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gingerbreadmonsters · 2 years

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ALL MINE

or: it’s easy to have a good time, if you don’t mind getting a little messy - all it takes is meringue, cream, and strawberries.

the long-awaited finale of LOVE HEART! gn!reader, domestic fluff to smut, absolutely and without exception minors dni. this is… a lot more explicit than i thought it was going to be - i really didn’t think i had this in me, but what @ejunkiet wants, @ejunkiet gets! i hope this does the hot boi summer aesthetic justice :) sweetheart’s a brit because i say so - it’s not necessary for the plot, but quite frankly i think it’s a crime that eton mess and trifle don’t exist in america, and this is my only way of promoting them, so there you go. @solclaw is the source of all knowledge, and i am making trifle in their honour - rowan darling there is always an extra bowl for you!

sweetheart is gender neutral, and their anatomy is not described. milo’s skin is stated to be of an appropriate colour to show love bites, but no specific colour is mentioned and the reader’s skin is not described at all. milo being an excellent sous chef for just over 3600 words.

this fic contains explicit content, and is 18+ only. minors please do not interact with this one i am BEGGING you. thank you.

“sweetheart, you’ve, uh… you’ve got a little somethin’ just there…”

“here?”

“a little higher, to the left - no, no, your left - let me just-”

he licks his thumb and strokes it over your cheek, wiping away the stickiness as your lips pull into a very familiar smirk. christ, he knows that look, knows what it means when you run your tongue over your teeth, eyebrow cocked and head tilted to the right - it usually means that whatever you’re about to say probably isn’t fit for polite company.

“it’s not fair - how come i always get it all over my face?”

damn that mouth of yours - even when he knows it’s coming, you still get him blushing up a storm. “not my fault you’re such a messy eater, sweetheart. maybe i oughta have you wearin’ an apron next time.”

you smack lightly him in the arm with the wooden spoon, laughing at his mock-outraged expression as you go back to your cake batter. “go and get me one then, lover boy. it’s weird to hear you telling me to put on clothes, though.”

he… yeah, he doesn’t really have a comeback to that.

the two of you have been in the kitchen all morning, putting together the desserts for david’s birthday party this afternoon. it’s pretty fucking warm today, early summer and all, so you’ve got all the windows open and the fan going full blast to try and balance out the heat from the oven. both of you are sweating from the humidity, so he’s can’t really be surprised you’d forgone the apron for a little while.

david always insists that he doesn’t want anything for his birthday, but the rest of the pack - as happens every year, and’ll probably happen until the end of time - has other ideas. about a month ago, his mate had sent him off on some errand or other and got straight on a video call with you, sam, and ash’s mate to get something together.

(he still can’t figure out how the four of you seem to read each other’s minds, ‘cause the lot of you can be fucking terrifying when you’re on a mission. if he’s honest, he’s still not recovered from that goddamn prank with the door, and he knows that ash has lived in permanent fear of sam’s overhand serve ever since his mate had made the dubiously-successful suggestion of late-night tennis. it’s got to be something to do with this secretive “mates’ group chat” he’s heard legends of…)

(it gets a little more complicated when you’ve got to get the actual wolves involved, but david’s mate is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to organising shit. jesus, it’s like they’re the alpha, sometimes, and you’ve told him that you’ve met superiors at DUMP that are less intimidating. it’s no bad thing - that’s what you need when you’re dealing with a crack team like the one right here.)

(well, maybe less of a crack team, and more of a team on crack, but that’s what you get for trying to get him and ash to actually stop bickering and decide on a playlist or whatever.)

in any case, the pair of you have been put in charge of desserts for today - well, nobody was going to have ash go anywhere near anything that needed to be edible, and sam had declined politely, saying something about how “unless david’s developed a taste for O negative, i might not be too much help in the caterin’ department”. fair enough.

it doesn’t help that basically the whole pack is coming, and wolves aren’t exactly known for their, uh, delicate eating habits. you’re going to need a lot of food, and as if that wasn’t enough, you’re going to have to impress david fucking shaw. looks like the fridge is going to be working overtime in this weather, huh?

you’d taken it as a challenge, which meant that yesterday evening had been dedicated to all of the shit that needed to set overnight: tiramisu, cheesecake, chocolate tart, caramel shortbread… he doesn’t know how the hell you managed to balance it all in the fridge, but he’s not touching it, not a chance.

(it’s got to the point where he had to ask you to grab him another can of soda off the shelf because he wasn’t looking to accidentally knock something over - you’d thought it was funny, but he’d been dead serious! that new flavour you bought - the ones in the pink cans? - is really good, especially in this heat, but it’s not worth a dessert catastrophe, alright?)

(he’s especially not going near the trifle on the middle shelf - it looks pretty freaking impressive, what with all the layers and shit, but he doesn’t need you mad at him for swiping one of the raspberries off the top.)

(he remembers you making it last time, when his ma’d come over for lunch at the weekend, and you’d damn near kicked his shit in for accidentally trying to put the custard in before the cream. let’s just say he’d got the message loud and clear - he doesn’t get in the way when you make trifle any more.)

this morning’s endeavours have got you two dashing about trying to get the last few desserts finished, in a flurry of buttercream and baking powder. neither of you could remember whether david likes chocolate or vanilla more, and his mate’s not picking up, so you’d just made both - the victoria sponge is cooling on the rack over by the microwave, and the chocolate cake’s just come out of the oven.

fuck, it’s hot in here today.

the morning is almost unbearably humid, sun beating down outside between a few, sparse clouds. looks like you’re both going to need a shower before you go, as if there wasn’t enough to do. his shirt’s unbuttoned, sleeves pushed up to the elbows and collar hanging open, and he’d be tempted to take it off entirely if he didn’t know that when he does that, you almost always end up late.

you’ve got all of the ingredients for cream puffs (at least, he thinks that’s what they’ll be? you’d rattled off some fancy name, and he’d just kind of nodded and gone back to his strawberry mousse) laid out on the counter, while he slices up some kiwi for the fruit salad.

he’s not bad at cooking, by any means, but you’re the pro when it comes to desserts - he’s really just your sous chef today, and the system seems to be working pretty well.

(hey, it’s not like he minds you bossing him around a bit. he certainly hasn’t been complaining about the view today, seeing as the warm weather’s got you wearing a little less than normal.. and christ, when you do that thing where you grab him by the hips to move him out of the way? you know exactly what that does to him, you little minx.)

speaking of b- wait, what the hell are you- “sweetheart, what on earth…?”

you appear to be bashing the ever-loving shit out of the meringues he’d bought from the store yesterday with a rolling pin, and a plume of powdered sugar drifts up out of the bowl to get blown apart by the fan as you look up at him.

“eton mess,” you say, as if that explains everything. “can you pass me the strawberries?”

you’ve eaten what? he takes a big gulp of soda and watches as you tip the strawberries into the massive bowl, followed by an equally-enormous helping of whipped cream, and start mixing it all together. is that all you’re going to do? oh, wait, you’re adding a few handfuls of blueberries and… yeah, you’re just carrying it over to the fridge.

“it’s really nice, actually. sweetened cream, fruit, and smashed-up meringue. plus, it’s meant to look like a trainwreck because it literally has mess in the name, so david can’t complain.”

actually, that’s a pretty good idea. he drops the empty can into the trash, already missing the coolness of the metal on his warm skin, and reaches for another kiwi. “well then, i’ll guess have to try some when we get there, won’t i?”

you stop just in front of him on your path to the fridge, holding the bowl in one arm, and catch his wrist with the other.

“...sweetheart?”

“we have to be there at 1, right?”

what’s that look on your face? yeah, that’s what the text from ash’s mate had said. “well, the party actually starts at 2, but we gotta give the others a hand setting up, first. why?”

“did you want to try some now?”

he’s not quite sure what you mean, and your fond little huff tells him that he’s probably making that dumb expression that you keep telling him is cute, but he thinks is plain embarrassing.

“the eton mess, genius. want some?”

well, it can’t hurt, can it? not if you’re offering, surely. plus, you’d just said it was supposed to look all jumbled up, so nobody’ll miss a little bit of cream off the top. he reaches behind him to grab a teaspoon when-

“mmmm, it’s really sweet.”

his jaw drops. he swallows heavily, very glad that he hadn’t had a mouthful of soda, watching as you finish licking the cream off your fingers and hum contentedly. there’s a tiny smudge of powdered sugar just by the corner of your lip.

“baby, you gotta…”

the thought tapers off into nothing as you dip your finger back into the bowl and swipe it through the cream, looking up from your hand to meet his gaze. “don’t worry, honey. i already washed my hands.”

your other hand deposits the dessert on the kitchen table behind you, and comes to slide around his waist, under his shirt, as you move closer. idly, he feels your fingers playing with the back of his waistband. his own hands, still sticky with kiwi juice, hover just over your hips.

“go on. try some.”

no need to tell him twice. he leans down and licks your finger into his mouth.

mmmm, you were right, it is good. the sweet cream tastes like vanilla and strawberries, and the crunchy pieces of meringue melt slowly in his mouth. he swirls his tongue around the tip of your finger, eyes closed, lapping up the drops of strawberry juice in the creases and spirals of your fingerprint.

your other hand is digging insistently into his back now, fingernails pressing into the muscle there as his teeth graze across your skin, biting gently at the pad of your fingertip before releasing it from his mouth with an exaggerated pop.

“...how was it?” you’re both breathless, not an inch of space between you as he slowly licks his lips.

“i’m not too sure, sweetheart,” as he spins you both around so you’re leaning up against the counter, “i might need another taste to make sure.”

your answering grin only lasts a split second before he’s kissing you, all tongue and teeth and powdered sugar. sticky hands come up to cup your jaw as you greedily reciprocate, hastily untying the knot of your apron behind you.

everything is hot, the fiery heat of your lips against his as he growls softly into your mouth, and he briefly thinks that he probably ought to put the bowl behind you in the fridge before you get too distracted.

the thought is quickly forgotten when he feels you start to play with the tab of his zipper - he tips his head back and gasps as you press burning kisses down his throat, nipping at his adam’s apple.

“baby, baby - aghhh…”

you smile against his skin, cheek resting on his shoulder. “too much?”

“no, nonono, it’s good, ‘s really, really, oh, sweethea- fuckfuckfuckplease-!”

his brain goes delightfully blank as your fingers dip inside the elastic of his boxers and close around his cock. the pressure is just enough to have him groaning, hips twitching forwards into your hand, slow strokes just the way you know he likes.

head spinning, he pulls hazily at the hem of your shirt, too drunk on your touch to hear your laughter (he can’t quite tell if you’re calling him “needy” or “pretty”, and it really could be either), too desperate to worry about the careless way he’s practically tearing your clothes off you.

whatever it was, he’ll buy you a new one.

now that he thinks about it, with what little brainpower he can summon, this is probably why you asked him what time the party started.

“let - hahhh - sweetheart, let me touch you too,” he’s burying himself in your neck frantically, pushing his face against the sweet spot under your jaw, “wanna touch, want you feelin’ good, let m- shit, right there- sweetheart!”

you nod, regretfully withdrawing your hand as he hoists you up to sit on an empty part of the counter, between a stack of cookbooks and the side of the fridge. as soon as you’re settled, he wastes no time in pulling your face back down for another kiss while you shimmy out of the rest of your clothes.

you dangle your shirt just at the edge of his vision, showing off the unfortunate rip in the side seam that couldn’t possibly have been his fault, but you’re quickly placated by his teeth skimming over your now-bare collarbone.

he’s fairly sure you forget about it entirely when he makes good on his promises - one arm hooks around your shoulder and up to the far side of your head to nestle your face down into his neck, and the other runs over your chest and down your stomach until he finds what he’s looking for.

“nnnng, milo- ah!” your stifled keening goes straight to his head as you rock into his hand, voice breaking as he works you harder. he always knows how to make you sloppy, slick snaps of his wrist just where you’re most sensitive. “more, more, need it, yesyesyes-”

he shushes you softly, kissing the top of your head while he makes you see stars. “that’s it, sweetheart, mate, my mate, so good, so so good, that’s my baby…”

your hands scrabble to push his shirt off his shoulders, but it doesn’t quite work with his arm up by your head as he keeps you upright, cheek now against his chest. instead, you settle for reaching back down to stroke him faster this time, feeling more than hearing the growl that shudders through him as you tease the tip.

he feels the pleased thrumming of your mate bond, right in his chest where you’re pressed against him, and curses lowly as you kiss just over where the magic settles. goddamn, does it feel good when you’re both all blissed out like this - heady pleasure ricochets across the bond, building and building inside, misting in his mind until he’s not sure where he ends and you begin.

both of you are shaking now, sticky with sweat and eyes screwed shut as you prop each other up. he knows he’s getting close, faster than usual, but he doesn’t want to stop so soon, especially not when you - fucking hell, when you twist your hand like tha- haaah…

“sweetheart - sweetheart, please, can i…?”

he doesn’t even get the whole question out, although that’s probably for the best seeing as he’s not sure his love-drunk brain can manage full sentences right now. you’re already wrapping your legs around his waist and urging him closer to you, one hand on his shoulder and the other spreading yourself open for him.

