#(i /know/ but i think it’s the imagery served)

[thecoolerliauditore]

see I haven’t thought abt empires in so long that I forgot that Scott has a suicide problem no matter what series he’s in

I know it's more or less a meme atp to start the "Scott killing himself" timer on every SMP but it really is such a strong running theme in all of his storylines that he actively tries to make into storylines.

I think at its core Scott doesn't consider this trope to be about suicide, he considers it a sacrifice or "tragedy" at best. And that makes it interesting when it falls into the hands of freaks such as myself who are very adamant about suicide being suicide, because his suicides are more often than not framed as a Good Thing -- very fun and insane to unpack.

I think in a past life Scott would've been really into seppuku lowkey

[rowanthestrange]

Devil’s Spawn (There Are Two Wolves Inside You)

I think this The Empire Of Death theory ties together I think everything we need to, with no messy exposition needed. That’s not to say I think this is literally it or anything happens exactly like this, take everything as a ‘or maybe something along those lines’. Some bits I feel are likely, others as less but could make sense. But it works with the themes, Ruby’s continued unfortunate relationships with loops and paradoxes, while creating a narrative that would still be watchably cohesive.

So. We engage with our original Ruby being Of Death idea. Which to at least some extent I think is certainly undeniable: ~66.6 metres, probably the one who wore a death-coded black hooded cloak (cus she has all the characteristics of The Woman aka Ruby including the pointing), the Sutekh’d TARDIS presumably took Fifteen to London where she was at, being devil’s spawn/the antichrist is a good way for people to abandon you forever in a cursed timeline, she persisted past her own death in 73 Yards as if it’s for other people, born Christmas eve, she was left at a Church which is intrinsically funny, and Ruby, blood, blehhhr.

And when the Goblins go to eat baby Ruby, what do they chant as Carol Of The Bells plays? “Oh, now we feast! Oh, eat the beast! Oh, now we feast! Oh, eat the beast! Oh, now we feast! Oh, eat the beast! Oh, now we feast! Oh, eat the beast!”

I’m doing the risky move of hitting you with the crux of it and then working back: Ruby being a kind of offspring/granddaughter of Death. A god of abandonment.

We know there’s something up with Ruby, it seems unlikely she has two bio-parents and the underlying story of every episode in the season means the meta suggests she was created. And probably by herself, as everyone has created their own antagonist force so far.

Ruby hasn’t awakened yet — Chrysalis theory — she is currently a human. However we have actually already seen a glimpse of her Awakened god form in The Woman.

If we go by 73 Yards, the god within her is already bound. But was then released when Ruby broke the fairy ring. (This being why The Woman seems unreconcilable with Old Ruby in terms of knowledge and motivations while still ostensibly being the same entity). And a deliberate paradox was what she did to seal herself again.

The question has never really been if it’s Ruby under the hood, we go on about paradoxes all that first episode and it looks like her. The obvious assumption is that she somehow abandoned herself as a baby. We only know the Doctor cried at who he saw, but that memory was sealed away and he no longer knows.

But if this is the case what does it have to do with Sutekh and the Doctor? As god of Death why not just kill the Doctor, why go to effort here with all of this? The Dance. The Drama. The Emotion. Because Sutekh is a petty bitch like all of them have been so far. It will be his undoing.

Does Sutekh know what Ruby is? But for that matter - why the hell does he know who Susan is? Originally he didn’t know a thing about the Doctor - he was nothing, he didn’t even know Gallifrey by name, he was as an ant to him. But maybe the Toymaker rabbited to his mother/father/other about his favourite show he was watching with his legions of kids, possibly was told to provide information, certainly it creates some very useful knowledge restrictions, but one way or another Sutekh found out everything he needed to know to create a true revenge story. To make the Doctor suffer as much as possible before killing the universe. So does Sutekh know what Ruby is??? It could go either way. Can he interpret 73 Yards or not?

In either case, the offspring of gods clearly are capable of having their own nature and will. Certainly the Maestro feels less under daddy’s control than Harriet Arbinger does under Sutekh (though she does cry - remnant of the person she was as a caterpillar being souped? Or because she has always known what The End will mean for her as much as everyone else? Currently unknowable).

But you could guide things.

This is potentially what Mrs Flood is, the guide. Anything from a secret hero that Sutekh has no knowledge of, to a servant of Death, making sure Ruby is in the right place at the right time, pushing her towards the Doctor. Mrs Flood, as in the biblical one, that wiped out all life but the chosen in a ship. The ship that will recreate the living from its contents is vital to the story of the Flood after all, and as we’ve seen she has been keeping a close eye on the TARDIS. ‘Mrs’ - She’s married. She knows what a TARDIS is. She knows where the cameras are. She points Ruby towards the TARDIS. She knows who The One Who Waits Is. Has suddenly evil vibes like she’s in league with Sutekh. She’s kind of a cow. She causes problems on purpose. She’s always hiding. She isn’t making your tea. Says Rose and Ruby look beautiful. She is there to wave to the Doctor, refer to his box of tricks, when the Doctor first says in Church what he later will mirror in Legend, that maybe he’s the bad luck, maybe visiting people in the TARDIS he brings Death. She has a very pretty blue door. … I think Mrs Flood is the TARDIS. Some manifestation thereof. The ‘Mrs’ in particular makes me think it must be her, not a harbinger ‘daughter’.

(Blink and you’ll miss it she carries a notebook hidden in the blankets in the first episode. Writing things down to remember? Time is memory and memory is time. But we’ll come back to that later.)

Also the Doctor started thinking he’s the bad luck, he doesn’t want to go back and see people he loves because he believes when he travels in the TARDIS somewhere he brings death. He has become superstitious. The salt. His superstition became real. That is how, when, and why Sutekh attached. Because the Doctor believed the TARDIS brings Death. So it did.

I imagine Sutekh has his harbinger bring the TARDIS to the Doctor. Allowing Sutekh to manifest (perhaps looking more traditionally) in front of the Doctor rather than by talking by a proxy.

Now. Sue. What is she? Her name is Sue, short for Susan (I’ll be exclusively using the shortening for obvious reasons). S Triad, anagram for TARDIS. Was going to change the world using implied TARDIS tech. (Notable that while her face was there, Sue didn’t seem to exist in the same way in 73 Yards - neither changing the world with the TARDIS tech she was allegedly on the cusp of releasing, nor ends the world either, and Sutekh seemed to disappear along with the Doctor, the TARDIS now quiet). She has a red ring. She was chrysalis’d as a human. Her face has seemingly appeared everywhere during their travels and when a literal sleeper agent, she claims to have dreamed those events. She does not simply dream across space, she dreams across time, dreams things that haven’t even happened yet. She was taken over by Sutekh at the exact same moment the TARDIS was.

When we see writing on a screen, the Doctor informed Ruby in episode one, that’s not actually what it looks like. It’s the TARDIS translating and making you see it that way. Perhaps Sue’s face being everywhere, was the TARDIS translation circuit - not actually Sue but translating their real faces into hers, Sutekh luring them in.

I believe she was created by the TARDIS. That she is essentially the TARDIS and Sutekh’s ‘daughter’. The other gods have created people. Clearly Harriet Arbinger managed to be created even before Sutekh manifested. The gods send harbingers who warn us of their coming. I don’t think any of us would deny that the TARDIS is a god. We were told to watch the Bad Wolf finale, and with Jackal-formed Sutekh on top of the TARDIS, I think we are quite literally looking at:

There Are Two Wolves Inside You.

I think the bulk of the story is going to be Sutekh Killing the Universe. What that looks like. Him laughing that the Doctor thought this was his relation when in fact she is Sutekh’s. And us finding out not just what Sue is or her godbeing powers, but perhaps more importantly, what we are going to do with her. Perhaps because killing a god is not so easy, especially if they are linked to Death itself. We have already seen someone transcend their own death. But she was chrysalis’d once maybe you do it again. Perhaps the Doctor has to put her in her new home himself, we give her a fresh start like Boom Town. Leave the new her to be found and raised better.

(Alternatively: this is what happens if we don’t fix past mistakes. If you catch my drift. If not yet, come back and catch it later.)

Of course really the story is about Ruby. The Doctor sent Ruby not to him and Sutekh but to a broken time window that he believes the sheer force of her trauma both old and fresh will rip open the weakness in reality fully and she will be able to step through to 2004.

Lots of options here: If she notices her baby self will she be able to stop running forward? Picking it up? Interfering? And if she does is the woman still there? If Ruby is in 2004 does she just come back? Or in an option I don’t know if I like but we do have prior precedence for, does she make an ultimately dead timeline by taking that as time to plan and meet up with the Doctor having lived all the way back up to then? She aged as well as a time lord in the many years we saw in 73 Yards, and perhaps any interference she did in 2004, means once again she is living a dead timeline that will be unravelled back to an earlier point at paradox completion.

But I said Ruby was a god of abandonment, leaving, loss, banishment. Where does that chrysalis-theory fit in?

Now possibly simple and Sutekh just does the bird-burning if he is aware, wanting to show how he has influence over this new Sarah muhahaha.

Maybe when they deal with Sue.

While I’m not big on it, if Ruby in 2004 did something as insane as take herself, dead timeline Ghost!Ruby being ultimately forced to have to go back and abandon herself…would probably do it.

But maybe you don’t even need all that, and it’s just as simple as if she picks herself up at all. Perhaps because her ‘abandoning herself’ means ego-wise too.

Or maybe Ruby’s awakening is simplest of all - the same as the thing the Doctor did to attach Sutekh to the TARDIS. A superstition. A belief about herself. She believes there is something wrong with her and that it’s her being a child of the devil. And so she is.

The caterpillar learns that it’s a butterfly. She Awakens.

Perhaps given the triad theme, and the playing with of religious themes, possible we’re looking at three Rubys in play there. To cram down an episode’s worth of to-ing and fro-ing and cutting down as if they were one set of Church events: On a surprisingly dead street for Christmas Eve, our about to be ghost!Ruby rushes over to her “mother” 66.6 metres away from Baby!Ruby, god!Ruby tells our Ruby what the baby is so she will abandon it. She 73 Yards points at Ghost!Ruby. She abandons the baby and also impossibly awakens. And god!Ruby is a paradox. Perhaps they seal each other away now, or just long enough for one last act.

