#*KILL BILL SIRENS PLAYING*

[alrightbuckaroo]

me personally, i love that tommy calls buck "evan" because you can't convince me that hearing "you have nothing to apologize for, evan." didn't heal something inside of him.

[borgialucrezia]

"Now, be gone, while you yet have a tongue to speak with." THE BORGIAS — 2.02

"I would have cut his heart out of his body. But I stayed my hand for the good of the family." THE BORGIAS — 3.04

[five-and-dimes]

💄

Making some decent headway on this fic today! This is from a little earlier than the last snippets, when they first meet:

Dream hadn’t been confident in his ability to go home with Hob once, let alone become something more. Hob was unfairly, effortlessly attractive. But he was also so charismatic, magnetic, bright. He was the kind of person who didn’t need to be attractive. Dream hovered just outside his circle just to hear him laugh, to hear him tell stories of his life, to see the way he embraced his friends so warmly and earnestly. Hob holds the door open for strangers and pats his friends on the back, and Dream didn’t particularly like the idea of those hands being rough with him, but he would take it to be touched by him at all. But Hob was so gentle. He’s still not sure how he managed it- surely there was someone better for Hob to turn to. But he catches Hob’s eye and bites his lip, and he manages to chat casually with him long enough to get a proposition, and Hob holds his hand as he ushers him up the stairs to his apartment, and Dream feels something like peace at the thought of at least being useful to someone so good.�� Hob makes it hard to be useful. He lays Dream out, keeps kissing him, keeps petting him, keeps pausing to ask “Is this okay? Does this feel good? Tell me what you want?” and Dream is breathless with it. He keeps waiting for Hob to snap, to turn mean, but even when he finally gets his cock inside Dream, he’s languid and soft. Dream finds himself, for the first time he can remember, struggling to keep his composure. Hob has him on his back, so he has to keep reminding himself not to scrunch his face in pleasure, not to moan too loud, or grunt inelegantly. He keeps his back arched until it aches, keeps his eyes attractively half-lidded, restrains his panting to soft sighs. It’s exhausting. It’s always exhausting. It is so fucking worth it. When Hob comes, it takes all of Dream’s self-control not to start sobbing. When Hob pulls out only to lean down and take Dream’s cock into his mouth he has to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep from wailing. When they have both finished, the sex over and their bodies cooling in the afterglow, Hob shifts next to him and keeps kissing him. Dream wants to stay here forever. Eventually though, he knows his time is up. He dresses smoothly, feeling the weight of Hob’s eyes on him. When he turns to say his farewell, Hob leans up on his elbow, grinning bashfully. “Listen, I know you’re wildly out of my league,” he laughs self-deprecatingly, “but I’d kick myself if I didn’t at least ask… Any chance I could get your number? Maybe… we could go out sometime?” Dream is used to people telling him “let’s do this again sometime”. People invite him back to their beds. They don’t invite him out. He’s certain he must look ridiculous with how quickly he nods in agreement. But Hob doesn’t take the offer back. He just smiles wider.

[nam-on-jo]

“you’re lucky I’m the one that hit you. if it was sae-bom you would be dead”

man LOVES his marriage of convenience wife SOOOOOO bad

[talesfromthecrypts]

make me choose: @brandon-lee asked Sam Reid Lestat or Tom Cruise Lestat?

[paper--moons]

Me engaging with any media: Remember, we don't have to assign agere dynamics to any of the characters this time! Regression doesn't apply to every character in existence, because that would be silly, wouldn't it? Yes, I can be so normal about this new thing and not act like the silly creature that I am.

Me 0.3 seconds after being introduced to the characters: And I will be taking care of you my precious little darling, forever and always,,,

[undead-potatoes]

So glad I don't have to function at a job while my brain is sorting itself out with these SSRIs, not only would I not get anything done but I'd probably start shit with half of my coworkers for no fucking reason

[doom-dreaming]

do you think Ash gets full-named when someone gets upset with him? because you know NO ONE calls him Ashley unless he's done something to deserve it

do you think he ever gets comfortable enough to pull the same stunt with fred (however jokingly) in retaliation?

[digitalcactusblog]

oh man finally gotten to bed after packing hell so IT'S TIME FOR OPAL

opal. is my most MOST dnd pc. by a massive margin. my god. i love them to bits, but they are so much in every possible direction at all times

to summarize them in one quick phrase, you can think of opal as a barbie sephiroth powerpuff girl winter soldier. none of these words belong in one phrase together, yet we've gotten it there anyway!!!!

under the cut bc i expect this to get quite long 😂

god, where do i even start with opal. imagine the platonic ideal of a manic pixie dream girl, add in a touch of airheadedness, then give the entire creation the attention span of a magpie on crack.

that's what opal is like.

opal is also the clone of the princess of the enemy country to the country the party is currently traveling through.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!!

opal is a top secret government project created as a gift to the royals of that country, a tribute to wizard hubris, and a proof of concept for a devastating military weapon that will win this country the war.

because opal isn't just a clone of the princess (her name is vasya). opal is a marble statue of the princess, carved into shape, then engraved with the magical principles and equations to bring that statue to life. opal wasn't just made to be a genetic clone of vasya. opal was made to be vasya. a complete clone, down to the skills and memories of the original vasya.

imagine, if you will, an army. there are people in it. and people die. people have families they'll never return to, loved ones who'll miss them, and, quite frankly, they're pretty freaking expensive to keep as functional soldiers!

now, i must copy paste the description block for the spell True Polymorph.

"Choose one creature with at least 1 hit point or nonmagical object that you can see within range. You transform the creature into a different creature, the creature into an object, or the object into a creature (the object must be neither worn nor carried by another creature). The transformation lasts for the duration, or until the target drops to 0 hit points or dies. If you concentrate on this spell for the full duration, the transformation becomes permanent."

imagine, if you will. a quick, easy, and cheap way to mass produce True Polymorph, without the need for a high leveled wizard to cast a level 9 spell every time. all you need are a handful of pebbles, and boom, you have sentient, sapient, competent soldiers.

this is what opal was a proof of concept for.

SO, to summarize so far:

peppy, sunny attitude! that's the barbie part

devastating military superweapon person: sephiroth

entirely artificial being, yet extremely cheerful about it: powerpuff girl

devastating SECRET military superweapon. is also from a russian empire-inspired fantasy country: winter soldier

also we named opal's creator after rasputin. yeah, that rasputin. yeah, like ra ra, russia's greatest love machine? yeah, we thought it'd be funny. her name is grigori and she has a lot of problems (opal is the cause of most of them 😊)

anyways, so opal gets created, and is, for all intents and purposes, a carbon copy of vasya. but as a prototype for this weapon, there are still some kinks to work out, one of being that, to maintain the same memories and whatnot as vasya, they need to essentially get regular software updates. but otherwise, perfect vasya clone!

except grigori starts noticing little discrepancies. little anomalies. the clone isn't a perfect vasya clone. the clone is developing a nascent personality—a nascent personality that keeps getting overwritten with every download.

the clone isn't a hollow clone.

the clone is alive.

"my god," grigori says, horrified, "what have i done? i have created life; not in the mundane, mortal way. i once posited myself on par with the gods, and now i have created life, just like they do.

"...i am so fucked."

and so, with that religious and moral crisis in her pocket, grigori decides to steal the clone and scram.

it's time to be fugitives!!!!!

grigori is a genius, if, at this point, a genius with extreme anxiety. and so, grigori has several contingencies ready, on the off chance she needs to bail. the one she goes with now is a classic wizard tower, hidden from prying eyes by magic and a beautiful grotto where no one goes. think tangled, the tower in the grotto that rapunzel lived for most of her life

and during this entire fugitive road trip, without regular downloads from the og vasya herself, the clone's vasya memories start to fade, but their new mannerisms start to stick. and now we have opal, who could not be more different from vasya in demeanour if they fuckin tried

also now, after much work on grigori's part, opal has been true polymorphed (even more) to look like someone entirely different! vasya is a magenta-y purple-y tiefling with tall horns, whereas opal is now a lanky purple drow around the height of vasya's horns. they got to customize their Look heavily (perks of having a high level wizard who can cast ninth level spells regularly).

oh also, chronologically, opal is only 6 years old 😊 when they were 'born,' they were created as the then-teenaged vasya, and while the memories of being vasya has mostly faded (not everything), the rough mental age and whatnot remained the same, so technically opal is like 22? but chronologically 6, so you bet your ass i'm so ready for the day i get to drop that bombshell 😂

OH YEAH and most recently, much to grigori's distress, opal has broken out of the secret wizard tower to go explore the world. it'll be fine grigori i'll be so careful!!!!!!!!!!

(they were not, in fact, careful)

mechanics-wise, opal is an echo knight, and while i'm not yet privy to all the deets (there are discoveries to discover and i can't wait :3) their echoes are like, something something potential versions of opal? mechanically, this just means that every time i summon an echo, i roll on a random table to see what form the echo takes, with some dnd species having higher probabilities to show up. and yes, if i roll tiefling, i then roll a d4 to see if vasya herself shows up. EXTREMELY NERVEWRACKING AND WONDERFUL!!!

also the first time i described how opal looked to the entire party, and that they were wearing a long, black coat with silver buckles all up the front, everyone was like "..............hey olive? is this sephiroth?"

and that was the first time i realized that opal dresses like pirate sephiroth. they even have a scarlet macaw familiar. shoulda named it genesis, methinks. (her name is actually ariadnoula)

GOD WHAT ELSE THERE'S ALREADY SO MUCH

opal is so freaking much i love them. last session they gave the other pc (vae) a minor religious crisis by asking too many questions about the logistics behind death rites. they tried to ambush-slam a flower crown on vae's head and ate shit when he dodged. they impulse-held a woman's hands as she went nuclear and died because they didn't want her to die alone and afraid. one of their life dreams is to swing on a chandelier.

oh also opal may have just started ww2. maybe.