“yeah, yeah, please, milo i need you, love you, love you so much…” he can tell that you’re having as much trouble as he is with words, but even so your voice is equal parts lust and love as you lean in to sweetly kiss his nose. fuck, you’re hot, and he can’t help but smile softly at the adoration on your face when he presses his forehead to yours, reaching up to gently smooth his thumb over your cheek.

the world goes blurry for a second as he pushes into you - you’re so warm, so slick and tight, aching for him to fill you, hold you, please you. the mate bond in his chest is white-hot and happy, sparking with joy as you tug him closer. he sets a decent pace, a little faster than normal, savouring the way you stutter and whine with pleasure into his skin.

“feels - mmf! - you, you, i-” the stack of cookbooks by your hip totters as you hastily push it aside, limbs clumsy and breath hitching.

“i, yeah, i know, ‘s good, so fucking perfect, sweetheart-!”

he grinds his cock deeper and deeper, laying you back on the counter and pressing his weight down over your body. the change in angle lets him nudge up against that sweet spot that has you gasping for air, back arching up into him and hot, needy tears threatening to spill over.

he feels the sudden burst of ecstasy as it rushes through you and overflows into your bond, and he moans, long and broken, into your neck. your hand slips between your bodies, lower and lower, so he tilts his hips just a little to give you the room you need to - shit, he loves watching you make yourself feel good, and the way you tighten and tense around him is almost, almost too much.

every instinct tells him to mark you, his mate, and he feels his teeth start to ache as you rock up into him.

he licks over your pulse, feels it pounding under his tongue, and wordlessly urges you to do the same. your free arm loops around him and your fingers tangle into his hair as you seek out the fading hickeys on his neck, a satisfied hum swelling in your chest as new ones blossom in the wake of your mouth.

his teeth dig into your shoulder when you leave a particularly dark love bite just above his collarbone, and he can tell that neither of you are going to last much longer.

“milo, milo- nnnng, so much, can’t… please!”

giddy with pleasure, he threads his arm under your waist to press right back into that sweet spot inside you, the heat of you too much to bear. “yeah, s’okay, sweetheart, s’okay, let go - baby, fuck, mine, my mate, all m- haahh-!”

his core sings with yours, desire and love and bliss washing over the bond and sloshing around in his chest. somehow, his lips find yours, and for a second - no, an hour - no, forever, he and you are paradise.

slowly, the world begins to filter back in, and he watches fondly as you grab the side of the fridge to pull yourself upright.

“how- how long do we have?” your voice is soft and a little hoarser than before.

he blinks up at the clock over by the doorway. “it’s… nearly half past eleven?”

your eyes meet, and you sigh once before pushing him back a step and letting him help you down off the counter. he’s sure that he probably looks totally fucked out right now, hair a mess and eyes still a little dreamy, but he helps you into the bathroom and leaves you to shower.

(he’d much prefer to shower with you, but he knows exactly how that’s going to end, and neither of you need david’s mate yelling at you for turning up late. he’ll be damned if ash and his mate beat you there again.)

walking back into the kitchen, he picks up the remains of both of your clothes and heads towards the bedroom to put them in the laundry hamper, remembering halfway through that he needs to put your bowl of meringue-cream-whatever in the fridge. and finish cutting the fruit. and melt the chocolate, and turn the cake out of the pan, and-

the sound of running water in the bathroom stops. he’ll do it in a minute.

surprisingly, you do actually make it to david’s house mostly on time, although unfortunately not before ash catches you two running in from the car. he smiles wickedly as he opens his mouth, presumably to say something about the very obvious hickeys all over milo’s throat, but you cut him off before he can even manage a wolf whistle.

“milo, baby, did you bring the tennis rackets, or is sam going to?”

ash immediately flinches, life apparently flashing before his eyes, and ducks back into the house - presumably to beg his mate not to make him play against sam again. you snicker, leaning into his side, and god, does he love you.

(he did not bring the rackets, thank goodness. david would probably commit a murder if he thought they were going to try and fuck up his yard with tennis.)

(again.)

“you’re somethin’ else, you know that, sweetheart?”

“yeah,” you reply, “and you like it.”

well, he can’t say no to that. the pair of you wave david’s mate over to help you carry the desserts inside, and he’s suddenly overcome with a rush of affection as you heft the stack of cake tins in your arms.

just before you cross the doorway, he stops you.

“hold on a second, baby. i think you’ve, got a little somethin’ just there…”

“hmmm? where?”

he kisses the side of your cheek sweetly, “all gone now, sweetheart. just a little leftover cake mixture, is all.”

your face splits into a devilish grin as you realise what he’s doing, and in the early afternoon sun it makes you look like a goddamn angel.

“not my fault i’m such a messy eater.”

PART 4 - always read the label

masterlist

this is an original work by @gingerbreadmonsters - please do not repost or misattribute

#redacted asmr #milo x sweetheart #redacted milo #redacted sweetheart #redacted smut #redacted fluff #milo x reader #redacted asmr smut #redacted asmr fluff #ginger after dark #ginger writes #gingerbreadmonsters

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iwannawritelots · 11 months

Text

BE: Aesthetically Pleasing

Originally written May 2023

AO3 - I usually post here first!

Part 1 Part

Human AU Masterlist

Characters Active: Simeon (23), Asmodeus (16), Satan (1)

Ship(s): pre-established Simeon/Barbatos

Trigger/content warnings: none

Headcanons/notes from the author: hehe…

Brief Blurb: Simeon can’t get their mind off of the pretty goth that keeps showing up at work.

Taglist: @graveswrites

“Simeon, is everything okay?”

The person in question snapped out of their trance, giving Asmodeus their full attention. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You’re twirling your hair around your finger and spacing out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do that before.” Asmodeus rubbed Satan’s back when he began to whine, and resumed bouncing him on her hip.

Simeon quickly took their hand away from their hair, face growing hot as they began to feel silly about it. “I… haven’t really had my hair this long before, so that’s probably why. Sorry.”

Tilting her head, Asmodeus asked, “Wait, why are you sorry?”

“I… don’t know. I thought maybe you were pointing it out because it was bad.”

“No, of course not.” Asmodeus waved away the thought, then quickly returned her hand to Satan’s back to soothe him. “I thought maybe something was wrong since you are so spacey.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

After a moment of quiet, Asmodeus asked, “Then… what is it?”

Simeon snorted and shook their head. “You’re nosey.” They glanced at the pot on the stove, then added, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell you, but you can’t tell Lucifer.”

“Ooh, keeping secrets from Luci?”

Rolling their eyes, Simeon told them, “Sure.” Asmodeus switched the hip Satan was resting on, then leaned against the counter. Suddenly more nervous, Simeon began to fiddle with their hair again. “That wealthy regular brought a friend with him yesterday.”

“Oh…?”

“Yeah. A really… intimidating and pretty goth person. They were really aesthetically pleasing, so I’ve been thinking about them a lot.” Simeon huffed and crossed their arms. “Then he brought them with him again today too. The beautiful goth is just… so polite, too.” They shifted their weight and averted their gaze, realizing how weird it probably sounded when they talked about it. “I dunno why I’m so infatuated. It’s strange.”

Asmodeus giggled and shrugged. “Knowing you, it’s probably not going to become anything romantic. Maybe you just have a squish.”

“Probably.” Simeon sighed and stared off for a moment. “They’re so pretty. I really don’t want to stare at them like some sort of weirdo, but just…”

“Yeah, that’s how I feel about Solomon.” Asmodeus rolled her eyes when Satan screeched with protest at her taking her hand away for a second to push her hair out of her face. “I mean, I doubt you’re being creepy on purpose, if at all, but you tend to be pretty obviously nervous when someone is attractive to you.”

Simeon frowned and turned away to focus on the food they were cooking. "I do not."

“Uh huh. And I don’t go to parties.” Asmodeus walked to the dining table and set Satan in the high chair, sighing when he shrieked and sobbed with displeasure. “I hope you try to befriend this person. They obviously interest you.”

Flustered, Simeon told them, “Th-That’s probably unlikely, since it’s an employee-customer situation.”

“If you say so,” Asmodeus sang out, petting Satan’s hair. The baby simmered down a bit from his fit, crying turning into sniffles. “Do you think Satan will calm down if I give him some crackers?”

“Maybe.” Simeon left the stove for a moment to dig around in the snack cupboard. “Does he still like the strawberry ones?”

“Yeah.”

Simeon passed the crackers over to Asmodeus and returned to their cooking. They couldn’t help wondering if she was right… As they stirred the food and stared into nothing, Simeon thought maybe it wouldn’t hurt to seek friendship from the pretty goth.

#butterfly effect #obey me! human au #obey me! one master to rule them all #obey me! nightbringer #simeon #asmodeus #baby satan #simebatos #simebarb #iwannawritelots

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no-gorms · 2 years

Text

Timestamp ficlet for Love’s Such an Old-Fashioned Word, set a little while after they get together

Steve/Tony established relationship, 800+ words

It does occur to Tony that maybe they should stop. That he should tell Steve to stop. The team has commented more than once that they’d appreciate it if he and Steve restrict anything more intense than a lingering kiss to their private rooms, i.e. away from any area in the Tower that has decent likelihood of the team walking in on them. It’s a reasonable request.

But if Tony tells Steve to stop then he’ll, well… stop. Even if he only tells Steve to get off him so they can resume elsewhere, the rhythm will be gone.

Maybe. Probably.

Or maybe Tony is loath to ask Steve to stop because he’s too busy being impressed by the fact that five minutes ago Tony was complaining about something on TV, four and a half minutes ago Steve oh-so-casually put his arm around Tony’s shoulder, and somewhere after the four-minute mark Tony ended flat on his back on the couch with Steve on top of him.

Steve’s gotten really, really good at kissing. Appallingly good. So good that Steve has every right to be smug about it (though he’s usually too polite for that), but it’s made even more intense thanks to Steve’s pressing Tony into the couch cushions. Steve’s a broad man, his shoulders boxing Tony in, and though Steve’s bracing some of his own weight, there’s just enough of a press of his chest against Tony’s that it suggests that Tony would have to push hard if he wanted to escape.

Not that he wants to.

Not when Steve’s mouth is demanding Tony’s attention, his kisses hot and slow, making Tony lightheaded – though admittedly not lightheaded enough that he can’t also acknowledge that despite his personal wants, he should probably ask Steve to hit the pause button.

The rest of the team has been very nice and supportive of their relationship so far, but that could change at any moment. Even if Tony convinced them that Steve initiated this particular make-out session, Steve’s apparent inability to feel shame where Tony is concerned means that Tony’s going to be feeling the brunt of it.

Speaking of feeling the brunt of things, there’s now a literal press of Steve’s hardening length at Tony’s upper thigh, solid and distinct where it rubs near Tony’s hip.

That’s new. Kinda new? Tony knows Steve has one, of course, but they’ve been taking it slow because Tony’s a headcase who doesn’t know what to do with himself when he gets exactly what he wants without the universe immediately informing him what the catch is.

Steve breaks the kiss and pulls back.

Tony’s first reaction is to be offended, because how dare Steve be more reasonable than Tony and stop the proceedings before Tony does. Tony’s second reaction is to blink dazedly up at Steve, whose eyebrows are raised in a surprised question.

“What?” Tony says.

“Too much?” Steve asks, though from the way his body shifts it feels like he wants to keep going. “It’s okay if you want to stop.”

“It’s okay if I want to?” Tony echoes.

“Tony, you…” Steve looks him over cautiously. “I, uh… pressed against you, and that felt like a no.”

“What? No, I’m not panicking.” Tony takes stock of the noise in his brain. “Surprised, yes, but not panicking.”

“Surprised,” Steve says flatly. “You do know that I’m very attracted to you?”

“I am aware.” Tony licks his lips, which are still kiss-swollen. “I am aware of it from an intellectual standpoint. In the sense that it is a fact, and you have affirmed it, and I know it.”

“But?”

“I don’t know, it’s weird.” Tony then adds, because Steve’s looking increasingly baffled, “You have a stiffie. ‘Cause of me. That feels… naughty. Somehow.”

A fond smile twitches Steve’s mouth. “Naughty.”

“It’s you,” Tony insists, as if that makes sense.

“I’ve pictured you naked,” Steve offers. “That’s probably naughtier.”

Tony’s brain short-circuits a little. “In… an aesthetic way? The male form is pleasing, and all that?”

“What do you think?”

Tony feels a smile grow across his face, matching the one that Steve’s still wearing. “I think that there’s plenty of things in your brain that you wouldn’t say out loud in polite society. Though fantasy-me had better be less attractive than real-me.”

Steve huffs a laugh, and drops his head to kiss the space beside Tony’s nose. “The real you drives me to distraction the way that nothing in the world can.”

“Good,” Tony declares. “Though we should probably not do this here. I swear I saw Vision side-eye me the other day.”

“You’re right,” Steve says, though he does sound regretful about it. He lifts himself off of Tony and helps Tony sit up, and then takes a nice couple of seconds to admire his handiwork in disheveling Tony. “Sorry about that, it’s just really nice.”

“Nice?” Tony echoes.

“That I can do that,” Steve admits sheepishly. “That when I get the urge to kiss you, I can. That’s just… neat.”

Tony looks at Steve for a long moment, wondering at how that admission seemed to take more out of Steve than his saying that he fantasizes about Tony in the nude. “I am so into you, what the fuck.”

Steve clears his throat. “That’s really neat, too.”