Whatever happens, as with 73 Yards, a time-loop paradox will seal The Woman away in the end. And god!Ruby herself will vanish once the conditions of her birth can no longer be met.

Sutekh has still killed the universe.

At his point, god of life or not, perhaps the Doctor too.

Now we have possibly already seen the effect the Doctor’s disappearance had on Sutekh’s existence. But alternatively, Sutekh is not a good mother/father/other, and for a god that drives everyone away…what good would Death be either?

Either way, like everyone else, Sutekh wove the rope he hanged himself with using his own hands.

We were promised a Susan Twist At The End. It hasn’t happened yet of course, not even halfway through the story but now? Now the devil has come with the Apocalypse and everything is dead and gone.

Now it’s The End.

Susan Foreman and the TARDIS have always been heavily linked: Susan appears in the show before the TARDIS. She claims to have named her that (possibly as in translated to English, and the TARDIS has translated it to us that way ever since), but also the TARDIS quite literally possesses her in The Edge Of Destruction, no different to Sutekh with Harriet, and because the TARDIS is in danger, makes Susan go on a murderous scissor rampage inside her. (If you haven’t seen TEoD ((oh same acronym as The Empire Of Death. huh. thank god we weren’t told to keep a special eye out for wordplay)) it is short - 2 parts iirc, iconic, has more of the TARDIS than we’ve seen in New Who, and as episode three informed much of the depth we’ve the TARDIS ever since, it is incredible). And yet Susan has been linked to red, like our ‘Red god’ Sutekh - her original name suggested to be Arkytior, meaning Rose, in a comic from 1994, the reason why when Russell brought the show back, he named the first new companion that. But there is no need to argue between links to the TARDIS or Death - to speak of one to speak of the other since Time and Death are always linked as symbiotic opposites for us.

Perhaps we can guess the unknown planet where Sue ended up.

Harbingers foretell the arrival of the gods. Our Bad Wolf god materialises.

As our ark that survived the flood, the TARDIS recreates the dead universe from her memories - the start of Tales From the TARDIS, that shared line coming back to haunt us. Big Bang Three, recreating the universe and perhaps the Doctor himself from memory, Amy Pond would be so proud. The Doctor manifests in the Memory-TARDIS as she seeks to rebuild. And the TARDIS will begin by pulling in the original one, the one who waited, the child he abandoned and never went back for. And at the end of her long life, the Doctor is finally reunited with his granddaughter Susan. We get a scene between Fifteen and old Susan, the full version we will see later in Tales From The TARDIS, and the episode we watch there will be The Dalek Invasion Of Earth and we’ll cry, we’ll all cry. Give Susan the chance to be angry. Tell him that it hurt, for all it might have been — for all it was — for the best, it hurt forever. But say she lived in spite of that pain. Found happiness in her life. And at the end of this incredible life she lived, even now with the perfect opportunity to do it, she insists she wouldn’t change one line.

And then perhaps, just perhaps, Susan starts to change. Perhaps it does not look quite the same as regenerating as we’ve come to know it. More ethereal. A god never awakened. But there is no death here now.

The meta still makes the most sense if the Doctor has fundamentally caused all of this for Ruby, by abandoning a child and never returning, his fault. And if Ruby is the same person, who was born at the end of Susan’s long life in a mirror to living past her own death in 73 Yards, then perhaps here lies a new paradox - we have a Susan who got to talk to the Doctor again and tell him he hurt her…and thus healed. Who never passes on that abandonment. Therapy out of order. And this is why Carol Of The Bells, and the scene in The Devil’s Chord, that now she is free from that pain her soul inherited, it now has room for its true purpose, to Sing.

The Doctor cradles the baby that lies in the lingering warmth of his granddaughter, is his granddaughter. And for a moment imagines the universe where he keeps her. All the adventures they’ll have. A universe where he does right by her this time.

A universe where a woman grows bitter and alone, dozens and dozens of children never knowing the warmth of her care. Where there is no Ruby Sunday playing with her band painting the town red, and the universe is dimmer for it.

And so he wraps that baby up warm and tight, snug as a bug. Finds himself by the Church In Ruby Road. And yet again, does the hardest thing he’s ever had to do, even if it’s for the best, and abandons a child. He abandons Ruby. He walks away. He cries. And it snows.

[zan0tix]

Any general thoughts on/relating to the Brobot?

Have my half awake scrawlings...

I really love the brobot!!!! People really misconstrue it and also leave it out in a lot of dirkjake talk? Its a big player in not only how dirk expresses his affection/desire towards jake but also in their multi year spanning unspoken game of gay chicken 😭😭(all of dirks splinters are but Not about them rn)

It was sent yknow under the pretense that jake loves wrestling and wished so bad to have somebody he could wrestle with. But at the same time it protects jake from the horrors of hellmurder island (seen before they strife), pushing jake into the Damsel in distress role he wasnt expecting to play even before all the shit in the game, with Dirk being his hero.

Jake says he keeps it on a high difficulty because apparently in the Novice mode he says their interactions become "too tender" and doesnt want to elaborate, Friendly reminder! His convo with jane on the SAME DAY dirk pulled off that big romantic overture and the kiss happens and him and dirk begin "dating".. is the same day he asked jane if it didnt make him weird for wanting to date dirk. And he also says hed joke around with dirk about how theyd soo make a great couple if dirk were a girl haha.

I imagine the brobot and well. Getting physical like that with a robot that supposedly looks like dirk probably gave jake his internal gay awakening at 13 but he just never wanted to actually confront it and instead just wanted to brush past everything 😭😭 (See: every single time sexuality or romance comes up in relation to jake he is literally always thinking about dirk somehow and he never directly talks about his attraction to men or how that reflects/contradicts on his self image of the Movie Star Hero guy)

and jake doesnt actually hate the thing either, he tells jane he thinks it genuinely did improve his fighting capabilities (Which we see it did in collide! he beat basically the whole felt with guns and fisticuffs alone, no hope powers.) Which serves as a pretty evident parallel to dave who also is good at fighting, even if he doesnt want to be. (see dirk + dave convo)

This one comes from hussies authors notes in the aradiabot and equius scene (which equius imagery being invoked with dirk. something i could totally rant about another time haha) but yeah. Jake was being selfish asshat in that log forcing jane into a corner and wringing what he wanted to hear out of her, and also not giving a shit about the brobot (Which served as his protector and only other semblance of human connection since he was 13 and was a BIRTHDAY GIFT FROM DIRK) KILLING ITSELF? But hes so preoccupied talking about dirk. THE REAL DIRK. And immediately after jake loses the dirk splinter that protected him, HE (AND DIRK) CREATE A NEW ONE FOR HIMSELF USING THEIR COMBINED POWERS/?

Hussie is lying.. somebody Does care about dirks feelings. a whole lot to the point they activate their powers unwittingly Because of it. and its jake. but jake just cant admit that himself. (He cannot admit his real feelings until given permission to, dirk would have to concede the game of gay chicken first using his words and not just actions)

ANYWAY. hussie is so right its so easy to get sidetracked times one million talking about this comic. BUT AHH!! BROBOT. his existence.. tragic.. Jakes really smart in knowing that all of dirks splinters enlighten aspects of himself he doesnt oft share, and the brobot served as another dirk action on the pile of dirk actions he engineers to signify his deep immense care for jake, where he lets these grand gestures and implications sit out in the open without ever actually saying what they mean and where his feelings lay.

EVEN IF ITS SUPER OBVIOUS. The d man cant use his big boy words to actually describe his feelings despite how much a yaps! so jake doesnt know if hes even allowed to say anything about his own. Fellas: Is it gay if you labour for supposedly an extended period of time to create a custom robot in your own image to ship in pieces to your best bro guy crush who is HUNDREDS OF YEARS IN THE PAST because you cant be there yourself?

I think this hal message says enough about how bad dirk wished he could visit jake 💀💀

[catholic-character-tournament]

FINALS - Catholic Character Tournament

Propaganda below ⬇️

Wolfwood

I love him. Man who has no faith in himself or humanity or god with so much blood on his hands, fighting for something he knows he can never see come to fruition in person. He carries his own literal cross and grave marker on his back. Just… he’s so iconic to me.

I'm sure I'm not the first to submit him. But I did it anyway. I hope he wins and I'll do anything in my power to make sure he does

Dude is literally a priest who carries around a giant cross. Yes he uses the cross to murder people but that is besides the point. Also he has a mini church he carries around for on-the-go confession services.

hes literally a priest(hes not a priest in the reboot but he is in the original and thats what matters to Me). he carries around a cross that is actually secretly a gun with guns inside that gun. he runs a church/orphanage. he carries around a portable confession booth and charges people money for it because he is broke as fuck. he dies bleeding out over an alter begging to god for forgiveness he doesnt think he deserves. he is everything to me.

look at this man he's a priest with a cross shaped gun that (spoilers) dies against the side of a church while waxing poetic about life and redemption (/spoilers), this is the Catholic ever.

Wolfwood is liiiiiterally Judas coded in the text. AND his weapon is a massive cross that turns into a machine gun and a LASER. Not to mention his religious trauma. Oh baby. The religious trauma.

Homeboy literally walks around with a giantass 300lb machine gun shaped like a cross called the Punisher. Hes a priest/undertaker depending on what version of trigun you reference. Grew up in a church orphanage. Also literally walks around with a portable confessional box for people to pay to confess to him. Need i say more.

HE IS LITERALLY JUDAS. he is literally leading the jesus allegory to his doom. hes also in love with the jesus allegory (vash). he is also carrying arouns a giant cross rhat is also a gun. hes literally catholic and judas and his tits are perfect. in one piece of official art he's wearing a cross choker. also the catholicism on gunsmoke is about making vash submit. wolfwood looking at that pathetic wet mess of a man oh i can make him submit easily.

