a game of chess, hence many murmurs of Diluc’s sweetheart beginning to circle throughout Mondstadt.

Still, he was a traditional man when it came to such affairs. Diluc was one to take things slowly, yet it was more than noticeable the way he held her hand gently, the way he’d open doors whenever they arrived somewhere, the way his hand would linger on her lower back as they walked through the streets. It wasn’t as though they were official yet, but to [F/N], it was more than apparent she was being courted. And truth be told, her heart couldn’t leap any higher. Sadly, her expectations would come crashing to the ground, coincidentally just as the climax of the vision hunt decree took place miles away in Inazuma.

Diluc had grown hesitant, a little distant even. He was a man to remain firm in his beliefs, yet with the right approach and from the right people, even the most determined man could falter. He’d told [F/N] of stories of his childhood, of happier times when his father was around, of times he and Kaeya got along well. Of times he had friends over at the winery, when his mind would only be preoccupied with fantasies he’d construct with his friends at the height of their innocence. [F/N] had listened to him happily, content with the idea of him having a good childhood, of having good friends. Good friends such as Jean Gunnhildr. [F/N] had noticed the way her glance would sparkle at him, yet they were only friends he’d reassured her, and it would’ve definitely seemed as such before it no longer did. The young lady wasn’t ignorant; the way Jean eyed Diluc paralleled the way she did as well, yet she had confidence in the chance she had with him until he’d taken the first step backwards.

He’d been calm, gentle with her upon shooting her down. His heart was murky, he had too many responsibilities. He had a lot to take care of between his tavern and his winery, as well as other responsibilities she wasn’t aware of. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to commit, and he was most sorry for leading her on. [F/N]’s heart broke with the way she was shot down, yet she gracefully smiled still, thanking him for his honesty. Even though she was the one being rejected, the woman placed a friendly hand on his arm, ensuring there were no harsh feelings, as well as wishing him the very best. Wishing that he soon find himself, reassuring that she would always support him. The urge to cry was strong, more so with the way his often gentle gaze shifted away from her. Yet, [F/N] persevered, pushing back any theories her mind crafted as the man she’d grown to love was swept away from her fingers.

A gut feeling whispered to her that Jean had been the instigator, yet with no concrete proof, [F/N] was left out in the rain as Mondstadt grew less and less picturesque. The winery didn’t feel welcoming anymore, the once bustling streets of the main city were now noisy instead of charming. The mere sight of the crest of the knights of Favonius irked her, for it reminded her of the woman she knew was the reason Diluc had grown distant. In all her years of education back in Inazuma, [F/N] had grown to know when a rival struck through the shadows. She’d grown to realize the subtle signs, yet she’d held on faith for her beloved’s friend. It had proved futile, and now, bitterness replaced the fondness she’d held for the city of freedom.

[F/N] held a letter that had finally reached her from her home country, bags being packed by the few escorts that had arrived to retrieve her. She’d arranged for them to only move at night, lest she wished to have unwanted attention on her as well as the Inazuman samurai her bedridden father had sent for her. Her duties ripped her out of her wishes to remain in Mondstadt, reality beckoning her back as her dreams were left behind with a broken heart, swept by the breeze.

Ironically enough, Kaeya, of all people, had been the only one to notice her that night. There was the faint scent of wine on him, yet he was still sober enough to have a coherent speech. He’d waited for her by the city walls, a small expression of regret as he inquired if she really had to go. The relationship between the brothers was brittle to say the least, yet Kaeya would’ve been a fool to deny how Diluc seemed happy with her. How he liked seeing his brother happy. The Cavalry Captain voiced his wish for her to stay, explaining how he enjoyed her company, how Mondstadt did. It stung [F/N], yet with a sad smile, she told him she couldn’t stay even if she wished to. And without explaining further as to why she had to leave, Kaeya suddenly let out with a bitter chuckle.

“Is it because Jean sees you as not noble enough? I can assure you [F/N], no one here really cares for such superficial reasoning.”

It had struck a chord in her, for her suspicions were confirmed. All of this heartbreak had stemmed because [F/N], no matter how hard she tried, would never be one of them, the children of the wind. She was from the land of lightning, and apparently to some, appreciating and learning of their history wasn’t as good enough as being directly related to it. Her hands grasped her coat tightly, and with a curt response of how it was due to other things, she’d thanked Kaeya for everything before leaving the city in the middle of the darkness.

The voyage back to Inazuma had been long, but even more so bittersweet. She’d just arrived in time to say a final goodbye to her father, too sick to even get up from his bed as he held her hand one last time. He could see the heartbreak in her eyes, yet he was too weak to inquire on who was the monster to hurt his beloved daughter. All he could say was that the future of their clan lay now on her hands, the pressure nearly suffocating her. Amidst the conflict with the vision hunt decree, her eldest brother, who’d sided with the rebellion in secret, had been murdered, his drink poisoned. And even as justice had been served, life needed to move on, leaving the seat of Clan Head now to her.

Days in Inazuma were vinegary. Her homecoming had been filled with heartache, having lost her brother, and soon after her father as well. Days, weeks, months, they all passed in a blur, [F/N] focusing on the heavy task of overseeing the tri-commissions as she donned her clan’s crest with pride.

Not noble enough, it kept repeating inside her head every day, every time she put her obi on. The young woman hated to admit it, but the pettiness of it all had become her drive, fueling her as she surpassed her father in more aspects than one. In a short amount of time, she’d proved herself as a worthy ruler of her clan, an iron fist masked with elegance and grace as her name grew more and more respected by all the other clans.

Despite her secluded life filled with responsibility, as well as her still distrusting heart, [F/N] allowed very few people in. She could count her friendly acquaintances with solely one hand, but amongst them were the Kamisato siblings. Businesses aside, they were able to lay down their crests for an afternoon every once in a while, enjoying each other’s company over finely brewed tea as they watched the sunset together, recounting stories to one another as time flew by during such leisure moments.

It had been during one such rare occasion, that [F/N] found herself enjoying tea with Kamisato Ayato, his sister busy with her own set of duties whilst the Commissioner took a much needed break. His trained eye could see how she was tense, eyes lowered as they remained narrowed with a bitterness he’d known all too well. Gently, he’d inquired if all was well, and with a quick glance, [F/N] debated if she should burden the already busy head of the Yashiro Commission with her petty bickering.

“You should know by now that I’m not one to ask things out of courtesy, [F/N].” Ayato had calmly stated, an enigmatic smile dancing on his lips as she took a sip of her tea. “I’m genuinely inquiring about your well-being, for I do in fact care. So please, if something is troubling you, do not hesitate to say.”

And with a heavy sigh, the woman placed her cup down, before finally coming clean. From her large sleeve she revealed to him a sealed letter, one with a wax stamp of nothing more than the Ragnvindr clan displayed on it.

“It seems one of my acquaintances back in Mondstadt is about to get married, and has decided to invite me to his wedding.” Ayato hid his grin of amusement with the way she spat the word acquaintance with such distaste. It was enough for him to have an inkling of what could’ve transpired during her stay in the land of the Anemo Archon. “I suppose it’s his way of voicing his wish of letting bygones be bygones, but I cannot help but taste the sweet irony of it all.”

“Oh? Has he, perchance, hurt you deeply?” He’d inquired, watching as she lowly nodded her head.

“I was under the assumption he’d been courting me,” [F/N] revealed to her friend, remembering the way her heart clenched upon first reading its contents. The fact he was marrying after such little time apart, and to Jean no less, still filled her broken heart with such indescribable bitterness. “But then… Nevermind. I was needed to return, regardless. One way or another, it would’ve ended in tragedy.”

“My deepest condolences.” Ayato spoke softly, his hand gently resting atop hers before holding it cordially. “Do you intend on skipping the wedding? Just know there is no shame in doing what’s best for you.”

“I’ve thought about it.” She sighed, holding his hand back with a thankful squeeze. “Yet, I can’t bring myself to shut him off entirely either. He was, after all, someone who had helped me a lot during my stay in Mondstadt.”

“Ah yes, the heart is a most complex little thing…” Ayato breathed out, a faint smile on his face as he offered her an understanding glance. “When is it taking place?”

“In about three months.” [F/N] had nearly sulked, still glaring at the letter as if her sheer glance could burn the whole thing. Ayato had simply nodded, before insisting she take a little longer to reflect on what would be best for her.

In truth, Ayato decided to free up his schedule for three months into the future. Not only could he be a little petty when it came to his own allies, he truly did care for the well-being of his friend. In all honesty, perhaps it was best he didn’t know the full details of how she’d been shot down, lest he make an even bigger, yet still elegant, ruckus. In the end, he’d offered his company were she to decide on going to the celebration, and against all odds, [F/N] had accepted. With Ayato by her side, the young woman felt a sudden surge of confidence. Perhaps it was the idea of her being accompanied by a kind, and well accomplished man, that had her feeling that way.

And with her confirmation letter being sent with the intent on bringing a plus one, time was the only thing between [F/N] and her return to Mondstadt. Diluc was surprised she’d accepted, but he couldn’t deny he was happy. In all honesty, he truly wished for them to start over, for her friendship was deeply valued to the man. Jean on the other hand, was a little flabbergasted she’d accepted. To her, it had solely been a courtesy to send an invite, yet she’d be lying if she hadn’t predicted her decline of attending their wedding. Despite the slight disappointment, the Lionfang Knight was already stressed as it was; perhaps it would be best to just ignore it, and prepare for their big day as best as she could.

The day for their voyage had arrived, and true to his word, Ayato accompanied her on their ship. Everything had been prepared, their duties being fulfilled by others for the duration of their trip. It was a much needed breath of fresh air, a small vacation he’d joked, smiling with eloquence even when he wasn’t one to enjoy large group gatherings. He’d insisted that he and [F/N] both dress in their finest clothing, for they were representing their Clans on foreign lands, and by extension, representing Her Excellency as well. Their crests displayed proudly on their clothing, made of the finest silks and brightest tones, arms linking together as [F/N] held her fan to her lips as they finally disembarked at the docks.

Ayato had surely made a statement with the entire entourage he’d organized for the two of them, it almost seemed as though he indeed knew of what had been the reason given for their breakup. Then again, [F/N] thought, perhaps he did know. Ayato was a man of many means after all, who was to say he hadn’t read her bitterness like an open book? The way [F/N] looked at him smiling in that knowing way of his didn’t help her case, either… Well, it was too late to go back, anyway.

The way they’d arrived on Mondstadt had certainly caused an uproar, citizens watching in curiosity as the samurai escorted them to the hotel where they would stay until the day of the festivities. Most of the Knights of Favonius were busy as per usual, away from their arrival save for the guards stationed at the city gates who had warmly welcomed them upon confirming their identities and the purpose of their visit. Gossip was quick to follow, yet Ayato paid no mind, calmly chatting away with [F/N] as they were led to their rooms.

News of wealthy guests from the east reached the couple’s ears, yet neither Diluc nor Jean paid much mind. After all, Diluc had many wealthy acquaintances, most of them stemming from his businesses within the wine industry. All he cared for was to ensure all their confirmed guests had indeed arrived, including [F/N]. And upon being told she had in fact, he only nodded his head, not inquiring any further. Him and his bride were much too busy making the final preparations after all, and unbeknownst to him, Kaeya only watched in the background, an amused grin on his face as he patiently waited for the big show.

The bells rang with vigor on the big day, [F/N] jolting inside her room as she wasn’t exactly used to the way their Church would announce anything so loudly. Ayato had already finished preparing, smiling her way before offering his help in adjusting her obi.

“You look positively beautiful.” He’d stated in a matter-of-fact tone, watching as she smiled at him with an honest, thankful gleam. “Ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” She had sighed, nodding her head as she inwardly psyched herself up to go forth with the day. And without much issue, the pair left their hotel and made haste for the sight of the ceremony.

Amidst the sea of guests, their presence had gone mostly unnoticed. It was best as such, [F/N] gazing ahead as she watched the man who she’d once thought would be the one marry another woman. Her heart still clenched slightly at the reality, yet Ayato’s presence helped her in grounding herself as she took a deeper breath. Her arm remained around his, admiring how beautiful they looked, how happy they gazed at one another. Even if Jean forever held a deep stain in her eyes, she couldn’t deny how radiant and gorgeous she looked in her wedding gown. The warm glow of the church veiled around them in a romantic manner, the union finally being tied as the main ceremony came to a close. For the first time in a while, [F/N] found herself smiling at the sight of Diluc with another. Perhaps, she thought, she would eventually get through this. Even if it still hurt, even if she still thought back on how she hadn’t been enough.

Customs between Mondstadt’s weddings and Inazuma’s weddings differed, yet she and Ayato found themselves easily following along as everyone moved on to the reception. It was during this time that the guests began conversing more freely with one another, finally having a look around as they noted who had come to support the happy couple, who had come with whom. It was during this time that [F/N] could feel eyes on her, glances of surprise to herself and her partner being shared as she commented on how the food was delightful with Ayato.

“Is that… [F/N]?” Eula had commented with Kaeya, who had nodded his head with an amused grin on his face. Despite the elaborate way she dressed when in comparison with the way she did when she had stayed in Mondstadt, nothing could escape her eye as a noble herself. “She looks radiant. And the man beside her…”

[F/N]’s voice could be heard not far, Ayato relishing in the way his comment had brought a laugh out of her. He patted himself on his back for having gotten the willpower to deal with such a packed event, for the way his friend seemed more relaxed had been more than worth it in his eyes. They kept on chatting together, a select few female acquaintances of [F/N]’s joining them as they soon found more company to converse with.

“[F/N]! It’s been so long… How have you been?”

“You look amazing, [F/N]! I heard you’ve returned to Inazuma suddenly, is everything alright?”

“Who’s your friend there, [F/N]?” Followed with a knowing wink, causing the woman to blush before denying their accusations any further.

Despite everything, the attention directed to a corner of their reception definitely wasn’t unnoticed by the happy couple, more so by the bride as her violet eyes gazed around. Jean found herself surprised upon landing her eyes on [F/N]’s face, recognizing her rather quickly despite the intricate ornaments she wore on her hair and the delicate makeup. She looked stunning, she thought, before stopping herself and clearing her throat.

Her wandering gaze hadn’t gone unnoticed by Diluc, whose eyes followed before landing on [F/N] as well. It took him a moment to register who it was, and when it did, his shifting expression caused a stir of emotions deep within his bride.

“[F/N]?...” He’d muttered, Jean squeezing his hand lightly to return his attention to her.

“Come Diluc, we have to thank everyone for coming.” She’d hastily led him to the table where the rest of the Knights dined, all raising glasses of champagne and wine as the couple approached them.