[lyledebeast]

Jason Isaacs’ accent in Black Hawk Down is sending me.

[le-pokerus]

FUCK YOU SAFARI ZONE

[chicago-geniza]

Yeah yeah we've all heard of holy anorexia & staving off girl puberty with starvation & the conflation of secondary sex characteristics with original sin & libidinal excess, get new material (I'm reading an essay lol). Oh you're synthesizing Simone de Beauvior and Caroline Walker Bynum and discourses on religious modesty and sexual violence? In a personal essay? In the 2020s? Groundbreaking. It's actually done well and I enjoyed reading it aside from a few moments of unexamined essentialism but I am being a bitch because it's my prerogative

[masquenoire]

So Roman wouldn't be happy having a biological child. What would he do if he did end up having one?

(Warning: Sensitive topic! Slipped more under the cut ~)

To say that Roman wouldn’t be happy having a biological child is an understatement. He would be distraught, especially if he were the one carrying the baby. He’d still be upset if he wasn’t (unless it was planned, greatly desired by his partner) but there’s a possibility he’d come round to the idea, getting to play daddy were he in a good relationship. Barring magic or alien biology, it’s almost certain this will NEVER happen. It’s more likely he’ll end up as the birth parent and that’s where the issues come in. It shouldn’t have happened. Normally he’s so careful, doubling up on protection even though the odds are against him conceiving. It still happened, so now he’s fucked in more ways than one. Roman’s immediate thought is to get rid of it. He can’t risk anybody knowing he’s pregnant, people finding out what he is so he’ll hide away, have his men spread rumors of an attempted assassination gone wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time somebody’s tried killing him on his own turf and would explain his lengthy absence away from the criminal limelight, needing time to recover when the truth is so much worse than any rumor could ever be. Afterwards is a different story. Roman would be a tortured soul throughout the whole experience, his dysphoria screaming as loudly as the memories of his mother’s voice, back when she’d rage at him for hours that he’d ruined her figure, ruined her life and all she got out of it was a disgusting little freak she’d never even wanted in the first place. Feeling the same way towards his own offspring would make him the most miserable he’d ever been in his life and would only cement Roman’s decision to get rid of the child as soon as it arrives. He’d ask the only man he trusts, tasking Horsehead with finding a suitable caretaker to take the little one on as their adoptive charge, to ensure he never has to be in their life and that the consequences of being related to him won’t affect them someday. God willing they never find out the awful truth, merely that they were the result of a drunken fling he had no interest keeping. There’d be money set aside in a trust fund for them and plenty of it too, to ensure they’re able to live comfortably with access to good education. Roman can only hope they never come tracking him down some day far off into the future, and if they do, they’ll buy the act he’s an uncaring father, too callous and cold to ever want a child around. As far as Roman Sionis is concerned, an absent parent is better than an abusive one and it’s best for all parties involved he plays no part in parenthood.

[grinchwrapsupreme]

my dad is the kind of person who makes fun of things (mental illness, gender, sexuality, etc) until he encounters it at a close enough proximity to actually think of it as a real thing at which point he’s totally normal about it forever which means I get the honour of gently guiding him through conversations about Vico Ortiz now that he’s discovered they’re nonbinary in the same way a bull is gently guided out of a grenade-strewn china shop

[impossible-rat-babies]

if I had a nickel for every time I ran out of the stack in p9 and got to be one of the only few people living I would have two nickels

[swallowtail-ageha]

Notttt really surprised with the results lol as i am a very "i like helping people and doing community service when i can and everyone deserves basic human decency" person but also can get. Extremely petty when stakes are personal lol. Also something close to my usual summer fit albeit realistically i'd be caught dead before going on a grassy terrain with sandals

I dont tag but anyone can join!

Tagged by @girlvinland to do this quiz and this picrew, and these were my results!

Kind of surprising how close to true neutral I got all things considered lol. Less surprising that I lean closer to chaotic than to lawful though given the mindset I have of "laws should generally be followed unless they're morally wrong or working against the collective good".

I'll tag @telatire @alma-amentet @swallowtail-ageha and anyone else who wants to do it! :)