He literally carries around a giant cross and is referred to as a priest by multiple characters. also he offers people confessionals

He carries a huge machine gun that is in the shape of a cross that is really heavy (he is strong) and his boobs are huge. So you know hes serving cunt in a god honoring way. Also in trigun 1998 he brings around a small chapel that he uses as a portable confessional and in trigun stampede he holds funeral services as an undertaker which are way overly priced. Also he dies very gayly (basicly confessing his love to his best boy friend forever)

Nick's funny bc he's probably the least Christian acting guy but is literally a preacher. There's a running gag with Vash asking some variation of "what the hell kinda churchman are you?" His gun is a gigantic cross. He rides a shitty motorcycle in the middle of the desert.

ok so thematically the main conflict in trigun is about peace vs violence and its represented by the characters vash and knives respectively. the two aren't /technically/ angels but thematically and through imagery they are and are comparable to michael and lucifer specifically. ANYWAYS. vash and knives are the characters who are constantly pushing and pulling at wolfwood's morality, sort of like a "the devil and god are raging inside of me" kinda deal. his grappling with his morality and faith is a big factor in his character. also he has a giant fucking gun shaped like a cross. and he dies in a church while praying.

Bros an orphan who grew up at a Catholic orphanage and taken away to be trained and genetically changed into a supercharged assassin for interworldly beings that have lots of angel imagery attached. Guy thought he was just going to be taken to become a missonary...instead he got 6 years of religious trauma. He still wears a cross necklace and holds it often. His gun is a literal cross "full of mercy" (its a missile launcher). He never really believed fully in the faith or anything, but the way he interacts with it is FASCINATING. He's jaded by the planet he lives on and his upbringing, and makes him say his most iconic quote: "We're nothing like God. Not only do we have limited powers, but sometimes we're driven to become the devil himself." He prays to a God he doesn't know if he actually believes in, asking for another day— for hope for the human race. The organization hes part of (The Eye of Michael) works for an interdimensional otherworldly being that has an incredible amount of angelic metaphor and imagery attached who intends to purge the planet of humans... and ends up siding with that guy's twin brother who is so Jesus coded it's insane. They are best friends even as Wolfwood is acting under instructions to babysit and watch him for his twin brother. He dies after facing down against his old mentor (named Chapel) and his pseudo brother from the orphanage who was taken into the Eye as well and his Jesus bestie buries him and sticks his cross-gun in the ground after losing his shit crazy style and using his pseudo alien angel Jesus powers to lash out at his brother for being the cause of Wolfwood's death. Rest in peace king

64.media.tumblr.com

via @monvment

Sister Michael

She drives a DeLorean. She does judo on Fridays. She likes a good statue and despises the French. Her full nun name is Sister George Michael, after the guy from Wham!. She is the fiercest nun you’ll ever come across and, if you’re attending Lady Immaculate College, she’s the woman in charge. So whatever you do, if you’re feeling anxious or worried or just need a chat: don’t come crying to her.

joined the nunnery for the free accommodation?

she does love a good statue it has to be said

She is the headmistress of a catholic school <3

sister michael so reminds me of the nuns who taught me. they're tough and sometimes a little harsher than a woman who dedicated her life to god should be but they're also wonderful people. i had a nun teacher who was 60 years old and would do handstands. another nun (also in her 60s) told me god was nonbinary. another was really mean and made me cry. (so did the handstand nun.) while the catholic girls school is The Catholic Experience, the school wouldn't have been the same for me or the derry girls without at least one nun who seemed to have sprung up out of the ground fully formed, ageless.

[yourtamaki]

o, come, be buried / a second time within these arms

zoro x f!reader

word count: 3k

warnings: hurt/comfort, sex as a form of comfort, fingering, cuddlefucking, creampie, scent kink, oral (f!receiving), cum play, cum eating, violent imagery, bit of aftercare

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there is a storm building inside you.

zoro can see it raging even as you keep your face turned from him. the room dark save for the moonlight that streams in through the open window, just bright enough to spot your outline curled up in bed, covers tucked up under your chin. lines of tension keep your back rigid and shoulders hunched, your breathing shaky and slow as you tell him to leave.

you’re vicious gales and crashing waves wrapped into one, devastating and beautiful.

“you don’t want to be around me right now,” you say, words muffled by your pillow.

“don’t tell me what i want,” he doesn't try to bite back the anger that laces itself through his tone. zoro has never censored himself from you before and he wasn't about to start now.

ire thrums hot in his veins, burning and boiling away beneath his skin. he has always given you every part of himself, heart served in his open, blood-stained palms, for better and most certainly for worse.

the thought of you holding yourself back from him, that there’s a part of you that he’s being denied, sets his teeth on edge. he'd been searching for you all day, prowling around the ship like a caged animal until finally found his way to where his search should have began, the tiny storage room that had become your shared quarters.

“you pissed at me?” he asks.

“no,” you say.

“want me to kill anyone?”

“no.”

it grates on him that there’s no enemy for you to sic him on, no bones to crack, no blood to spill. your pain deserves retribution and he is the blade that would carry it out, if only you would wield him, "then i'm staying."

"zoro, please. just go."

“who do you think you’re protecting by hiding yourself away?” he steps in closer, right to the edge of the bed but makes no move to touch you, “cause it’s not me and it sure as fuck isn’t you.”

you throw a dagger of a glare his way, so sharp it could make a man bleed before he even knew he’d been cut. he doesn’t care. a small price to pay for your gaze.

zoro is too loyal of a beast to flinch away the first time you flash your fangs at him.

you hold his gaze for a moment longer before turning back around to face the wall once more. in your silence, he resolves himself to sitting on the floor by your bedside until he can be of some fucking use to you. zoro would lick crumbs of affection out of the palm of your hand. if the closest you'll let him be to you right now is knelt on the ground, keeping vigil, then he'll take it. he's crouched halfway down when he hears you call for him.

“baby, get in.”

how you have enough sweetness in you to spare him a kind word even when you have none for yourself, he will never understand. zoro takes a moment to pull his swords free from where they hang on his hip, propping them up against the wall where they’ll still be in arm's reach before he pulls back the covers and settles in next to you.

you're cold to the touch despite having been buried under the blanket, dressed only in a simple shirt and underwear and zoro is quick to throw an arm around you and pull you in by your waist until you’re pressed flush against him, his other arm slipping under your head for you to rest on. he buries his face in the crook of your shoulder, breathes you in and for a moment he can almost smell the scent of your hurt lingering on your skin, thick and bitter as blood.

there’s an urge, ever present and never sated, to dig his teeth into the side of your neck and bite down until iron coats his tongue, to taste you, know you, in a way no one else ever has or will. it’s an urge he can only hold at bay by pressing open mouth kisses to your throat and feeling your pulse flutter against his tongue.

you slowly start to melt in his arms, the tension you wore like ill-fitting armour stripping off you piece by piece with every kiss until you’re free from its hold, warm and light.

“better?” he asks, slipping his hand under your shirt and pressing his palm flat against your stomach just to feel it rise and fall, follows the rhythm of it and matches his breaths to yours. the reassurance that you're whole and safe is a cool balm to his worries.

“a little bit,” you whisper.

“but you need more,” it’s hardly a question that needs to be answered, not with the way you’ve started to shift in his hold.

“you don’t have to—”

“i do. i want to.”

and there’s more he could say, he knows there is. pretty poetry to comfort you, sweet nothings to soothe you. but what use would empty words be to you? they can’t hold you, can’t keep you warm, can’t wipe your tears.

zoro can. he will. for you, he’d do anything and everything. all and more.

the room settles into silence, his offer hanging in open air and ripe for your taking. you don't reach out for it, not yet, but zoro doesn't mind. he can wait.

“impatience is a swordsman’s undoing,” his master had once told him a lifetime ago when zoro’s palms were still soft enough to bleed and grief was a companion so new it still stepped on his heels as it dogged his footsteps.

of the two of you, patience has always been your strong suit rather than his. it was your patience that brought you together, when you stepped into his life with a hand outstretched and he met you the same way he met all good things that tried to enter his life, with a snarl and blood stained teeth.

zoro kept you at a careful distance with all the wariness of a distrustful stray, always watching but never getting close. it was you who slowly bridged the gap, gracing him with kindness and company he'd done nothing to earn but gorged himself on anyway.

it was only because of your patience that he knows the bliss of falling asleep and waking up with the warm weight of you in his arms. the least he could do is pay you back with what you've always freely given him. so zoro holds you close and waits.

and waits.

and smiles, sharp and proud, when you take his hand that still rests on your stomach and lower it until he’s cupping you between your legs, the heat of you searing his palm even through your panties.

your hips jerk when zoro doesn’t move, a soft whine catching in your throat when his other arm circles around your chest and holds you still against him, “zoro.”

“i've got you,” he says with a kiss behind your ear, toying with the waistband of your panties before sliding his hand inside.

he slides his middle finger down your slit, dipping his fingertips into the slick heat of your cunt to wet them before drifting back up to where you need him most. there’s no rush as zoro rubs neat, tight circles against your clit, slow and firm even as you buck and try to grind down on him.

he wants you to feel every moment of this, to savour it, to drown in pleasure so deep you never want to come up for air.

another kiss to your throat, one on your jaw and you finally melt back into him, legs spreading just enough for zoro reach lower and start to ease a thick finger inside you.

“there you go, baby, that’s it,” he says, “let me in.”

you swallow him down to his knuckle, trembling in his arms when zoro slips in a second finger and crooks them to rub against the spot that never fails to pull the prettiest sounds out of you.

he shifts, trying to move lower between your legs without pulling his fingers out so he can taste where you’re wet and aching for him but you stop him by threading your fingers through his short strands, keeping him in place.

“what?” he asks, “you don’t want my mouth?”

“no, not— not right now. just stay close. keep holding me. please,” he hates how small you sound.

“i’m here. i’m right here. fucking kills me knowing you were in here hurting by yourself."

"i'm sorry.”

"don’t,” the anger he felt when you tried to send him away rears up once more. an apology is the last thing he wants to hear from you right now, “just find me next time. doesn't matter when or where. you find me. got it?"

“yeah, i got it,” you start rocking back into him, soft ass grinding against his clothed cock, “zoro.”