“Ah, Diluc, Jean! The ceremony was wonderful,” Lisa had smiled their way, a giggle following. “I nearly teared up at the vows. Goodness, weddings always make me so emotional.”

“The food is also delectable.” Kaeya grinned, his glass rising slightly above the others as he gave his brother a nod. “Congratulations to the both of you.”

“Congratulations! May your years be blessed with happiness and good fortune!” Amber smiled brightly.

“Yes, congratulations.” Eula complemented, smiling softly as Diluc held Jean close.

“Thank you everyone for coming. It is an honor to share such an important day with you all.” Diluc said with the utmost sincerity, smiling softly as Jean rested her hand on his chest.

“It’s a great pleasure.” Eula’s gaze narrowed as she could sense an unnecessary comment bubbling within Kaeya’s chest. The way he grinned spelled trouble, and just as she predicted so, the man swirled his glass of wine before he continued. “Of course, we wouldn’t miss your wedding for nothing! But perhaps it’s to those who’ve come from the furthest you should extend your greatest gratitudes.”

“Of course, we intend on thanking everyone as we go around every table.” Jean huffed with a small smile, still not following where he was headed. She rested a hand on her hip as she raised an eyebrow softly, Diluc too eyeing his brother as if expecting more.

“Oh, that’s great! I was beginning to think you were rounding around [F/N]’s table on purpose. But then again, you must still be thinking about how to properly thank her, no?”

“Kaeya!” Amber sighed, shaking her head as the mood slightly shifted around the table. The man simply shrugged, sipping on his wine before sighing with content over the wonderful undertones, as he explained.

“Ah, Diluc! Congratulations, you lucky bastard!” Varka’s voice roared across the reception hall, hands plopping down on his shoulders as he laughed loudly. Diluc could only remain awkward as he quietly thanked him, the Grand Master practically whisking him away as he further congratulated him and gave him lessons on how to ensure his wife’s happiness.

“Honestly, I was surprised to know she’d be coming.” Jean watched her husband not stray too far, finally letting out a small sigh and folding her arms across her chest. “I’m still not quite sure how we’re going to address this, as her presence seems… Rather ill-intended.”

“Oh?” Kaeya’s gaze turned to her from the corner of his eyes, finding her choice of words amusing as he let her ramble on.

“Diluc had voiced his wish of inviting her, and thinking it was just a formality I decided to agree with it. But for her to actually accept and show up seems bitter.” It was clear the stress was racing to her head, the table listening awkwardly as she rambled on. “While I understand it still must hurt given the circumstances, we would’ve hoped she would’ve let bygones be bygones. I simply find her actions to lack in-”

“Nobility?” Eula scoffed quietly, eyebrow raising quietly before watching Jean hesitate if she agreed with her or not. It was her turn to cross her arms, speaking directly to her. “I find it quite the opposite. I think that accepting and coming by to show her support shows just how noble she is. After all, for the head of her clan to not show up would’ve been scandalous. Do you know what kind of rumors that would start up, Jean?”

“Wait- Did you just say head of her clan?” Amber repeated, her eyes widening as Eula nodded her head.

“Yes. Haven’t you all realized? Look, notice [F/N]’s obi.” The group found themselves rather indiscreetly gazing towards [F/N]’s table, the crest displayed with pride as she enjoyed Ayato’s company. “It’s the crest of the first clan of Inazuma, otherwise known as the overseer of the Tri-Commissions of the nation. Basically, it’s the oldest still standing clan of the nation, only surpassed by the Archon herself and their Guji.”

The table slowly digested the information, Eula proving yet again just how well educated she was not only to what concerned Mondstadt, but aristocracy of other nations as well. Her legs remained crossed as she finished explaining herself, leg bouncing lightly as she battled with herself to remain cordial despite not having quite liked her friend’s statement. Even if Jean was overly stressed, or their situation with [F/N] hadn’t been ideal, it had most definitely been an unnecessary comment.

“Besides, the man next to her is none other than the head of the Yashiro Commission. Their Commission has many duties, including overseeing ceremonies and rituals that do include weddings. So, her choice of companion can most definitely be seen as yet another layer to her virtuous acceptance of your invitation.”

Kaeya found himself grinning unabashedly at the way Jean glanced away, clearly embarrassed with the outcome of the situation. She still held her arms crossed around her chest in a defensive manner, the Cavalry Captain thinking it would just be best if she left to avoid any further hits to her pride. For the first time in a while, he found himself agreeing fully with Eula, letting her take the reins of the situation as Jean’s ego was put in place. Sure, Kaeya liked Jean. Yet still, he couldn’t deny he thought [F/N] would’ve been a better match for Diluc. Call him petty, but he was enjoying the situation.

“Sorry about that,” Diluc sighed as he returned to their side, his hand resting on Jean’s waist as he gazed around the table. “Erhm, everything alright? You all look, how should I put it…”

“Nothing to worry about.” His brother grinned, waving his hand dismissively as everyone began eating their food. “You go and thank everyone for coming by, yeah? Enjoy yourselves, after all it’s your wedding day!”

Despite the confusion with his sudden upbeat tone, Diluc simply nodded, leading his bride to continue on going through table to table. Needless to say, now that it was he who took the lead, they soon found themselves at [F/N]’s table, the man surprised to see her so intricately dressed and in the presence of someone of such stature.

Nonetheless, and despite the sudden lump of awkwardness that lodged itself in his throat, Diluc took his time to properly thank them for coming, [F/N] simply gazing at them and replying it was their pleasure. Ayato was the one to take charge in their response, smiling cordially as he basked in the way his bride seemed to avert her gaze from them. If looks could diminish someone’s presence, Jean would’ve been long gone, reduced to atoms. And Ayato would’ve been lying if he said he wasn’t enjoying it, holding [F/N]’s hand with such delicacy as if they were more than friends.

And as they left, he carefully leaned over her ear, watching as she met him halfway to hear what he had to say.

“Well, that was amusing. Perhaps next year we should invite them to our wedding. A fun retaliation, no?”

“W-What?”

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin diluc x reader #genshin impact diluc x reader #genshin impact x reader #diluc ragnivindr x reader #genshin angst #genshin impact angst #yoko drabbles

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reidslovely · 9 months

Note

Something about helping frat!blonde! Peter touch up his roots. Like he calls you and reader must think its for hooking up purposes - then he surprises her w “can you. uh..retouchmyrootsplease” and she’s like “??? 🤨wat” and you just go over to his place and spend time with him, washing his hairr, he making eye contact with reader through the mirror, etc. But he’s still stubborn about his feelings so he’s like “this was a one time thing only don’t let it get to ya head”

sorry if this was jumbled I just had this in my head for a while now

Yes this idea is so so so so so cute. I have written something vaguely similar before but I love it so much I don't care to write it again

please reblog or comment in place of liking/hearting this post 🫶🏼

“Pete?” You questioned picking up your phone, your eyes locked on the clock that read 4:00pm. “It’s far too early for a booty call..what’s up pretty?”

“Ya flatter bashful.” His chesty laugh could be heard on the other end of the phone. It sent your heart doubling in speed, your cheek pressed lovingly into your shoulder.

“You still with me bashful? I need you to do me a favor.”

“So this is a hookup call..you only ask me that if-” You're cut off by him rushing out a string of words. None of which you caught. “Pete..baby. I need you to breathe and say that again.” You laughed softly, already gathering your stuff up to head over to the Theta Tau. Regardless if this was a hookup situation or not you were tired of your homework and Peter always seems to take any type of stress away.

“Can you uh..” There's an awkward cough and sigh. “Retouchmyrootsplease?”

The questions still came out as one word this time around but at least you actually caught what he was saying.

“Sure, Pete.” You tried not to laugh. “Do you have what you need or do we need to run by Sally?”

“No, no I have everything here for you. Thanks for this.”

“Course Pete, anything for you.” You hung up before you could get any type of snarky reply.

Peter’s blond locks were a new addition about three weeks into your situation ship and you absolutely loved them. They flattered his face, and made his little baby deer eyes even more baby deer like. Which made you want to kiss him even more, and made it hard to say no when he’s asking you for another round.

“You’re literally the best for this. Just moved up to like number two in my ranking.”

It was a joke, you were easily number one if not the only girl in Peter’s ranking but you have to play along or else you’ll scare him away.

“Offended, whose number one.”

“May..sorry.” Peter sighs dramatically, leading you up the stairs to his bathroom. Tossing a few nods and hey’s to his brothers walking down the steps.

“Mhm can’t be mad at that.”

Peter laughed sitting on the chair he’d tucked away in the bathroom, pulling off his shirt.

“Awe did you go ahead and set everything up for me?”

“No I was gonna do it myself but that's how we ended up in this scenario in the first place.”

Peter would never admit to it but he had set everything up for you. He’d done it before he even picked up the phone: not that he knew you'd say yes but he could hope.

“Mhm I see.” You hummed running your fingers through Peter’s hair. He grabbed his phone starting his music, looking at you in the mirror as you started sectioning his hair out.

Admittedly the whole time he was locked on you. Every move you made he was locked on you, not wanting to miss a moment. His head lolled back as you ran; you painted the bleach on his roots. Earning soft little ‘stops’ and ‘hold your head up’ from you as he relaxed. Your eyes were fixed on his hair making sure you’re applying everything evenly and correctly. Peter held his phone up in the mirror snapping a quick photo of the two of you. The photo falling amongst the others he’s sneakily taken of you or the both of you that you had no clue about.

“Okay you gotta sit for a while and then I’ll wash it, tone it, all that after.” You said sitting on the toilet lid next to him taking the gloves off, tossing them in the trash can.

“This is nice.”

Peter's comment threw you off, you two only really hung out in the context of having sex or it being mutually beneficial for both. You hated to admit you had more moments like this.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm no pressure, at least not for you. I still gotta make jokes and keep you entertained.”

“Tragic.” You tsked resting your arm on the sink hand to head as your free hand started a 30 minute timer.

“Come on, we have enough time to watch some of that Hulu cooking show you like.” Peter stood taking your hand in his walking to his room. You flopped down on Pete’s bed watching him sitting next to you. “Careful you’ll get bleach on your..”

“No no, I'm good sitting up.”

You nodded and laid your head on his lap watching The Bear, Pete’s fingers combing through your hair switching between watching the TV and you.

Pete’s head was tilted back in the sink, a towel under his neck for comfort. “Stop looking down my shirt, Parker.”

“I’m not…I’m not.” He lied, turning his eyes up to look at you as you shampooed after toning his hair. “Do I look fabulous?”

“Oh absolutely.” You laughed wrapping his hair up in a towel helping him sit up. Ruffling the towel through his hair you laughed watching it sticking up every which way. You blow dried it for him smiling and singing under your breath as you fixed his hair perfectly.

“How do you feel Parker?”

“Amazing..I look great thanks bashful.” He says turning around, capturing your hips in his hands. “Let's get dinner, and then we can come back here.”

“I hate sex after dinner.”

“No, no we come back here and finish the show.”

“Oh I get to come back to the Theta house? And not have sex?” You fake a gasp of shock.

“I know it’s a rare occurrence. This is a one time thing though, don’t let it get to ya head.” Pete taunts, hand rubbing your side grabbing his wallet off his dresser.

“Oh baby it has.”

Peter knew and even in his playful disdain and stubborn personality you were slowly craving a spot out in his chest and making a home in it, and at this point he had no say in it.

___________

tags: @helloheyhihowdyheya @sincericida @moonyslove78 @a-lumos-in-the-nox @messymissy @adhdhufflepuff @toomanyfictionalboyfriends @ateliefloresdaprimavera @eevylynn

#tasm peter parker x reader #tasm andrew garfield #tasm!peter imagine #tasm peter parker #bambi writes #tasm fanfiction #tasm peter #tasm peter smut #tasm peter x you #tasm peter x reader #tasm!peter x reader #tasm peter parker imagine #tasm peter imagines #tasm peter fluff #andrew peter parker #tasm peter parker smut #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x reader #frat!peter

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weixuldo · 8 months

Text

Allow me// ch 10

Vader x Reader

a/n: so in this Vader is just a lil delulu… he still thinks Padme didn’t love him fully, but its only cause he’s been under the manipulation of the emperor for so many years. also ngl this ch is a lil disorganized at the beginning oops: just lots of vader overthinking

Slight NSFW

warnings: cursing, kissing, grinding, premature ejaculation lol

_____________________

Vader found that the longer he held his position- the more trivial certain matters became.

For years he had been hearing the same complaints and issues circulate through the ranks in different forms. It was old.

He often let his mind wander during the frequent “highly classified” meetings; nowadays the main thing he would think about was you. He just couldn’t get you off of his mind, ever since that night when he showed you his face.

He hadn’t removed his helmet since then but he still saw you as much as he could. Of course he already had an inclination towards you even before the reveal, but your reaction to him just kept looping in his head.

You weren’t scared or disgusted, you didn’t ogle him as if he were some horrible specimen from another system.

No. you continued to look upon him with the very same expression that you always had- you accepted all of his flaws… you accepted him.

Never in his time as Vader had he yearned for the attention of another being, but you were special.

He knew the interest was obviously reciprocated but he couldn't tell to what extent. No matter how much you said you cared- how much of that was true?

It pained him to dig up memories of the past, but they were still a part of him- of Anakin…

He believed wholeheartedly that Padme loved him unconditionally and yet she still denied him. In the end her promise of everlasting love was just an empty one.

But you seemed to care for him regardless of what he did- there was no hiding what he had done as Darth Vader, everyone in the galaxy knew his infamous name.

But even with all his controversial history, your eyes still lit up when he would walk by, your force signature still felt refreshing and flowery, you still found time to ask him how he was doing, you still invited him into your room…

He wouldn’t be able to bring himself to ask you the extent of your feelings until he was more certain of the answer, but of what he could see; it seemed that you were offering him unconditional admiration- something he had chased after all his life.

Of course a while back you told him that you were his, but he couldn’t help but over analyze that phrase; did you mean you were his in the sense of his personal mechanic; professionally (and sometimes flirtatious sense)? Or in the way that you were really his?

And were you just saying that because you feared denial? No. You were more authentic than that.

So why could he not shake the feeling of worry that washed over him when he would imagine asking you how you saw the dynamic?

_______________________________

You entered his private sector with a warm signature; even inside of his chamber he could feel your electrifying presence.

As soon as he finished his thought he motioned for the capsule to open so he could meet you halfway. He stepped over the mechanical barrier and straightened his cape before strutting towards the door that you were behind.