#scaramouche writes superhusbands fic #superhusbands #verse: this could be heaven for everyone #doing little exercises #trying to remember how to write fic #it feels like i FORGOT

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nightcall99 · 25 days

Text

Dreams from 1.4.24

Dream 1 (which I woke up from) MN told me to go on my break. I think I politely refused or didn't show any signs that I was making moves to go, since it was a little too early in my book for lunch. But then he mentioned it again, gently, Go on break Kath, so you can come back early.

Dream 2 I had a dream where I was your HS. There energy was not me anymore, but you. The energy was always what I've sensed as being you, but I had never known it consciously. There was no denying that I was seeing things from your energetic viewpoint but behind that, the awareness that looks on over everything (and what lies behind my own HS) was the same. I remember how it felt to be your HS and less about what actually happened. I think you had cracked. You were in the chat and you were angry, but it wasn't exactly anger, it was a type of cracking. Of letting go. I think Mort had said something. Or somebody had said something, and there were no more masks. You challenged him/them but also it was not a challenge, it was being real. The realest that anyone can ever be, but saturated with mania and madness and letting go of confines and giving birth to something, that cannot ever be reigned back in. Your HS was power, terror and an unleashing. It was very strong energy and this is the best I can do to describe it. All I know is that you cracked and it neither good nor bad, it just was. (I think this is probably the frustration going on behind the scenes with ppl being slow af)

Dream 3 I was at school and the next class was swimming class, which meant we had to travel by bus to the swimming pool. I didn't really want to go, it was too much effort. At the same time, I didn't mind going as long as AL would be there. So I asked her, Are you going to go? She said, No. But then after few moments she said, Yes but it won't do anything for me, I don't want to go but I will, only because it will pass the time and then I will be able to go home and be tired and I'll go to sleep and I'll be able to meet Bobby (her cat) 'there'. (I get the feeling that my HS meant one of her cats that have passed away that also has a B name, because the sense is that she will be able to meet them in heaven/the astral).

Now I'm in the change room of the swimming pool and putting my bathers on. I wasn't sure what to wear. And instead of putting on the appropriate swim wear for what it is I'm about to partake in, I am trying to decide on what regular outdoor outfit to wear. I keep taking my clothes on and off, looking in the mirror and trying to make the outfit 'feel' right. Eventually I had on a midriff top and cut-off shorts. I was thinking about changing the top from a plainer one, to one that was magenta pink because AL said it looked better. Also, it would match the aesthetic of what other people seemed to be wearing.

Then that scene disappears and I am standing in a full piece swimsuit that looks more like wet suit than anything. It was not fashionable at all. The area beyond my knees and elbows was where skin showed. It was in the same colour as the top from the previous scene, hot pink. There were buckles to keep the wet suit in place at my thighs, but I didn't do them up yet. Then I met some chick who was being weird and a little rude to me. I can't remember what she said, only that she had on the same bathing suit as I. When I walked out of the change room and saw AL, she said that I lost weight. I could see it too, the ribs of my chest more pronounced than before.

Then we went swimming. But it turns into being my sister and I having a bath inside of our house. I think we are children again. We seem to be wearing swimsuits, while having this bath. My mum kept calling us to finish already and come out. The first time, I ignored her and same goes for the second time. I was just in that world and did not want to be disrupted. And then the third time, I heard her voice more clearly somehow and that was the time I decided to listen and leave the bathroom. When I got into the living room, it looked like there had been a party in our house, unbeknownst to my sister and I. But I think we did know, just did not want to. People were sitting on the couch opening presents and my mum said, Why did you ignore me, you said you would get changed and come out immediately, you were suppose to attend the party and now it's almost over. Her friends, or maybe it's her siblings, they all look at me and don't say anything. I barely feel any disdain in the air, it's just whatever, at least we're here now. I get the impression that SM and his gf were invited to this party but since he knew I would be there, he didn't come. They made an excuse to avoid it.

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episodicnostalgia · 26 days

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Reading Break - Worms & Spiders

Featured Art: MotaArt: (above) Rick Leonardi & Al Williamson: Spider-man 2099 #1 Mark Bagley & Art Thibert: Ultimate Spider-man #11 Patrick Olliffe: Amazing Spider-man Family #3

Welp!

It’s been longer since I last posted here than I'd hoped it would be. Unfortunately, I’ve had to prioritize work for the time being, and it’ll probably be a little while longer before I have the opportunity to post my next episode review [TNG ep. 123 will be next in line, when I do finally get to it]. In lieu of writing, I’ve been trying to be at least bit more mindful with my downtime, avoiding the various social media timewasters, and taking more time to read.

For my "serious" reading, I’ve been slowly picking away at ‘God Emperor of Dune’, which is pretty fucking trippy. Seriously, If you thought the first book was weird, then I’m here to tell you that whatever "spice" Frank Herbert was using, he upped the dose exponentially for each subsequent entry. I’ve read a lot of disparaging reviews and comments online about ‘God Emperor’ that led me to believe it might be pompous and dull, but I’ve honestly found it to be thoroughly engaging, though admittedly subject-at-times to some ignorant world views.

For my "fun" reading, my recent reviews of ‘Spider-man: TAS’ have inspired me to peruse through my old Spidey comics, which have been a real trip down memory lane (and very on-brand for this blog). The two series I’ve been bouncing between are the original ‘Ultimate Spider-man’ from the early 00’s, and ‘Spider-man 2099’ (early 90’s). I remember when each respective series was first being released, and how cutting edge each of them seemed. Overall, I’d say they hold up decently well, although clearly products of their time.

‘Spider-man 2099’ is unsurprisingly the more noticeably dated of the two, and a lot of that comes down to the now-unmistakeable 90’s aesthetic, along with the somewhat clunky ‘future slang’, which seems to predominantly consist of substituting profanity with vaguely techno-sounding-words. If you don’t know what the Shock I’m talking about you can go look it up for yourself. But It’s Rick Leonardi’s artwork where the book really stands out to me, though. I always thought he was an underappreciated artist, and deserved a proper run on ASM, but 2099 probably gave him a better opportunity to flex his talents.

I feel like a lot of people forget today (as I suppose they inevitably tend to) that Ultimate Spider-man was once THE hottest Spider book on the market, and while reboots-featuring-a-teenage-peter-parker may be a dime a dozen today, it was a breath of fresh air in the year 2000. It’s easy to see why too, Bendis and Bagley work great together, and it didn’t hurt that Marvel spared no expense on the physical presentation of the book. Simply put, each issue looks sharp, from the digitally painted cardstock covers, to the glossy pages; this was a book with high production values, featuring top tier talent. No expense was spared in making sure the artists were featured in the best possible light.

One thing I’ve can’t help but notice is the differences in attitudes and ideals between the two books. I know a lot of people like to pretend that comics were less political ‘back in the day’ but that’s never been true. I do think that politics have sometimes been easier to ignore during times of less civil unrest, but clearly the writers have always had opinions and ideals that were being expressed whether they knew it or not. For instance, Peter David’s work on 2099 seems to lean more politically left, and is notably quite critical of nationalist, corporate, and capitalist interests, depicting a world that feels (in some ways) more relevant now than it was back when the series was being released.

Comparatively, Bendis’ writing seems to play it a bit safer. He appears largely progressive in his social views, but also less willing to criticize institutions like the military or government beyond anything on a surface level. I can’t say it’s too surprising, since ‘Ultimate Spider-man’ only began it’s run shortly before the 9/11 attacks, and I can imagine that even if he were inclined to do so, Bendis would have likely received pushback from anything deemed too politically controversial. But some of his writing leads me to suspect he falls towards a more politically centrist stance, resulting in a book that, while being LOADS of fun, has perhaps less to say on certain social issues. Some people might argue it’s for the best, but I kinda like it when writers are willing to get a bit messy, as I think it makes for more interesting discourse. But then again, maybe I’ll find myself eating these words as I continue my read through.

I think that’s enough musing from me. The fact remains that each of the artists I’ve discussed in this post are far more accomplished than I will likely ever be. At any rate these criticisms are really more just meandering observations, about which I could easily change my mind later on. Hopefully I’ll have more time to focus on my proper episode reviews in the coming months.

But if you’ve made it this far, thanks for hanging out.

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canmom · 1 year

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kerberos final comments

ok, i think this is the end of the latest week where i take a semi-deep dive into a semi-obscure film series from the 80s-90s. after all’s said and done, then... what the hell was going on with this thing? does it manage to justify, you know... that?

So. About the Nazi thing.

If we start with the manga, Kerberos is a essentially similar concept to Ghost in the Shell (which is ofc in Japanese 攻殻機動隊 Kōkaku Kidōtai, “Mobile Armored Riot Police”) or Patlabor. It’s about a heavily armed, ethically dubious near-future paramilitary police force, the sort of people you’d find in such an organisation, and the political context that created it. Compared to GitS, its characters are much less vividly defined, but like GitS, it largely reacts to the world through the lens of Kerberos, and to a certain extent their rivals Public Security. Plotlines in Kerberos concern the individual lives of Kerberos soldiers, or the machinations of their leaders trying to expand the organisation and squabbling over territory with the normal police. It’s full of dog metaphors

Incidentally, if you’ve seen Jin-Roh, you’ve seen a better version of the first three storylines in the manga. The fourth one concerns radicals hijacking a plane, drawing on the actions of radical groups in the 70s. The leader of the the radicals takes more of a centre stage, although his motivations are kinda opaque at the end of the day; he seems like a prototype of the villain Yukihito Tsuge in Patlabor 2, at least in terms of affect, but he dies before his hijacking can get very far.

All of that on the face of it sounds reasonably interesting! The art of the manga is very nice in an Otomo-inspired sort of way, and while none of the characters are especially sympathetic, it’s a convincing window into an interesting historical pastiche.

But the first thing you’d ever notice about Kerberos is that they dress like this:

...big scary Nazis with glowing red eyes. That’s the iconic image of the series, and just about every work makes sure to have some scenes of a guy dressed like that machine gunning some poor unarmored sods, to greater or lesser dramatic effect depending on whether or not you’re Hiroyuki Okiura.

So my biggest question going into Kerberos is like, why do they dress up like weird Nazi space marine cosplayers?

Diegetically, it’s because Japan lost WWII to the Nazis, who used a nuke. Most Kerberos media that I’ve encountered doesn’t especially seem to bother spelling that out, but Jin-Roh - easily the most artistically accomplished of any Kerberos media, sorry Oshii - goes far enough to illustrate it with historical-photo styled still images of Nazi soldiers marching up the streets of Japan:

In Jin-Roh, at least, Kerberos are clearly continuous with this occupation, with an almost identical shot of Kerberos soldiers marching shortly after:

How did Japan end up in a war with Germany, a country that notably does not border the Pacific, and how the hell did they end up losing so badly as to be occupied when Germany lost the war hard even with Japan’s help in reality? (Who indeed fought the war besides Japan and Germany?) But none of the Kerberos media I’ve read have tried to address this wider geopolitical situation; the role of replacing the Americans with the Nazis seems to be to just slap a lot of WWII-era German aesthetics in a rather superficial way: replace an airline with Lufthansa here, or have the slogans of the protestors mention Lebensraum or Weimar there.

‘Nothing would have been much different if the Nazis occupied Japan instead of the Americans’ is a statement that would have a lot to unpack (an anti-American statement? discomfort over being allied with the Nazis?), but I’m not sure it’s really what Kerberos is going for. If you look at otaku-oriented media from this period, you do notice a current of Nazi military equipment obsession (which hasn’t exactly gone away, indeed acquiring increasingly esoteric iterations) coming from the ‘military otaku’ side of the subculture.

For example, in Gainax’s FLCL, there’s an episode where Naota’s father Kamon is dressed in a Nazi uniform for a paintball episode (the same one which has parodies of Western animation like South Park), complete with swastika:

Likewise, Oshii’s adaptation of Urusei Yatsura also has a few recurring bits with Nazi imagery, generally played for jokes. For example, in the second movie Beautiful Dreamer characters dress up a café with a WWII theme with a bunch of Nazi symbols, which is discussed well by Hazel in her video on Vladlove (around 11:40 if the timecode doesn’t work)...

youtube

So there’s definitely a sense that in the subculture at this time, Nazi imagery doesn’t have the ‘definitely an edgelord, almost certainly an actual fascist’ connotation that it does over here. In Western media meanwhile, Nazis are generally used as the ultimate villains over whom we were victorious, suitable for when you portray some morally uncomplicated violence. So putting in these scary Nazi suits as your main characters feels like a really dramatic statement to me, but it may not have been for Oshii.

Nevertheless, let’s see where we go with it. My general approach to the Kerberos films has been to assume that Kerberos members are by default unsympathetic, it’s drilling into the fucked up depths of fash ideology, and Kerberos certainly admits that reading. A lot of the Kerberos manga concerns the organisation’s overly violent methods and eagerness to accumulate arms causing escalations and needless deaths left right and centre.

Jin-Roh especially shows Kerberos’s conspiratorial ‘Wolf Brigade’ carrying out a ruthless purge of their enemies to preserve their organisation, and then performing a completely fucked loyalty test by demanding that Fuse murder his girlfriend to prove his dedication to being a ‘wolf’. In contrast to the stylised theatric approach of Oshii’s violence, Jin-Roh’s scenes of bodies being cut down by machine guns are about as sickening and hyperreal as animation can make them - they are honestly far nastier than they would be in live action.