“i know. i know you want it, baby, but i gotta stretch you out first. can’t fit when you’re this fucking tight.”

your answer is lost in a moan as he eases in a third finger, thumb pressing against your clit. the angle isn’t kind on his wrist but zoro keeps his pace steady, spreading and curling his fingers until you’re soaked and soft and ready for him. he pulls his hand out of your panties, kissing your nape when you whine from the loss before he licks the taste of you off his fingers.

“i'm not going anywhere,” he says, "keep your eyes on me."

zoro waits until you turn in his arms and he has your gaze before he gets out of bed and undresses, leaving his clothes in a pile next to his blades. you sit up to tug your panties down and kick them off, your shirt following soon after.

you’re bare and soft and holding out a hand for him to take. zoro laces his fingers through yours and joins you once more, stripped of his swords, his clothes, and his restraint.

you don't crash into each other so much as you collide into a bruise of a kiss. it aches more than it soothes but the shared pain of it only has him pressing closer to you, your soft tits pressed to his chest, legs intertwined and weeping cock trapped between your stomachs.

he reaches up to cup your cheeks and breaks the kiss to pull back just far enough to take in the sight of you, all swollen lips and glassy eyes. it takes a heartbeat longer than it should for you to focus on him. the storm is still raging inside you but zoro refuses to lose you to it. he stands firm against the buffeting winds that threaten to rip you away from him and swipes his thumbs over your cheekbones.

“still with me?” he asks.

you turn into his touch and kiss the rough centre of his palm, “‘m here.”

"then take what you need, baby."

you slide a hand between your bodies, taking his cock into your hand and guiding his tip to your entrance. even with all the prep, it takes some time to sink inside you, time you spend peppering kisses across his face. he bears them as he bears the scars that litter his body. with pride. with honour.

zoro bottoms out with a low groan, grabbing you under your knee and hooking your leg over his hip to slip in that much deeper. every sense is flooded with you. the wet heat of you wrapped around his cock, the heady scent of your sweat and need swimming around his head, soft skin beneath his palms.

entangled and weaved together like this, heart and breath as one, zoro is drawn into the eye of your storm.

your pleasure is his, your pain his own.

still, clear waters surround you both as he waits for you to adjust. with how closely he watches you, he knows you’re ready even before you wrap both arms around him and start to roll your hips.

he keeps one hand under your knee, the other sliding down your back to rest on your ass, and uses his grip on you to pull you into a slow, dirty grind.

“oh fuck,” you moan as the two of you find your rhythm together. zoro barely pulls out, keeping himself buried to the hilt inside you. you jerk back as he rolls his hips just enough to grind your clit up against his pelvis, his firm hold on you the only thing keeping you pinned in place.

“easy now. don’t run from me.”

time slows to a crawl, every moment yawning and stretching into the next, slow and sweet as honey. you tip forward, closing what little space there still was between you to pull him into a kiss that has all the intimacy of a hard-fought spar, of learning to move together, of missteps and growing pains, of getting the wind knocked out of him only to be pulled right back on his feet.

you’re close, all worked up and sensitive from his fingers, cunt fluttering and clenching down around him as you near your high. zoro chases your pleasure down, a starving mutt set loose upon a feast. he uses the little leverage he has to wrestle you on to your back and fuck into you with short, heavy thrusts.

“c'mon, baby, that's it,” he says, bent low to brush his lips against your ear, “let go.”

he reaches down between you, thumb pressing firm against your swollen clit and you’re gone, swept out to sea as your high crashes down over you in waves. zoro hardly feels his own orgasm rip through him, too caught up in watching you shake apart and be remade in his arms.

all is still as you pant and come back into yourself. your hand slips back into his and squeezes once. he’s not sure whether you’re trying to reassure yourself that he’s still here or that you are but he squeezes back all the same.

“can i eat you out now?”

and for the first time since he stepped into the room, a smile breaks over your face, bright as the dawn sun breaking through an overcast sky. you pull out of his hold, his soft cock sliding out, and settle on your back, legs falling open, “go for it.”

zoro eases himself down between your legs, throwing your thighs over his shoulders, never letting your hand slip free from his. he takes stock of your fresh fucked cunt, clit puffy and hole clenching around nothing, dripping with him. the scent of you, of the two of you, is thickest here, heavy in his nose, and zoro breathes you in with deep, greedy lungfuls, spent cock twitching against his thigh.

he dives in, catching what leaks out of you on his tongue before pulling back and dribbling the mess of cum and spit all over your pussy.

“nasty,” you say and zoro wants to kiss the curl that sits pretty on the corner of your lips. he settles for kissing your clit instead.

“you like it.”

“i like you.”

you wield your honesty with all the ease and carnage zoro wields his swords, sliding it between his ribs and piercing his heart clean through. the pain is lost as he’s distracted by the light pouring in as the moon rises higher into the night sky.

or maybe it’s your eyes that take the pain away because it’s only through them that he notices how bright the moon’s light shines tonight.

zoro devours you, gaze fixed to yours, one hand still holding yours while the other arm keeps your hips pinned to the bed. he takes his time cleaning you up, lapping at your folds until only the taste of you remains. it’s only then that he sucks your clit into his mouth, slipping two fingers inside you to give you something to clench down on.

you are a vision in your bliss, one he has no right to bear witness to. a lifetime of blood and blades and butchery shouldn't be rewarded with the softness of you in his hand and on his tongue. it's not right.

but as you take hold of his hair to keep his mouth pressed flush against your cunt, zoro finds he couldn't give less of a shit if it's right. all that matters is if he does right by you. there's an oath in every broad stroke of his tongue, a vow in every kiss to your clit, to take care of you in all the ways you need, in all the way he knows how.

today and for all days.

your orgasm is a gentle thing that washes over you and steals your breath for a moment, smaller than the first but leaves you just as ruined.

zoro takes his rightful place by your side once more, gathering you up in his arms and running his knuckles up and down your spine.

"thank you," you press a kiss to his cheek, just below where his scar ends. he accepts the kiss but not the gratitude that comes with it.

a hound needs no thanks for fulfilling its nature.

later, he will carry you off to the baths, let you pop open bottles for him to smell that make his nose itch but that make you beam, wash your back, and wait with the patience you’ve taught him for you to share what’s trapped inside your head.

he may not understand, may not have the comfort of words to give you, but he will listen. and he will stay.

but that is for later.

for now, zoro holds you to his chest and watches over you, moonlight and peace washing over you as you catch your breath.

dedicated to: mah wife @katslutski and loml @saotoru

[mandalhoerian]

I want to pick your brain more about Caleb being the livestock guardian and the wolf at the same time. That part haunts me. Canine imagery for him >>>

That contradiction — the livestock guardian and the wolf — is at the very heart of Caleb. Emphasizing his duality aside, it’s a paradox that exists within him, one that he’s aware of, one that he chooses to live with rather than resolve. Because at his core, he is both the devoted protector and the ravenous beast, and both of them love you. Both of them serve you, in their own way.

The livestock guardian dog is bred to protect the flock, to dedicate its life to something weaker, something soft. It stands between the sheep and the wolves, fangs bared, willing to die for the creatures that will never understand what it’s doing for them. It is gentle with them, careful, soft-mouthed, lowering itself to their level so they will trust it. Do not fear me. I am here for you.

He was raised to be good, to be devoted, to be steadfast. A creature made to guard, to serve, to dedicate himself to something more important than his own desires. A dog trained to protect the flock, to live among the sheep, to love them with a quiet, patient devotion. His purpose has always been clear: keep you safe. Keep you fed. Keep you warm. The world is full of danger, full of wolves with their snapping jaws and greedy eyes, and it is his duty to keep them at bay.

He is yours. He always has been. If you told him to sit, he would. If you told him to stay, he wouldn’t move from that spot until his body gave out. If you told him to die for you, he would do it without hesitation. And he doesn’t think of this as a burden — it’s his purpose. He finds fulfillment in it, in watching over you, in being something you trust. You call his name, and he comes to you. You rest your head on his shoulder, and he stays still so you won’t move away. You let him linger close, let him take care of you, and it is enough. It has to be enough.

But a guardian dog is still a dog. Still a thing with instincts, still a thing that can be pushed. If the sheep do not trust it, if the shepherd does not guide it, if it is alone too long — if it's left hungry for too long, if it's is abandoned, if it loses the reason — then something inside it shifts. It begins to realize that it does not need a flock. That it has teeth for a reason. And then, with time, with neglect, with just the right set of circumstances—

The guardian turns feral. The thing that once protected the sheep remembers that it is, at its core, an animal with hunger, with wants, and it turns on the very things it swore to protect.

Caleb is the dog that never turned. He is the one that still guards you, still waits at your side, still lives with his body between you and the world, because that is what he chooses. But—

There is a wolf inside him. He wasn't born tame. This is the reason why you think he's changed.

It is not a corruption, not a failing, not a sickness. It is simply there, as much a part of him as the loyalty, as the tenderness, as the quiet way he looks at you like you are something holy. The wolf is not cruel. It is not mindless. It does not wish to harm. But it wants.

You have never had to see it because he never let you — but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. You think his hands were made to shield, to soothe, but that is only because he has never let you see the way they were also made to hold, to grip, to take.

He is the thing in the woods. The thing that lingers just beyond the firelight, just past the safe glow of home. He is the thing that wants to rip and tear, but not to destroy — not to kill. No, that would be too easy. He does not want to ruin you. He wants you to remain by his side forever.

And he knows that if he ever so much as breathes wrong, if he ever lets you see the way he looks at you when your back is turned, you would run.

So he stays where you left him. He plays the part he always has. The good boy. The guardian. The one you trust.

But when you press your cheek against his shoulder and sigh, when you curl your fingers around his wrist without thinking, when you whisper his name in the dark, he knows. He knows.

You do not understand what it means to press yourself into the waiting jaws of something that would never bite you but still wants to.

You do not understand that when you lean into him, when you trust him, you are feeding the very thing he is trying to starve.

And the thing is — both the dog and the wolf want the same thing.

To have you.

The dog wants to guard you, to protect you, to keep you safe in the way that all guardians do — by being a silent, unseen force, by waiting in the shadows, by letting you feel free while ensuring you never truly are. It does not control you. It does not take. It is patient, gentle, enduring. But it belongs to you so entirely, so thoroughly, that if you asked it to die for you, it wouldn’t hesitate.