You reached for the button to open the only obstacle between you and the man you so desperately wanted to see.

He slid the door open before you could, making you jump.

“V!” you smiled, walking past him into the room he occupied.

His watchful eyes trailed all the way down your body before responding.

“Y/N, how are you today, my dear?”

“I’m good, I got all of the work done so now I'm here to bug my favorite man in the galaxy”.

You and Vader had been exchanging more playful banter (flirtatious, even) and Vader felt like his awkward 19 year old self trying not to blush when you would say things like that.

“Ahh, I see, you just want to distract me from my duties- like running the empire…You must be a rebel spy, my darling” he quipped back.

Your cheeks warmed at his playfulness; it was a rare thing to have Darth Vader sharing jokes with you.

“Oh no, my dear” you taunted back using the name he often called you.

“I wouldn’t dream of attempting to infiltrate the almighty Darth Vader’s fortress of a mind…” you said with doe eyes and a stupid half smile.

He stepped closer and tilted your chin to look into his lenses, “what if I told you that you already have”.

In a moment of pure need, you stepped closer to him and pulled his helmet down to face you and kissed him over the grated mouthpiece.

You heard the familiar sound of his respirator work a little harder to keep up with his quickened breathing.

A few weeks ago or even days, you would have completely freaked out and done damage control immediately.

You would’ve tossed out every apology in the book and asked if that was alright; but now you didn’t need to – you could feel his desire lurking in the force around you.

He stood stunned for a moment before picking you up and carrying you towards his meditation chamber.

“V, what are you-”

“If you want to kiss me, I should at-least give you a proper one” his deep voice boomed as the top of the chamber descended.

Soon the air tight seal was in action and a claw-like mechanism from the ceiling came down to remove the helmet. It was only the second time you were seeing his naked face and you were even more excited than the last time.

When his face was finally revealed he blinked a few times, trying to get accustomed to the brightness, before his cerulean blue eyes honed in on you; your hair, your brows, your eyes, your nose, your lips…

“May I?” he asked, waiting for the signal to capture you in a deep kiss.

You nodded furiously and draped your arms around his armored shoulders, before his lips met yours.

Sparks flew.

Sure, the first kiss was a lil too soft and a lil odd, but after you figured out a groove with each other, the kisses became ravenous.

When was the last time he had felt the sensation of another’s lips on his own?

He couldnt help but rake his gloved hands up and down your back, pulling you closer to him. He was in heaven, nothing could beat this feeling.

His insatiable need for you made your core ache for him. Maker, how you wanted to fuck him so badly. Your thoughts raced through your mind and you let a small moan slip against his mouth.

Fuck.

Vader felt his pants grow tighter and his dick throb. You were so enticing. It had been so long… so long. He felt like he would combust at any moment.

He broke away from the kiss to keep himself at bay as he let the building sensation of an orgasm subside. Of course he was embarrassed that he almost got to that point by simply kissing; but to be fair, he had gone from no skin to skin contact in years, to…this.

You, on the other hand, had more experience with this thing than he did.

You placed a gentle hand on the side of his face and breathlessly asked, “Why’d ya stop?”.

His eyes faded into the beautiful blue you had seen the other day before he attempted to answer; he was cut off by you starting to grind your hips into his, as you dragged your core against his codpiece.

Vader’s eyes momentarily rolled back and an exquisite noise escaped him before he gripped your thighs tightly and began to kiss your neck.

“Oh, Vader- that feels so-”

Before you could finish your sentence he clawed his hands down your back (not hard enough to hurt) and plunged his face into the crook of your neck as his body jerked forward. Much to his chagrin, he couldn’t hold out any longer, not with you in his lap.

He came. Hard.

He didn’t even know he still could; it felt weird… the burns of Mustafar made the familiar sensation feel a twinge different. It wasn’t bad by any means, just…new.

After the overwhelming feeling passed he exhaled sharply before tapping your thigh twice.

You had no idea what just happened and if he was ok or not, so when he tapped your thigh you took that as a sign to get up.

“Are you alright? Did I do something wrong?” you asked, genuinely worried.

“No, I-I mean yes! Well no, you didn’t do anything wrong and yes I'm alright. I just remembered I was supposed to discuss a new tactical plan with one of the Moffs. My apologies my dear.”

and without another word, he left as quickly as he could.

Only you remained in the meditation chamber, feeling confused and a little sad.

You worried you had been too forward and upset him- but he assured you nothing was wrong… So you ended up chalking it up to a loss and going back to your quarters with a walk of overthinking.

Did he not like you being like that with him? He didn’t stop it before though…

When you got back you decided just to go to bed- it was pretty late anyways.

_____________

Vader forcefully slid the heavy door to his private room closed and marched up to the platform where he dressed and undressed.

He called upon the droids to begin undressing him and stood in shame as they disassembled him.

When they removed the codpiece there was a damp spot on his pants. Great.

He was glad the droids couldn’t talk (to him at least, they probably exchanged quips about him all the time).

Since it was late and his duties were fulfilled for the day he opted for a bacta soak- he needed to get clean and to think (as if he weren’t already torturing himself with his thoughts).

The droids strapped him into his harness and soon his body was submerged in the soothing bacta; the most relieving feeling.

He took a deep breath through the large oxygen mask covering most of his face; what the fuck just happened?

Obviously he knew he came- that was pretty damn evident. But why? (also evident).

He cringed again at the image of him cumming from kissing… was he really that pathetically desperate?

You probably went back to your room laughing at him. Fuck. What if you thought it was gross?

He groaned and thrashed in his tank at the embarrassing scenes.

Should he address it to you? Or just act like it didn't happen? Would you bring it up?

He attempted to enjoy the rest of his soak; it wasn’t successful.

_____________________

You woke up to your details for today; it was an uncharacteristically complex task.

Of course you didn’t mind the difficulty, but what bothered you was that it wasn’t even one of Vader’s machines. In fact it was a totally different department deep down in the belly of the ship… probably the furthest from him.

You thanked the messenger droid and got ready to go. Unfortunately, you couldn’t stop the intrusive thoughts from barging in; he must really be mad at you to not want you near him.

Did he think you were gross or shameless for what you did?

All you did was kiss… and he was the one who brought you into his chamber.

He promised you that he wouldn’t let any harm come your way, so you weren't worried for your life; you were worried for your position.

Would he send you back to your own system or transfer you to another unit far, far away from him?

Maker, what was going on.

***

a/n: ahhh yes, the ever loved miscommunication trope- both y/n and vader need to stop overthinking (also the way they’re both thinking the other thinks they’re gross lmfaoo). i was gonna make this ch longer but then i thought it was alr a little long 😳 ty for ur support and the patience for my shitty upload schedule!

taglist: @vadersassistant @sxoulohvn @khaleesihavilliard @kashasenpai @darling-murdock @beautifulbearpolice @salvatoresister1 @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @blueninjablade3 @jujuba096 @missmannequin @jellydodger @mirastark @wyvernthekriger @duckyhowls @monada43 @lauriidoesstuff @vienettacream @ray-rook @itswhatever06 @ilovenielperry

#darth vader #darth vader x reader #anakin x reader #vader #sw darth vader #anakin #darth vader fic #star wars #star wars x reader #anakin x you #allow me #anakin is so hot #vader is hot #darth vader smut #crispy vader #burnt vader #sw x reader

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brucebocchi · 4 months

Text

Ranking every new anime I watched in 2023, Pt. 2: #20-11

hey, i just started a ko-fi for my writing and possible other creative outlets. this post will also be available there, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i'm currently between jobs. the tumblr version of part 1 can be found here.

Let's get right into it.

20. Helck

I watched Helck’s first season for its entire half-year run, and I'm honestly still not sure how I feel about it. I’d heard amazing things from people who’d read the manga, and it had a hot start, but the pacing slowed to such a crawl after a while that it kind of felt like they stretched out the story just so they could make another season.

Helck, an enormous and impossibly jolly human warrior, enters a tournament to decide the successor to the throne of the recently-slain Demon King. Demons and humans had been at war for some time, so Vermilio, an adorably fiery elite lord of the castle, is naturally wary of him. Helck is naturally powerful, talented, and affable, so he easily breezes his way through the tournament in hilarious fashion, despite Vermilio’s best efforts at sabotage. Before the finals can take place, though, an immortal army sent by the human forces arrive to attack the demon realm, and Helck and Vermilio are teleported to the far edge of the realm.

The season largely covers Helck and Vermilio’s trek back to the demon kingdom, as well as the demons’ struggles against the mysterious warriors as they attempt to figure out just what the hell the humans are plotting. Vermilio remains leery of Helck, regardless of all he’s done for her, but it becomes further evident that Helck is harboring a very dark past, and eventually we get a lengthy arc where he sits down and explains it to Vermilio in flashback. There is, as you’d expect, plenty of tragedy there, and you’d like to see it resolved, but things just seem to keep getting worse.

There are powerful messages in there about toxic positivity and fighting the urge to shoulder one’s burdens alone, but they don’t become fully apparent until late in the season. Everything until then, at least after the teleportation, is… fine. I had higher hopes for this one, but it just feels like it’s missing something, and I can’t put my finger on what. It looks fine, the voice acting is good (the GOAT Katsuyuki Konishi is typically very good as Helck), the action is decent, it’s all… fine. The pacing just feels glacial at times, to the point where if I hadn’t been watching it weekly I might have bounced off of it.

Of course, the season ended with what appears to be the endgame on the horizon, so for all I know there’s still a lot more to come, but the story beats feel so familiar that I get the feeling it could be resolved with, like, a movie. I hope I’m wrong, because there are clearly some major emotional payoffs yet to come, and I’m still curious to see how it gets there. I may have to pick up the manga to find out if it’ll be worth any more of my time.

19. Urusei Yatsura (2022), second cour

Fresh off of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’s possible series finale, David Production’s modern take on Rumiko Takahashi’s legendary comedy manga hummed along nicely into 2023. The cast continues to expand as the new version introduces characters like Ten, Ryunosuke, and Tobimaro to further raise the level of shenanigans inherent to Urusei Yatsura.

Lum Invader has been a sex symbol for pretty much as long as anime has had sex symbols, but the reboot’s second cour focuses a bit more on the side of her personality that makes her so iconic, and which I consider essential to several of my favorite female anime characters: Lum’s kind of a psychotic asshole. Her schemes to wring more attention and affection out of Ataru border on sociopathic at times, and she’s honestly so real for that. Her mortal frenemy, Ran, was introduced close to the end of the first cour, and there is still no shortage of sabotage attempts in the second, but we quickly come to learn that Ran’s undying vendetta is mostly because Lum has been a selfish, lying piece of shit since they were kids. God bless her.

Ataru continues to not be much better, serial philanderer that he is, as he continues to be surrounded by other hot crazy ladies who aren’t his not-fiancee. Mendo’s younger sister, Ryoko, is a real highlight in the 2023 run as a result of her escalating penchant for Looney Tunes-esque slapstick violence. The settings of Ataru’s and Lum’s respective worlds take more focus as well, between Ataru’s high school hijinks and Ten’s galactic mail-order mishaps, and the two often collide in hilarious fashion.

I still adore the look of this one. Character models have been cleaned up and simplified to a sort of retro-modern look while still being instantly recognizable to anyone already familiar with them. Everything is awash in an eye-popping Day-Glo color palette. Backgrounds and pop-in gags are often adorned with Ben Day dots to maintain the retro comic look. This doesn’t quite look like the manga, nor does it resemble the original 80s anime, but this is unmistakably a Rumiko Takahashi product. It almost looks like it could have come out at any point in time.

I’m only holding this back in the rankings because it’s the weaker half of a season that straddled the end of 2022 and the start of 2023, but the season as a whole is excellent. It is an essential watch for fans of comedy anime, especially considering so many tried-and-true anime gags effectively originated with Urusei Yatsura (it’s worth mentioning that Lum is largely considered the first-ever tsundere in anime and manga). Season 2 is imminent and I cannot fucking wait. Maybe I’ll even read the manga.

18. Tomo-chan is a Girl!

This is basically Monthly Girls’ No-jock-i-kun. Very simple premise: Tomboyish high schooler gets the hots for her childhood friend who is dense as fuck and forgets most of the time that she’s even a girl. Hilarity ensues and romance progresses glacially.

The voice performances are what really carry this one. Rie Takahashi is golden as the titular Tomo Aizawa, and this was the first entry in an MVP-caliber resume for her in 2023 that was so stacked that I still haven’t gotten to her best role yet. Rina Hidaka nails the conniving, misanthropic nature of Misuzu Gundo in a far cry from her turn as Emul the bunny in Shangri-La Frontier later in the year. The American-born idol Sally Amaki is a revelation as the airheaded gaijin Carol Olston, whom she also voices in the English dub. Even Carol’s mom speaks broken Japanese with a noticeable American accent, which is one of my favorite gags in the whole show.

Outside of the voice acting, nothing is particularly special about this show. Which is fine! There's nothing wrong with a solid 7/10 romcom; junk food is still food. It’s cute, it’s funny, it hits all the right beats, but nothing particularly stands out. Misuzu and eventually Carol give Tomo advice to try to woo her bestie Jun, while Misuzu is usually also playing Jun against that same advice so that it usually works and backfires at the same time. It’s all a game, and she plays both sides so she can always come out on top.

If I have a complaint about this show, it’s that it just… ends. I went back and read the manga, and unfortunately that issue is not the anime’s fault. If anything, it did a phenomenal job of fitting eight volumes of a 4-koma into a single season, and that’s always how it was supposed to go. I watched and read a ton of slice-of-life romance anime and manga this year, as it turns out, and the ones that really hit for me are usually the ones that take their time with the central relationship once it actually starts, rather than treat that big event as the climax, or worse, the finale of the story. Stuff like Kaguya-sama, Horimiya, Sweat and Soap, and even Wotakoi (though I have my own problems with that one) treat their central relationships as a step, not the goal. At the same time, for plenty of others, the fun is in the chase, and they just run out of time, and Tomo-chan is the latter. We got what we wanted, and we had fun getting there. Sometimes that’s all you need.

Also good god, Tomo’s mom. The second those genes kicked in for Tomo, Jun was doomed.

17. The Eminence in Shadow, second cour and season 2

The Eminence in Shadow is the smartest piece of stupid media I've seen in a minute. It so perfectly skewers dime-a-dozen chuunibyo isekai trash while still cannonballing into a McDuckian swimming pool of the stuff. It nearly overwhelms you with lore; the series abounds with rich backstories, centuries-old power struggles, palace intrigue, shadowy conspiracies, the artificially accelerated march of progress, long-simmering revenge plots, looming economic catastrophe, and love dodecahedrons. And the most compelling thing about all of it is that none of it fucking matters.