In Jin-Roh, the Metropolitan Police come off every bit as fanatical as they describe their enemies. The revolutionaries aren’t necessarily cast in a particularly positive light, with Kei as the main member of the Sect to get extensive screen time - and she finds herself thoroughly disillusioned with being a bomb courier as she gets drawn into the machinations of Kerberos and Public Security. But, even with the playing around the ‘who is the wolf’ concept, by the end we see Okiura’s take on Oshii’s endless dog metaphors is that committing to Kerberos is to decide to assume the role of the rapacious wolf of Red Riding Hood, who would shoot anyone to preserve the unit.

But what about Oshii’s manga? I talked about how Oshii was of the Anpo generation, and certainly the Anpo demonstrations - and the various desperate terrorist actions of the New Left that came after - sit barely under the surface. However, the point of view it’s interested in seems to be much more the lower ranking members of Kerberos. Like dogs - good god is this man obsessed with dogs lmao - the Kerberos guys are blindly loyal, have little other place in society, and are unceremoniously disposed of every so often. The main characters of the films feature here and there - notably Bunmei is the one scheming against Kerberos here, recognisably modeled after his depiction in The Red Spectacles, and Midori gets to stop the plane hijacking - but it’s as likely to focus on a low-ranking soldier (the first Inui, model for Fuse) or a helicopter pilot. There is not, by and large, a lot of internal conflict for any of the characters.

Tachiguishi Retsuden, although it seems a different alternate history again, gives another piece of the puzzle. (Unfortunately the only subtitles I can find for this movie are badly translated from the Chinese subs, which makes it a little hard to follow.) The stand-up noodle bars are associated not just with crime but with stray dogs, who were poisoned in large numbers as a health control measure; this image is also shown in the Urusei Yatsura episode that invented the ‘tachiguishi’ freeloader concept, where we see a dog and a cat fighting outside. Oshii clearly sees something tragic in the extermination of these dogs who had no place in the more modern society, and seems to find this a suitable metaphor for his fascist paramilitary.

To me, the idea that the Kerberos were heroic in suppressing the crime and protests seemed like an obvious propagandistic fantasy, and given the choice I’m obviously gonna sympathise more with the leftist rebels rather than the Nazi-backed state in this conflict, even if the situation has decayed as civil wars do into a point where both sides are more concerned with self-preservation and ruling their turf than winning. Painting the state in Nazi colours then seems like a way of saying, don’t take this guys very sympathetically, and it’s definitely a convincing depiction of a bureaucratic state mired in infighting (no doubt because it’s drawing heavily from history).

But... I’m not entirely sure this is the angle Oshii is taking on it.

In StrayDog, lost puppy Inui searches Taiwan for daddy Kōichi to tell him what to do, with the help of a girl Tang Mie who kind of adopts these two exiles as they do their homoerotic bonding thing. They spend a long time wandering around Taiwan to slow music (it’s a very Oshii film), having muted conversations about Inui’s need to find a master to tell him what to do. Once the pair find Kōichi, although Inui is angry with Kōichi for abandoning Kerberos, they settle down and seem to be kind of happy just being some kind of lobster-fishing polycule. Inui here can’t be the same Inui as in the manga (since that Inui died), but he’s basically the same concept, a boy who is helpless without someone telling him what to do [there’s not exactly a consistent Kerberos continuity so much as variations on the same ideas].

Public Security are on the trail though, and Inui - loyal to Kōichi despite the fact that Kōichi is plainly not worth any sort of loyalty - overpowers him in order to carry out a power-armoured suicide by cop and give Kōichi a chance to escape (which we know that he uses to go to Japan and promptly get shot). If the action scenes in The Red Spectacles were weird disconnected montages that felt extremely theatrical, the action scene here, which sees Inui advancing through a building cutting down identically trenchcoated and facepainted men who run blindly towards him, feels mostly like a video game. In the end, Inui wins the battle but dies from it.

(Which means on the one hand, highly stylised and abstracted live action violence, and on the other, hyperrealistic animated violence with plausible military tactics and genuinely horrible depictions of gun death. Going in opposite directions from different starting points... I’d say they end up in a similar place, but tbh Jin-Roh, as in most things, is way more impactful.)

Anyway, StrayDog seems to have more of an “isn’t this sad” sort of flavour. The dog metaphor for Oshii in the manga is stated most explicitly in a scene shared with Jin-Roh, where Bunmei discusses disposing of the ‘Special Brigade’ in order to integrate Kerberos with the regular police. The dialogue in both versions is a speech full of dog metaphors, but in the manga, the scene is further introduced with a dead Kerberos member and a stray dog passing by. This metaphor then becomes central to StrayDog.

The manga’s Inui, like Fuse in Jin-Roh, hesitates before shooting and almost dies, but here the person he hesitates to shoot is not a bomb courier who’s prepared to take them both down, but a civilian who is trying to help one of the revolutionaries, who levels a gun at Inui. Inui’s story here is about failure to integrate into the Kerberos unit, who aren’t willing to accept this particular ‘stray dog’ despite there being no other place for him. Inui tries to prove himself with dramatic and reckless violence, gets rejected for refusing orders, and then on his way home, gets killed in a reprise of the first situation - oh this poor boy it’s so sad.

In Jin-Roh by contrast, Fuse’s hesitance to shoot is the first move in a whole character arc - at first it seems like his remaining humanity which he eventually abandons, but we are left with some ambiguity whether his original hesitance was genuine, and happened to pay off in the Wolf Brigade’s favour, or part of a very complicated ploy. (Despite being the central character, and even seeing his dream at one point, we’re given a lot of room to interpret Fuse, and the ‘why didn’t you shoot’ question is pointedly never answered.)

Anyway, so, my conclusion about all the Nazi imagery in Kerberos is... honestly I think Oshii just thought it’s cool? As we see in VladLove, he loves to just namedrop historical trivia. I’m not sure he even considers it as fraught as I do. Which isn’t fun but I feel like any other reading is unparsimonious at this point.

What is surprising is that Okiura managed to take what Oshii was putting down and make something genuinely compelling. Jin-Roh a real proof of the power of his realist style and ability to suggest character with subtle acting. Its realist animation becomes hyperreal, the abstraction of cel shading underlining how much is ‘right’ in how the drawing moves, and it works for what’s primarily a spy movie.

At the same time... Okiura did a way better job than Oshii ever did of making those scary Nazi suits seem powerful. Kerberos here are kind of the idealised supercop Judge Dredd types - I was reminded of the Dredd movie from a few years ago where Dredd unstoppably advances through a building, killing everyone in his way. Though maybe Robocop would be a more contemporary comparison.

It works for the movie, in that Fuse’s choice to side with Kerberos and use the armour to massacre the Public Safety agents moving to apprehend him is properly sickening. It becomes kind of like a horror movie at this point, with desperate attempts to stop him with grenades bouncing off the armour.

So I guess we’ve gotten back to the old question of the different ways of portraying violence in film, what a fascist film looks like etc. I don’t want to relitigate that one, although I think Okiura’s angle is appropriate - even if it is fetishistic? One Youtube commenter on the video essay I linked back on AniNight wrote:

Jin Roh is a movie about semi-realistic bullets physics. The creators be like: Guy 1: 'Hey, you know what's cool? Seeing dolls gets rag-dolled by flying bullets.'

and he’s kinda right lol, that is sorta what the movie is about. But it remains a very effective image, much like the gunfights and realistic educations in Dahufa.

All in all, I guess the result of this deep dive is basically the existing consensus: The Red Spectacles is worth digging up as a deeply weird surreal film; I wouldn’t bother with StrayDog, the manga’s OK but Jin-Roh is imo the only one that manages to justify what it’s trading in here.

And as far as all these Nazi images goes, the aspect of the Nazis we’re focusing on in any of these films is much more ‘fearsome invading and occupying power’ than ‘perpetrators of the Holocaust’. If Nazi ideology has influenced the reconstructed Japanese state in the world of Kerberos, the series never bothers to illustrate how. Despite everything... it really doesn’t seem to actually be about the Nazis on a level beyond the superficial. The conflict in Jin-Roh/the manga is basically a heightened version of Anpo, or like... any 20th-century anticolonial movement really. In the first two movies... idk, throwing darts at a board, the Meiji restoration doing away with the samurai lol?

Meanwhile Tachiguishi-Retsuden is kind of... ah, I know some of ya had fun with it, but honestly I found it dragged really badly. The janked out subs were a large part of that and I think a decent fansub could do it a lot of good, but I kind of felt like most of the gags went on too long to really work, even with the ‘spot the well known illustrator/anime director’ game it’s playing with the casting. Though maybe being tired after a long evening of films underlies that reaction, I need to learn my lesson about three-movie film nights. The animation style was interesting as an experiment at least.

And that’s quite enough of that, I think I’m satisfied. Though at some point as far as ‘fash aesthetics in anime’ go, I still haven’t gotten around to ripping Youjo Senki a new one. Expect that... sometime. It’s an exhausting anime to think about though so who knows when.

#anime #animation night #kerberos saga #jin-roh

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a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire · 4 months

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Alright, holidays are over and Im regularly taking the bus again so its time to read A Court of Mist and Fury. I've made through the prologue and the first three chapters and I feel like I already have a lot of thoughts so Im splitting them into two posts. This one is just gonna be random silly bullshit that I wanted to mention but dont have any deep thoughts on, the next one is gonna be my thoughts about the character development that happened between the books

why does Sarah J Maas always seem to use the vaguely pagan (?) moon and moon cycle imagery when theres like, an all-woman religious institution in her books. Like, Ianthe has that tattoo on her forehead and shes dressed in blue robes and wears a lot of silver and it reminded me of that one random aside in Crescent City where we hear about those priestesses that worship the goddess Luna, like with the robes and headbands and stuff, when theyre first initiated they get a headband with a waxing crescent moon, then when theyre at their peak they get one with a full moon and when they get older they get one with a waning crescent. Like, obviously I know that the moon is associated with with witchcraft and feminine magic and whatnot so it makes sense in a doylist sense, but like, whats the in-universe explanation

You know what, maybe I do have deep thoughts about some of this stuff, what the hell is up with the High Priestesses? Theres twelve of them ?? for some reason?? Theyre said to be the advisors of the high lords on top of their religious duties, so if there were gonna be more than seven, I would think there would be 14, two for each court. But they actually appear to be wholly seperate, like they just dont belong to any particular court. And thats weird to me, but Prythian is technically one united kingdom (get it, cuz the map looks like fucking great britain for some reason) despite some of their inter-court tension so maybe that makes sense. But then WHY do they have such a Night Court-core aesthetic, wearing dark blue (night sky) and silver (stars) with tattoos. If they were an institution thats completely seperate from the courts, I feel like they should use imagery/an aesthetic thats not already kinda taken by another court. Like, idk, rainbows maybe, thats the only thing I can think of rn and it could also make them a symbol of Prythian's unity or something

This is only tangentially related, but how come the Night Court doesnt seem to have any moon imagery associated with it? I say seem to because I havent actually seen it yet, but from the fanart and from what I can remember from cari can read's summary, its all stars and darkness and dreams but not the moon??? which is the thing I personally associate most with night but okay

I was not expecting a sex scene in the first three chapters and I was especially not expecting Feyre to describe her having an orgasm as "I passed away". Granted, that might just be the german translation being weird, I dont have access to the original english but still. Then again, I guess they dont call it the little death for nothing

Speaking of the sex scene, I thought the people saying this were joking but no, she was literally asking him about the political implications of their marriage on some random ass night while they were getting it on, thats hilarious. And then she got TURNED OFF when Tamlin told her there werent any high ladies this series shouldve been a comedy

Last thing I wanted to mention is the use of the formal and informal yous in the translation, which is still really good. As a reminder, du/dir = informal you; Sie/Ihnen = formal you; Euch/Ihren = the most formal you, usually reserved for nobility. Feyre used Euch/Ihren for all the high fae in the first book (atleast for the first half, I havent really kept track of the pronoun usuage), Tamlin and Lucien used du/dir for Feyre, Alis used Euch/Ihren for Feyre. In this book, all the servants still refer to her by Euch/Ihren but Feyre, Tamlin and Lucien are all on a du/dir basis with each other now. Also, Feyre uses Euch/Ihren for Ianthe and honestly, that alone says so much about how important she is within the court, I feel like I didnt even need an explanation of what exactly she does, but this book was written in english qhere they dont have that so I get it

#acotar critical #anti acomaf #flames and darkness liveblog #anti acotar

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heartandsoulcomic · 2 years

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what would Sarafina be like In Underswap?

Underswap Sarafina is something I’ve actually thought about a lot, so a wall of text under the cut for those who want to read it :)

Quick disclaimer – I don’t know much about Undertale AUs other than their basic premises and aesthetics, so a lot of this is based on my interpretations of the AUs and might not (okay, probably don’t) match the “official” ideas about them.

That being said…

Underswap! Sarafina – AKA The Spectacular Sarafina AKA Bandanna:

Bandanna’s nickname comes from the blue bandanna given to her by her father that she never takes off. She likes that nickname well enough; however she says that her “superhero name” is The Spectacular Sarafina. It never sticks though.

Bandanna is friendly, outgoing, energetic and committed to training to be “a mighty warrior” – and hides a bunch of deep-seated anxieties.

She also has a bit of a tempter that she’s very good at keeping in check… usually. Once she bit a rather nasty photographer who tried to take her bandanna off of her when she refused to remove it herself for a picture.