The wolf? The wolf does not beg. The wolf does not ask permission. The wolf sees what it wants and takes it. The wolf does not serve, it claims. It sees you as something that belongs to it — not because it is entitled, not because it is cruel, but because it loves you the way hunger loves flesh. Because the wolf understands something the dog does not:

The only way to truly keep something is to consume it. To take it into yourself so fully that it can never be separate from you again.

But Caleb — Caleb — is the bridge between them. He has the wolf’s instincts and the dog’s discipline. The dog will heel when you tell it to, the wolf will wait because it chooses to, and Caleb is both. It would be easier if these two things were separate, if they hated each other, if they battled for control inside of him. But they don’t. They exist in harmony. They want the same thing.

The livestock guardian watches over you, protects you, ensures that no one lays a hand on you. The wolf ensures that no one takes you away, not even yourself.

The livestock guardian follows you, obeys you, kneels at your feet. The wolf is the reason he wants to.

The livestock guardian loves you. The wolf does, too. But love — real love — is not just something that gives. It is something that takes.

And you know what?

You never had a choice in the matter.

Not because he took that choice from you. Not because he forced you into anything.

But because, from the very beginning, from the moment you met him, before you even understood what he was—

You made him yours.

[nanamimizz]

tags: 18+ minors dni / fem reader / fingering / reader is mexican / spanish / religious imagery / aftercare / hinted virginity loss / penetration /2.6k/ pwp - let me know if i miss something.

synopsis: javier escuella feels an all encompassing desire to have you. you feel it too, maybe even more.

Javier laughs into your lips, you are kissing him with the reverence of the faithful. You kiss sweetly, gently with the undercut of hunger he is all too happy to sate. Your form is soft beneath his hands, flesh pillabe like the strings on his guitar and the trigger of his revolver - the hollow of his palms filled with the curve of your hips. Javier nips at your lip until he can hear you hiss from the sting among your sighs from the pleasure of having him suck on your tongue.

“I can’t believe you - all I did was kiss you,” he stops to puff a breathe against your lips snickering at the dazed look on your face and the glistening spit on your lips, “and now you’re letting me fuck you.”

You whine, high and embarrassed but so unbearably needy and pressing yourself up against him like a cat in heat. There’s a little gold necklace threaded along the slopes of your collar - it glints against your untouched and unblemished skin like a comet, looping along your form in a circle until completion where it stays in perpetual orbit. Javier doesn’t know if he should be jealous of the thin necklace or not.

Your nightgown is off, spread out on the ground and Javier’s eyes are caught on the pendant that holds the face of La Virgen that glints in the lowlight of his tent - his eyes meet hers and he feels a shiver against his spine. Of course she would be there, looped above your too-good heart and appearing before him. It almost pains him to touch you, the holiness of your skin burning his palms that are too greedy to stay away.

You gasp his name and it brings him back to you - it brings his lips to your chest and you sigh as your hands twist on the fabric of his shirt clad shoulders like you are scared to touch him. You still have your bloomers, the white cotton stark against his tan hands and he presses another kiss right above your heart as it stutters tucked away in your ribs.

“Esta bien hermosa - you can touch me.” The pet name makes you tremble, whining when the word graces your flushed ears. Hermosa, meaning beautiful or gorgeous in the language your mother would sing you to when you were a girl. Your nostalgia brings desperation and it only serves to make you needier, wanting for more of the man above you like how priests desire the light of God. You think of that ill-stricken Reverend that wanders this camp and something aches in your chest as you let your hands go over the curve of his shoulders and anchor yourself there. Teeth aching with each suck on your tongue you don’t notice it when your bloomers are off until the brisk cool night breeze dances on your bare thighs. The skin there is hot and growing more so when he lets his hands settle on the smooth skin.

It’s almost comical how perfectly you fit in his roughed hands, his callouses from his knife so seamlessly accepted by the plush of your thighs. Like the velvet cushions rich men sit in their gilded train cars and golden stagecoaches. You go from velvet to wet silk with simple touches and you moan something sweetly into his ear as his face goes to your chest and his hands in between your thighs. The backs of his knuckles tease the wetness of your slick that leaks like honey and Javier lets his lips kiss the bud of your nipple softly but not without letting his teeth have their own kiss at the edge to make you whine.

“You are so wet, leaking for me - you’ll make a mess on my pants mi amor.” His teasing is endless and you can hear that smile you see whenever you blink. You jumble out a half-assed apology and it makes Javier laugh at you again. He must have you in quite the state if it’s making your perfectly trained manners fall off like wool when faced with sheep shears. His fingers have made their way to where you are the most needy - letting them pet along the slit and cup at your mound. You moan his name, oh so, softly when he squeezes gently, cradling your most delicate part the same way he cradles the neck of his guitar.

“Javi - please, please.” The shortened version of his name makes him grin, shivering pleasantly at how affection given only to him melts into his ears like syrup.

“Ya se, ya se. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you tonight.” Dark eyes are wicked at how they glint in the low orange light of his tent as he lets one finger slip in. He reclines himself back so he can watch how you take him.

Javier does not profess how he would take care of you every night for the rest of the nights you have in your life.

You whine thinly into the air, and it makes him hiss at how tight you are around his one finger.

“Relax, chiquita - I can’t take care of you when you’re all tense like this. Shh, shh,” he murmurs to you and in return you whine with a nod; pliable and sweet for him as you let your legs shuffle more open, working on letting him in and letting him deeper. One finger turns to two, and they curl into you cruelly without respite for how you weep and sniffle at the pleasure he tugs from you like music from his guitar strings. Your mouth is hanging open, drool shining on your lips as you let out thin little sounds.

You feel full, and pleasure dances along your spine as his thumb plays with the glimmering pearl of your clit. You whine - no sing his name like gospel and it makes something inside his stomach preen like a peacock.

Javier is dedicated, giving you an even pace and deep curls of his fingers to make you soft and loose for him. Dark brown eyes watch you with the precision of a predator - eagerly taking in how sweat drips down the middle of your breasts and how your jaw drops to make out little pants of his name just for him to hear. His fingers do just enough to bring you to the edge, and you stutter over your words as you push at his wrist with the desperation that is unbecoming of you. Etiquette and education are long gone from your mind as you beg him with an addled mind.

“Please, please not - not like that,” you stutter and let out soft little moans in between each word as Javier remains unmoved; letting his fingers stay inside you at their same pace, dark brown eyes taking in how even this almost makes you weep in pleasure. His cock stirs in his jeans at how it will be when he’s inside of you, filling you well beyond anything you’ve ever had.

“No, like this - it will hurt if you don’t cum now.” He mutters, voice thick with lust as he watches your hips twitch and jump when you have begun to hit the highest peak of your pleasure. Your body is eager for his fingers, tightening and fluttering around them as you leak down to his palm. Javier goes to shush you but you’re a good girl he realizes, watching you with a grin at how your hands shoot up to your mouth to muffle your long winded whines when you crash and cum for him. His voice is soft, reassuring you as you ride out your pleasure with the trembling of your hips and the quickened rising falls of your chest.

“Just like that - like that. There you go, there you go. Cum for me, give me this one and I’ll give you another.” He promises you, his accent thick as he watches your eyes go dark and unfocused as you burn with hot desire for him until he hears your broken voice mumble; “There’s more?”

He laughs. Teasingly, adoringly, lovingly and so many other words he can’t quite say.

“Si mi vida, there is always more with me. That I can promise you.”

Again, he laughs at the way he feels you twitch around his fingers that have stilled inside at the prospect of what more entails. He won’t admit to how his cock twitches in time with you tucked away in his pants.

You whine at the idea, hot at the image of being filled with all of him and whine again when his fingers slip out of you. Gossamer strands of your cum follow them, only to break and splatter along the inside of your flushed thighs. Javier smiles the same charming smile as when he sings and soothes you by rubbing your thigh with one hand while the other goes to undo his belt buckle.

You don’t see the length of him, only feel the heat of him against the petals of your cunt and it’s enough for you to yelp like some poor animal caught in a trap. Javier is bent over you, the build of his slim body covering you with his elbow supporting him above your head, eyes attuned to the half lit scene before him. You, sweating enough to make strands of your hair stick your flushed face with your eyes half lidded and mouth parted. His hips move without him thinking, coating his length in your glimmering release and rubbing against your still sensitive clit that it makes you flinch - mewling his name in a wet and defeated tone that makes him huff in half fondness-half teasing.

“Javi-” you whine, hotter than you have ever been and voice cracking when the head of his cock brushes past your entrance and makes its way in. You gasp into his mouth, one hand coming to cover your eyes and the other gripping at the fabric of his shoulder. Javier sighs against your lips and kisses you to muffle his own noises - higher pitched than he’d like to admit they are lost in between your two mouths as you take another inch of him. He is long, he knows this and you are tight ; tighter than anyone else he’s ever been with due to your lack of experience so he is slow with you despite how he wants to devour you entirely with one stroke.

Javier is tactical when he wants to be and is more than practical when he has to be so he controls himself, letting you have him inch by torturous inch. You are panting, throwing your head back in a way that lets him catch the tears that make it down your cheek and are uncovered by your hand. With one hand he bats away yours until your face - glistening and flushed is revealed to him as your mouth shines with drool from pleasure. His thumb goes to wipe away a tear and you move to feel the warmth of him more closely.

“Why are you crying hermosa, hm?” He asks you, sighing at how you take more of him so sweetly. You don’t respond only squealing and squeezing around him as you lose more of yourself on his cock. Half of him is seated inside you, enough for you to moan his name brokenly as you beg for more despite you wincing when he moves. Javier grunts and stops, letting the half of him that’s inside you stay still to let you breathe

“You can,” you pant, “you can put the whole thing in - please, please put it in.” You beg, and a thrill goes up his spine at the idea of seeing you weep from his cock being too much runs across his mind before he pushes it to the side. You are far too sweet, too delicate to be treated so roughly by him. You aren’t a working girl he can forget about come morning but the woman he wants to wake up to, which is why it’s easy for him to do what he thinks to be best.

He denies you.