Cid Kagenou spent his teenage years in modern Japan trying to become the coolest badass dark antihero who ever lived, but he quickly reaches his limits in our boring normal world so he rides the isekai truck into a world with actual, like, magic and shit. He spends his new childhood leveling up and rescuing elf girls, all the while regaling them with his “wisdom” in the form of a bunch of horseshit he made up based on all the light novels he used to read. Turns out that he’s entirely too genre savvy; this new world is apparently so contrived that every single thing he told them ended up entirely true.

So now Cid’s a teenager by day and shadowy vigilante by night (under the apt moniker “Shadow”), with an underground legion of hot deadly babes at his disinterested beck and call. All he genuinely cares about is looking and acting like the coolest motherfucker a socially inept 12 year old boy can think of, and in his downtime actively trying to be a forgettable mob character. And I do mean that that is all he cares about; when I say none of the wheels within wheels happening in the background actually matter, I mean that Cid is completely and totally unaware of any of it.

Anything he does or says to drive the plot is either incidental or accidental. He spouts off some nonsense he heard in a video game once, and his cadre of elf baddies and beastgirls takes it as gospel en route to exposing a millennium-old conspiracy. He parrots a really cool line he heard ten minutes ago and a beautiful woman he just saved takes it as inspiration to turn her life around. It’s kind of like in Mashle, funnily enough; where Mash will go “I don’t know what’s going on, but you were being mean to my friend so I’m gonna beat the shit out of you,” Cid is more like “No clue what this is about, but that’s a really badass looking villain, so I’m gonna say some epic shit and do a big explosion.” And then he fucks off to go eat a burger or something, not knowing or caring that he just unraveled a prophesied master plot to destroy the global power balance.

The episodes that aired in 2023 largely revolve around the lovely Princess Rose, smitten with both Cid and Shadow (not knowing they’re the same guy), pledging fealty to Shadow Garden after failing to foil a coup d’etat. At the same time as her training, Cid is busy with a vampire something-or-other and then tries to make some coin for himself by teaming up with an assassin hellbent on revenge to create a credit crisis. The conspiracy later drags Rose back into the palace, where Cid sees a new opportunity. Every single one of these things has very specific reasons for happening, and everyone involved has a rich backstory and clear motivations to carry out their parts of the ever-evolving plots.

But that’s not why you’re here. You’re here to watch a bunch of hot ladies and a guy in a black cloak with one glowing red eye do some sick action stunts to bad guys with silly names, and this show delivers that in spades. This feels like a throwback in the best and worst ways. The Eminence in Shadow is stupid, and it is brilliant.

16. Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, season 2

Mushoku Tensei is a tough anime to talk about. On one hand, it is one of the most gorgeous anime series ever put on television: Almost consistently movie-quality sakuga, lush background art, and a breathtaking score come together to form an immersive world unlike many I’ve seen in any medium. On the other, it forces some very unpleasant conversations about reincarnation in anime, particularly ones like this where a grown man is reincarnated as a child while retaining his mental age and is surrounded by potential love interests closer in age to his new body. What doesn’t help is that in his previous life in our world, the man who would reincarnate as Rudeus Greyrat was a socially isolated hentai addict, and much of his journey centers around him unlearning those proclivities in unfortunate and often damaging ways. If you can handle that, Mushoku Tensei is a rewarding watch, but if that’s beyond the pale to you, I don't blame you in the slightest.

However, even if you’ve been able to stomach all of the questionable shit in the first season, I'm sorry to say that the second season’s first cour doesn’t do much for the “bro I promise he gets better bro” crowd. The first cour covers the Quagmire and Academy arcs, which follow Rudeus’ struggle with being effectively abandoned by the only person to show him any physical affection in either life. The knock-on effect sees him retreating into an antisocial shell and developing, and I am deadly serious here, a seemingly incurable case of erectile dysfunction.

The first few episodes surround Rudeus growing into a young man, making a name for himself as a wandering adventurer in hopes that talk of his name will spread to his missing family and friends. At the urging of the god with a direct line to him (still unexplained), he enrolls in a magic university to investigate the calamity that flung his loved ones to the corners of the realm. There he finds an old friend in the figure-obsessed young prince who saved his life in the previous season, a girl from his previous world who seems to have also been transported to this one, and most crucially, his old childhood friend Sylphiette, hiding in plain sight with new hair and a sick pair of shades as a retainer to a scheming princess enrolled in the school.

Mushoku Tensei's initial season was at its best in its quieter moments, and those abound in season 2’s first cour. It's really lovely seeing him connect once again with Sylphie purely for who she is, even though for all Rudy knows he’s talking to a twinky dude named Fitz who makes him feel weird things. We get our amazing action animation early on, and things settle down quite a bit from there as Rudeus navigates all of these interpersonal relationships, old and (seemingly) new.

And while, yes, this version of Rudeus is a far cry from the drooling, grinning pervert he was in his first ten years of reincarnation, his improvement as a human being is not a straight line. He unfortunately takes more steps backwards than forward. The things he says in a drunken rage about his party member Sara (who inadvertently revealed his ED) are awful and undeserved, he literally ties up and gropes a pair of beast girls from his class (he has apparent reasons for both of those things, but come on), and he “frees” a young dwarven slave to take on as an apprentice. That last one seems admirable on its face, but uh. He went with the flow in a god damned slave market and still paid a slaver.

I'm not excusing those things, nor absolving Rudeus as a character; I'm simply saying they happen this season. Mushoku Tensei, for better or for worse, depicts gnarly subject matter as it is while neither glorifying it nor moralizing about it. It trusts you to make your own judgments, and if your verdict is “I can’t watch this show,” that is perfectly valid. If you can stomach watching through its worst moments and compartmentalize the uncomfortable aspects of it, Mushoku Tensei remains one of the best-looking and -sounding pieces of animation out there, and the part of its second season that aired in 2023 has an exceptional emotional payoff. Otherwise, I'll be talking about Frieren much later.

15. Spy x Family, season 2

The most succinct praise I can give season 2 is also the most backhanded: Well, it’s more Spy x Family.

I want to be clear that there is no shade inherent to that comment; the first season of Spy x Family was excellent! It was a stylish, beautifully animated, appropriately hilarious adaptation of a fantastic manga that did it justice in almost every regard; the second season didn’t need to move heaven and earth to try to one-up it. It wasn’t broken, so Wit and CloverWorks didn’t fix it. It’s still the blend of domestic slice-of-life hijinks, tense cold-war intrigue, and heart-pounding action it’s always been. Even the production music is largely the same, and that’s not a complaint, because SxF’s production music fuckin' slaps.

A lot of anime-onlys rightfully complained that Yor’s plot relevance seemed to fall off a cliff in the back half of season 1, so they have been eating GOOD this time out, as season 2’s (ostensible) first cour puts her directly in the spotlight. The Yor Cour, if you will. The season opened on a hilariously spot-on adaptation of my favorite Yor-centric chapter of the manga (the “bullet in the ass” one) and quickly moved on to a nearly perfect interpretation of the cruise arc that sees her protecting a government asset from a legion of assassins.

If you wanted to see more of Yor in her second life as the contract killer, Thorn Princess, this season was a meal and a half for you. Having her beset on all sides by an eccentric rogues’ gallery, with Anya fully aware and trying her damnedest to keep Loid from finding out what’s actually going on, is Spy x Family at its best. The tension constantly ramps up as the ship approaches its target, and Anya’s attempts at distracting Loid usually go sideways because, well, she’s Anya. Blood splatters, laughs are had, and Loid continues to struggle with both fatherhood and acting like his growing affection for his ragtag “fake” family is just “for the mission.”

Outside of the cruise, season 2 maintains the series’ usual episodic pace, which can be a little jarring before and after the cruise arc, but that’s SxF for you. Shit can pop off at unexpected moments, and having read ahead in the manga, I’m excited to see the next time that happens. For now, though, things can feel kinda static from time to time, but the Forger family and the extended cast are always pleasant to just hang out with for a while.

And now to wait for the movie to come out in the west.

14. Undead Unluck

Up until this past Winter season, I primed myself on a lot of the more-hyped anime by reading the manga ahead of time. I knew that Undead Unluck is one of the bigger Shonen Jump manga out there, but this debut kind of crept up on me. I went in blind, got drawn in by the premise, and then got quickly overwhelmed with a wild amount of lore.

Fuuko, a young woman seemingly afflicted with a curse, is saddled with a brash, enormous man who cannot die after he foils her suicide attempt and is then himself grievously injured. Don’t worry, he got better. It turns out that he’s roughly 200 years old and has a completely cracked healing factor, while she brings terrible misfortune to anyone who touches her skin. They are both Negators, people with the ability to reverse or ignore the laws of nature: Fuuko’s ability is Unluck, causing tragedy for those close to her, while the man is Undead, exactly what it says on the tin. The man, who cannot remember his own name, believes their meeting to be kismet: If she can bring death to her loved ones, he vows to woo her so she can deliver the death he’s sought for so long. I promise this is a comedy.

Fuuko and Andy (whom she named as shorthand for the Japanese pronunciation of “undead”) foil a series of assassination attempts by other Negators, and take their spots as part of the Union eliminating threats to the universe. They team with an eclectic group, whom we’re still getting to know as of the end of the first cour, as they trot the globe to complete quests given to them by a mysterious (and seemingly nefarious) talking book lest the universe incur penalties for their failure.

The power system among Negators is one of the most inventive I've seen, with each one able to cancel out a specific element of the natural order of the world, and it’s a blast learning how each new one works. Andy in particular is wild; because he can regenerate himself so quickly, his weapon of specialty is his own body, never hesitating to use his own fingertips as bullets and his own gushing blood as a propulsion mechanism. He also has no compunction towards taking on the worst of Fuuko’s Unluck ability, often sacrificing himself to get hit by lightning or falling debris to deal damage to an enemy. Every new Negator power introduced adds a new wrinkle to the way this world works and the different shapes its action can take. Others can freeze matter into suspended animation, force people to act opposite their own intentions, or even subvert someone’s entire belief system. I cannot wait to see what else is in store.

The first cour’s pacing is a little off, and Andy's behavior towards Fuuko in the first couple episodes is nothing short of gross (I promise that eases up), but you can see the show finding its footing as it goes on. Shonen Jump series don’t last for nearly 200 chapters and counting by accident, and I'm excited to see where this goes.

13. NieR: Automata Ver. 1.1a

Those of us who played Yoko Taro’s 2017 masterpiece approached the announcement of an anime adaptation with some trepidation: So much of what made Nier Automata so outstanding and so beloved is that much of the delivery of its narrative is inherent to the fact that it’s a video game. How can a video game known for pushing against the fourth wall of the unique elements of its very medium be faithfully adapted as an anime?

The choice of studio was also concerning: Though A-1 has produced a ridiculous number of excellent series (and some aggressively mid ones that were nonetheless very successful), its track record with video game adaptations has been far less than stellar. The latter three films in the Persona 3 adaptations were solid if uneven, and the Valkyria Chronicles anime seems to have been well-received, but the same can’t be said of A-1’s takes on Ace Attorney, Persona 4 Golden, or Persona 5. Regardless, Yoko himself was heavily involved in the anime’s production, so if they could keep on budget and schedule, Nier Automata would have a fighting chance.

And while there indeed ended up being massive and likely unpredictable production delays, I'd say they’ve done almost as good of a job as they could have so far. While the first cour mainly covers Automata’s A and B routes, it does much more than just play that part of the story straight; it also takes the time to incorporate other elements of the Nier canon. A surprising amount of time is dedicated to the canon introduced in the “YoRHa” stage play (and by extension the Pearl Harbor Descent Record manga); Lily and the android resistance are woven directly into the narrative far beyond the vague overtures the game makes in their direction. Ver 1.1a also ties the history of the original Nier into the story at unexpected and intriguing (and in my case, tear inducing) moments.

Unfortunately, it’s still too soon to assess this series in its entirety. While too many people who played Nier Automata stopped after route A or B, there is still much more of this story to come. There was some very sloppy CGI integration in the first episode when it aired, but far from enough to put me off the series. For now, it’s a treat for Nier fans, but I’m not sure whether I can recommend it yet to people who are unfamiliar with the source material.

Until the anime is completed, go play Nier Automata. It’s one of my favorite games of all time.

12. Kaguya-sama: Love is War -The First Kiss That Never Ends-

This was a late 2022 theatrical release, but it didn’t see western release until this year and was split into a four-episode mini-season for streaming, so I'm counting it for this year. you can deal with it.

I got completely obsessed with Kaguya-sama early this year, and in record time. I binged the anime and the manga in the span of a couple weeks and irreversibly fell in love. I say with no reservation that it is the best romantic comedy, in any medium, of the 21st century. It nails both the romance and the comedy in equal measure; the characters are perfectly realized right down to the supporting cast, the dynamics between them are carefully considered and consistent with their personalities regardless of circumstance, and every emotional and comedic beat hits exactly as it’s meant to. There is a constant momentum moving the greater plot along, even in the smaller moments, and seismic shifts take over before you’ve even noticed they’re happening.

It’s rare for romcom manga adaptations to stay on the air long enough to actually reach the romantic payoff, and Kaguya-sama fucking nailed it in season 3. Well, we’re pretty sure it did; the central conceit of the psycho-romantic warfare between Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane is that they’re both chronic overthinkers and won’t accept any romantic undertones or overtures in any form but an explicit confession. So while the finish to season 3 is everything we wanted as an audience, these two dorks still sense a margin for error. Regardless, that would have been a perfectly acceptable place to end the anime.

HOWEVER, the “Ice Queen Kaguya” arc that follows in the manga is iconic, and A-1 was absolutely right to adapt it. Although Shirogane is ready to move forward with the relationship that (he’s pretty sure) they’ve both wanted for a long time, Kaguya has a crisis of personality and inadvertently reverts to the dead-eyed, emotionally walled-off version of herself he’d initially met, well before either of them had realized they’d fallen in love with one another. The interstitial omake preceding this arc in the manga has Aka Akasaka warning the reader that in order to counteract the massive emotional payoff that just happened, the ensuing chapters would get very, very silly.

And of course, hijinks do indeed ensue; this is Kaguya-sama, after all. But before you realize it, the story is neck deep in Jungian psychology as self-doubt begins to plague Kaguya and Miyuki and they struggle with the faces they think they need to put on for the other and whether their “real” selves even deserve to be loved by the person they idolize. It gets heavy! I cried every time I watched it! And that first time was in a damn movie theater!