Bandanna lives with Sans and Papyrus because her parents are not currently together, mostly due to crushing guilt on Queen Toriel’s part. She spends every third or so weekend with Toriel.

Unfortunately, these visits are often canceled, as Toriel is very busy with Monster Kingdom issues, and feels time running out to make things right for her people since she is aging again (something Bandanna subconsciously blames herself for). Toriel also feels that she doesn’t deserve to have a chance with another child after everything she did, so she is often very emotionally distant towards Bandanna. Toriel does love her daughter very much – she just rarely shows it.

Without a partners’ support, Sans just wasn’t really ready to be a parent – he’s terrible about things like discipline and bedtimes. Sans is also busy with guard work most of the time; he threw himself into his work after Toriel moved their relationship back to strictly professional. Sans adores his child, but has little time to spend with her.

This has resulted in Bandanna being pretty much raised by Papyrus (the older brother in my interpretation of this AU). Papyrus actually does a very good job as he had experience from more-or-less raising Sans at a young age. Papyrus is frustrated with both of Bandanna’s parents when it comes to her, but is uncertain how to approach them about Bandanna without making things worse.

(He’s also frustrated over the fact that literally everybody can see that Sans and Toriel still love each other deeply and long for one another, so they need to freaking communicate and work out the issues keeping them apart, but that’s not something he’s touching with a ten-foot pole, thank you very much.)

Bandanna dearly loves her uncle (whom she unironically calls Uncle Pappy), and is often very worried about him, though she keeps that mostly to herself. Some of her concerns stem from his supposed “laziness” and the nightmares that seem to plague him that he refuses to talk about…

She expresses some of this worry by constantly being on Papyrus’ case about his smoking habit. Papyrus has tried pointing out that he doesn’t have lungs to harm, to which she primly retorted that she DOES, so he’d better keep those cancer-sticks far away from them both. Papyrus has yet to find a hiding place for his cigarettes that Bandanna can’t quickly suss out.

Bandanna trains hard with Alphys, in part because she enjoys it and wants to be a tough fighter, and partially because she hopes it will catch her parent’s attention and make them proud. She is both pyrokinetic and telekinetic, but specializes in summoning bone attacks, as weapon summoning is what Alphys is best at tutoring her in. She’s a very skilled fighter even at this young age. She absolutely loves shows like American Gladiators and Ninja Warrior.

Bandanna is in a bit of an odd place politically. The Monster Kingdom is already in a weird state politically on the Surface since it has no real territory, but Toriel is more-or-less recognized as the leader of the Monsters, and Asgore is recognized as the abdicated king. Bandanna is the Queen’s illegitimate child, so she is not recognized as a princess, but many still expect her to learn about rulership in case something happens to Toriel and Asgore never picks up the crown again. But Bandanna has zero interest in that sort of leadership. She wants to be her people’s protector, not their leader.

#ask heart and soul

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yesyourstalker · 7 months

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Neta: so I take the slices of carrot cake and I kind of put it together and they make a whole cake

Warabi: so what you're making a wedding cake out of frozen carrot cake that's been in your freezer for 2 years?

Neta: no! I hate carrot cake. I don't like the texture but whatever he wants I do for him. I don't even know if we're going to get married. Honestly, I don't think I want to get married anymore. I was married. It wasn't great at the time but what kind of settled made peace............. Wow! So as if she knew I was talking about her.

Warabi: I'm going on break

Neta: hey syl.

Sylvia: hey Net........ How are you

Neta: I'm alive and medicated. How's your eye?

Sylvia: you know it's still glass. How's your ear?

Neta: still gone. Hehehehe.... But really how are you?

Sylvia: I'm good alive and medicated I heheheh.... I'm actually doing great! I'm engaged!

Neta: That's amazing! Sylvia, finally marrying Rift. He seems like a good guy. Cirrina seems to like him.

Sylvia: yeah... Of course he can't replace her actual dad. How is she?

Neta: doing good. She's at a turf war game right now. She's been going frequently. I think she might want to be on a team maybe when she gets to high school.

Sylvia:hmmm You know I hate those things. All it does is just glorify war and romanticize the shit that we've been through....... I swear surface culture........they have no respect for anything. They treat everything like it's a game.

Neta: come on Syl lighting up. It's different up here.... It's......... *sigh* I don't know. I should feel the same way too, but seeing her play. Hanging around with friends and acting normal. Having a childhood....... I don't want to take me away from her like it was taking away from us....... Just seeing her smile and laugh and I can't take that away from my little girl.

Sylvia: *sigh* I guess you're right......... As long as she's safe and happy. How is surface world anyway?

Neta: It's good, I got tanner hehe.... It's great! I'm really happy up here.... Got a nice store. Working my own business....the apartments are kind of small but I don't think I'm going to be staying there for long.

Sylvia: you still seen that metalopod guy? Hehehehe you two look very happy. It's kind of weird seeing you in a magazine. Was not a good picture. Terrible angle.

Neta: they never get my good side............. It's complicated right now. It's not bad complicated....... It's kind of like a waiting game right now...... You should meet him you'd like him............ Do you ever think of coming up to the surface??

Sylvia: no, I'm not going back. It's too much for me. I only went up there for missions. That's all I associate it with now. Every time I'm up there my guard is up and everybody is a threat I-......I can't..... I'm sorry

Neta: I feel the same way about the bunkers.... I can't go back down there............ever.... Is it different down there since the war is over?

Sylvia: It's really different! I wouldn't even call them bunkers anymore. We have shops, we can legally purchase and enjoy surface media now! Better plumbing, better homes. We have nicer light panels now! Of course the nicer areas have glass! Apparently they're working with jelly-co installing glass sheets so we can actually see the sun without going out to the surface!...... Which honestly is ridiculous because glass is a lot cheaper than artificial sunlight

Neta: *pffth*........I guess they're still treating sunlight as a luxury now and not as a right........typical....

Sylvia: Don't try to make this political. We'll be here all day hehehe...... I just wanted to catch up and ask if I'm able to have Cirrina over for a week. It's next year to be at the wedding and maybe....... Do you want to come too?

Neta: I think we can arrange that to happen. She'd love to see you get married....... I don't know about me though. It may change of aesthetically but........... It will always be a prison for me.............*sigh*..... I-

Sylvia: I get it. I completely understand Neta............ This place was not kind to you or anyone at that time

Neta:...............*sigh*................ Maybe I'll try going down there for a visit........ I want to see what music they have I can put in my shop.

Sylvia: whenever you saaay........... Maybe I can try going to the surface just to see cirrina play....... I also want to see how small your apartment is.

Neta: hahahahah shut up. See I knew you were going to do this. You always have to make fun of me about something!

Sylvia:wah wah wah.......... you shut up! If you're coming underground you better wear something nice not ugly clothes they wear up to the surface. They're like walking billboards. It's tacky, everything has to be branded. It's crazy.

Neta: RIGHT???. We used to just take blank shirts and draw pictures and shit. These kids have to have name brands. Do you know how much Toni kensa cost? It's like 100Gs for a pair of black and white shoes not the sales price!

Sylvia: I'm telling you surface dwellers don't take anything seriously. They don't know the value of money. They don't know the value of anything they just-

Neta: I thought you said we weren't going to be political.

Sylvia: be quiet............ The baby's crying. I got to go. Bye Net.

Neta: I got to pick up cirrina and see you later syl........... She's getting married. Maybe I should reconsider..

Mahi: she sounds nice. I can run the store If you're going to be underground for a while.

Neta: yeah thanks no problem. It'll be next year I have enough time to prepare myself and just to ......... mahi.... Were you listening to my conversation?

Mahi: just snippets of it You're next to the cash register. I couldn't help it here.

Neta: no, not that part. The fact that you can understand it. When were you going to tell me you know octarian?

Mahi: You never asked.

Neta: ..................................

Mahi: also, if you don't like carrot cake, you can just like get spice cake which is like carrot cake without the carrots but similar flavor

Neta:.......... Go on your break. I can't. I can't deal with you right now. Hahaha You're ridiculous hehehe You knew everything I was saying? what if I was talking shit huh?

Mahi belongs to @fish-at-fish-fish-resort

#yayy Neta and his ex-wife are friends. yay! they don't hate each other like I intended it to be #they both realize that they were only together because of shared trauma and an accidental pregnancy #cirrina also has a half brother! but I'm not going to dive deeper into that He will be a permanent baby forever! It will only be mentioned #but very little #and Mahi he was there the whole time! they just didn't say anything #Even when they were having a 30-minute conversation about cake mahi was there they just had nothing to add to the conversation

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implausiblyjosh · 1 year

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S3 Picard & S1 CSI: Vegas

This is a repost from my cohost account! Major spoilers for Star Trek: Picard, minor spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery, and all of the following outbound links are to a character's fandom wiki page.

i, uh, like trash tv. it's a problem. i was recently doing a rewatch of the hit FOX tv show 24 because that show is way more unhinged than i remember, even from the beginning. CW's The Flash is must-watch tv for me, i drink my coffee out of a mug with The Flash on it every thrusday when i watch the new episodes.

in my quest to watch more trash tv, i remembered there was a new CSI show out, CSI: Vegas. CSI is prime Josh Trash TV, it's a show i used to watch with my mom when i was growing up that we both agreed was trash (me a bit more than her) and we watched anyways because it was a thing to watch when it was on. not so much "must-see" tv, but more "must-observe". "must-study"? whatever lol

CSI: Vegas is a continuation of CSI, taking place in the same setting (Vegas) and includes fan-favorite characters like Grissom and Sara from the original series. it also introduces a whole new cast, who get a ton of time to bounce off of old favorites while also defining themselves.

the interesting thing is that the "gimmick" of the new series also builds on the formula of the old series, and plays with the tropes of copaganda procedurals. in the old series, there would be about two cases per episode. characters would get split down the middle to take on the two cases, doing their investigating and finding evidence and so forth, while also occasionally coming together to give each other inspiration. usually the seasons are monster of the week style, every episode's cases are unrelated, but longer character development happens over each week to tie the series together.

in CSI: Vegas, the setup is similar. one case is monster of the week, a place for the new characters to stretch their legs and get their development. the second case is about the season-long mystery: did David Hodges fake all the evidence that he came up with during the events of CSI?

it's a neat premise! a less-trash tv show would probably read the room of Current Political Happenings of 2021 usa and just go for it: yeah, of course the cop faked all this shit, that's what happens. you'd still fall into copaganda stuff, because then the premise of the show would be "the Good Cops have to put the Bad Cops away", but at least it would be a little different, a little more interesting. regardless, it's a neat premise that allows for a lot of old characters to come up and for nostalgia to be farmed, while also progressing the new characters.

also, aesthetically, the show looks like old CSI. like, it's touched up, things look more "crisp" in the Streaming TV Era (this is a CBS streaming TV show, after all) but it's still like. pun or one-liner that leads into The Who song *Who Are You. when they Do Science there's some goofy, over-the-top CGI animation of chemicals and wounds and all that stuff. even "weird" shots are still there? something about original flavor CSI is that they'd make it look nice. if someone was rebuilding a crime scene in their lab, or doing a lot of large-scale monotonous work, there would be some interesting way to show it off. in the first or second episode they do the same type of stuff, they're marking a burned-down pawn shop into quadrants and cataloging everything, and it's one of those sweeping time-lapse shots that you'd see on Tested when adam savage is building something.

that's a lot about CSI and CSI: Vegas, but what does this have to do with Star Trek: Picard?

see, S3 of Picard is kinda attempting to do something similar, except they're failing spectacularly. the general thrust of S3 is that starfleet is under attack and must be stopped by the Next Generation cast and friends. that, i think, could be a neat premise. sure, they announced S3 was going to be a Next Generation reunion season in the middle of S2 while the characters were doing time travel shenanigans to save the universe (it doesn't matter) so we knew that this adventure didn't matter in several ways, but okay. neat premise, brings everyone back for one more paycheck to play these characters again and hopefully provide a good season of something like Star Trek: The Next Generation.

right? like, you wouldn't say "here's the cast of Next Generation going on one last, big adventure" and not play to the strengths of the tv show Star Trek: The Next Generation, right? you'd want this show to feel like Next Generation but with a modern budget and effects, right? right?

reader. i have some bad news.

see, Star Trek: Picard is setup like Star Trek: Discovery. i don't have a problem with the structure of Discovery, but it leads to some storytelling choices. the strength of Discovery is that each weekly adventure can be mildly self-contained, but also can be moving a larger plot forward. this week we're learning about a new species in this part of the galaxy, and this adventure with them will help us get closer to figuring out who that red figure is. where Discovery falls apart is when it spreads itself too thin, and each episode of the season feels like Part 5 of an arc that could have been two episodes at most. "what's beyond the milky way galaxy" is a two-episode arc in other Star Trek shows, not a season-long question that we're slowly coming closer to an answer for in Discovery. ya know?

anyways, the first four episodes of S3 Picard are answering "what's goin' on with Beverly Crusher and her new son", which is a weird question to ask in Picard because they haven't acted like the character existed up until now. some episodes of S1 & S2 dealt a lot with "can Picard love anyone?" and seemingly left out a very relevant character from that discussion. you do see her freak son once in S2 and he looks like he's hosting the aftershow talk show (it doesn't matter).