“No, this is -” he sighs deeply at the way you feel around him - slick and wet and wanting for him to give you more until it aches. “This is enough. You’ll take the rest next time.” You whine at the thought and whine again when he pulls his slim hips back to fuck you like that. He gives you slow, careful thrusts with the hand that cradles your face sneaking down to rub at your pulsing clit with gentle precision. It’s almost too much for you, he notes and he feels bad that the sight of you weeping on half his cock, losing your mind with your eyes glassy from tears is doing it more for him than anything else.

You’ve always been a proper girl, ever since he saw you on your horse in the snow of Colter looking at him with the sweetest eyes framed by snowflakes. There’s a sick pleasure tugging at his stomach at how he has you now, manners gone and all you are now is debauched and drunk on him. It’s almost enough to make him finish and clearly it’s enough to get you there too by the way you weep out the little nickname you gave him.

“Javi, Javi, ’m going to -” He cuts you off with a punched out exhale, grinding his molders to keep from cumming inside by how you keep tightening around him like a vice.

“Go let go for me, mi amor - you’ve been so good.” With that you break, voice so ruined it cracks when you whine out babbles of precious thank yous in his ear as you come to completion a second and last time for the night. It’s painful, the last drag he gets of your cunt before he tugs at his sticky and slick cock to shoot his spend against the mound of your cunt. The sight of him dripping down to your twitching lower half more than makes up for it and he is more than willing to bend back over you to press gentle kiss after kiss on your panting lips. Your eyes had fluttered close and you babbled mindlessly under his gentle touches as you slowly came back down to look up at him with blearily eyes. Javier smiles at you with all the tenderness of the world when you wrap your arms around his neck - he manages to settle on his side with you in his arms and you tuck your face into his neck. You nuzzle the skin and sight softly, eyes red and half lidded tired from all he has pulled for you. Javier is soft with you, spoiling you by letting his nails scratch your scalp the way you like.

“Rest mi vida, I’ll clean you up.” he murmurs into your hair, presses a kiss to the crown of your head. You hum, murmur his name and a soft little confession of love before your eyes slip shut. You shiver when the soft fabric of a pocket square wipes at the mess of your swollen cunt and whine when you are moved to have your nightgown pulled over your head. Through your fussing Javier remains gentle, whispering praise as he settles you to his chest to sleep. When you awake you’ll be faced with teasing you thought you were quiet enough to avoid but that can wait. Now your eyes are heavy and Javier’s heartbeat is soothing - anything else can wait as for now you want for nothing else.

[mythalism]

the ambiguity of solas's ending actually really does piss me off so bad. like i dont know why they think they were cooking by being vague about where exactly he ends up and whether or not he is trapped or able to leave, especially if your own player character ends up there with him, whether thats rook or lavellan. the imagery in the epilogue slides and implication in the "atoning for the blight" ending is clear but only if you're well versed in lore that veilguard does not really explore, and thats only for the atonement endings where he leaves to heal the blight willingly. where does he end up in the other endings? where did the rift behind him lead to? is it just the fade? do all the rifts lead to the black city even if he doesnt intentionally leave to go heal the blight??? if so why??? the rift opened naturally, solas didnt open it. is it just luck that it leads to exactly where we need hin to be?????? does rook even know where it leads???? do they even think before shoving him into it?????? does it even matter if he has the fucking dagger anyway????? if so whats the point of any of it??????????? WHAT THE FUCK???????

if that was just the game's refusal to employ it's own vocabulary that would be one thing, because its a larger issue in the game overall. the black city/golden city is not mentioned to my knowledge, though perhaps it is in codex entries, and so to use that terminology in the end would be confusing to the incompetent and stupid "new players" the game was written for who apparently cannot be trusted to absorb worldbuilding information on their own. but the fact that several people have asked for clarification from the devs and we have gotten more ambiguous, unsatisfying answers or straight up refusals to elaborate is so ridiculous to me. why? spoilers? for the game you are never actually going to get to make? even if it was a spoiler who fucking cares? an ending that leaves you unsatisfied because you are CONFUSED is not a well-written one. when i first finished i genuinely felt PANICKED because it was over and i didnt understand how it ended. i felt so desperate to know where exactly they were. the way the ending feels completely different if they are in the black city versus the regret prison is HUGE. those are two completely different endings. whether or not he has agency and is able to leave makes a HUGE difference in the overall messaging of his character. it makes a HUGE impact on lavellan's willingness to join him. i guarantee that like half of the people who hate the solavellan ending and were really upset by it would have felt far better about it if it was just explained where the fuck they were. like what is the point. how does it serve the narrative for the audience to leave the epilogue unsure of what just happened? and the worst part is that, while i am a full 99.9% sure that they are in the black city rather than regret jail, because thats where the blight is and thats the visual imagery used in the epilogue slides, that 0.1% uncertainty exists not because i just dont know the lore well enough or didnt understand the ending, but because i no longer have faith in bioware to stick to their own writing.

i know that it only makes sense for solas to be in the black city if his goal is healing the blight, but what if epler decides he wants solas to be in the regret prison instead being psychologically tortured because he thinks hes annoying and deserves it? what if some other dev who has a bone to pick with bald guys gets hired and pushes for it really hard in meetings for 5 years? will what they established for the ending actually matter, then? or will they do a complete 180 from what was set up and retcon the ending? and i get it- they have always done this on some level. corypheus returning after da2 to be inquisition's antagonist, for example, though i'd counter that argument with there being clear foreshadowing that he body hopped so that seed was indeed planted. or killing flemeth with morrigan in origins only to find out in da2 that she gave her soul to hawke just in time to survive. but these things have an internal consistency with the world-building that i have lost faith in the writers to continue. corypheus survives because he uses blight body hopping, an established ability that we already knew archdemons had, then elaborated on when he returns in inquisition. flemeth is an ancient unknowable legendary swamp witch who is suggested to be playing 4d mind chess with the characters even before you know about her own body-snatching, so finding out she was able to cheat death like that isn't unfounded or far fetched. but veilguard so gleefully tramples over its own world's rules and established stories, whether its stupid small mechanical gripes like rook wading through "blight pools" and exploding "blight cysts" all over themselves with no explanation meanwhile we know that felix alexius died of blight from just coming into contact with hurlock blood when attacked, and that ferelden mabari biting darkspawn was a death sentence for them unless they could be cured with a rare herb. or larger things, like.... idk. solas's characterization, motivations, and massive network of agents and supporters. or slavery existing in tevinter. or the existence of the titan's heart orbs that each evanuris has? or um. RED LYRIUM. and so much more.

i think thats why the vagueness of this game bothers me in a way it did not previously. granted, i do not think inquisition is NEARLY as vague with its lore reveals and character epilogues. its actually very straight forward and explains everything sufficiently. theres more of an argument for da2 being very vague. but previously, i would have trusted that it would be taken care of in a way that made sense, or at least was internally consistent with the world. i have completely lost that faith. instead, after playing the rest of veilguard and seeing how little respect the game has for it's own world and story and characters, the ambiguity of solas's ending is nothing but anxiety-inducing and unsatisfying. i cant even clearly analyze his character arc if i dont truly know the implications of the ending. and on top of that, what reason do i have to believe the writers will respect their own writing going forward?

[cipheramnesia]

Joking aside, I think it's interesting how cannibalism in horror motion pictures started out primarily used as a way to socially other a variety of outgroups, such as people in poverty or non-whites and then it got shifted. The othering still exists, but cannibalism became a way to show power and privilege - it started to become a component of antagonists who represented authority or wealth or colonization. And after that, it got subsumed into the wealthy and powerful as a romantic act of transgression. Sort of a modern day version of Dracula, where the implicit consumption of the poor by the wealthy was turned explicit in a way intended as enticing rather than othering.

At present, it appears cannibalism is entering a sort of recursive era of detachment - treated as a purposeful reclaiming of othering by a newer generation pushing against the more recent conceptualization as cannibalism as an act of dominance by the powerful. It's moving towards a mix, where cannibalism as an act carries an intangible stigma which also serves to signal other people in your outgroup that you are "one of them," in the sense of being a social outcast rather than social authority.

What makes this all interesting is that cannibalism as othering of outgroups, in its original form, hasn't gone away. It remains as the boogey man of cultures different from those of the USA or Europe, still imposed today on imaginary characters which carry all the same traits historically utilized in oppression of and bigotry towards indigenous peoples, but which are otherwise always explicitly identified as separate from those recognized in modern colonized territories. They wouldn't call these caricatures Cree or Mohawk or etc - merely use all the same imagery once applied to those people and others. Likewise, the "crazed cannibal redneck family" hasn't vanished, merely transformed into people who are even more desperately poor, and further mutated away from identifiably human. In fact, if this kind of purposefully used, othering and violent form of cannibalism did not continue to exist, it's doubtful that the more recent utilization of cannibalism as a unifying act of transgression for signaling between an outgroup could exist.

As a fictional creation - distinct from real-world instances - cannibalism has continued to maintain a remarkably consistent baseline as a transgressive act. It's no longer shocking as it once was, as a storytelling tool, yet it retains some underlying power over the human mind that sets characters apart from social acceptability in ways that related fictions (such as vampires and werewolves) do not. I would hazard a guess that this is rooted in cannibalism as a real-world event. While vampires and werewolves are derived from real people, there are no actual supernatural immortals or wolves that change into humans and back, that we know of. Whereas we know with complete certainty that cannibalism has happened, and will probably continue to happen for the foreseeable future.

Additionally the way cannibalism in motion pictures has been applied to cultures and people that fall outside the general concept of "whiteness" in the cultures of the USA and Europe greatly complicates what specific way it can be taken back as a deliberate transgression. This is not to say cannibalism is some verboten concept that makes everyone utilizing it secretly racist - but there is no arguing that it has a long history of being used specifically as a form of racism and/or colonialism (that's another essay by someone else). Few modern day versions of reclaimed cannibalism address this specific historic element in any substantive way.

It's been fascinating to watch cannibalism slowly working its way back to its roots in a reclaimed way, the poor eating the rich no longer a broad fear but a rallying call. I think it will continue to be interesting to see how far back this reaches, and if eventually it will come around enough to discover who has, as we sometimes say, "been here the whole time."