I’m much more comfortable appraising First Kiss as a mini-season than as a movie, because frankly, it doesn’t work as a movie. The animation, while maintaining the series’ standard of excellence, isn’t a single degree better than what aired on television, which can be disappointing upon a visit to the theater. The pacing is also off for a feature film; the common knock upon theatrical release was that it felt like four episodes stitched together (it even has the omake-style interludes between scenes, like the show). The arc also focuses very heavily on Kaguya and Miyuki specifically, so the ensemble cast I mentioned earlier does have to take a backseat. Splitting this up for streaming and televised release was the right move here.

Season 3 would have been a very good ending for this series if it never got picked up for the movie. If it doesn’t get picked up for a proper fourth season, this is the perfect place for it to end. The manga has now been adapted up to just past the halfway point, and the next best stopping point would have to wait until a possible, like, fifth season. And that arc in question, while it does have some iconic moments, is very uneven. If this is all we’re getting, we’ve gotten plenty already, and I am satisfied.

If you've watched the first three seasons of Kaguya-sama, you owe it to yourself to watch The First Kiss That Never Ends. It is nearly everything you could ask for. Also, read the manga if you haven’t already. It’s genuinely one of my favorite things I've ever read.

11. The Apothecary Diaries

This one is basically House MD set in the Ming Dynasty, and it fucks.

Maomao, an apothecary raised in a pleasure district near the palace of a fictional East Asian empire, is shanghaied (pun intended) into menial work in said palace. She hears tell of a supposed curse plaguing the emperor’s newborn children and the concubines that birthed them, quickly deduces that it may be poisoning, and discreetly leaves a message for the ailing new mothers. She’s found out by an impossibly beautiful young administrator named Jinshi, who quickly deduces that she’s one of the few literate peons in the rear palace, and he puts her to work in the pavilion of the concubine that heeded her advice.

With her knowledge of, resistance to, and slightly masochistic infatuation with various poisons, Maomao slots right in as an attendant and poison tester to one of the emperor’s embattled concubines. Often at Jinshi’s urging (even though she immediately gets the ick at his habitual flirting), Maomao finds herself investigating deaths, mysterious ailments, and strange behaviors, on top of the foreign world of palace politics. Though she’s a deeply jaded person who only seems to care for her special interests, Maomao is incredibly perceptive and often able to suss out the finer details others miss.

Surprisingly, this one is a really breezy watch, and much funnier than you might expect. For all its lush environs, slowly-mounting intrigue, and often stunning cinematography, The Apothecary Diaries isn’t afraid to get a little silly with it. The dialogue is snappy, quick gags abound in a familiar single-panel chibi style you wouldn’t expect in a setting like this, and Komi-esque cat ears spontaneously pop up from Maomao's head whenever her interest is piqued. Interactions between Maomao and Jinshi are always a hoot, and you can pretty quickly figure out where it’s going, although Maomao can’t because she’s still pretty sure Jinshi is a eunuch.

As she does in virtually every role in her dozen-plus years as a seiyuu, Aoi Yuuki crushes it in the starring role. She really nails the disaffected cynicism that animates most of Maomao’s internal monologue and sarcastic dialogue, as well as her hair-trigger glee when presented with her personal interests in food and drink, medicinal herbs, and of course, poison. Yuuki is an indispensable element in ensemble casts like Persona 5, Ace Attorney, Wotakoi, and the aforementioned KamiKatsu (as well as others I don’t plan on watching like My Hero Academia, Rent-a-Girlfriend, and The Seven Deadly Sins), so it’s especially nice to hear her in a spotlight role outside of the odd Madoka Magica, spider isekai, or Cyberpunk Edgerunners.

There are a handful of anime on this list that will be continuing or returning in January, and second only to my #1 anime this year, this is the one I’m most excited to see more of. At time of writing, the show appears to be shifting in a new direction, and I’m hoping to see it take less of an episodic pace.

Part 3 is on the way! I'm going to split my top ten into two more posts, because I ended up writing... a lot more than I'd expected.

#anime reviews

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cauliflowertree · 2 years

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thranduil—to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.

summary: thranduil values you above everything. perhaps above morality.

word count: 0.6k

fanfiction no. 005

the war had come. here you stood before the lonely mountain and its cowardly king, to the left of you his brutish cousin, and behind you an army of orcs. thranduil would not fight, you knew he would not, and you could feel the disdain within you bubble to the surface the closer the army came to the brave, tired and worn men who stood their ground and would fight to their last breath.

"you cannot let them fight this war alone," you seethed, tugging on thranduil's arm.

thranduil turned to you calmly, but disrupted this act of content as he whipped himself from your grasp and said through gritted teeth—“i will not waste elvish blood on a petty dispute between orc and dwarf."

"you and i are both aware this goes far deeper than a petty dispute, far deeper than a promise to end a bloodline. he is coming."

"and he will come regardless of the outcome of this insignificant battle," countered thranduil. "buying time is buying into delusion."

your jaw clenched as you looked at him helplessly. "then you will return alone," you held your head high and unsheathed your sword, heading into the ranks of men.

before thranduil could stop you, he had lost you within the crowd, hesitating too long to truly understand what your words could mean.

you did not see your king as the battle begun, but you saw his impact, his influence, as an army of elves leapt from the ranks of men and thrusted themselves into battle. though you had no time to smile, you were grateful, you were triumphant. perhaps it would be the only battle you won that day.

｡+ﾟ☆ﾟ+｡★｡+ﾟ☆ﾟ+｡★｡+ﾟ☆ﾟ+｡★｡+ﾟ☆ﾟ+｡

the bloodline had ended. the battle was done. you followed legolas, knowing he was searching for his father. you stood silently, a safe distance away, as father and son said their goodbyes, before approaching thranduil himself. his expression was indecipherable, though stern, but his figure was hunched and it left you wondering what he would say to you.

"you were reckless today," he stated simply.

"i may have been, but i could not leave," you admitted firmly, standing your ground despite disappointing your king.

you could bare to disappoint your king, but to disappoint thranduil was something else entirely. at present, you weren't sure which begrudged you or whether it was the both of them.

"you cannot defy me so openly, so willingly," he scolded you.

"i couldn't live with myself if i had left these people to die, knowing i could have helped in some way," you said softly, pleading with him to understand the reason behind your actions and defiance.

thranduil took an angry step forward, looking down upon you as if you were nothing but a nuisance. "and do you think i could live..." he softened, "if you had perished in this war when i could have done something to prevent it?" he asked tenderly, cupping your face in his pale hand.

leaning into his touch, you felt empathy for the man who had faced great loss and feared its repetition. "i would not leave you that way," you reassured him with sugarcoated lies.

"promises mean little when you have not the power to keep them."

but his resolve dissipated and he sighed softly, pulling you into his chest where he felt you were safest and kissed your forehead gently. he wondered at his ability to go from violence to softness so quickly, but knew that it was simply a necessity of a king in middle earth, where evil ran free and rampant across the lands.

"i do not like to be frightened," he reminded you.

"i will do my best never to make you feel that way again," you promised, genuinely this time.

"thank you, meleth nîn," he whispered in your ear, kissing your lips sweetly and gently when you turned to look up at him.

#thranduil x y/n #thranduil x you #thranduil x reader #thranduil fanfiction #thranduil fluff #thranduil imagine #the hobbit imagines #the hobbit fanfiction #middle earth x reader #thranduil blurb #thranduil drabble #king thranduil #thranduil one shot #thranduil of mirkwood #the hobbit #the hobbit fic #the hobbit fandom

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gothicbarbie · 4 months

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TOP 30 BL'S OF 2023

It's that time again! The end of 2023 is here, and 2024 is upon us! Once again, we were blessed with some truly amazing BL series and I have tried my hardest to rank them all. I could only narrow it down to 30 this time cuz there were so many good ones. If a BL is not listed, it probably means I haven't watched it yet, but it is likely on a "for later" list.

GOD TIER 10/10

1. The Eighth Sense (KOREA) Absolutely ADORE this series, it was so well done. Beautiful filming and locations, each episode felt very different in terms of setting, the pacing was nice, and the chemistry was really good too between the main pairing. It was great to get some nice kissing moments as well. Def. one of the best KBL's I've seen ever and easily fits into my top 5 BL's of all time.

2. I Cannot Reach You (JAPAN) One of Japan's best series imo. Very cute storyline, I found both characters extremely likable and fun. I love their cute friendship and subtle build up. I really enjoyed watching this one.

3. My Personal Weatherman (JAPAN) Another great one from Japan, with lots of high heat scenes. Parts of the storyline were a little confusing to me at times but I think a change of scenery could have benefited the series, but regardless, I still really enjoyed it week to week.

4. Kiseki Dear to Me (TAIWAN) Probably my favorite Tawain BL ever after We Best Love. I mainly just loved the chemistry between the two couples, they were both really fun to watch and had wonderful chemistry as well as lovely kissing scenes. Def excited to rewatch this one in the future.

5. Our Dating Sim (KOREA) It's hard to believe this was from 2023, but I recently rewatched the whole thing and it held up! It was a very fun and cute series, and the build up with the main pairing was so well done. It really felt like the writers took their time with this series.

TOP TIER 9/10

6. Stay With Me (CHINA) Shocking to see a chinese series on this list, but this is one of my all time favorite BL series. Some people might argue that it isn't BL, but I highly disagree. We got a few "cheek" kisses and most romantic scenes were heavily implied but for me, it was still worth the watch. The ending was rough to say the least, and I really hope we get a season 2 to sort of rectify that, but regardless, I really loved it.

7. My School President (THAILAND) Another series that feels like it was SO long ago, but is def. at the top of my list for Thailand. Gemini/Forth's chemistry was on point and I loved the cute moments and subtle build up in this one.

8. A Shoulder to Cry On (KOREA) My only critique with this series is the lack of a kissing scene. I know for some people that isn't important, but to me it is and I was a bit frustrated to get nothing after such incredible build up, but regardless, the series was really nice and I loved the tension between the main two characters.

9. City Boy Log (KOREA) This one is still ongoing and not quite a BL series technically, but its scripted, and we get lots of BL moments, so I will count it in my list. I am loving the web style filming of this series and both couples a lot. I hope the main pairing gets the opportunity to be in an actual series together.

GREAT 8/10

10. Utsukushii Kare 2 (JAPAN) Sadly haven't been able to see the movie just yet, but the 2nd series was pretty well done. Not as enjoyable for me as season 1 but I still really enjoyed watching the main pairing navigate their relationship.

11. Never Let me Go (THAILAND) One of the better series from Thailand this year imo. I really liked the chemistry between pondphuwin and the episodes were packed with some pretty interesting storylines and build up, it was very fun to watch.

12. Ameiro Paradox (JAPAN) I've seen some people hate on this series, but personally I loved it. I found the chemistry between the leads to be super strong and I loved the build up to them recognizing their feelings. The kissing scenes were great as well. There were a few blah plots but overall I really enjoyed it.

13. Moonlight Chicken (THAILAND) Something about this series felt a bit more mature to me and it was a nice change from some of the cheesier bl's that try so hard to be funny? I really loved all the pairings in this series and the storyline was nice.

14. Tokyo in April (JAPAN) For me this one started out great but then kinda lost me near the end. I did love most of the storyline but other parts were super frustrating to watch. I enjoyed the manga a bit more I think? But still, it was nice.

15. Bed Friend (THAILAND) Loved this one on first watch but on rewatch it was just okay for me. I think some of the plots were just over-dramatic and too depressing. But the friends with benefits plot was well done and the chemistry between the main two was really strong. It was fun.

16. A Breeze of Love (KOREA) I might have enjoyed this one a bit more had I seen the eps slower. Because I binged it's hard to get a good grasp on it but I did really like it. I liked the chemistry between the main couple and there was a sweetness to it I enjoyed.

17. Love Class 2 (KOREA) I think I slightly preferred the overall storyline of season 1, but in this one I preferred all the couples. For me that was the biggest draw. It was a tad bit confusing at first, but then it started to come together near the middle. Not the absolute best from Korea but enjoyable.

Good 7/10

18. Bump up Business (KOREA) Great chemistry between the leads but unfortunately the plot fell a bit flat for me. I feel like they could have done so much more with it. The kiss was also extremely weak, but that was expected. It was a nice series to binge, but not one of my favs this year.

19. Destiny Seeker (THAILAND) Parts of this one were really odd and I think part of my issue was having wonky subs, but regardless, I really enjoyed the series and especially the chemistry between the main pairing. Loved watching their story build, their banter was so fun. I also liked the side pairing but wish they had a bit more focus.

20. Why R U Korea (KOREA) This one did not remind me of the OG at all, which is fine, but overall I found this series to be a tad slow. There were good and bad moments.

21. Love Mate (KOREA) Some of the KBL's this year get a bit confusing and I mix them all together... this is one that sort of got lost in the shuffle for me and I would need to rewatch to give a better opinion on it but I know I did enjoy it.

DECENT 6/10

22. HiStory 5 (TAIWAN) Sadly didn't enjoy this season of HiStory as much as past seasons but it was okay. I think it had some good moments but overall left me a bit underwhelmed.

23. The New Employee (KOREA) Didn't love this one as much as others have seemed to. I didn't find the chemistry to be that strong and I also am not fond of office romances, but it was okay.

24. Dangerous Romance (THAILAND) This one was forgettable but again, had some enjoyable moments. I think I liked it more in the beginning rather than the end.

25. If It's With You (JAPAN) Sweet series that simply just fell flat for me because it just felt too short so I couldn't really get invested in it. But it was cute.

26. My Story (FILO) This one was good, I liked both pairings a lot and there were some decent kissing scenes, but there were also a lot of cringey moments and moments I had to fastforward. For The Philippines I think it was one of the better series this year, but it's not at the top of my list.

27. Sing My Crush (KOREA) Another KBL that is so quick that you can binge in one night... this one didn't deliver for me as much as it did for others. The chemistry was good and it was sweet but I just found myself a bit bored of it. Still cute tho.

28. The Director Who Buys Me Dinner (KOREA) The plot is weird AF and I am not a big fan of like historical past lives romance type of plots but I did enjoy the chemistry between the main two. It might be a bit higher if the ending wasn't so weird...

29. Starstruck (KOREA) Another KBL that is a bit forgettable to me but from what I remember I enjoyed it.

30. Bon Appetit (KOREA) See above. lol.

Honorary mentions: These were good but not quite good enough for my list. I liked them but had small issues with them. Either cheesey or boring plots, or the chemistry was lacking for me. Also they are in no particular order:

1. His Man 2 (KOREA) - Not BL at all, but a reality series which was AMAZING. LOVE LOVE LOVED the ending pair... but couldn't put it on the main list because it's not scripted.