but that driving force for those episodes is a two-parter at best. 4 episodes? that seems a bit poorly paced. that's cause it is! there's another thing going on, where Raffi is on an undercover mission to find out who stole some portal tech and used it on a starfleet recruitment building. Worf is also there. Oh, also Ro Laren is there for an episode. oh, and now the changelings from DS9 are a threat again, and are behind a huge, slow coup of starfleet. i dunno, it's all... blurring together.

also, nothing means anything in this show. at the end of S1 of Picard Picard dies and he gets put into a Data-style android and he's still old and will die of natural causes anyways, just when the actor himself passes. it doesn't matter, it's come up as a joke a handful of times since. at the end of S2 Picard Picard befriends the new borg queen, one of the main characters they left in 202X during the season's events, which allows for a new benevolent borg who wish to join the empire. it doesn't matter, hasn't come up since and seemingly is not significant this far into the season... despite the fact the reason new main character Liam Shaw hates Picard and people from his Enterprise-D is because Picard got captured and turned into Locutus of Borg.

it's the combination of nothing mattering and not using the strengths of the show you're obviously trying to reference and call back to that makes Picard a worse "nostalgia" show then something like CSI: Vegas, which is a wild thought to put online. now the thrust of the season is "what are the changelings up to" and i don't care, really. i want to know how it ends out of fascination, but i know it won't matter. nothing else has, events in one season of Picard don't seem to matter to the next season, so who can say if this will even matter to other Star Trek shows made after this. Discovery is now set, what, 1000 years in the future of what's happening in Picard that it will likely never come up. Strange New Worlds takes place after Enterprise but before Star Trek: The Original Series that it will also never come up there. this is the last season of Picard, so it's likely any relevance these 3 seasons of television have to the greater Star Trek universe dies at the end of this 10 episode season. by April 20, 2023 it's likely this show will not be relevant to the Star Trek stories being told, a meaningless addition that the shows itself will no longer reference. Star Trek: The Animated Series will be more important to the fictional setting and stories.

it's frustrating! i love this weird universe and their weird shows with my whole heart, and it's weird that CSI: Vegas, a copaganda nonsense show made for streaming platforms to get the coveted "olds who love Gil Grissom so much" audience, is doing this nostalgia bait in a way more competent way and (crucially!) a way more entertaining way. all they had to do was "more Next Generation but with more modern tv show sensibilities" and they fucked it up so bad!

#csi #csi vegas #star trek picard #star trek discovery #media discussion #media review

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fearofahumanplanet · 2 years

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I've honestly just been contemplating what Vermont is like all day so far, like, idk maybe my perception is fucky because I'm a skier but I fully did not expect Vermont to be hick?? Like????? That's where the bougie ski resorts are ski manufacturers are, what do you mean they're surrounded by hicks?

(This very chill ask game is kinda fun ngl @andromedatalksaboutstuff)

Okay for some context to everyone who isn't Andi: I was born in Vermont and I was telling him about how perplexing its mere existence is. Now, my perspective is that of a poor person, so I have no idea what's going on in the ski industry, but when it comes to the rest of it....

Like, just to illustrate how fucking weird this state is (obviously this is all anecdotal):

The culture and aesthetic, I think, can be best described as some bizarre mixture of standard New English, Canadian, and Southern (???)

The houses and such are all very New English. Everyone in Vermont seems to love hockey an absurd amount (don't go to a sports bar during the Stanley, you will die a horrible death from your ears bleeding out) and we're basically renowned for our maple syrup, so we've got all the Canadian stereotypes. Also Vermont's politics are mostly incredibly left, especially by American standards - they have pretty much always been a very blue state, the queer acceptance is off the charts (there's still some shitheads in rural areas, but would you expect anything else?) like it tends to be one of the very first states to pass any queer bills whatsoever

I say "mostly" because everyone in Vermont has a goddamn gun. Literally everyone. There's actually not much crime there that I've ever seen, mostly bc if you tried to rob a store fifteen patrons would draw guns on you and shoot you dead. Now I'm pro-gun control, for the record, to a LARGE degree, however seeing the way this shit works in a mostly leftist state is incredibly odd. I'm pretty sure I knew how to fire a rifle before I knew how to talk

The Southern culture exists in that everyone in Vermont ever seems to spend all their time fishing, drinking, four-wheeling, hunting, or otherwise giving Cabela's good reason to put up twenty-five stores in every square mile of this state. (Don't bring up Bass Pro in Vermont, you will spark a lynch mob). Which is really bizarre in combination with its politics? Also, everyone listens to country and classic/Southern rock for some reason, like, compulsively, everywhere.

The FOOD is great. It's all a bunch of East Coast standards, a lot of seafood (a LOT of seafood) and (again, oddly) a lot of Southern staples (chili in particular I tend to find a lot)

We also have a lot of odd vernacular and slang that I've never seen literally anywhere else. Like they say "hamburg" to separate hamburger meat from hamburger (as in the full meal), or they say "idear" instead of idea (?????)

Every winter is just a war waged upon the inhabitants by Mother Nature. It is quite common to have to dig out of your own goddamn home when it snows over, and Vermonters ELEVATE THEIR HOUSES TOO. Also, the hail is no joke, that shit will take your head off (literally)

There aren't that many big cities outside of Burlington and even that is only big in comparison to Vermont and not the whole of America, most people just live in scattered rural towns and/or ass-deep 2 miles into the woods away from civilization (I used to do that and I miss it)

Literally everyone is white and yet I have seen very little racism in Vermont for some reason (it exists, don't get me wrong, it exists everywhere, but comparatively?? very little). Also a lot of religious nutjobs but the only problems I've had being trans and gay in Vermont came exclusively from my family, who I do not think are indicative of the entire state (my family is batshit insane, for the record)

Also I don't think this is indicative of the entire state either but my aunt literally has a full decked-out bar in her basement, it's not public or anything it's just her personal bar that looks like it got plucked out of a noir novel. People in Vermont are just incredibly weird

Oh yeah and sometimes I'd have bears wander into my front yard. You know, as you do. :P

#besties tag #asks

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tv-sinner · 1 year

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4, 18, 26, 31 and 43!

4. A character you rarely talk about?

Hmmm.. I guess it would have to be some of my more brand new ocs (aka ones that aren’t even developed enough to have a tag on here yet!). A lot the ocs I had on my previous oc aesthetic blog are either in oc purgatory or in the process of getting revamped entirely. Some are so new that i have yet to draw them, much less talk about them. But for now, I’ll focus on one who I haven’t drawn yet from VITW verse: Adira, a butch dandelion rogue who has a love-hate/lovers AND enemies relationship with the strawberry monster huntress, St. Wickam.

Adira was disgraced knight who now wanders the wilderness as a thief and mercenary. She often finds herself crossing paths with the high-strung strawberry and she’s made it her personal mission to play with her and to steal her heart (literally or metaphorically? Whatever happens first). Wickam was initially charmed by her but she soon realized that Adira stole her money and they’ve been getting into homoerotic fights about it (and many other instances of them messing with each other) ever since. Their relationship is.. complicated. And neither are ready to admit to themselves or each other that they have romantic feelings for each other. And that’s all I have for now. 🫡

18. Any OC crackships?

Two words: Archdemon Polycule… Or more accurately, separate polycules that have overlap with some members but not all of them are involved with each other. Here’s a visual aid I drew for this weird ass poly ship:

All Roads Lead to Asmodeus. Would this polycule be an absolute disaster of a relationship? Yes. Do I think it would actually work out? No, I doubt it would last for very long, especially when infernal politics come into the mix… Not to mention that they tend to bicker with each other a lot. Would it at least be entertaining to watch this particular polycule crash and burn? Yes. This will never happen in canon but it would be funny if it did.

26. Have you ever had to change your OC’s design or something else about them against your will?

Not exactly? The only thing that kinda made me change things about my ocs against my Will was probably the existence of H*zbin H*tel/H*lluva B*ss. For a while, I stepped away from my Hell/Heaven story partly because of its popularity/fandom and me wanting to distance myself from it, which included my own story about Hell. I would elaborate further, but there’s a time and place for being a hater and it isn’t here lol. The other, more major reason was that I had a crisis of faith in my artistic and writing ability was also having at the same time I was vocally beefing with these series on tumblr.

31. Pick one OC of yours and explain what their tumblr blog would be like (what they reblog, layout, anything really)

I can think of a few ocs who would actually have a tumblr blog.. I think the most interesting of which would be Archdemon Belphegor’s tumblr blog(s). I’d imagine she’d have several blogs: her main (memes, occasionally posts about her inventive work, plushies, science posts), a blog dedicated to programming and maybe game dev, an aesthetic blog based on 90s computers and video games, and a separate NSFW blog not connected to her main. I’d imagine she’d take the time to make her own custom layout and across the board, they’d all have old computer desktop/old video game vibes. She posts pretty frequently and she sometimes slacks off on her work to check her socials, including tumblr.

43. Do you have any certain type when you create your OCs? Do you tend to favour some certain traits or looks? It’s time to confess

Oh definitely. For one, I typically give my ocs curly/wavy hair, usually dark hair (brown or black). I rarely give them blonde or ginger hair. And even my ocs who have gray hair now were brunettes in their youth. I tend to give my ocs non-straight hair because I find drawing hair with a lot of volume/defined shapes to be more fun than just straight hair.

Aside from that, I tend to make my ocs fat, mostly because I’m fat myself! And a vast majority of my ocs end up with long lashes since I tend to just. Give them obvious lashes, regardless of gender. What can I say? Lashes look great.

#filth posts #answered #adira #st. wickam #mammon #lucifer #leviathan #asmodeus #beelzebub #belphegor #abaddon

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gingerbreadmonsters · 1 year

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I posted 2,211 times in 2022

That's 1,862 more posts than 2021!

559 posts created (25%)

1,652 posts reblogged (75%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@gingerbreadmonsters

@sri-rachaa

@ejunkiet

@sealriously-sealrious

@slushrottweiler

I tagged 1,972 of my posts in 2022

Only 11% of my posts had no tags

#ginger reblogs art - 213 posts

#redacted asmr - 165 posts

#icymi <3 - 148 posts

#a cheeky timezone rb - 97 posts

#rae beloved <3 - 76 posts

#ginger speaks to anons - 69 posts

#ginger speaks to lovely blogs - 66 posts

#gingerbreadmonsters - 59 posts

#ginger writes - 42 posts

#ooh a game! - 29 posts

Longest Tag: 135 characters

#i will most likely end up posting the same version here and on ao3 bc can you imagine reformatting the whole thing like that 😵‍💫😵‍💫

My Top Posts in 2022:

ALL MINE

or: it’s easy to have a good time, if you don’t mind getting a little messy - all it takes is meringue, cream, and strawberries.

this fic contains explicit content, and is 18+ only. minors please do not interact with this one i am BEGGING you. thank you.

“sweetheart, you’ve, uh… you’ve got a little somethin’ just there…”

“here?”

“a little higher, to the left - no, no, your left - let me just-”

“it’s not fair - how come i always get it all over my face?”

he… yeah, he doesn’t really have a comeback to that.

(well, maybe less of a crack team, and more of a team on crack, but that’s what you get for trying to get him and ash to actually stop bickering and decide on a playlist or whatever.)

fuck, it’s hot in here today.

he’s not bad at cooking, by any means, but you’re the pro when it comes to desserts - he’s really just your sous chef today, and the system seems to be working pretty well.

See the full post

174 notes - Posted May 13, 2022

in the style of @yetdevout

214 notes - Posted August 14, 2022

fizzing hot day!

or: he feels like seawater, drying on soft skin.

gn!reader, no content warnings, unless you count shirtless simeon (which, let's face it, we probably should). oh simeon, my sweet and tragic beloved. is this an established relationship? you’re looking at me like i have any idea. inspired by MIKA’s ‘sanremo’ and ‘tiny love’ - strongly suggest listening to those as you read! i am convinced that late afternoon on the beach in the sun is a different world altogether. simeon discovering what beach days are for in just over 1100 words.

it’s a beautiful summer’s day today, and you’ve decided to go to the beach.

you’ve been here before, so you know roughly which parts of the waterfront to head for and which to avoid. luckily, there’s only a handful of other people here today - no families with noisy children, or big get-togethers with loud music, or holidaymakers dragging huge umbrellas across the sand only to inevitably sit right in front of you.

just the occasional few people, scattered across the beach, peacefully soaking up the sun and the breeze and the quiet.

“so, how exactly does this work again?”

you get the feeling that simeon still doesn’t quite understand the purpose of sunscreen.

“but humans need sunlight to live, surely. when we’re in the devildom, you and solomon have to eat those… the little yellow marble things in the jar? why do you have to protect yourself from the sun when you eat your sunlight pills every day anyway?”

or, apparently, what your vitamin d supplements are.

(you explain it to him every time - you know by now that it doesn't work, but his concentrating-face is so adorable that you do it anyway. his big blue eyes go all wide and earnest, his lips part just slightly, and your heart goes all fluttery, every time.)

it doesn't matter. you take the bottle from his hand and squeeze a good amount into your palm. time to get to work.

"but d-aaah…"

his body is smooth and pliant under your hands, muscles relaxing into your firm touch as you rub the sunscreen into his back. you work over the crest of his shoulder blades and down to the small of his back, watching the soft, rich shimmer of his skin under the summer sun. the breeze is cool and gentle as it washes over you.

he stretches out on the sand underneath you like a cat, lithe and lean, and all of a sudden you suspect that he won't protest the next time you offer to put sunscreen on him.

"well, if you - mmm - put it that way, i can see why humans - hahhh - why humans bother with all of this."

exactly.

it takes a little while to get yourselves sorted, considering how distracting simeon's general state of undress is, but before long you're both settled under the umbrella. it's too heavy for you to normally bother bringing it, but it turns out that simeon's angelic strength is good for more than just opening jars and manhandling solomon away from the oven - who knew? it's a good thing too, what with the way the sunlight beats down over the sand, shattering over the waves.

for a little while, the world is quiet.

just you and him. the smell of salt, the crunch of sand, the rush of water. the sky is a rich and endless blue.

you open your eyes. you're not sure when you closed them, but when you turn your head, the distant shapes of seagulls twist and scatter in the sky. from here, the water looks cool and inviting - perhaps it'll be nice to go and dip your toes in.

“mmm, that sounds good. here, let me help you up, love.”

the sand scrapes pleasantly between your toes as you walk towards the water, fingers entwined with simeon's. as you get closer, an idea pops into your head - does simeon know how cold the water is the first time? you start to run, laughing, pulling him by the hand as he stumbles along, damp sprays of sand kicking up behind you both as the balls of your feet leave clumsy divots behind you.

simeon’s laughing too now, eyes scrunched up into happy half-moons as the water comes rushing up to meet you, still running full-tilt into the surf as you brace yourself for the inevitable-

“mc, d-hahhhh!”

yep, after an hour or two spent lying under the warm sun, the water is just as coldcoldcold as you’d predicted - and, if the way that he’s clinging to your waist and shaking his head frantically in protest is any indication, much colder than simeon had been expecting.

“you’re - hahh - mc, you’re so mean to me!”

he smiles playfully into your hair as he says it, and as you chase away the goosebumps across his back with your palms, it sounds like“i love you”.

you don’t let go of each other, but somehow you drift a little further into the water until you’re up to your waist - the temperature gradually gets a little more bearable, but you still shiver into him every time a cold current sweeps past. he doesn’t seem to mind.

you don’t say anything. your mouth is too full of clouds, soft and airy and light. the seagulls cartwheel across the endless blue above you, and you think that simeon’s is too.

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218 notes - Posted April 23, 2022

SWEET TALK

or: you’ll always be his favourite flavour.

an apology - this is written in american english, which i do not speak, for a character with a very strong regional accent, which i do not know very well! readers are encouraged to please raise cringe shields to maximum as a precaution. gn!reader, all fluff all day, no content warnings. thank you to the lovely @virtualizated for science support - have a tube of smarties on me! did you know that M&M’s are from new jersey? inspired by ‘my baby just cares for me’ by nina simone, which you should definitely listen to while reading this. milo finding out what love means in 1800 words or less.

(for context - "sweethearts" are a type of small, brightly-coloured confection sold in america that are made of chewy wafer stuff and have short, lovey-dovey phrases printed on them. we have an equivalent in the uk, called "love hearts", which (unlike the american version) are made of sherbert.)

“hey, sweetheart. you got a minute to talk?”

it shouldn’t be as hard as it is to get the sentence out.

it’s not like he doesn’t want to talk to you, and he never gets tired of talking to you - hell, he’d listen to your voice all day and all night if you let him - or anything like that. it’s just that this is about something kind of important, and he really doesn’t want to screw this up.

he fishes another candy out of the box and pops it clumsily in his mouth. this one is purple, and it says BE MINE.

he’s always had something of a sweet tooth. can you really blame him? david used to get on his case about always having some kind of candy in his schoolbag when they were kids, but by now the rest of the pack knows it’s just the way he is.

it works out pretty well - he’s always got something for when the kids (and ash) get restless at long pack meetings, and he knows it makes david smile just a bit whenever he sees the half-open packet of M&M’s on the counter.

(he still remembers the look on ash’s face when he’d first overheard him calling you ‘sweetheart’ - he’d had to tackle him over the side of the couch to stop him from telling you exactly what his favourite candy was.)

(you’d thought it was just their usual antics and gone into the kitchen to get some water, while he’d been busy telling ash to shut his goddamn mouth before he could embarrass him any more in front of you. yeah, so you make him all soft and gooey when he looks at you, but that doesn’t mean he needs the whole freaking pack to know why he calls you that!)

your work phone rings just as you’re walking over - both of you know that that ringtone means it’s important. you smile sheepishly at him as you rummage through your bag, but he doesn’t mind. it’s just an occupational hazard of dating the best, most gorgeous, intelligent, hardworking investigator in all of dahlia.

you kiss his cheek on your way out to the living room, and he blows you a kiss of his own as you disappear down the hall. you’re cute.

he slumps backwards onto the bed, legs hanging off the side, and takes a deep breath. the light above his head makes him squint up at the ceiling as he reaches for another candy. your voice, echoing from the living room, the lingering heat of your lips on his skin - god, how did he get so lucky? he thinks about you (as he always does), as he chews on FOR EVER.

it must have been, what, the thousandth date? millionth? he’s never been one to leave his sweetheart lonely. he likes to say that your little encounter with that shade was your first date, but you always argue that it was actually a few days later, when he showed up on your doorstep with a bunch of flowers, cotton candy pink, and his ma’s yelling still ringing in his ears. what a couple of romantics, huh?

(god, she’d been beside herself with worry when he’d turned up at her place. he’d staggered back from your apartment in a daze - mostly from your kisses but a little bit from blood loss - and realised that he’d have to bite the bullet and let her finish up the healing you’d started. he’d managed to play it off as a souvenir from work, but since when had that ever stopped his ma from telling him exactly what she thought about it?)

(she loves you though - always inviting you over, telling you stories about what a handful he’d been as a kid, sending you home with enough leftovers to feed the whole damn pack twice over.)

(he’s half convinced she thinks you’re far too good for him, and she’s probably right, but it never stops her from giving him that look when she catches him staring at your lips like a goddamn fool, or pulling your chair out for you at dinner all fancy-like. it’s not his fault you deserve the world on a silver fucking platter, and if he wants to treat you like royalty, then he damn well ought to do it right!)

he’d made sure to take you on all of those classic dates you like - the park, the movies, the arcade, the theatre, the ice rink (god, that one had really been embarrassing), all that sort of rom-com type shit that makes him look like the most lovesick idiot on the planet. this one had been in the summer, august-time or something, a saturday in the middle of the heatwave.

you’d called and said you’d take him out for ice cream at that sundae place downtown, and he remembers the way, after you’d hung up, that he’d screamed into his pillow over how goddamn sweet you’d sounded on the phone, calling him up out of the blue like that.

(of course - he forgets sometimes that you ever used to live somewhere else. he’d asked you to move in with him about two months before and you’d said yes, but you’d had until october left on your lease, so you were waiting until then to properly move out.)

you’d turned up at his door an hour later, looking like a million dollars even in the blazing california heat, and oh, the way your whole face had brightened up when you saw him? he could have died a happy man right then and there.

the ice cream parlour had been busy, but you’d grabbed a booth by the window and told him to go up and order for you - you’d reeled off a list of toppings as long as your arm and beamed up at him, and he’d blinked, nodded, and wandered off towards the counter in some sort of love-drunk haze, still replaying the way your eyes had softened and sparkled when he’d held the door open for you a minute ago.

(he’s not sure how, but he’d actually got all the toppings you’d wanted correct - even the extra wafer in the top and the two different flavours of ice cream. the girl at the register had looked at him like he was crazy, but it had been worth it to see the look on your face when it had arrived in front of you. it’s his favourite photo in the world.)

(he’d only asked for one extra kind of candy on his. he remembers you laughing when you noticed, when the waitress who brought them had recited the order back to him, you want me in your mouth that badly, milo greer? and god, he had, but he wasn’t about to admit that to the whole damn room - he’d just stuck his tongue out at you playfully and jammed a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth to stop him saying something stupid.)

spoon in hand, you’d been in the middle of a story about the department handler guy two cubicles down from you - something about glitter gel pens and a restraining order? - when he’d felt it.

there’s a word on his tongue. he rolls it around his mouth, feels it clinking off his teeth and melting all sweet and sticky. KISS ME is written backwards on the inside of his cheek, but that’s not the word he’s thinking of.

his mouth is full of words - ALWAYS, ME & YOU, ONLY YOU - and that’s nothing new, not when it comes to you, but this one tastes different. he knows why.

the rest of the date had been good, despite the crushing heat outside. he’d walked you home and kissed you senseless on your doorstep - you won’t admit it, but his shifter hearing isn’t just for decoration, so he knows he heard your cursing as your legs gave out once you shut the door. he’d gone home with a word in his mouth, tucked behind his teeth, and he’d wondered if you’d been able to taste it on his lips.

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236 notes - Posted April 25, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

no thoughts only vincent, lovely, and darlin' INSISTING that "sam" is short for "sandwich" - vincent started it and now the three of them all have him saved as "sandwich collins 🤠" in their contacts

lovely, shouting up the stairs: we're going to be late! sam, come on!

darlin', trying not to laugh: sandwich collins, you get down here this instant!

sam, head in hands: for the last GODDAMN TIME-

will, across the room, thoroughly bemused: now now, sandwich, i won't have such language under my roof.

411 notes - Posted June 9, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #HAHAHAHAHAHA #i cannot BELIEVE that my top post is the fucking sandwich post that's BRILLIANT #also hello fizzing hot day! wasn't expecting you to be here but i am very glad to see you!#also I TOLD YOU I WASN'T KIDDING THIS IS A RAE SRIRACHAA STAN ACC BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE #also yes i know i mostly reblog my own posts YES I GET IT #that's all my self rbs when i write something lmao #ykw i'd say its been a pretty good year in gingerbreadmonsters land #we have fun on gingerbreadmonsters dot com 🥳🥳

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futurefind · 2 years

Text

//A rundown of my og “Myrmidon Singularity”, ft Rea as Master, because I’ve put a lot of thoughts into it even if nothing 100% ‘solid’ script or time (beyond “During Part 1″) wise or anything. :]

EARLY/MAIN STORY BEATS:

new singularity appears, exact location can’t be pinned down beyond ‘east-central europe’ at first (with guesstimates ranging from as East as Italy, West as Black Sea, and to the coasts of the Baltic & Mediterranean Seas north & south-wise)

Rea and co. head there, the merry band including Scathach, who volunteered

Usual hunt for locals ft wyverns enemies, map fucky wucky bc of magical concentration in the atmosphere; Why Are You So High You

Saved from Giant Mob courtesy of mysterious Servant aka [local/Myrmidon!] Chiron... who ? promptly ?? kisses Rea ????????????

what. (Da Vinci and Romani are spitting their coffee for completely different reasons [she’s amused as shit, he’s mortified], everyone on site is losing their shit for Obvs Reasons, Where Is Ur Hr Manager Sir)

Much embarrassment and even more apologies gods forgive him later Chiron explains he thought she was his wife ?? even though shes a shapeshifter??? @/Scathach if ur gonna kill him can he show u the way to the king first hes so sowwy

Meet up with the King Consort amidst other battles; he’d been leading local soldiers in monster patrols or what have you and was concerned when Chiron used his NP; also lore dumps local history to the Chaldea grew while they’re there

smth smth the gods they’d thrown into Tartarus have suddenly been trying to break out via monsters corruption etc etc; Romani loredumps irl myth abt the Titans, Chiron & His Majesty oo and aa over Chaldea tech

includes much lovemail abt King Ligyron bc, yeah. and also seconding Rea’s weird resemblance to Chiron’s wife. mostly lovemail though. he’s not the consort for no gd reason

Make their way to a sprawling luxurious & prosperous city built into a valley’s side, the capital of the kingdom of the Myrmidons

On Chaldea’s end the sensors/maps stabilize into Northern Greece; explains Chiron and the local culture & its aesthetics

Takes them straight to the King... who is Achilles ??

and also has no idea who Pelleus is???

he’s a full god (presumably son of either Zeus or Poseidon?)?

and he overthrow Olympus/Zeus/the last gen of gods ??????

(also the king consort is Patroclus <3)

(he is Also also weirded out by Rea’s resemblance to Chiron wife, way more than Pat was)

After Chaldea explain their confusion courtesy of their Vastly Different irl-based mythologies, Myrmidon!Achilles (aka Ligyron-Achilles on his summonable card, Lancer, or still just Ligyron for Chaldea grew in the Singularity to keep things straight) explains that, here:

the prophecy about Thetis’s son didn’t come in time [as in, before he was conceived], so he’s a Full God

Olympus’s fear of him [read: Poseidon/Zeus’s] led to lots of awful shit of hunting etc of Thetis and later Achilles himself

he was hidden away with Chiron & trained by him

instead of simply protecting himself & his mother when he gained his full strength, Achilles instead rebelled against Olympus wholesale and won

included heroes from Trojan War??? to rhyme his og history’s fame found there

instead decided to have his personal slice of kingdom in Greece bc god or no he preferred humans. also spite of not even bothering to make use of the crown trophy of the old gods [olympus]

yeeted Zeus, Poseidon, and the other Olympians that didn’t submit to his rule/victory down into Tartarus, joining the Titans (Worst Roomie Situation Ever, rip. awkwaaaaaaaard)

Some diversions and emergency side-quests later, and Queen Mother Thetis makes her appearance in court to give her son regularly scheduled tlc & advice & concern

She’s a literal Goddess so of course she’s a Pseudo-Servant (Caster) except her host is Rea. Oh hello.💡

Polite, demure; super fucking quiet n subdued compared to Rea Herself. V amused by it tho!

Chiron’s wife; shapeshifts some multicolored seafoam hair on to make them distinct; explains they met when she’d sneak in to see how Achilles/Ligyron was doing with his training

Ligyron says he’ll help Chaldea and their quest to save humanity etc... after they help him solve his Olympi-Titan problem :]

Chaldea crew has politely omitted the nature of Singularities as well as just how :[ Achilles and co’s fates are in og history. it’s fine.

FINALE STORY BEATS:

With magi-comms setup to communicate with the smaller groups they split up into (so the Myrmidons can both handle city security etc while Also helping out Chaldea with info etc), eventually defeat the rebelling Olympians & Titans

There is ?? No Holy Grail?? Nor a change in the Singularity’s status. the fuck.

They come back to Ligyron empty handed and confused af, he puzzles over how to help

Eventually, somehow, they figure out the source of the Singularity is not a Holy Grail but Ligyron himself. the power of a literal god-king who wasn’t supposed to manifest? mayhaps fueled/’heart’ of a Holy Grail itself?

Ligyron, being Ligyron (Achilles), agrees with a grin to sacrifice himself so Chaldea can save their own world; he’s done his job of overthrowing Olympus, n founding/stabilizing his kingdom, fought battles he never could’ve imagined between said overthrowing of Olympus and fighting them once more with others from a different world (nvm one who looks like his mom!), says farewell to Patroclus but assures him he’ll see him in Elysium so dwai beloved see you before you know it (still be sure to live long tho!), Chiron says he’s proud of him, etc

Ligyron dissipates, and the Singularity starts to collapse

And Thetis.

Loses.

Her. SHIT.

The Singularity doesn’t disappear, and instead resettles into a barren and craggy landscape; their location snaps somewhere else(? somewhen?) on Chaldea’s sensors/maps, but Romani doesn’t get time to specify where

Thetis, now white haired & yellow-eyed and an Avenger, wails and screams and rages about how “you ruin EVERYTHING” and goes straight for Rea’s throat

Servants keep fighting her to a standstill, as Thetis rips into Rea verbally—except it’s way more personal than it should be, targeting not just her actions but her personal character flaws, her insecurities, her own rage and wrath and ruin, her.

Monologuing reveals Thetis, in life, ‘slaughtered Troy’ and all the soldiers; after trying to kill Zeus, was imprisoned (and implicitly tortured) for millennia; from a different timeline altogether, rather than being another product of the Singularity, or a corrupted Servant of proper history like Jalter

Thetis is way more powerful than she ought to be; eventually seals off her and Rea from all the Servants with her Noble Phantasm; Chaldea staff fucking going as fast as they can trying to force a Rayshift, either to get Rea out or other Servants where they can get to her

Thetis decides to smack down with Rea one and one, going for flow and brutal instead of instant ko

Her ranting includes poisonous and viscerally accurate [in their executions] insistences that they’re no different, and begins to use “we” not just for herself and Rea, but Thetis alone

Torture via attacking Rea’s crest directly? Probably

“Why! Won’t! You! Break!”

Servants break through the barrier just enough for Scathach to launch her god-killer Gae Bolg, and it’s a direct hit

...To Thetis’s illusion, but it’s still fatal.

To both of them

Thetis’s illusions morphing others’ perception of where BOTH of them were/are

Thetis’s hysteria turns gleeful, because See? See? See what being kind gets you, gIrL?

Everyone’s screaming freaking out, ALL the healers rushing in both past Thetis’s shattered barrier and via Rayshift

Scathach isn’t surprised, tight though her features are

Rea’s stabilized/saved, not via her Servant’s capabilities (a human receiving a Gae Bolg through the chest, after all), but via a Pseudo-Servant / fusion of her own

it’s og/Caster Thetis, able to do so via Thetis Alter’s spirit origin serving as a ‘beacon’/catalyst

Gg great job Rea gets taken home n healed into infinity n rests for a fucking month bc, jesus

They leave the Singularity’s with little more than a pool of blood at its heart: the island of Leuke in the Black Sea, the final resting placing of Achilles

CONCLUSIONS & FORESHADOWINGS:

Thetis (Avenger) was not just an alter of og/history’s Thetis, but Rea herself; in a worldline where Thetis massacred Troy et al for the death of her son, millennia later Riel Rodas would ‘break’ herself to unknown tragedy and call Thetis (Avenger) to her to become a Pseudo-Servant

Thetis was not just a water goddess but creator goddess, either pre-dating Chaos or an incarnation of Chaos itself (hence her ability to create a 100% fabricated Singularity); used the Holy Grail as an ‘anchor’ for it instead, trying to revive her dead son by avoiding the first of her tragedies and the root of his death in the first place: his having a mortal father

Rea herself is implicitly way more fucked up internally?? Since she knows Thetis (Alter) wasn’t a 100% divorced being from herself, despite others’ insistences

Scathach hiding for a long hot sec n Rea doing her damnedest to defuse the situation; she Knew that was how it needed to happen, or else either Rea would’ve either been killed by Thetis outright, or Thetis would’ve wrecked untold havoc onto them beyond the Singularity (including Rea’s death, as ever)

Tl;dr their first Lostbelt before they knew lostbelts are a thing </3

Myrmidon servants not mistaking Rea for Thetis not just bc of sameface, but same ‘core’ due to Thetis (also) being ‘Rea’ (rather than 100% Thetis just using her as a vessel)

Romani sweating bc haha! wow! human and also a Servant but also it’s Complicated, anyway--

Possible similar hats with the Foreign God? depending on their motivations

MISC & FUN FACTS

Congrats on Rea Suddenly Being Ur Mom, Achilles. It’s weird for her too but also Blz remember to get to bed on time--

Chaldea Chiron is. so very very sorry for his Singularity’s counterparts actions

Also, no one tell Achilles Chiron’s technically arguably actually his step-dad (aka he and og Thetis had a thing in actual history too)

Awkward? Awkward.

Reamom subverse (wherein she’s pre-existing Chaldea staff turned Master to save Ritsuka the burden of it, despite her Crest bs complications), Ritsuka suddenly contemplates if they have an HR

(Also (still reamom subverse) everyone is staring at Romani even harder to Do Something Already, god dammit; youve been in a mutual uwu-ance w her for twelve years and a SINGULARITY SERVANT kisses her first?)

‘Canon’/sans-Rea verse, Thetis (Alter) is still Rea (Alter); barring the Reaface!Thetis confusion and the personal mauling & murder of the Chaldea Master, it’s tl;dr the same! It’s no longer Personal(tm) and they just take out Thetis like a ‘normal’ final boss vs her hurting the Master proper (nvm inducing Pseudo-Servanthood)

Thetis’s powerset includes shapeshifting, which is now Rea’s powersets, aka cue shapeshifting Crash Course courtesy of Enkidu. it’s fine

Lygiron/God/King!Achilles is an Archer (a class he can’t even normally qualify for bc... it’s not proper human history Achilles), courtesy of Dad-Chiron, though he qualifies for lots of classes. Maybe Ruler? lol

Servant Patroclus is a Saber :] bc he’s weak to Lygiron/Myrmidon!Achilles, but strong against PHH Achilles’s lancer qualification (ie. “he’s achilles’s weakness”)

It’s long af but if you want an idea of Thetis (Alter)’s alternate history and the sorta shit Psuedo-Servant Thetis!Rea (og/Caster) gets, there’s Realter’s page. Barring the NP tied to her unique history (aka slaughtering Troy herself), it’s all shit she could Potentially do herself.

Atlantis/Olympus Singularity gets uh. gets uh. well it doesn’t end different but gd the vibes are So Fucking Off w Chaos just beyond the veil and Rea as a pseudo-servant of its incarnation (and not just bc that makes her all these machine god fuckers’ grandma)

#mun babbles //#about // realter #god idk how to tag this i just KISS KISS KISS !!!!!!!#long post //#ik its under read more but it is . LONG!!!!!!! :]#(sorta)#about // rea

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macaronnya · 2 years

Text

Fresh(?) Impressions (2)

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Hello Enstarries~☆ It hasn't been 24h yet but lucky enough, I'm a master procrastinator so here's the next part with UNDEAD already. This whole series is probably more like me talking in an echo chamber but that's also alright. I couldn't eternalise my first thoughts from other games, which is quite a shame. So this will be a nice memory to look at when someday the game ends and enough time has passed for my opinions on them to have changed. I sure hope that that someday is still very far away.

Anyways here's my last post about Trickstar, if you're curious enough and want more info about me and enstars. And the next one as well, if I'm committed enough to continue.

|Prev| |Next| See above ⬆️

DISCLAIMER!: Everything said here is for entertainment purposes only and not meant to attack anyone. This is not an accurate description of any characters but my subjective rambling for fun, so please don't take it too seriously. (Just to be safe, I'm kinda scared of elite idol fans) Also, you will hear me mention other games a bunch of times bc I'm that bad and uncreative at explaining and I'm still grieving A3!EN's shutdown. Eng is my 2nd or 3rd language so you might see weird spelling or grammar. I like to think I'm pretty decent, though...

Without further ado....Let's Ensemble!☆

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Ah yes, the sexyish bad boy group. Military aesthetic once more but make them goth. All their uniforms are slightly different from each other but still cohesive, which is nothing groundbreaking but I just wanted to mention I love stuff like this. And these outfits in general. Really cool stuff. Also, everyone has different gloves. Purple is my fav color so I might be biased. Their songs are more rock 'n roll with a lot of guitars, which isn't exactly my go to genre but it's nice to listen to it sometimes. Melody in the Dark & Valentine Eve's Nightmare are my favs. They also sing with these oldies microphones, which is cool but looks a bit funny when they gotta take the whole thing to switch places. Surface aside, they're all much sweeter than their image leads on?? Like, I was surprised upon reading their Ep.1.

7.5/10 - I like them a bit, mainly for their color scheme but I think I'll like them for more as well

Rei Sakuma

I thought he was some mysterious flirt, who will tease and entice you to do flirty stuff but he's actually a nice old vampire next door. His vocabulary and tech knowledge may be from the 19th century but he drinks his respect women (& tomato) juice 👍I know he sleeps in a coffin and has a younger brother who hates him for some reason, so there's something he may have fucked up....He's also very pretty. Possibly one of the prettiest one out of the whole cast. His voice is very attractive as well, sounds like melted chocolate.

8/10 - i like him, he's pretty, polite, lives with a distinct lowkey flair, this card is amazing

Kaoru Hakaze

Flirty boys often make me weak. Not bc I actually fall for their flirting but I like what hides beneath that. Be it trauma (Ikki, Amesia), shyness (Inigo, FE:Awakening), dorkiness (Impey, Code:Realize). I knew instinctively he's one of them and his panicking monologue Ep.1 that lasts for ⅓ of the time was my proof. I don't think he's christian (like smn else) even though he has a cross necklace here. It would fit more with Rei's vampire package but whatever. He seems easy to fluster, which is just the cherry on top. His voice is also nice, melodic and sweet but only like 65% chocolate.

8.5/10 - Cute but hot as well, I wonder what more he hides

Koga Ogami

Wild and rowdy. I know he jumped on poor Anzu on her first day. Imagine falling on your face bc of some rude dog boy on your first school day smh. I used to mistake him for Izumi and vice versa. Similiar hairstyle and haircolor, though his color scheme is warmer. Idk why he insists on being taking the saying lone wolf so literally but if it works 🤷‍♀️ He really went at it during Nightless World's MV with his guitar. Surprised he composes but somehow also not. I guess, he's just very creative and passionate, hence his wolf persona.

6/10 - he's not average but also not that interesting

Adonis Otogari

What a gentleman. He reminds me of Guy (A3!) what with him being rather stoic and looking slightly intimidating but is actually quite caring. And he might have important parents in his homeland? Maybe it's not that special tho, considering he's attending a private academy and looking at the rest of the cast....He's probably the tsukkomi from his unit. Might have the patience of a saint. I didn't expect him to have such a deep voice and it felt a bit off at first, but maybe that's just bc I was still playing A3! and there's another character with the same VA, who's quite different. This is the second time I see this VA in an idol franchise, the idol in question is Gaku from Idolish7. His unit's vibe is also similiar. I forgot to mention it but FORBIDDEN RAIN is an absolute banger as well.

7/10 - I look forward to getting to know him better

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Conclusion

This group is one of the more normal units, I think, which is pretty telling of the other ones. Overall on a more favourable side. I dig their costumes and voices.

Reading their Ep.1 made me question whether I suddenly shifted games or smth. Especially Kaoru's??? He's so funny panicking and being all "I'm usually so much coolee why is she so cute? 😣". Rei's manner of speech and the library made me think of these isekai manwhas on the rise. Adonis was suddenly talking about world disasters (ain't that hitting close home) and his guilt of not being of more help and slight desire to just stay in safe Japan but ultimately not regretting helping his land. And Koga is struggling to find his individual self after finally finding a place to belong. Like, what is this tone shift from Trickstar!? I guess, this is a sneek peak to what we will see more of in future events and character development? Do characters have that here?

Anways, feel free to comment whatever and share some thoughts. Until next post!~☆

#ensemble stars #enstars #I think I slowly get how formatting works #macaron rambles #UNDEAD

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