[imthepunchlord]

So little speculation/theory on what god Seiko may mainly serve, which I'm not a 100% on but there are some details that do stand out to me that offer it as a possibility.

The thought is that Seiko may be a medium in service to (mainly) Inari Okami.

One of the big stand out details to the Ayase residence is that they live around rice fields, which rice is a major food item tied to Inari and even relates to their namesake and ties to agriculture.

Another major stand out is Inari is a god of messages (done through her foxes).

And one of the very few lessons we see from Seiko is her teaching about the power of words.

For someone who uses words as a means of power, that could go in hand with messages need be heard, loud and clear.

Additionally, Seiko's most iconic weapon is a pencil-bat, the utensil is used for writing (though so far we see Seiko draw with it more).

Inari is tied to prosperity and food (mainly rice, sake, and tea), this could work off Seiko's need to feed everyone post a victory despite grumbling/having fits about it.

Other additional details to add that are minor but still stood out to me.

Seiko's power sets yokai ablaze in a ghostly fire, which could be a nod to fox fire.

Seiko works with nails and a metal bat and is a warrior/martial artist, and Inari is a patron of blacksmiths and protector of warriors.

Inari's origins has them coming down from the heavens, and Seiko's name literally means star child.

Foxes are animals commonly tied to being wise, clever, mischievous, and secretive. A lot of this matches with how Seiko is. She likes to mess with Momo (at least I think at this point her refusing to believe in aliens is just to mess with Momo).

Seiko will also keep secrets from Momo. Sometimes for her safety, sometimes to mess with her.

Lastly, Inari is most noted to work with white foxes, who often have red markings especially on the face.

And there's Seiko notably having white hair, which may be a reflection of her age, may be that she's a silver vixen. And to add to the kitsune visual, Seiko does have red glasses which could work off red markings on the face.

Chances are good this is all a reach, especially as I would think we'd see some fox imagery around the Ayase residence (unless the rice fields would count?), but there's some details and possibilities that just kinda stood out to me on maybe Inari Okami being the god Seiko mainly works with. As I am surprised that we're almost at Ch 180 and still don't know what god has Kamigoe City as their domain.

And this is all because I saw @heremob draw Momo as a fox and it sent me down this speculative rabbit hole and see the potential ties the Ayases may have with foxes, and by extension, Inari.

[yeyinde]

I just read your alpha fics for Price and Ghost and yes I am having a little trouble thinking clearly but I am on my hands and knees asking if maybe there is a chance you would write one for alpha Johnny? I loved the imagery of him holding back from claiming someone in the Ghost fic and I would love to see him finally lose that control completely.

i had an idea for Johnny, but it felt too similar to the baby trap fic i'm writing. the theme i have for him is basically "this man snatches wives clean off the streets" i guess :/

but the idea was:

Alpha!Soap who finds runaway Omega!Reader on the side of the road, desperate to escape town. to run. and as a beacon of his community, law enforcement (a game warden) who has sworn that his duty is to serve and protect, he offers to take you in. to give you shelter until the next morning when you can leave town, running away from the alpha that's been stalking you these last few months, waiting for your heat to claim you.

protecting you is just the right thing to do, after all. and so, he does. brings you into his home, makes you dinner. humming to himself as you beg him to see you off at the train station tomorrow. you have to leave. you have to. staying here is not safe with that alpha still around.

he says, "i'll take care of it."

and he does. but maybe not in the way you'd have expected.

your heat starts in the middle of the night, and you wake up to him smothering you with kisses, drowning you in his musk. he whispers in your ear about how you don't have to worry anymore—he took care of the problem, and he'll take such good care of you, too. always. you don't have to do anything except rest your pretty little head on his pillow and let him rut between your thighs until he's had his fill. delirious, half-mad from the heat, you agree. signing your soul away to a man who'd follow you to the ends of the earth with a smile on his face like this was some off-putting courting ritual and not a desperate escape.

(they find the body in the summer. Price takes one look at the mangled remains, shakes his head, and mutters something about a bear attack. an accident, naturally. that sort of thing just happens around here. and people like Johnny too much to go wondering why you ended up claimed by him the same night the alpha stalking you goes missing. an eerie coincidence. those sorts of things happen, don't you know? and if they have other questions about it. well. Johnny'll set 'em straight.)

[gastersreturn]

Guys, I'm currently asking myself something about this AU and I need your opinion

I really like scary imageries like the one I used in page 11 of the Prologue, and I will put more of those in the future And for that, I'm not sure if I should put trigger warnings just in case when I'll use that same aesthetic.

Just so you know before you vote, for the rest of the AU, I draw the line to gore or anything like that, I like scary and disturbing, but not trash or truly traumatizing. I like horror and all those weird aesthetic that we can find on Internet, and that I think Undertale got a lot of inspirations from, like Dreamcore, Liminal spaces, and so much more But I want that to serve a purpose on the story, to tell something, rather than to "trick" you into anything you guys are uncomfortable with

[aihoshiino]

chapter 165 thoughts

Aqua Hoshigan Status: It's Officially Hoshinover

Chapters Until The Story Ends Without The 143 Kiss Being Addressed Or Acknowledged: 1

damn i guess they really did just kill his ass

I'm gonna be so real with you gamers, I kind of don't have a lot to say about this one either lol. Which I acknowledge sounds completely wild given the Everything that happens in it, but most of my meat and potatoes analysis in these reviews comes from breaking down characterization and we're flying through everything at such breakneck pace that we're barely getting any characterization.

It continues to drive me bugfuck insane that Ai is completely absent from this finale despite the importance of 15 Year Lie. Its imagery is plastered all over but whenever we return to it, we just see Aqua. Not only that, but Gotanda is the one who insists on pushing the movie through for Aqua. 15YL as a story about Ai's true self and her tragedy is now officially taking a backseat to being about Aqua's tragic death and legacy. It was already bad enough that we spent so much time in the Movie Arc not actually focusing on Ai to the extent that, as everyone pointed out, based on what we saw on-page it was basically a Sad Kamiki Movie, but this really is just pissing right in the wound at this point lmao.

The funeral scene also serves as the final nail in the coffin for any Secretly Alive Aqua copes, which is kind of a relief. I still don't like how Aqua's death played out, but I think dragging it out for four chapters then going "sorry you thought i was /srs when i was just /jk" would have been infinitely more insulting. I don't like this ending, but I can respect that Akasaka seems to be sticking to his guns on it, even if we still do have like a whole chapter left for him to whip around and go "I WAS /JK ALL ALONG!!!!" but I don't see it happening.

Anyway, yeah! The funeral! Uh. Is it gonna sound weird if I say I felt kind of like… grossed out reading this the first time? Like, I really don't know how else to explain the visceral "why the fuck is the author making me read this" reaction I had to it. I think it's just because Kana is so fucking distraught here and the drama is just so hammy and so over the top that it feels kind of… ech. I dunno. I just really didn't vibe.

It doesn't help that this is part of a much broader pattern in the back half of OnK of Aka getting us right up close into the gory details of a character's complete mental breakdown and suffering and then spend zero time or focus on their recovery. This happened with Ruby all over the Movie Arc and this many times and with this little runway to the end of the series, it just starts to feel exploitative, like a way to cheaply pull at our heartstrings without doing the work to build everyone back up after tearing them down.

also pre-emptively dreading all the fuel this is going to add to the fires of People Who Are Weird And Misogynistic About Kana but she could die saving innocent children from a burning building and people would find reasons to be shitty about her lmao

we really are not seeing ruby's reaction to finding out her brother was dead huh lol

I will say the one thing I didn't Actively Dislike about this chapter was Ruby, though. I was honestly starting to get pretty skeeved out with how many people were gleefully predicting or actively wishing for her immediate suicide purely for ship motivated reasons and I was also worrying that the story was going to pretend that Ruby doesn't like. Have a life and support system outside of Aqua. Yes, she should absolutely be affected by his death but this period of her shutting down only to drag herself back onto her feet that we seem to be getting feels way more in line with pre-Movie Arc flanderization Ruby and I'll take that W where I can get it.

god. I haven't even talked about Kamiki's supposed serial killer cult. I just don't have the strength. Like… that's self-evidently stupid, right? I don't need to explain to you why that's ridiculous and unbelievable? You don't need me to tell you why it's fucking crazy that we're getting this information about the alleged overarching antagonist of the series not only in the second-to-last chapter of the entire series but after he was already dead, right? We can just move on? Ok good. jesus christ.

FINAL CHAPTER NEXT WEEK…

[medievalandfantasymelee]

THE HOT MEDIEVAL & FANTASY MEN MELEE

SECOND ROUND: 25th Tilt

Prince Charmont, Ella Enchanted (2004) VS. King Henry V Plantagenet, The Hollow Crown (2012-2016)

Propaganda

Prince Charmont, Ella Enchanted (2004) Portrayed by: Hugh Dancy Defeated Opponents: - Galessin, Duke of Orkney [Alexis Hénon], Kaamelott (2004-2009) - “One Eye” [Mads Mikkelsen], Valhalla Rising (2009)

“Before he was cannibal catnip, Hugh Dancy was the dorkiest, hottest Prince Charming variant.”

King Henry V Plantagenet, The Hollow Crown (2012-2016) Portrayed by: Tom Hiddleston Defeated Opponents: - Arthur Pendragon [Oliver Tobias], Arthur of the Britons (1972-1973) - Ahchoo [Dave Chappelle], Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)

“Hal is Shakespeare’s sexiest history protagonist by virtue of sheer range. He’s a roguish rake, a dashing prince, a rugged king and you bet your ass Tom Hiddleston serves cunt all the way through. I know y’all love Loki and I promise you he’s even sexier blonde.”

Additional Propaganda Under the Cut

Additional Propaganda

For Prince Charmont:

For Henry V:

“I can't believe [it took so long for people to submit] text propaganda for Hiddleston!Henry V. Did everyone just look at him in leather trousers and lose the power of speech? I teach with this film, and I am convinced that the leather trousers are responsible for more than one student missing key plot details in that scene (and possibly for more than one epiphany re: sexuality.)...