2. Minato’s Laundry 2 (JAPAN) -season 1 was amazing, this one didn't hold up. Hated how awkward they were as a couple and it just felt too unrealistic to me. Regardless, i still love the chemistry between the main two and liked seeing them again.

3. Hidden Agenda (THAILAND) - love joondunk and wish they would get a better storyline. This plot was all over the place but the chemistry was there. The kisses were top tier!

4. Only Friends (THAILAND)- i did love the messiness of this one and there were some fun pairings with hot scenes, but overall I felt the SL was a bit chaotic and some characters never really grew. I wish they had leaned into the sexy/messiness of it a tad bit more tbh.

5. Stay by My Side (Taiwain) - cute but a bit forgettable. I did enjoy the chemistry a lot in this one tho.

6. You Are Mine (Tawiain) - same as above, except the pairing wasn't as exciting for me.

7. Our Dining Table (JAPAN) - i know everyone loves this one and it was very cute and sweet, but a bit too slow for my taste.

8. End of the World With You (JAPAN) - some interesting plots and fun to watch, but overall a bit messy and problematic at times? lol.

9. Til the World Ends (THAILAND) - see above.

10. Jack O Frost (JAPAN)- decently cute series but the tone of it was a bit too depressing for me.

11. The Day I Loved You (FILO) -started great but was too emotional/sad for me after a few eps in.

12. Unintentional Love Story (KOREA) - seems a lot of people loved this one but it wasn't really my cup of tea. I found the plot very slow and the main couple was kinda bland imo. But I am willing to rewatch it and give it another chance soon.

13. Between Us (THAILAND) - technically this started in 2022 but it finished in 2023, so I'll include it. It was okay but not great. Much better series for bounprem but still found myself a bit bored.

Watched these ones in 2023 but they didn't make much of an impact in me. They had good and bad bits but to me, mostly bad. lol (No particular order)

1. Jun and Jun

2. Past-tenger

3. Love Tractor

4. Egoist Movie

5. Happy Merry Ending

6. Be My Favorite

7. A Boss and a Babe

8. Step by Step

9. Naked Dinner

10. Wedding Plan

11. My Dear Gangster Oppa

12. Cutie Pie 2

These series were forgettable or annoying imo and and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend them to anyone. However, they might be worth skimming through like I did? Good luck! lol. (In no order)

1. Hit Bite Love

2. Naughty Babe

3. Laws of Attraction

4. Remember Me

5. Love Bill

6. 609 Bedtime Story

7. All the Liquors

8. Be Mine Superstar

9. House of Stars

10. La Pluie

11. Our Sky 2

12. Venus in the Sky

13. Tin Tem Jai

14. Middleman’s Love

15. Future the Series

16. Tie the Knot

17. Luminous Solution

18. Bake Me Please

19. Our Winter

20. Stay Still

Shows I watched in 2023 but that are from previous years:

1. Bad Buddy (loved it!)

2. Advance Bravely (weird but enjoyable)

3. Why You Y Me (good)

4. Ghost Host Ghost House (okay)

5. La Cuisine (meh)

6. Win Jamie’s Heart (forgettable)

7. Kabe Sa Doujin (blah)

8. Catch Me Baby (skimmed for netjames only)

9. 21 Days Theory (what is this again?)

10. Innocent the Series (already forgot it)

Tried and Quit: I just couldn't get into these at all... I will probably not watch these ever.

Crazy Handsome Rich

Dinosaur Love

Low Frequency

Love Syndrome 3

If a show is from 2023 and not listed above, then likely I plan to get to it later. Either I tried the premiere and it didn’t capture me at first, I couldn’t find the episode when I tried to look for it, or I simply just haven’t had time for it yet.

A few on my list that i plan to watch because I heard good things about them are: I Feel You Linger in the Air, Lost in Translation, Beyond the Star, Shadow, My Universe. Plus many others. Let me know if there is a show you really loved that I didn't mention so I can check it out!

Oh, and here are all previous lists since TUMBLR is being a little bitch and not saving the tags.

2022: https://gothicbarbie.tumblr.com/post/705139242020618240/my-top-20-bl-series-of-2022

2021: https://gothicbarbie.tumblr.com/post/705227666795741184/my-top-15-bl-series-of-2021

2020: https://gothicbarbie.tumblr.com/post/705674738528354304/my-top-15-bls-of-2020

2019 and earlier: https://gothicbarbie.tumblr.com/post/705678223200174080/my-top-bls-of-2019-and-earlier

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phoenix-before-the-flame · 2 months

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not a hc but can you rank lucy's stardresses?

A fit rank huh? Sure I can do that. Just gonna preface n say that obviously this is my opinion and whatevs and that I won't be includin any of the ones introduced in 100yr because I don't care about the sequel :]

Alrightie lets get into it! This gonna get long tho, so imma put it under read more so I don't murder ppl who are scrolling.

Aquarius Stardress

This one honestly might be on the lower tiers for me. Like for the first stardress shown its rather, boring. The colour choice of green and yellow is weird, and visually disconnects it from Aquarius (like seriously? No blue anywhere?). The wrap skirt is cute and I do love how she has Aquarius' collarbone tattoo. That's fire. But the basic bikini top is meh. Overall its serviceable, 6/10 on the Phoenix scale.

Leo Stardress

Honestly can't go wrong with a nice black dress. I really would've preferred a pants suit for this one but the dress regardless is fun. I has a nice shape with the asymmetrical skirt and I like the ruffles all over. I also like how the anime gave her stockings

If I had nitpicks i'd say to get rid of the center line down the middle of the chest, the two under the bust are enough and get rid of the purple hair clip, it feels tacked on and just tosses in a random colour to the palette. I'd also maybe change the yellow to something more orange so it pops more (maybe even make the interior of the dress something eyecatching to add some extra oomph visually when she's kicking.)

But good fit, 8/10

Virgo Stardress

Well, it's about what you'd expect tbh. It's a maid outfit lol. There ain't much here to say cept that its cute. 6/10

Tauros Stardress

Oh hell fuckin yea. HELL YEAH

Unabashedly this one is one of my favourites solely because of the uneven pants. It's so fun and stupid. I also like how she and Tauros have matching belt buckles.

The basic ass bikini top does bring it down though (sorry i'm a bikini top hater. If you're gonna put a character in a bikini top at least make it a different style! There's different types of tops that can be both sexy and interesting!!!!). It also looks wack at certain angles.

My chest hurts lookin at this.

Apart from that I don't think the double buns works best with this dress, I think it'd work better if swapped with the double braids of the capricorn dress. Also I just think it'd be cool if this dress gave her an axe, like how the cancer dress gave her weapons.

but because of how much joy the stupid pants give me, 9/10.

Sagittarius Stardress

Another banger stardress despite a glaringly obvious issue.

This shit's great to me. Good colours, fun patterns, i fuckin love that its backless and the high ponytail is great here. The issue?

That deep ass coochie cut.

On god it just looks so uncomfortable. The anime tried to even it out by giving her tights but that just tossed in another colour to the palette and just unbalances it. A simple fix would've been just to make it white leggings under there. Skin tight, sexy and still practical. Apart from the coochie cut the only nitpick I have is that I think the boob window should've been star shaped and i wish her sleeves also doubled as archery gloves.

Apart from that and how much the coochie cut haunts me, its a 9/10

Aires Stardress

Now I have no idea why, but I was never exactly big on this one. Like it's not awful, all the stardresses have a baseline cuteness to them. The alternating pink and white tiers on the dress is nice, but the cut under the bust kinda kills the uniform pattern it had goin on. Likewise the leggings don't feel coherent to the rest of the fit. Like still cute, but the stripes and the introduction of black makes the whole thing feel busy and plain all at once. Though ironically when it's in the manga and purely black and white i think it looks better.

But I dunno, i think this one actually might be my least favourite. 4/10

Gemini Stardress

Ok. I like the alternating blue and white all over. That's cool. But, that headdress on top of the already busy outfit feels like its a lil too much on top. Also the random gold baubles on the outfit itself feels sorta thrown on. The belt can stay I suppose but nix the tassels near the collar and trade in the boob window for a deeper neckline.

We can just get rid of the headdress altogether and change her hairstyle to like, crown braid with a hanging blue and white ribbon on either side to keep with the alternating colours and we golden. 5/10

Scorpio Stardress

Gonna start this off to say, not a big fan of the bottom (the leather panty thing with the chain on it? Dawg idk i don't like it lol). and the chain on it looks so silly and not in a fun way. If anything I think she should have a bigger tail, not as big as scorpio's but defs something bigger that what she has currently. And as much as I like backless fits I don't think it works here, the deep cut boob window can stay though. I do like the headband and how her hair frames her face but overall its another 5/10.

Also here's a scorpio stardress redesign that I like. Doesn't fix all my issues with the og but it's still pretty dope.

Cancer Stardress

I like this because it looks cool and gives Lucy weapons. I don't like it because it doesn't connect well with Cancer the spirit visually. But Cancer's design sucks and I like this better than Cancer himself. Truly a design with conundrums for me. 6/10

Capricorn Stardress

I don't like this dress! Not one bit! Why is it a bdsm tit dress! The hair is cute and I like the shades and the horn clips with the bows but the dress!!!!!!!! Why is it so visually disconnected from Capricorn the spirit! Why isn't it a skirt suit with sexy fishnet leggings like in the concept art!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why isn't this the canon design!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tragic/10

#fairy tail #lucy heartfilia #hi :]

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stuffymcstuffsworld · 8 months

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Under foot

*Warning content mature for physical confrontation in story do not attempt in reality*

Someone should have warned him. Honestly? You thought someone had by now, and he was just ignoring the rumors. But really now, he was asking for it. If it didn't come from you, you were sure someone else would have done it.

Nobody scares your son and gets away with it. And how dare this mutt even think of telling your little Ray of Sunshine that he doesn't belong here when clearly he is thriving. How was this flea bag even related to a pedigree of Kalego-Sans caliber?

You stared down at the demon that you had just bitch-slapped to the ground. You won't apologize he was upsetting iruma and your poor baby looked close to a panic attack! You stood your ground and kept yourself in front of iruma just in case.

"It seems to me that you're the one who doesn't quite understand their place. You must have very low self-esteem if scaring a child makes you feel high and mighty." The cold tone, much like the echoed song of your slap, had the entire rooms attention.

"I don't want to hear that coming from an unrank-" another slap knocked him over before he could even try to climb back up on whatever high horse he rode in here with. You spotted a trickle of blood run down his cheek, and you buzzed with glee inside.

"Regardless of if I am or without a rank, do you honestly think that I would let you get away with threatening my child?" You examine your nails for a moment letting out a soft tsk when you spotted a chip in the perfect manicure Opera had given you for tonight.

"Frankly, I don't give a shit about who you are. I made a promise to my child from day one that I would protect them. You've made yourself a threat. It's sad to see that one who is a candidate for the 13 crowns is a mannerless dog."

You had been excited to meet the brother Kalego-San had spoken highly of, but meeting him like this, you knew Kalego-Sans opinion was unfortunately biased. He tried to push himself up, but you weren't done yet. Jamming your heeled shoe right into his calf, he grunted in pain. Mentally, you thanked Opera for convincing you to wear stilettos instead of the normal wedged shoes you would grab for height.

He snarled at you and tried to scare you with his magic. A large black wolf with 3 eyes and multiple tails. The beast imitated it's masters displeasure and growled deeply. It was scary you'd give it that 7/10 on the whole it'll eat me alive bit. But iruma being hurt or scared was far more terrifying to you.

Looking it up and down, you feigned disinterest. "Practically foaming at the mouth. A rabid beast with a moronic and tactless master." The dry monotone seemed to confuse all those watching. How could you be so calm?

Taking a small breath, you locked eyes with the animal. It was a battle of wills. And you were not willing to lose when you had iruma shaking behind you. Your baby came first, not you. So you weren't going to turn tail.

Twisting your foot deeper into your prey you grasped Fenrir's ear and also held it in a tight pinch he was not getting up or escaping anytime soon you noted from the painfull hiss you heard escape his lips. Oh, right, demons' ears were far more sensitive. You noted before brushing off the thought with a he'll live. 'For now.' A dark and twisted part of you agreed.

The wolf seemed conflicted as it watched you manhandled its owner. Though like a loyal dog, it did try baring its fangs at you. You bared your own teeth and let out a guttural snarl. You weren't certain if animal noises from Earth translated to those in Hell, but you hoped the message was still clear. 'Back off mutt.'

Its ears immediately flattened, and it let out a whine of sorts before disappearing. Glancing down, you saw Fenrir looking at you in what you could only describe as pure shock. Clearly, no one had been able to do that before. Good.

"See, even your little puppy knows when to submit to the alpha of the pack." You released his ear but did not ease your foot. Looming over him, you carefully stroaked the scratches you had landed on his face. He winced as you started applying pressure to the wound.

"You think you're superior? I literally have you under foot. I thought those of you on the border patrol were taught not to underestimate your enemy?" Tilting your head back, you glanced over at iruma just a quick check. He had stopped shaking and was looking at you in amazement.

You knew why. The entire course of your actions screamed that 'I belong here'. And if you who had less magic and no physical strength could walk amongst demons and go toe to toe with them, it was saying so could he and his ideals. You gave him a quick smile before returning your gaze to your current headache.

You had an entire room full of demons watching, and of course, you had a role to finish. Acting out the role of Irumas enraged parent was easy. Took absolutely no effort on your part cause you were actually that pissed. But being Sullivan's child, you had to show a bit of class.

You were among high society in the demon world, after all, for a party for the newest members of the 13 crowns. And you had one of the candidates under your heeled boots injured and awaiting your next move. The crowd mermered most in fascination of your control over not only the situation but the room itself.

It was as though you were holding trial over a convicted criminal. Or a ruler holding court and about to perform an execution. Finally removing your hand, you showed him your palm stained with his own blood. A vicious and cunning smile painted your face. Leaning closer, you allowed the weight of your body to press into his leg, allowing him to feel more pain from your actions.

And as he tried to hold back any sounds of discomfort and erase any traces of pain from his face, you started to whisper in his ears. "I know exactly who you are, Naberius Narnia, and I know you know what I am." His body stiffened immediately, seeming to realize how much trouble he was actually in with you.

"Don't you think it's funny? That demons needed to be the ones to leave instead of humans. I do." You purred into his ear, watching him twitch. "It's so cute how one thinks it was for the safety of humans that demon kind left!" Leaning back, you began to ease your foot off him.

"The reality of the matter is demons like you got scared of ones like me. Ones who just charge in blindly uncaring of the odds against them. Humans can be more frightening than demons when they want something." Your voice still low and hushed almost seductive.

"I don't care what you're planning. You could flip Hell upside-down for all I care. But if you try to drag my son into whatever game you are playing, just know this. You will meet your end by my hand. You will watch as I rip your wings off so you can't fly away. You will see me slowly skin you inch by inch. Your eyes will be my new earrings watching each bit of horror I wreak on you."

Standing at full height, you smirked down at him, confidence oozing out of you as you looked at the once proud alpha reduced to a quivering omega. Once more, you showed him your blood-stained palm. The madness seeping through your eyes, and you voice loud enough for the room to hear now.

"I do believe we've made quite the scene. It would be a shame for this party to be ruined by some... disagreement of opinions. I'm certain you've learned to be more mindful of your words, especially around children. They are impressionable."

The unspoken warning rang throughout the ballroom. Bowing his head lowly at you. "Thank you for imparting your wisdom on me. It was... enlightening." He remained on the floor, not daring to move. "And?"

Licking his lips, he lowered himself further down. "I apologize to both you and your son for my brazen behavior. You are correct, I acted out of line. And for that I am sorry." You tilted your head and hummed as if debating on if the apology had been to your liking.

"Thank you, we accept your apology." Iruma nervously spoke from behind you. You clapped your hands together cheerfully. "I'm so glad that's settled! Now run along doggy and go wash up." Waving the vile demon away from you, you watched as he quickly slipped out of the room. Only when he had disappeared behind the doors did you turn to face your son.

"Thank you for keeping our promise." Iruma said, smiling peacefully now that everything was over. "I intend to keep it with my dying breath." You told him before ruffling his hair. "Ugh, I'm hungry. Let's eat!" You quickly guided him to one of the nearby tables to stack countless items on your plates.

#mairimashita! iruma kun #reader #welcome to demon school iruma kun #iruma suzuki #lord sullivan #opera #kalego sensei #naberius kalego #naberius narnia

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steampunkforever · 1 month

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Dune Part 2 is once more proof that Denis Villeneuve is an incredibly calculating director. And it should be good. He's been storyboarding Dune since the 80s. Of course Zack Snyder also released a film recently that'd been his passion project since before he was making movies, and Rebel Moon sucked, so that's clearly not a metric for success, but you get my point.

Right on the heels of releasing the phenomenal Sicario, Villeneuve got the keys to Dune. This is a moonshot take the money and run opportunity. I love this type of film. One of those "They may never let me do this again" movies like Magnolia or (to a lesser extent) Apocalypse Now! that build on previous success to sucker studio funding for something you really want to do. Usually this involves jumping to it and spending as much money as possible before accounting changes its mind about sending all those blank checks, but Denis was just as calculating as ever with it.

Adapting two more scifi properties at differing scales was the right idea for this, both allowing for more time to develop Dune and for Villeneuve to find his footing with less ambiguous science fiction (considering that my friends who watched Enemy barely understood it to be about aliens). Villeneuve is calculating. His steps are measured, and I've yet to see a film of his that feels outright rushed.

I think that this is in part due to Villeneuve's understanding that he is (at least up until the release of Dune) not part of a generation of directors who get whatever they want. This generation of director has been waning for a long time, but Nolan and Tarantino really mark the last generation of directors allowed to experiment on blank checks no matter if their last film flopped. Zack Snyder is also technically ranked among them but his decade-long slump is clearly an outlier. Villeneuve has to put out solid movies to earn the right to take creative risks, and Dune has clearly been another measured step in his film career. Which is to say that Dune Part 2 is fantastic.

I have a deeply nuanced relationship with Dune screen adaptations, so do note that there is some bias here, but regardless, this is a wonderful film. Did I wish they'd stuck to their guns and shown Alia for real? Did I kind of hope they kept it to just two films instead of the projected 3+ that are sure to come? Am I still outraged that they didn't recast Sting? Of course. But when it all boils down, this film is a science fiction accomplishment that you SHOULD go see.

The set design, sound design, acting, and cinematography were all top notch. There was rarely anything in this film I did not love (read: Timothee, my archnemesis). Of particular note were Pugh, Ferguson, and Bardem's performances. Bardem's Stilgar was an absolute delight, and I found myself losing the fact that he was acting in his performance. The plot, spectacle, and inclusion of Christopher Walken all sold me on the film.

Another detail that was clear evidence of Villeneuve's extremely calculated process was Zendaya's role as Chani in Part 2. Chani (largely sidelined in the books after showing up partway) is positioned as sort of the soapbox character to remind you that colonialism is bad at predetermined intervals. And while this is certainly not a choice I would've made for the character (I prefer to do my soapboxing in different parts of the text) I can't help but find that I didn't hate Chani's direction in the film. This is in spite of the fact that I detest Soapbox characters (except for in Spike Lee films. Love you Spike Lee) and find their usage lazy. Somehow it works for me here, even if it could've been more subtly rolled into the narrative. Man I'm really reaching for nitpicks, I should go back to demanding they show me a creepy toddler Alia.

Anyway if Sting was the one fighting Timothee's Paul that twink would get stabbed to death so hard you have no idea.

#sting metal diaper zone #dune part two #dune 2 #filmposting #dune

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kentoberry · 1 year

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THREE DAYS — ERWIN SMITH.

⭒— SUMMARY · after the battle to retake wall maria, you have to find a way to cope.

⭒— CONTENT · angst. major character death. season three spoilers. grieving. pregnancy. mentions of sickness / throwing up. some depression symptoms. minors dni with my blog.

it's been three days since the battle to retake wall maria. three days since you last saw erwin. three days that you've been isolating yourself from everyone else.

hange was the only one that had seen you. they stopped by your room to inform you that they were heading to investigate grisha yaeger's basement with levi and some of the cadets, as well as to drop you off some food.

everyone had lost a lot on that day, regardless of what humanity had gained. losing erwin had taken its toll, that much was clear. you'd never exactly defined your relationship, both terrified that if you put a label on it and subsequently one of you got hurt beyond a point of recovery, the other wouldn't be able to handle it. this was an unspoken agreement.

despite that, everybody in the scout regimen knew about your feelings for one another. from the way that erwin looked out for you on expeditions to the longing gazes you exchanged: the love that you shared was blatantly clear. you even stayed in one another's quarters most nights.

since returning back, you hadn't left your room. by some miracle, you'd escaped the battle relatively unscathed — something within you wanted to say it was erwin's spirit watching over you. you didn't know how to process him not being by your side.

you missed waking up to his rough morning voice, the way that he'd wrap his arms around you from behind whilst you made a morning tea. even the way that you'd been throwing up non-stop had reminded you of when you'd contracted a stomach bug and erwin refused to leave you alone. he'd hold your hair and rub your back whilst you were bent over the toilet, cook you soup just the way he remembered his mother making it.

a couple of knocks on the door broke you out of your thoughts.

you croaked a meek "come in", not even bothering to make yourself look presentable. hange made their way over to you, perching themself on the edge of your mattress. they opened their arms, pulling you in. you obliged.

tears began to pool in your eyes at the display of affection. despite hange's guilt that they would be taking over erwin's position in the military ranks, they were only there to comfort you as a friend. plus, they were there during erwin's final moments. part of you was glad that you weren't, not knowing how you would have coped, but at the same time you wished you could have been with him. you could have told him how you felt. held his hand. made sure it was peaceful. god, you don't know what you would do if you ever found out that he met a painful end.

"i'm sorry," hange mumbled. they were holding back their own tears, both due to what happened to erwin and seeing you so fucking broken. surely there was something they could have done to prevent it. "if it's any consolation, he talked about you. he had us promise to keep you safe, no matter what. erwin deeply cared about you, you know?"

the usual spunk in their voice was absent. you wrapped your arms around them, finally letting the dam break and sobbing into their shoulder. each time you opened your mouth to speak, all that came out where incoherent blubbers. regardless, hange held onto you and did their best to soothe you.

"have you eaten?" they asked once you had calmed down a little. you shook your head. "is there anything i can get you?"

"'ve jus' been throwing it up, hange," you confessed.

"oh, sweetheart... do you think you're sick? i can walk with you to the infirmary? or i can bring a doctor here-"

"no, 's okay. 've just been tired, but i guess it's the weight of the last few days..."

hange felt something was off, so they continued to press you a little bit. "i don't want to pry, but when was the last time that you and erwin..." they scratched the back of their neck, slightly uncomfortable. it was out of character, sure, but everything over the last few days had been turned on its head anyways.

"fuck." you whispered. your hand instantly cupped your lower stomach. "you're not saying that..." you trailed off. it was like a puzzle piece clicking into place. you'd been nauseous mostly in the mornings and evenings. you missed your period, though assumed it to be a result of stress due to work.

neither of you said anything, letting it sink in. before you knew it, you were sobbing again. if your mind wasn't already swarming with a billion thoughts, it certainly was now. though in the midst of all of it, you were somewhat comforted by the little thing growing in your stomach. it was almost as if you still had a piece of erwin with you. hange was in front of you, a few steps away, yet you could have sworn you felt a hand on your shoulder followed by an overwhelming warmth inside of you. it was as if erwin was right next to you, whispering that it'll all be okay.

#kentoberryposts #erwin smith x reader #erwin x reader #erwin smith angst #erwin smith x you #aot x reader #attack on titan x female reader #attack on titan x reader #aot x y/n #snk x reader #snk x y/n

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honourablejester · 1 month

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Starfinder Character Concept: Vercite Ice Trucker

Because I saw an image of a research ship stuck in arctic ice, this island of yellow light amidst black water and white ice, and it reminded me that I love Verces, Starfinder’s tidally locked Pact World whose dark side is an icy industrial hellscape. And I still want my ice trucker, since Xalke turned out more of a stationary industrial worker out on one of the ice rigs. I want a tough little hover trucker making deliveries to the industrial platforms out on the endless midnight ice.

I did want to build this around trucking. Vehicles. The Piloting skill and the Ace Pilot theme. And that suggested a Dex build, so, you know. Let’s go Operative. For fun points, Operative actually has a Driver specialisation, so yeah. That fits nicely. And then I just had to decide her race, and …

Did you know Space Goblins get racial bonuses to Engineering, Survival and Stealth? Because they’re tough, scrappy little buggers who are used to roughing it out in the holes and garbage pits where other species are disinclined to venture. And, like. Who takes a shitty job that nobody wants, driving out alone onto vast icy hellscapes where no one wants to be? A goblin, is who.

I did, mind you, also consider a dwarf. Because dwarves just feel like science fantasy truckers. But I think goblin wins here.

Character Concept: Girta Highhands, Vercite Ice Trucker

Name: Girta Highhands

Age: 34

Starting Statistics:

Strength 10, Dexterity 16, Constitution 14, Intelligence 12, Wisdom 12, Charisma 9

Starting Skills:

Ranks in: Acrobatics, Athletics, Computers, Culture, Engineering, Medicine, Perception, Sleight of Hand, Stealth

Specialisation Skills (Skill Focus plus auto rank per level): Piloting, Survival

Skill Bonuses: +2 to Engineering, Stealth & Survival (Goblin Scrounger feat), +1 Piloting (Ace Pilot), +3 to Piloting & Survival (Skill Focus), +1 to everything (Operatives Edge)

Race: Space Goblin

Starfinder goblins are stowaways and scavengers and clever little buggers who eked out a whole civilisation for themselves in the maintenance ducts and mechanised bowels of other species’ homes. They’re tough, smart, tenacious little buggers, and they go where they’re not wanted, and they stubbornly survive regardless. Not even necessarily out of spite, but just because what? This is liveable. Y’all don’t like it down here? I love them. Them and ysoki fill a particular niche for me.

And I do like the Scrounger feat for an ice trucker. Bonuses to Engineering, Stealth and Survival. What better set of skills to get bonuses to when you’re piloting a lonely vehicle out over monster-infested ice sheets? If your truck breaks down out there, you’ve got the skills you need to stay hidden, stay alive, and get it moving again.

Granted, goblins aren’t naturally found on Verces. Absalom and the Diaspora are more their sort of haunt. For a start, they don’t have any form of cold resistance, and Verces’ Darkside is fucking cold. But. That’s what technology is for. And goblins hitched rides on ships (not always with the ship’s knowledge) and wound up pretty much everywhere, so this tough little goblin wound up on Verces, and there were shady companies offering money for shitty, dangerous work, and you know what? She can do that. Don’t even worry about it.

Description:

The heavy door of the truck popped open with a pneumatic hiss, and out of the reasonably large opening a surprisingly tiny bundle of armour and snow suit hopped down onto the ice, clicking its heels together to deploy the ice spikes in its boots. A surprisingly well-tended laser pistol jostled for position with a collection of tools on a grubby belt as the figure turned, a gleam of scowling red eyes the only visible feature under the weather gear. Even that was abruptly obscured, however, along with pretty much everything else, when the creature activated the light projector in the armour and blinded everyone in a fifty foot radius.

“Well?” a surprisingly high, growly voice asked, hands on hips while they all blinked the dazzle out of their eyes. “What are you all waiting for? Shit’s not going to unload itself!”

(Notes: among her equipment I’m giving her Frosthiker Soles, because ice sheets, and the Light Projector armour upgrade, because midnight ice sheets. She’s a one-woman floodlight. Also, obviously, Environmental Clothing (cold climates) and an Engineering Kit. I’m not fully sure how to go about functionally equipping a Starfinder Character, beyond armour, weapons and ammo, but I figured I’d throw in a few bits for flavour).

Theme: Ace Pilot

Trucker! Ice trucker! Also goblin, so she just likes vehicles. Mostly self-taught regarding how they work and how to drive them, there may or may not have been a large amount of dismantling wrecked (or not-so-wrecked, at least before she got her hands on them) vehicles in her youth, but she just likes mobile machinery. And the bigger the better, so a good solid slab of a truck is quite appreciated. Might make climbing in and out of cabs a little tricky at 3ft tall, but don’t worry about it. She’ll make it work.

Class: Operative (Driver Specialisation)

I love the description of Driver subclass. “Your lightning reflexes and cool-headed judgment are without equal when you’re behind the wheel.” It feels somewhat geared towards getaway driving, which you might not think makes too much sense for an industrial ice trucker, but do you know what’s out there on the Vercite ice sheets? Trust me. A good (read: living) ice trucker knows when to get shit in gear real quick. Heh. Operatives also have several exploits that double down on the vehicle thing, but that might be overkill. I just wanted her to feel like a trucker first and foremost. A professional driver.

That operatives are also skill monkeys and potential snipers is also not a problem. There are a lot of problems out on Verces’ ice sheets that are best solved with a nice sniper rifle from a comfortable distance away. Like from the nice warm cab of a hover truck, for example. Heh. Not that I think I’d be starting her with a sniper rifle or anything. Probably small arms. But she would vibe with the sniper ethos, for sure. Quick, quiet, and preferably a long way away, that’s how we roll.

Summary:

Verces is just really pretty? In a bleak, industrial, horrifying sort of way? It might be my second favourite Pact World after the Diaspora, although Liavara and the Sun are also in the running there. I just really vibe with the midnight icy and the floodlit industrial platform aesthetic of Darkside. And I know I already did Xalke, another Darksider, but she was stationary, an industrial station worker, and I wanted to go back to the ice trucker idea, the lone traveller out on the ice, doing a shitty job in a scary place. And you just. You gotta love goblins? They’re tough, they’re scrappy, they’re willing to wade through shit, they’re a lot smarter than you think. I deeply enjoy them.

Verces also just warps people, I think. Like Xalke, I want Girta’s first feat to be the Toughness feat. Darkside is about survival. Industry, horror, and survival. So a goblin really does fit. Engineering, Stealth and Survival. The perfect trifecta of Darksider skills. Heh.

So. Have a frozen bundle of goblin grit bombing cheerfully along in a hover truck across the midnight, monstrous ice sheets? Girta Highhand, a goblin Vercite ice trucker!

#starfinder #ttrpgs #character concepts #verces #darkside #goblins #science fantasy #space truckers #or alien ice truckers in this case #verces is just really really cool?#i love it #second favourite pact world for sure

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yeehawwillow · 9 months

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im realizing i forgot to actually type out my s3 theory like i meant to so here it is!!!

(also i apologize this will be a VERY long post and have 2 parts)

SO as we all know (at least those of us who have finished s2 and if u havent then pls dont read past this)

PART 1: WHY METATRON WANTED AZIRAPHALE AND CROWLEY.

aziraphale and crowleys miracle equaled 25 lazarii* which equals out to 25 resurrections

NOW, we know from the metratron* that the next armageddon is the second coming of christ. this is important to note as the second coming entails, according to the bible:

"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first"

please keep note of that.

as exhibited by michael, uriel and saraquel 25 lazarii is. unheard of? its VERY impressive, we can likely attribute this to one of two things;

1) aziraphale and crowley doing a miracle could have equaled 25 lazarii together as a combination of their heavenly and demonic energy

2) crowley is implied to have been a dominion, throne or higher in the hierarchy of angels. for those who arent familiar with the hierarchy of angels here is an image:

as we can see thats. pretty high all things considered especially compared to gabriel, michael, uriel (supposedly) and aziraphale. we still dont know exactly WHERE he was placed but based off of what we know crowley did as an angel my personal bets are on dominion (please let me know if you have any better ideas/genuine)

NOW an angel that high up could bring back a lot of dead on their own but combined with a principality (or any rank of angel) regardless of ability on ones own will assist in bringing back more dead for the second coming.

i really truly believe that THATS why the metatron wanted both aziraphale AND crowley. truly he would have no other reason to give a shit.

PART TWO: I DON'T FUCKING TRUST THE METATRON AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU (OR YOU AZIRAPHALE, SORRY SWEETHEART BUT YOU CHOSE WRONG BUT I APPRECIATE YOU TRYING TO DO GOOD DEAR)

NOW if you thought i was onto anything before, wait and see because i have EVEN MORE FOR YOU.

the metatrons outfit has weirded me out from the first time we saw it. we really only ever see heavenly beings wearing white, silver, beige and magnolia in the case of aziraphale. the metatron wearing black (it might be charcoal) didnt make much sense to me until when i was digging around for answers on lazarii i found this:

"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."

as we know the metatron is the voice of god, but to be honest i dont exactly trust him. who knows if hes just abusing this title to have a "fun" rehash of armageddon? we dont know and wont until we do obviously but only part of the point i want to make,

aziraphale most likely associates darker clothing with crowley and to a more broad association with a friend, the metatron wearing darker clothing could be to mentally fuck with aziraphale a bit into feeling more comfortable around him as the person hes most comfortable around is always in black hence "sheeps (demons) clothing".

so those are my current theories, please feel free to leave any you have and ty for reading 🖤

footnotes

•lazarii, the term is used to reference lazarus the man jesus brought back to life.

•metatron, a bitch i do not trust or like.

#good omens 2 #good omens #good omens 3 theories #idk if that's a tag but oh well #good omens theories

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areiacannaid · 8 months

Text

Declination

What if Halt joined Morgarath instead of the Rangers? A small AU based off of this prompt/story idea from @nilswolf8.

Link to read on AO3

“I could use a man like you in my ranks.” Morgarath said, finally getting to the point behind the clandestine nighttime meeting he had summoned Halt to.

“I can’t say I care much for the idea of being used.” Halt replied, truth cutting through the sarcastic way he had phrased it.

“Merely an expression,” Morgarath assured with a wave of his hand. “Regardless, I would value someone with talents like yours. And there’s much that I could offer you in return for your services.”

And, now that the offer was out in the open, Halt allowed himself to consider it.

When he had first come to Araluen, he’d had a vague idea of joining the Rangers. That was how he had been trained, and their high, influential, position in Araluen was no secret. He’d been interested in seeing what he could gain by working his way up to the top of such an organization. Although he had always preferred to work in the shadows, power promised a sense of control and protection in a way nothing else could manage. Halt had spotted his opportunity when he met, and saved, Crowely in that tavern. But the Rangers were not the seat of power they had once been and the tides of war were shifting.

Which left his choice between Crowley and Morgarath. He knew enough to guess that Crowley might be the safer person—but, in the end, it really wasn’t about people.

Halt had learned long ago there was no such thing as love or loyalty. People only ever used others for as long as they had something to gain, and then simply discarded them when that use had run its course. All that really mattered was how much one could extract from those connections before they invariably died.

The choice really came down to what could be attained in the end, and what path offered the greatest chance for survival.

Halt had no real sense of connection to the Rangers. That had ended the day his old life had, deep within the cool blackness of the river that had nearly claimed his life.

A sharp memory of pain caused him to reach a hand towards his chest. The passage of time had done nothing to temper his memory of that day, and he doubted it ever would. He’d been reborn from the water that had been intended as his grave. He’d clawed his way to the bank, gasping for breath, water stained red and pink with the blood his injuries dripping around him. His mouth had been seared with the ash of desperate but unheeded words—the last time he had ever called for mercy or help.

His fingers brushed against the twisted scar tissue beneath his clothes, but felt no sensation save for the numbness of severed nerve endings. It was a blank nothingness that matched the cavernous feeling that had settled deep inside his chest since that day. He didn’t know if he even remembered anymore what it truly felt like to feel.

Everyone he'd ever thought he’d loved had either tried to kill him, or had left him to die. So, connections and sentiment meant nothing to him.

In the end it really was an easy choice. Morgarath simply had more to offer than the Ranger’s ever could. He had the greater odds for victory and therefore promised a greater chance of survival and a greater chance of potential gain. It was the smarter, more logical option. And he’d be lying if he said he was unsympathetic to anyone daring to rebel against a vitiated King and bring an end to the corrupt nobility he so despised.

“Well, what do you say?” Morgarath’s sibilant voice broke the grip of his revelry.

“I’d say we should talk terms,” Halt said.

Morgarath smiled, eyes bright with a calculating light. “Let's hear them then.”

He listened as Halt stated his counter offers, reasonable terms for spoils and a higher more autonomous position on Morgarath’s ranks.

“Prove your worth to me and you will have all that you asked for,” Morgarath said, holding out his hand to signal his agreement.

Halt took the offered hand.

~x~X~x~

Halt stood in the wreckage of a burning village, the place where the last vestiges of the King’s army had fled after their crushing defeat at Hackham Heath. The King and several of his knights had escaped—but they had been the only ones to do so.

Halt’s strategy, combined with Morgarath’s Wargal army, had decimated the King’s forces. They had chased the last of them here to this village; a place they had tried, and failed, to find refuge and defensive footing.

The broken remnants of the King’s army had not been enough to defend this small village from the massive force of Wargals Morgarath had sent. That was clear enough from the carnage around him. The bodies of Wargals, soldiers, and villagers lay intermingled where they had fallen: the unavoidable price of war.

Halt inhaled the sharp smoke from the fires burning around him, his bow at full draw and leveled at the last standing soldier—if a child could really be called an enemy soldier.

The boy, no more than twelve years old at the most if Halt had to guess, stood defiantly, sword held defensively in front of him, eyes shining with wild determination. Before his feet sprawled the unmoving bodies of Wargals and even a few men that he had slain. Behind him, clinging desperately to his legs was a younger boy, probably no older than five if he had to guess, and very likely the last survivor of the villagers that had once called this place home. His large brown eyes were blown wide in pain and primal terror.

“Why haven’t you released your arrow?” Morgarath’s sneer came from behind him. “He is the enemy. One less of them breathing is all the better for us. Or is his age too much for your scruples, Halt?”

“It isn’t that,” Halt said blandly. “It’s that killing him would be a waste. I saw him before when I reconnoitered the King’s army camp. He’s the son of Sir David; the newly appointed Battlemaster to the King. I figured he'd be worth more to you alive as leverage.”

“Indeed?” A vicious gleam came to life in Morgarath’s eyes even as his lips curled in a cruel smile. “Then size him and kill the village boy.”

Halt saw the older boy’s eyes widen at that callous order, flashing for the first time with fear and, just as quickly, calculation hastily covered.

He brandished his sword as the soldier’s closed in.

“If I’m worth something to you alive then so is he,” he addressed Morgarath, indicating the younger boy with a tilt of his head. “He’s my brother. If it’s ransom you want, my father would pay for us both.”

“Your brother?” Morgarath challenged scathingly.

“Illegitimate, but yes. My father fell in love with his mother when he was last stationed near this village,” he explained hastily.

As Halt watched the boy, he found himself feeling an unexpected measure of interest towards him. He was skilled in combat, seemed more intelligent than the average knight, and was quick on his feet.

He was also a liar.

The young village boy was not any blood relation of his despite his story, Halt was certain. His tells were minor ones, but they were there. He was merely trying to protect the younger boy from death, though Halt couldn’t piece together a motive as to why—he couldn’t fathom what the boy possibly stood to gain from it.

Every word had been a falsehood. But the greed in Morgarath’s expression showed plainly that he hadn’t caught it. He seemed far more interested in the added leverage of a potential scandal. Halt, for his part, said nothing. It wasn't his responsibility to keep Morgarath from being manipulated by a child. That was something the Warlord should be able to do for himself.

“Take them both,” Morgarath ordered.

Halt shrugged. It didn’t matter much to him either way.

~x~X~x~

“Perhaps you could tell me why it is that your father doesn’t value your life enough to agree to my demands?” Morgarath’s raging carried almost as loudly through the dungeon passages as the anguished sounds of screaming did.

It had been over a month since the capture of the two boys, since the Battle of Hackham Heath where King Duncan had escaped with his a few of his knights and commanders. The King had holed up in a fortress in the far north, with eighteen fiefs still under his command. Morgarath’s ploy to use Sir David’s son, or rather ‘sons’, as leverage had not met with the success he wanted.

Having received a less than favorable response to his ransom and blackmail demands, Morgarath had flown into a rage and decided to vent it on the object of his anger. Halt’s mouth turned down faintly at the uselessness of it all. Like all emotions, rage was ultimately pointless and would fix things as little as torturing a child for the decision of their parents. Which was to say, not at all.

Morgarath would have been better served to lower the conditions he set for the boys’ safe return. Halt had always known that no knight with the barest trace of loyalty or duty to his King would have agreed to such concessions—even if he did profess to love his son. The life of two boys weighed against the safety of what little remained of Duncan’s kingdom was a clear logical choice.

Halt rounded the corner, stepping past the guards there. They did nothing to stop him as he’d become a more than familiar figure.

“Were you just that much of a disappointment to him or does he just not care?” Morgarath demanded of the Battlemaster’s son.

Halt entered the cell silently, watching as Morgarath lunged at the helpless knight’s son, watched as the youngest boy strained against the chains holding him, tears streaming down his face as he screamed desperately, despite his obvious exhaustion, for Morgarath to stop. For his part, the knight’s son was far past the point of words, past even the point of screaming anymore. He did not answer the furious warlord. The lack of response only seemed to infuriate Morgarath more.

“Maybe my demand wasn’t taken seriously enough. Maybe I’ll start chopping off pieces to send to him. Maybe then he will listen! Maybe then he will start to care!”

As he said it, he drew and raised his sword, edge down for a cutting stroke at the boy beneath him. The boy’s eyes, though barely conscious and filled with pain, still glistened defiantly. Brave and defiant, just as the younger one was.

Halt felt something unidentifiable stirring in his chest at about the same time he felt the idea, which had been stirring in the back of his mind ever since he’d predicted the failure of Morgarath’s ransom scheme, solidify into clear purpose.

“Hold a moment, if you would, Lord Morgarath,” Halt said calmly, but loud enough to be heard as he stepped forwards.

“You had better have a good reason for interrupting me,” Morgarath hissed venomously, stopping his blade mid-swing by only the barest frenzied grip of his self-control.

“I do. Before you damage him irreparably," Halt said, gesturing toward the downed boy with an inclination of his head. “I have a proposition. Why don’t you give both boys to me?”

“For what purpose?” Morgarath asked.

The rasp in his voice and the clenching of his fingers told Halt that he was only seconds away from losing his temper entirely. Halt knew he needed to be concise and quick if he wanted to be successful.

“The way I see it, if their father already refused the deal, it's unlikely there is anything you can do that would cause him to suddenly value his children more than his duty or position. But they can still be useful to us. The King still has many Rangers left at his disposal and they even now give him a greater advantage in this war. I figured that you could use a similar advantage. What if I could train for you, your own force of assassins with the skills of the Rangers? We could rival and surpass Duncan in every aspect. These two,” he indicated the boys, “could be the start to it. I see potential in them already.”

“And if you are wrong about them?” Morgarath asked, though Halt could see that he was already growing interested in the idea, the familiar hungry gleam was back in his gaze.

“Then,” Halt shrugged, “you can finish what you started.”

Morgarath seemed to think a moment before sheathing his sword.

“If you want them, take them,” he said dismissively, words languid. “They are no longer of any use to me.”

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