"... Thea Sharrock directed this, and she clearly Knows about the female gaze. Surely any time you see a man drawing a longbow like that, it's an invitation to think about hands and arms and shoulders (shoulders!) in other contexts. From a characterization standpoint, too, the coiled physicality of his Henry and how he uses it are really interesting. Also this man's cheekbones should be illegal. And the wooing scene where he lays aside his crown and kneels as if in homage to the princess who is about to be signed over to him via treaty in the next room? Hot damn, I do love a good use of courtly love imagery.”

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 5 - Catholic Character Tournament

Propaganda below ⬇️

Wolfwood

I love him. Man who has no faith in himself or humanity or god with so much blood on his hands, fighting for something he knows he can never see come to fruition in person. He carries his own literal cross and grave marker on his back. Just… he’s so iconic to me.

I'm sure I'm not the first to submit him. But I did it anyway. I hope he wins and I'll do anything in my power to make sure he does

Dude is literally a priest who carries around a giant cross. Yes he uses the cross to murder people but that is besides the point. Also he has a mini church he carries around for on-the-go confession services.

hes literally a priest(hes not a priest in the reboot but he is in the original and thats what matters to Me). he carries around a cross that is actually secretly a gun with guns inside that gun. he runs a church/orphanage. he carries around a portable confession booth and charges people money for it because he is broke as fuck. he dies bleeding out over an alter begging to god for forgiveness he doesnt think he deserves. he is everything to me.

look at this man he's a priest with a cross shaped gun that (spoilers) dies against the side of a church while waxing poetic about life and redemption (/spoilers), this is the Catholic ever.

Wolfwood is liiiiiterally Judas coded in the text. AND his weapon is a massive cross that turns into a machine gun and a LASER. Not to mention his religious trauma. Oh baby. The religious trauma.

Homeboy literally walks around with a giantass 300lb machine gun shaped like a cross called the Punisher. Hes a priest/undertaker depending on what version of trigun you reference. Grew up in a church orphanage. Also literally walks around with a portable confessional box for people to pay to confess to him. Need i say more.

HE IS LITERALLY JUDAS. he is literally leading the jesus allegory to his doom. hes also in love with the jesus allegory (vash). he is also carrying arouns a giant cross rhat is also a gun. hes literally catholic and judas and his tits are perfect. in one piece of official art he's wearing a cross choker. also the catholicism on gunsmoke is about making vash submit. wolfwood looking at that pathetic wet mess of a man oh i can make him submit easily.

He literally carries around a giant cross and is referred to as a priest by multiple characters. also he offers people confessionals

He carries a huge machine gun that is in the shape of a cross that is really heavy (he is strong) and his boobs are huge. So you know hes serving cunt in a god honoring way. Also in trigun 1998 he brings around a small chapel that he uses as a portable confessional and in trigun stampede he holds funeral services as an undertaker which are way overly priced. Also he dies very gayly (basicly confessing his love to his best boy friend forever)

Nick's funny bc he's probably the least Christian acting guy but is literally a preacher. There's a running gag with Vash asking some variation of "what the hell kinda churchman are you?" His gun is a gigantic cross. He rides a shitty motorcycle in the middle of the desert.

ok so thematically the main conflict in trigun is about peace vs violence and its represented by the characters vash and knives respectively. the two aren't /technically/ angels but thematically and through imagery they are and are comparable to michael and lucifer specifically. ANYWAYS. vash and knives are the characters who are constantly pushing and pulling at wolfwood's morality, sort of like a "the devil and god are raging inside of me" kinda deal. his grappling with his morality and faith is a big factor in his character. also he has a giant fucking gun shaped like a cross. and he dies in a church while praying.

Bros an orphan who grew up at a Catholic orphanage and taken away to be trained and genetically changed into a supercharged assassin for interworldly beings that have lots of angel imagery attached. Guy thought he was just going to be taken to become a missonary...instead he got 6 years of religious trauma. He still wears a cross necklace and holds it often. His gun is a literal cross "full of mercy" (its a missile launcher). He never really believed fully in the faith or anything, but the way he interacts with it is FASCINATING. He's jaded by the planet he lives on and his upbringing, and makes him say his most iconic quote: "We're nothing like God. Not only do we have limited powers, but sometimes we're driven to become the devil himself." He prays to a God he doesn't know if he actually believes in, asking for another day— for hope for the human race. The organization hes part of (The Eye of Michael) works for an interdimensional otherworldly being that has an incredible amount of angelic metaphor and imagery attached who intends to purge the planet of humans... and ends up siding with that guy's twin brother who is so Jesus coded it's insane. They are best friends even as Wolfwood is acting under instructions to babysit and watch him for his twin brother. He dies after facing down against his old mentor (named Chapel) and his pseudo brother from the orphanage who was taken into the Eye as well and his Jesus bestie buries him and sticks his cross-gun in the ground after losing his shit crazy style and using his pseudo alien angel Jesus powers to lash out at his brother for being the cause of Wolfwood's death. Rest in peace king

John

he’s a priest. he can punch your lights out. he would never hurt a fly. he has connections in the black market. he gives everything he can to the local orphans. he will not hesitate to play pranks on you. he wants everyone to be happy. he has daddy issues probably. he wants a promotion sososososoooooo bad.

I accidentally submitted the last 5actors name but it’s the same guy

Hey everyone please vote for this man I love him he truely is what we need more of in this world the kindest most relatable character has flaws etc etc. Deserves the world

[bethanythebogwitch]

If you asked me as a kid what my favorite animal was, there's a good chance I'd respond "chambered nautilus", though I probably would mispronounce it. I don't know if it's still my favorite but it's definitely up there in the pantheon of weird critters. For this Wet Beast Wednesday, I'll discuss my childhood favorite.

(image: a nautilus)

The nautilus is a cephalopod that lives in a curved shell and looks similar to (but is not closely related to) the extinct ammonites. There are 6 living species in two genera, but 90% of the time when someone is discussing nautiluses they are referring to the most well-known species: Nautilus pompilius or the chambered nautilus. Nautiloids are ancient, going back to at least the late triassic with their more primitive ancestors going back as far as the ordovician period, a time when only invertebrates and primitive plants occupied the land and true fish had not yet appeared. Because of their ancient history, nautiluses are sometimes considered living fossils. I have ranted before on how misleading the term "living fossil" is so I'll spare you that for now. Nautiloids are considered a sister group to the celoids, which contains all the squid, octopus, cuttlefish, and everything else we thinks of as cephalopods. Nautiluses should not be confused with paper nautiluses. Also called argonauts, paper nautiluses are a group of octopi that make an egg case which looks like a shell.

(image: a nautilus)

The most noticeable feature of a nautilus is its shell. The shell is smooth and finely curving, naturally growing in the shape of a logarithmic spiral (though not, as is commonly stated, a golden ratio spiral). The shell has a stripy outer layer and an inner layer coated with nacre. Internally, the shell is divided into camarae (chambers) separated from each other by walls called septa. Each septum has a small hole in it through which a strand of tissue called the siphuncle passes. Most of the nautilus's body is in the foremost and largest chamber. The shell grows new septa as the animal grows, with the nautilus's body moving to a new chamber as it becomes too large for previous ones. Juveniles are typically born with 4 septa, with adults having as many as 30. In addition to providing protection from predators, the shell is also key for regulating buoyancy. The septa can contain pressurized gas or water and the siphuncle regulates their contents by either adding or removing water to increase or decrease buoyancy. Because of its pressurized contents, the shell can only withstand pressure at depths up to 800 M (2,400 ft) before imploding. Oddly enough, nautiluses can be safely brought up from deep waters where most animals would be killed by the pressure changes. To move, the nautilus pulls water into the first chamber of the shell using its hyponome (siphon) and shoots it back out. The chambered nautilus is the largest species, with a maximum shell diameter of 25 cm (10 in), though most get no larger than 20 cm (8 in).

(image: a diagram of nautilus anatomy. source)

Where celoid cephalopods have tentacles, nautiluses instead have numerous cirri. Unlike tentacles, cirri are less muscular, are not elastic, and have no suckers. They are used to grab objects using their ridged surfaces and can hold in so hard that trying to take an object away from a nautilus can rip off its cirri, which will remain firmly attached. In addition, the nautilus has modified cirri that serve as olfactory receptors and a pair that serve to open and close the shell when the nautilus needs to retract into it or emerge. Nestled within the cirri is the beak, which is used to consume the nautilus's primary prey of invertebrates, though they have also been seen scavenging fish. Their eyes are less developed than most cephalopods, lacking a lens and consisting of a small pinhole that only allows the nautilus to see simple imagery. Their brains are differently structured than most cephalopods and studies have found them to have considerably shorter long-term memories.

(image: a chambered nautilus (upper left) next to a rare Allonautilus scrobiculatus. source)

Cephalopod reproduction is quite different than that of other cephalopods. While most cephalopods are short-lived and semelparous (reproducing only once), nautiluses can live over 20 years and reproduce multiple times (iteroparity). They do not reach sexual maturity until around 15 years old, with females laying eggs once per year. Eggs are attached to rocks and take 8 to 12 months to hatch. Males have a structure called the spadix composed of 4 fused cirri that they use to transfer sperm to females. Females lose their gonads after laying their eggs and will regenerate them for the next year's mating season. Interestingly, male nautiluses seem to vastly outnumber the females. EDIT: @bri-the-nautilus in the replies found an alternate explanation for the disparity in male and female numbers you should check out. TLDR; the females are asocial.

(image: nautiluses mating)

Nautiluses are found in the Indo-Pacific reagion of the ocean and can be found on the steep slopes of coral reefs. They prefer to inhabit waters several hundred meters down. It was once believed that they would rise to shallow waters at night to feed, lay eggs, and mate, but their vertical migration behavior has since been shown to be more complex than that. They have noon been fished by humans for their shells, which have become popular subjects in art and can be made into a number of decorative pieces. The nacre of the shell can be polished into osmeña pearl, which can be quite valuable. Demand for the shells combined with the late sexual maturity and low fecundity is threatening all the species. As of 2016, nautiluses have been added to the CITES Appendix II, making them protected by limiting international trade of their shells. Despite this, they are still threatened and require further protection

(image: a carved and painted nautilus shell from the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan)