#TMS wasn't all that popular

[tngmpersonal]

An extremely dumb idea for a seasonal Fire Emblem Heroes banner would be that Summoner/Kiran caves in and finally shows Earth/The World of Steel to the Heroes. And the banner would have Sharena, one of the Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE characters, and a few others in modern idol clothing or something.

[lemon-russ]

A small inbetween due to popular demand- Cato needs to get The Talk (tm)

Poor Guillidad is at the end of his rope having to do this. But he's a better Dad than Emps so he grits his teeth and does it lol

taglist: @sleepyfan-blog @undeaddream @scriberye

Part 16.5/ ???

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Ao3 || Taglist request ||

Cato Sicarius x F!Reader

CW: Sex talks, just awkward father son time

Summary: Cato gets The Talk (tm)

word count: 1,171

Cato follows behind Guilliman while he does his rounds of checking in on the various machinations of the chapter. To keep him busy, the primarch told him. They walked through the hangar now, and Guilliman stopped by a gunship, giving it an admiring look over.

“These have improved.” He says with a nod to the stormhawk. “We didn't have these back in my time.”

Cato watches as Guilliman gets closer to inspect the craft, looking over it's interior admiringly.

Somethings been on his mind though, since he was spoken to in the primarchs office.

“My Lord, may I ask you a clarifying question…?” He asks, standing straight backed with his hands behind his back, trying not to look nervous.

Guilliman looks over his shoulder out the ship door from where he was inspecting the various control panels. “Of course, Sicarius.” He says, motioning for him to come in. The primarch sits himself at the pilots chair, and Cato reluctantly sits co-pilot.

The proximity would make this more difficult, but at least they weren't looking directly at each other.

“Earlier, when you said, well… the talk….” Cato starts, turning his attention to some controls to his side and flipping a switch back and forth.

Guilliman freezes, then slowly gives Cato a sidelong glance. “…You… require some guidance…?” He asks, clearing his throat.

Cato frowns, not looking his gene father in the eye. “Well- just a question- we are taught in our training and initiation that Astartes are… well, infertile.” He says nervously, fidgeting with some controls.

Guilliman's face grows pale. “They- they tell you that-” he makes a tired groan, rubbing his temple. “Oh, terra. That's… can I assume you've been… operating under this assumption…?” he asks in a strangled voice.

Cato grimaces, glancing up at Guilliman and giving a small nod. His primarch sighs a weary sound.

“Well, you're not. No astarte is.” He says as he bores holes in the controls with his stare. “This must be a… miscommunication. Astartes don't have families, because they're supposed to be celibate, and if they aren't, duty comes first. But that does not mean the inability to… well, create a family…” he attempts to sound like he's reading it from text, matter of factly.

Cato swallows hard. “Does… does that mean the Ambassador-”

Guilliman scrunches his face in disgust and holds a hand up to stop him. “No- no, not… necessarily.” He says in a pained voice. “How long ago…?”

Cato looks hard at the panel. “The first time was… about a week and a half ago…?”

Guilliman makes a noise, “First time? How- when did you get a chance- wait, weren't you on the run on a rebel planet-”

Cato slinks down in his seat as Guilliman's eyes grow wider in horror. “Sicarius, you did not!” the primarch gasps, “While you were being hunted by an army? What, in a dirty hidey hole somewhere?”

“I mean- it wasn't like… in the dirt….” Cato defends in a mumble, face growing hot. “I held her up and-”

Guilliman groans and holds his hand up again. “She could get infections, or who knows what else,” he says, rubbing his palms down his face. “Okay, it's fine, she seems fine- I'll need to institute a sex-ed class for the whole chapter, it's fine” He grumbles.

Cato frowns, swallowing a nervous lump in his throat. He didn't mean to make her sick. He was immune to almost all disease and infection, it never crossed his mind that a baseline human could get sick from something so trivial.

“Did you…” His gene Father shifts awkwardly in his seat. “Did you, you know… do the riskier things…?” He forces out, unable to look at him.

Cato turns a little so his back is more toward Guilliman, playing with more switches, shoulders tight and raised nervously. “Y-yes.” He admits. “Is she… you know…” he mumbles, voice thick with worry. He heard that baseline women die when they give birth sometimes. Or die from being pregnant. So many things apparently can just kill a little baseline, now even sex?

Guilliman lets out a deep sigh. “Not necessarily.” He frowns and studies Cato, curled on himself anxiously. He squeezes his eyes closed and rubs his temples. “Alright, we're just going to cut straight to it.” He says, steeling himself and sitting up. “I'm going to explain all of this to you, answer your questions, and then I never want to talk about what you and the Ambassador do together ever again.”

A couple hours later, they leave the Hangar. Cato with a little more confidence in his step and smiling, Guilliman looking haggard, like he'd just returned from a months long campaign.

Cato now was an expert in the ways of sex, grilling his gene father for information for two hours straight. Now he understood everything- the Ambassador won't die, they have medical technology to handle things. He also learned he should not be taking her in dirty caves or in natural water like the hot springs- hearing what they did in natural hot springs and sand made Guilliman immediately order a full check up for the ambassador- but it's alright, he knows better now.

He smirks to himself. He can't wait to be allowed to go find her so he can use all his new knowledge on her, show her that he was a sex expert now. Of course he wouldn't flaunt that the information was new. He was Cato Sicarius. He was always the best at everything, of course.

There was one thing Guilliman told him that he was thinking he wasn't a huge fan of. How to not get her pregnant. He'd have to medicate her, or finish outside of her- not even a possibility in his mind- or use an annoying plastek like glove.

He smirks to himself. Now that he was an expert on all things reproduction, he is capable and qualified to make his own choices on the matter. And he thinks maybe the Ambassador would look cute all round. And she's good at handling things, doing her job with a child would hardly hold her back. Plus, He'll be forcing his way into a lot more of her body guarding roles, so if they had a child, he'd be there, and they'd both be totally safe.

Yes, he decides, working so hard to avoid it sounds like nonsense. It wasn't a guarantee anyways. So, might as well enjoy her fully. Sure, Guilliman would be annoyed with him, but he's been annoyed with him a lot recently, and things still were going great for him.

He'll just take the slap on the wrist if anything happens. Plus, He’s Cato Sicarius. He’s the best at everything. Everything includes fathering babies and caring for his little Ambassador, he assumes.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Anne Baxter (The Ten Commandments, All About Eve)—her soft, gentle voice in "all about eve", those gentle eyes with something odd behind them, the way she flips from Sweet Innocent to Viper on a dime......there was something Built Different about anne baxter, man, and it makes her so good for playing people who are Built Wrong. also one of my favorite batmen villains (her joint episode w vincent price is a delight) and of course I'm obsessed with her columbo episode where she bosses around edith head and does fabulous movie star things for no good reason. and i would be REMISS if i didn't mention her slink—oh the slink—in the ten commandments...................pardon me i must go think of sinning again

Edana Romney (Corridor of Mirrors)— Look. It is definitely a case for your discretion. Edana Romney had only one major film role and then foundered in a Britain/Hollywood that didn’t like her look. But the film she starred in was also one she CO-WROTE and co-founded a whole production company to make happen, and it is a lavish, imaginative gothic romance where she runs around in fanciful medieval gowns and has incredible eyelashes. She was also known in later years as a Hollywood hostess who had popular “twelfth night” parties, gayest of all Shakespeare plays to have a party about.

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut]

Anne:

The prettiest murderer in that film. Just so beautifully evil as Nefertari.

Anne Baxter was part of my Bisexual Awakening. My family has a tradition that every Palm Sunday we watch The ten commandments on TV together... And starting from a very young age, I essentially developed a crushes on Anne Baxter's Nefertiri & Yul Brynner's Ramses. Dude, the woman was HOT! They both were! My crush definitely wasn't helped by the fact that Anne Baxter's costumes were a bit on the sheer side. She had a way of capturing you with her eyes, and I never understood why Charlton heston's Moses didn't just have a threesome with Nefertiri and Ramses. LOL

Her Nefertiri in The Ten Commandments was FORMATIVE TO ME. If not the hottest old movie lady, then she definitely played the hottest old movie character. if that makes sense.

Look. Listen. I only *just* discovered her on a post from the Have You Seen This Romcom poll blog. Saw she had the same last name as me and went OOH hi hello. Went to her IMdB and saw she was born in Indiana like moi. I am now even more intrigued. Been eagerly telling my partner this, and he was like "maybe you guys are distantly related?" And after 2 hrs of going down the tumblr tag + her imdb photos, I'm In Deep(tm) and I can't stop looking at her like 😍 When I go to my grandma's house, bet your ass I'm gonna check my grandpa's genealogy and see if we're somehow related. Sorry that's not really propaganda I just got real excited, esp when I saw that the submission deadline was extended (bless your soul). Narrowing down the movies where she's hottest in was Hell tyvm. I've only just discovered her, she looks gorgeous to me in every movie still I see of her gdi lol.

Edana:

[canonicallyobserving911]

My thoughts on how bad season 7 ended up being can be summed up in one sentence and it's based on a quote I heard from a former employment director. He used to tell us all the time, "When you fail to plan, you plan to fail!" And I think that's what happened to season 7 of 9-1-1 since they were still writing while the main cast was filming the remaining episodes.

After TM's most recent interview, in which he admitted he doesn't plan seasons out beforehand, I felt justified in my analysis but the question is has it always been like this? IMO, the answer is NO! And that's because it wasn't like this for seasons 2 and 3. They were planned out and the continuity was there which made everything better than the mess that was season 7.

Honestly, I don't understand how anyone can run a multi-million-dollar business or a TV Show (I do get it because some people aren't organized but usually, they don't stay in a leadership role for long) and be as unorganized as the showrunners have been for the last few seasons of 9-1-1. It literally costs between 9 and 10 million dollars per episode to produce it but nothing they've been doing lately has lived up to those high costs. Please understand this is not about the cast, crew or the directors because they don't have control over the scripts. They have a WRITING TEAM which means TM didn't have to spend 40 straight hours while he was lying in a hospital bed writing the first 3 episodes. He chose to do that and since the writers returned to work in October of 2023, what were they doing that whole time because they were already promoting the cruise ship disaster at the end of November?

An example of how ridiculous it is for TM to not have a plan can be equated to a construction company. People who build homes and buildings have to plan in advance before they start or else it'll end badly. They can't just start building a home or a business without a blueprint because if they do, the bathtub could end up in the kitchen and the garage might not have a driveway. Builders have to order supplies and materials like drywall, tools, windows, appliances etc., far in advance so they'll have the things they need when they get to a particular step in the building process. Therefore, how can anyone handling multiple storylines for the main cast of a popular TV show like 9-1-1 go into a season without an overall plan? They shouldn't and if they continue down that path, IMO upcoming seasons will end up being even worse.

It doesn't make any sense at all to me and hopefully, season 8 won't be a repeat of seasons 5, 6 and 7.

House M.D. is one of my favorite shows of all time because Gregory House was a brilliant doctor and even though he was a complete jerk sometimes, I liked it because the creators and the showrunners knew when it was time to end it. After 8 seasons, they decided to call it quits so they could go out on top. Any good show worth it's weight knows when they're running out of good stories and they know when to end it. It happened with the Sopranos too. They ended it after season 6 because Tony Soprano had already done the things he needed to do in therapy and his families (personal and mob) were personified. They couldn't take the show anywhere else, so they ended it.

Please understand, if you've never seen a TV show stay on and keep airing episodes past its prime (Grey's Anatomy and Law & Order SVU are two examples but there are others) you have no idea what it could be like. Viewers end up hate watching them and hopefully that won't happen with 9-1-1 but if they don't do something soon, like let the characters grow professionally and show them moving on from their previous mistakes and pasts (looking at the "Vertigo" storyline because Eddie should be allowed to move on from Shannon since it's been six years) it could end up being their fate too.

Even though I've never watched Grey's, I have watched SVU and for the past few days, I've been rewatching season 14 when Rafael Barba (my favorite A.D.A.) arrived on the show and I instantly noticed a stark difference between it and the most recent seasons. It's so good and its way better than the trash they're producing right now. Olivia Benson is the SVU captain but they've been centering all the episodes around her character (like season 6 was all about Buck) but it's time for her to be promoted to chief so Detective Joe Velasco and Detective Terry Bruno can be in charge of SVU. They're the future of the show but if they keep sidelining them, who knows if they'll get a 27th season. It's so boring now and I wish they'd bring Barba back but I digress.

I don't watch a lot of TV because most of it is reality, news and game shows (I don't like those but for those who do, no shade) but I do watch 9-1-1 and I'd hate to leave it in the dust like I did CSI and Chicago P.D. but I will once it's no longer entertaining.

I still haven't decided if I'll watch season 8 (I'm 95% sure I'll treat it like I did season 5, watch the episodes weeks after they air, so I won't get pissed off or I won't watch them at all like I did 5x7 since Eddie wasn't in it) but I refuse to sit through another season like the cluster "F" that season 7 was. I don't want to see another doppelgänger or anymore LIs that are used to delay CANON Buddie.

I needed to get this out of my mind and write it so I can move on.

It's ok to have an opposing opinion but if you do, post it on your own blog and don't reblog this because if you do, I will block you.

[luckylunatix]

Halloween Horror Nights is starting up again and I feel like I should inform all y'all who love it of these sweet little bears:

These 3 are mascots of HHN in Japan and they are as fascinating in their lore as they are adorable

Hamikuma/ハミクマ (middle): Hamikuma has been a part of the event since about 2021, starting as a walk around character inhabiting the Scarezones until graduating to the official icon of the event in 2022, when he was given a stage show called Hamikuma Psycho Circus. His backstory states he was once a circus bear who was very popular with audiences because he was very cute and danced in a very unique way, but his fellow performers became jealous and also suspected he wasn't really a bear. They ended up murdering him and burning down the bigtop to destroy the evidence, but Hamikuma managed to survive when a demon known as the Death Bringer bore his way into Hamikuma's belly. Now he gets to live on and party when Halloween comes around, but unfortunately his gaping stomach wound is now basically a portal to Hell.

Hamikuma SOUL/ハミクマソウル (right): Hamikuma's soul incarnate, introduced last year as part of the Zombie de Dance stage show. They reside in a place called YOU ME LAND.

Hamikuma Punk/ハミクマパンク (left): The latest Hamikuma, who'll be introduced to this year's HHN. He represents the anger and resentment inside of Hamikuma (I'm assuming because being murdered and turned into a Hell portal would make anyone kinda pissed off). He'll be appearing alongside the other Hamikumas during the Shout it Out Party.

I feel like there's not enough discussion of Hamikuma and Japan's HHN here on Tumblr, despite how HHN seems to have a genuine fandom here, so here's hoping this might spark some interest in it.

"ハミクマ DEATH!"

Some sources (so you can read more and to prove I didn't pull all of this out of my butt):

(Some sources may need to be translated. The last source is also where I got the image above from. I'd also advise looking them up on YouTube to see them in action because they are VERY fun to watch dance around.)

[cubeshapedlemon]

Hellooo, could you please write cooper Howard x trans!male reader? Ftm, so he/him, maybe like a bit of smut and I’d like to think that it would catch him off guard because reader passes pretty well, thanks! 🫶🏼

hey! i really apologize for how long this took my excuse is definitely something that i definitely am saying and definitely not some bs that really just means i was lazy. i hope you like it! im sorry its definitely not my best but enjoy if you can!

Way Back Home

A grody bar isn't usually where you expect to find worthwhile company, it is where you would expect to find one murderous gunslinger, turns out they can be one in the same.

☆ ☆ ☆

Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x Trans Masc Reader

3.4k words

cw/tags: trans male reader, cannon typical violence, improper binding techniques (mentioned), bottom growth, oral sex (tm receiving), piv, unprotected sex, pet names, implied childhood abuse, implied transphobia if you really squint (not by the ghoul), alcohol, smoking

☆ ☆ ☆

authors note: hey! again i apologize for everything stated under the ask but yeah! please lmk if i made any spelling or grammar mistakes or if i missed something in the tags. Also don't translate repost or copy this fanfic anywhere without my permission. thank you for requesting and thank you for reading!

The poor excuse for a bar you've found yourself in certainly has an interesting vibe. Tension between groups is so thick it chokes anyone that enters. Ghouls and other mutants aren't exactly popular around these parts, so when the bar owner decided to start letting them in to increase profits, the local population wasn't exactly thrilled.

Though you could care less, just passing through for a drink and whatever interactions come your way. There's no shame in that, just because the world is a blistering hellscape of barbarians, bullets, and blood doesn't mean a guy can't blow off some steam every once and a while. Though tonight, no one seemed particularly interesting.

That is of course until he roamed in. You had heard about him, the fearless gun-slinging ghoul. Wandering the wasteland and making more caps in a month than most people see in a lifetime. He certainly had a reputation. It was very clear that he knew.

Narrow hips swinging lazily as he walks in, eyes roving over the crowd of patrons, all of whom now had quieted down their conversations by at least one notch. His scarred lips pull back into a cocky smirk, tongue tip curling to lick his time and tobacco-stained teeth. Huffing out what looked to be a chuckle, he refocuses, walking towards the bar.

His gaze fixates on you, challenging you almost, it doesn't falter once, only breaking to give you a curt nod, turning to wave over the bartender to order. If you were honest, you would admit what the intensity of that eye contact did to you. The waves of desire shooting downwards. But there is no place for honesty in the wasteland.

Taking a sip of your drink, attempting to still your nerves through the burn of it, you hear an over exaggerated sigh next to you. “Now, I'd love to chit chat, but we both know why I'm here. Don't we?” Of course, it really was only a matter of time. “I believe we do,” you say non-committedly, turning to look at the bounty hunter.

“Well that certainly saves us some time now,” he declares, turning his head only slightly, eyes still straight ahead. “Your dear ol’ boss ain't too happy with you, put a pretty penny on your head in fact.” Straightening your posture, your hand discreetly slides to your holster, ready to go at a moment's notice. “So I've heard,” you acknowledge, tone flat and untrusting. The ghoul certainly was no angel. It would be foolish to not be prepared for the worst.

“See now, I don't have any interest in killin’ you,” he clarifies, “For now at least.” Finally turning to meet your gaze once again. Surprise befalls your face, which he notices, but does not comment on. “I need ya’ for somethin’ else.” Oh. “While I can think of plenty a’ reasons to keep a pretty boy like you in my company,” He comments, hazel eyes running up and down your body. “You're particularly useful to me in terms of your former boss.”

Clearing your throat, you decide to engage with him, anything you could do to not get on his bad side at this point would be to your advantage. Though it's not time to show our cards. He doesn't need to know everything. “And how is that? I was never anything but a grunt with a gun for that asshole,” You say, the lie sounding pretty convincing if you were to say so.

A small smirk falls on his face, like he knows. It's so small you almost missed it. “Asshole is right,” he says, pulling a pack of cigarettes and matches out of a pocket in his duster. “That piece of shit owes me ‘bout 600 caps.” he grits out, striking a match against his boot and lighting the cigarette that is now delicately clenched between his lips.

“Anyhow,” he begins, inhaling. “He wants you back alive, so you get the pleasure of bein’ a ‘bargaining’ chip and pack mule,” he laughs out, flicking the ash onto the bartop. Wow this guy is confident, “Yeah? What's in it for me?” Taking another puff from his cigarette he grins, “What's in it for you huh?” he barks out a short laugh, “Well Casanova, you get to stay alive.” I mean what could you really expect?

☆ ☆ ☆

By about the 6th day on the road he had gotten decently comfortable, allowing you to have your hands unbinded, and even chatting a little bit. Not that you exactly learned anything from those interactions, anything important that is. Pretty much the only things you managed to deduce was he was a fan of old movies, chems, and alcohol. The old movies thing might be a stretch though, while he did reference them he never gave a true opinion.

Now, the end of the 7th day, setting down for the night, you search through your pack, hoping that there was a crushed can of something or other at the bottom. It was unusual for you to be so low on food. Usually replenishing supplies every 4 days. But of course, you haven't gotten to do that. Ghoul's clearly don't need as much food and water as smoothskins. At least this one didn't. You had only seen him eat and drink a few times over the past week. Even then, it was small and he didn't seem to enjoy it very much. Anyway, he clearly was in no hurry to stock up on food.

Which ultimately is the reason your rummage had left you empty handed. Releasing a frustrated groan, you drop your pack on the ground again. The hollow thud of fabric accompanying your discontented huff. “What are you bitchin’ about now?” The ghoul asks, you could almost hear the eyeroll in his question. Looking up at him, you don't feel the need to dignify him with an answer. Leaning back on the rock behind you, you look at him half lidded. Clearly not understanding your intent to be frustrated and nonchalant, your stomach growls, spelling out his answer.

“I forget how often you smoothies have to eat,” he says, almost to himself. Rolling your eyes, you focus on what he is doing. Hand gripping his knife, he places it over the fire, a piece of what looks to be rad rat meat speared on it. Turning it over steadily, he roasts it. The once raw, gamey meat slowly becoming edible. Not that he particularly cares about that, usually he'll just eat it fresh and bloody. Must have just felt like something different.

His usually piercing gaze is at a soft focus, intent on the task of cooking, but almost peaceful. The swirls of gold in his eyes become more pronounced in the firelight. Now that you can focus on him, as far as ghouls go, he's pretty handsome. Well, actually as far as people go, he is. You never really fancied yourself a ghoul fucker, but he just had something about him.

After a few minutes, he pulls his knife away from the fire. Plopping the hunk of meat onto a handkerchief on the ground in front of him, he begins slicing it up. Chopping up the more undesirable bits off and setting them aside, as well as slicing the bulk into strips. Bunching the handkerchief portion in one hand, and the undesirables in the other, he walks over to you. Popping what seems to be a limb into his mouth, crunching as he bites down. “Here,” he says, dropping the handkerchief onto your lap, walking back to his original spot and sitting.

You must have made a sound of surprise, or at least you must have looked surprised. Either way the ghoul feels the need to make a reasoning for his decision. His mouth full, he speaks again. “What? Can't have you goin’ ‘round passin’ out on me.” Responding with a small hum, you pluck a slice from your lap, placing it in your mouth. While sustenance was sustenance, it didn't mean it was the best. The tough meat forcing you to rip it with your teeth to make it more manageable.

Out of your peripheral you notice him staring, gaze locked onto your face, and more specifically your mouth. Running his tongue across his teeth, his gaze roves down your body before removing itself entirely. Tipping his hat down to cover his eyes, he leans back, getting comfortable.

He sure is interesting.

☆ ☆ ☆

About halfway into the next day you finally get to the all-too familiar settlement. Rusted chain link fence and scrap-built home looking all the same. A spike of anxiety pulls at your throat in seeing it again. Memories flooding back of the cuts and bruises sustained in that house. For as long as you could remember.

The freshest of them, now only a memory. Scar tissue thick against your fingertips as you rub against them absentmindedly. A push on the back pulls you from your haze, “Come on now’ we ain't got all day,” The ghoul reminds, his tone is gruff, like he wants to get this over with already. Before your brain gets the message, your legs do. Walking to the door, two grunts standing guard. With a nod from the ghoul they open the door.

Walking a few paces inside, you quickly come face to face with him. A dangerous sneer pulls over his face as he sees you. Dark, beady eyes locking onto yours. “Hello, son,” he says, gritting out the last word like a mockery. “It’s about time you came home.” In your peripherals you see the ghoul subtlety raise a brow at that, but makes no other indication he noticed. Your ‘father’ slowly moves his gaze from you to the ghoul.

“So you don't just kill everything in your path,” he laughs out, “You actually followed my instructions to keep him alive, that's certainly a first for you.” His words attempt to pierce the thick skin of the ghoul, but they easily fall flat as the ghoul just gives him a grin. “While this back n’ forth we have is real cute n’ all I think it's ‘bout time you pay your dues.” Stepping closer to him, the ghoul places a heavy hand on the back of your neck, gripping the slightly grown-out hair at the nape. His grasp tightens to an almost painful level, the pressure releasing slightly when he pulls your head back, neck bearing towards him.

“See, I've grown a little attached to this one. I really was wonderin’ if I should bring him back at all.” As the last sentence ends his gaze is pulled to your exposed neck, before flicking back to your father with a deeper intensity than you have ever seen. “You haven't been very good at paying your bills,” he laughs out, releasing your neck with a push forward. Lazily waltzing forward he comes to what seems to be about a 5 foot gap between himself, and your father. “You give me, double, you get to keep on breathin’,” As the ghoul's words sink in, you see your fathers fists tighten, the guards in the room readying themselves for his signal.

Without a second thought, your father gives the signal. Before you can even blink, shots ring out in the room. It takes you a moment to even process what happened, but once you do, you don't know what to do. About ten feet ahead of you your father, or what used to be him, has slumped to the ground in a pathetic lump. Next to him, his top two men. When your ears stop ringing, you hear the ghoul. “Come on now, move your ass! I ain't got all day,” he says to one of the other guards in the room, gun pointed to his head. “Unless you wanna join spaghetti bolognese over there, I would suggest you get me what I'm owed.”

Clearly not wanting to risk it, the guard quickly collects a bag of caps, placing it in his hand. Snatching the bag, the ghoul walks back to you, grabbing you by the neck again to force you out the door with him. “Come on now pretty boy, I got better shit to do then wait around here all day.”

☆ ☆ ☆

It has now been a few months since you had started traveling with the ghoul. It had surprised you originally when he made you travel with him still, instead of just dropping you and going on his way. But at this point you could not imagine a different life. While you guys aren't exactly close, you certainly trusted each other to an extent. At this point you had been through many things together, and you had truly proved your usefulness to earn your keep.

But even through this, that one lingering feeling always stuck. The ache that had been there since the first time he had looked at you. He must have felt it to, with the way that he looked at you. It truly could only be described as erotic in some contexts. But of course, with the good came the bad. He made you angry like no other, his stubbornness could break even the most hard-headed opponent. Right now was a great example of that in fact.

A rad storm raging on outside the rickety walls of the shelter you had found yourself in, he still found it a great time to try and win the gold metal in bitching and complaining. “That storm ain't shit, we coulda’ out run it if you weren't so goddamn slow.” he said, his words having a familiar sharpness but, at this point, no real bite. “I wouldn't be so slow if we weren't walking for the past 3 days straight!” you half-yell back, he laughs at that, head tossed back slightly. “You smoothies are so goddamn weak, I could be the next town over if I finally got rid of your ass.” His tone is low and mocking.

“Weak huh? You wanna say that to my fucking face? You can't work without me.” you say back, frustration truly spilling over into your tone. “Oh would I ever,” the ghoul says, walking over to you. His gaze locks onto yours with an intensity that pins you to the wall. As he closes in on you, frame practically pinning you to the wall, he leans in even closer, his face inches from yours. Before either of you can tell who initiated, your lips attach. A groan falling from his scarred lips, he works his heavy grasp up your body, eventually ending on your jaw. Forcing you even closer somehow, his tongue works its way into your mouth, the metallic sting of blood and tobacco invading your senses, not that you could manage to care.

Using his other hand, he drags it down your front, undoing your belt, and slipping his hand down your pants. He pulls his lips from you in surprise at what he finds. His fingers drag across your folds collecting moisture. Moving upwards again, his fingers trail across your bottom growth before pulling out of your pants. You breath in shakily, knowing that's not what he was expecting, you wait very impatiently for him to say something.

With a small grin he looks at his fingers, your wetness dripping from them, and then back to you. “Well cowpoke, I certainly wasn't expecting that. But I'm sure you'll taste just as good drippin’ on my tongue as you woulda’ felt down my throat.” With that last word, he slips his fingers into his mouth, releasing an honest, and gratuitous moan at your taste. Removing his fingers, he swiftly drops to a knee, tugging your boots, pants, and boxers down. Placing one leg on his raised knee, he opens you up for him. His gaze running from your eyes all the way down to your center. After taking you in for a moment, he hungrily attaches himself to your core.

Flattening his tongue he collects your wetness, once again moaning at the flavor. After a few more licks, he suctions his lips around your bottom growth. With light suction he luxuriously wraps his tongue around it, his usual ferocity, somehow not present. While his gaze locks onto yours, you see his eyelids flutter slightly. In the time that you have known him, you had never known the ghoul to be a patient man, but in this moment, he wanted to take his time. And oh gods above, he was.

Rolling his tongue over your core again, he slips the pink muscle inside, pressing against that perfect spot inside of you, but he removes it quickly, much to your dismay. releasing a frustrated groan, you grab the back of his neck, his hat tipping off and falling to the ground in the process. He seems to get a kick out of that frustration, now retreating entirely from your core in favor of nipping at your thighs. Your frustration growing, you push his head back. Looking at him now he truly looks better than ever, his face seems to be something akin to flushed, the lower half of it covered in you. “Come on now, I don't have all day.”

He chuckles at your use of the phrase, echoing the many times he has said it over the past months. Giving one last teasing nip to your thigh, his fingers now running across your wetness, slipping two in at once. The sudden fullness catching you off guard, you steady yourself against him. Giving you only a moment, he quickly sets a brutal pace. The tips of his middle and ring fingers brushing against your g-spot with every thrust. The waves of pleasure begin hitting harder and harder, the sensation building in your lower half.

With this increase, your moans only grow, echoing throughout the shelter, the sounds of the rad storm now unimportant. Noticing this uptick, he reattaches his lips to your bottom growth, the soft kitten licks from earlier now replaced by firmer, more desperate pressure. With this addition the waves soon become sparks, the edge coming into sight. “Fuck- Im gonna-” you sob. He only nods in acknowledgement, continuing his ministrations. Finally allowing yourself, you fall off the edge. Pleasure bursting forth in a way it never has before. Your legs quaking and clenching as his motions stay consistent throughout, working you through it. He only stops once you push him away.

Pulling his fingers out, he laps at the residual wetness, giving you a moment to gather yourself. As he does so, his other hand presses against the front of his pants, which you now notice are significantly tighter than before. His hips buck forward into his own hand. Without warning he gets up, wrapping your legs around his torso he walks you to a countertop a few feet away, placing you on it. His lips connect themselves with yours again, his dominating presence becoming even more clear as he tears your shirt down the center, buttons ripped off, the sound of them hitting the floor only distant background noise.

His hands drag their way up your torso, taking a moment to appreciate everywhere they find themselves, the patch of hair leading to your core, the raised scarring on your waist. His fingers even taking a moment to run the gauze that binds your chest. Tearing his lips away from yours, they move down your neck leaving bite marks and deep bruises in their wake. With his other hand he releases himself from his pants.

He gives himself a few pumps, yet quite impatiently, he leads himself to your core, pressing inside. The wetness allows this to happen with little to no resistance. He fills you completely, setting a harsh pace. His hips slamming into yours as he steadies himself, wrapping an arm around your waist for leverage. Releasing a groan of his own, he tilts his head back, taking everything in. His eyes are half lidded, and focused on where your bodies connect. Still being sensitive from your last orgasm, you feel the pressure build sooner, clenching around his length he grips onto you even harder. “Fuck- I ain't gonna last long if you keep doin’ that.”

Smiling to yourself you do just that, one hand going to your center, pushing yourself closer and closer with each stroke. Purposely clenching more than normal, teasing him closer as well. “I'm serious doll, I won't,” he warns, though he doesn't change his pace. “I know, I won't last either,” you gasp out, reassuring him. With a few more thrusts, the waves come crashing down. He soon follows after you, releasing inside of you. He steadies himself on the counter top before removing himself from you, and tucking himself back into his pants, grabbing a clean rag and tossing it to you to clean yourself up with.

Lets hope this shelter has some RadAway somewhere…

[ghostbite0]

I feel like regression content is always treated so poorly. Especially when it comes to traumatized characters in a popular fandom. I'm really happy you make what you like and don't let anyone knock you down.

I deal with a lot of bs, and so I find a lot of comfort in drawing children. Both just for the simple joys felt in youth as well as a case study of the "what went wrong".

Your content is very wholesome and definitely falls into the first category for me. And honestly, I too, get really bad baby fever 😭 So I sometimes just like seeing my favs as kids or just drawing kids. They're so damn cute and I want them to be happy.

I hope no one gives you too much trouble. Keep doing what you're doing. Especially since you enjoy it.

oh goodness waking up to this in my inbox truly made my week! sorry for the late response, my internet was out all day D:

i wasn't always able to make the content i like; in fact, when i first began drawing de-aged/regression content, i used an alt to hide my identity because i was so scared of how people would respond to it-- since, to ur point, regression content is always treated horribly and there's a stigma around it (like how ppl looooove to sexualize agere stuff. exploding them with my mind). but i think its really endearing and healing! even now posting is really scary sometimes... it took me about a week to gain the confidence to post the tiny 21 trio art x-x so im really glad the feedback thus far has been positive!!!

i love drawing characters, particularly the ones with more trauma, as little kids-- they get a second chance at childhood and get to cope with the horrors^tm, and it's always a lot of fun to think about how their close ones would react and how they would take care of them and stuff... I've worked with children in the past, and im hoping to be an educator in the future, and it just makes me really happy when //they're// happy.

im so glad you think my work is wholesome and it provides some joy :( drawing is how i cope with the horrors^tm and I've found drawing happy sweet little things with my favorite characters really healing vs constant angst stuff. provides that comfort i don't really get anywhere else, and so i always really appreciate messages and comments like these

im also a really huge fan of your work and its always such a joy to see you post, so seeing you pop up to convey your support genuinely means the whole wide world to me :( thank you so so so much!

[1dcommunityficrecs]

Girl Direction!

List number two is here! And y'all really showed up, we have 35 amazing fics ranging from barely 1,000 word quick stories to 100,000 word epics all celebrating GIRLS. We've also got a few rarepairs included, which I'm excited to check out!

Please enjoy, share, kudos, comment -- and get ready for the next theme!

Man Made Beauty by jaerie (4788, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) Warnings: M/F

Famous Louis meets non- famous tgirl Harry (again)

Reccer says:

that good girl faith (and a tight little skirt) by ariadne_odair (43734, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson)

Harry and Louis are camp counsellors. They hate each other. The amount of sex they have in the camp showers probably contradicts that.

Reccer says: This story is everything you want from Girl Direction, including impeccable Summer vibes, hot lesbian sex and cute side Ziam.

Bluer than velvet were her eyes (softer than satin were her thighs) by thebreadvan (12333, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

Tailor!Harry should probably stop obsessing over her customer’s boobs, but fate can’t keep her away from plus-size model!Louis

Reccer says: Boobs Are Awesome (TM) or, I am love with this fic and the way Harry is just so lesbian over Louis. Harry is a gay mess and Louis is irresistible. I love how the tension was written and explained, also Harry and Louis' dynamic.

You got me in the back of your car like a star (is it wrong?) by thebreadvan (2165, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

Harry and Louis go on a road trip, their car breaks down and it's too hot to keep their clothes on.

Reccer says: 80s vibes

She keeps her lips red (to seem like cherries in the spring) by thebreadvan (35299, Mature, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

The Office AU, where Harry is engaged and Louis is pining.

Reccer says: Cute baby gay Harry? Love. Pining Louis? LOVE.

She spreads her lovin' all over (and when she gets home, there's none left for me) by thebreadvan (5361, Mature, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post Warnings: Watersports

For Harry and Louis, moving in together wasn't easy. (Part II of The Office series)

Reccer says: Domestic Larry getting into a fight that ultimately ends in hot (messy) sex

The Changer and the Changed by Homosociallyyours (59496, Mature, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

1970s coming out / self-discovery featuring poet Louis, new girl Harry, folksinger Zayn and her girlfriend Liam, and women’s bookstore owner Niall. Harry is a closeted lesbian who moves to New York after graduation. She meets Louis, a proud lesbian who works in a popular women’s bookstore. They click instantly.

Reccer says: I’ve never read a more beautiful girl direction story. Completely atmospheric and SUCH wonderful, layered characters - including all of OT5! The setting is so thoughtful and their relationship is so mature. This fic feels both like a historical nonfiction and something absolutely timeless. The author really digs into the queer struggle of the 1970s, and in doing so highlights how much things haven't really changed.

Pink Like the Paradise Found by Disgruntledkittenface (18477, Mature, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

Midwest US girl direction coming out! Harry goes to her first gay bar and meets bartender Louis. It's the first time she really feels like she's a bonafide lesbian.

Reccer says: I love the honest communication, the awkward flirting, and excellent smut! A very relatable story for me.

Tell Me This Is Paradise by QuickedWeen (19855, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post Warnings: Exhibitionism in later chapters

Harry has never had an orgasm. Niall decides that this needs to be rectified, and her method of choice is Louis. Turns out, Louis is very very good at giving Harry orgasms.

Reccer says: Incredibly hot, incredibly honest, incredibly sweet, and HOO BOY I might be a slut for exhibitionism. I also love the way we get to follow their relationship through the chapters.

I Said It Wrong, But I Meant It Right by lululawrence (4381, Not Rated, Nick Grimshaw/Liam Payne) - fic post

From AO3/author: "Nick was a bit of a disaster, but she was used to it. Or so she thought. She had never known how much she could struggle just to function until the new fire lady goddess angel person winked at her."

Reccer says: Unique rarepair fic with a fun and interesting dynamic that adds depth to not only Girl Direction as a trope, but also to 1D fics in general!

Little pink skirt by ialwaysknewyouwerepunk (2468, Not Rated, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) Warnings: Recreational drugs

The girls are at a festival. When Louis tries to light a spliff, the wind makes it impossible to do so, for which Harry has an idea.

Reccer says: The author! Kidding (am i?) but it was so hot. I was caught in by the art and then well… it became a classic for me!

Blush by orphan_account (15128, Mature, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson)

"I've never wanted to kiss a girl but like, every time I look at your lips I just wanna... fucking kiss you all night long." Harry's eyes open wide as Louis' drop to Harry's mouth; her lips are swollen from biting them all night, red and wet and plump. "Then why don't you?" Harry whispers. (or, the Christmas FxF Larry fic in which Louis is 99.5% sure she's straight and Harry likes to walk around shirtless and watch lesbian films)

Reccer says: very friends to lovers Christmas pic that is as fluffy as you want a Christmas fit to be, the smut is vanilla so great if you just want to relax with some pining and confused Lesbians

thank goodness love can float by cryptidstar (orphan_account) (2486, Teen, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson)

prompt: au where they're both sorted in Slytherin and Louis gets tired of Harry flirting with the merpeople through the glass windows of their common room and not enough with Louis. (fem!larry)

Reccer says: very cute and pure sapphic love story, I am always up for a good Harry Potter/Hogwarts AU fit

Bleeding Love by momentofclarity (27191, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson)

Louis is an animal rights activist who throws red paint at fur coat wearing it-girl Harry Styles. Then there's a crack in the surface and something new starts bleeding through.

Reccer says: I'm always here for enemies to lovers, especially if it's written as excellent as it is in this fic.

Bittersweet, Irrepressible by fairytalefemme (5120, General, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson)

“Dear Sappho,” Harry pleaded, her voice unsure and her eyes squeezed tightly shut, “or Hayley Kiyoko, or anyone really. Aphrodite? You’re the goddess of love or summat, right? Um, or God, I guess, if you’re there and you happen to be a lesbian. There must be a lesbian god somewhere, right? Or at least someone who’s sympathetic to the needs of a young lesbian. Because I need some help. I need Louis Tomlinson to like me back." In which Harry's been in love with Louis all semester but can't tell the difference between platonic and romantic interactions, leading to pining and confusion and at least one date.

Reccer says: this fic is so lesbian I can't lesbian anymore

bambi legs by disgruntledkittenface (11552, Not Rated, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

Harry works at her family’s fabric store sometimes and always sells the most interesting fabrics to Louis. Louis is the wannabe fashion designer who keeps buying fabric she doesn’t necessarily need just to find a way to talk to Harry.

Reccer says: it’s so hard to narrow it down because aghhhh i love everything about this fic!!! BEST characterization (including ace Harry) and perfect Zarry friendship. Squee-worthy crushing! Sweet open Harry and lovely lovely Louis! i adore the ace representation and how the characters handled it, the banter, the pet names!!! and the oblivious friends to lovers trope is *chef’s kiss*

If You See My Reflection in the Snow-Covered Hills by friendofhayley (16948, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post Warnings: Alcoholism

The story of One Direction if they were all queer women!

Reccer says: I like how much research was put into it and also how feminist and queer it is?

It’s Probably Because I’ve Got a Big Lesbian Crush on You by yeah_alright (6600, Teen, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post Warnings: Brief reference to past homophobia/bullying

OMG MEAN GIRLS AU

Reccer says: It's so funny and such a good twist on the movie - it's not exactly like it but the characters and the VIBES are perfect!

To Sleep, Perchance to Ream by yeah_alright (3988, Explicit, Louis Tomlinson/Harry Styles) - fic post Warnings: Somnophilia (consensual)

Harry and Louis have a signal for when Harry wants Louis to fuck her after she's fallen asleep

Reccer says: Kinky and so hot so hot omg so so hot!!! It’s so hot and cute at the same time. I remember I was like ‘omg i want what these two have’

Among Lavender Fields by homosociallyyours (70000, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post Warnings: Internalized homophobia

Harry and Louis are cast in a movie by a French director and the director has them live together while they film in a beautiful, remote location

Reccer says: AN ABSOLUTE DREAM! Just beautiful, soft women falling in love! Honestly like living in a soft, soothing fantasy - absolutely flawless!

It's Been So Long by littleroverlouis (10608, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

Harry and Louis are ex-wives who still have fun sexy times.

Reccer says: OLDER SUPER HOT LADIESSSSSSSS so funny and hot

Vesper by Yesisaworld/louandhazaf (2000, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

Louis orders herself a vibrator but ships it to Harry's house because she doesn't want her to mom to get the delivery and ask questions. Friends to lovers. Bisexual Louis thanks to Harry LOL

Reccer says: It's so much packed in! Sweet and hot and funny - such a sucker for good friends realizing they should probably go ahead and do it!

Close Our Eyes (Pretend We're Miles Away) by haztobegood (5000, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post Warnings: Major Character Death

Harry and Louis' girls weekend away turned bad and now they're on the run from the law. Thelma and Louise AU

Reccer says: Incredible balance of soft and tense. Made me so so emotional!

Sea Asunder by cupcakentea (68000, Mature, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

Harry's mom hires painter Louis to capture Harry well enough that she can find a husband. Portrait of a Lady on Fire AU.

Reccer says: Absolutely gorgeous writing! It somehow captures the quietness of the movie but allows the characters to shine through even more.

Must be the Season of the Witch by 4ureyesonly28/evilovesyou (14500, Teen, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

Harry get a new coat at a thrift store and it brings her both Louis and magic.

Reccer says: witchy goodness! found family! Really beautiful and moving

Harriet and Louise by Blaaake (29000, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

Lesbian Jane Austen novel, basically

Reccer says: Lesbian. Jane Austen. Novel.

tempted by the fruit of another by disgruntledkittenface (3000, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson/Zayn Malik) - fic post

Zayn walks in on Harry and Louis hooking up and can't look away.

Reccer says: Zourry my beloved!!! So tender and hot - like SO HOT! Such perfect using of switching POV

in my head we can love forever by beardyboyzx (1272, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post Warnings: Pain kink

Harry's got to stop touching herself while thinking about her roommate. Except that she can't. Or: Harry might be a bit in love with her roommate.

Reccer says: The author does an amazing job at fitting so much emotion into so few words

I know I've got this (because I've had it all along) by we_are_the_same (16351, Teen, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post Warnings: Body image, self-esteem issues

Louis struggles with her body image, and she's initially hesitant when her friend Liam books her a boudoir shoot. Despite her nerves, the photographer Harry teaches her to see herself in a whole new way.

Reccer says: I love the way the author describes Louis' emotion: you can feel all her insecurities as if they were your own

That Smile and That Midnight Laugh by yeah_alright/uhoh-but-yeah-alright (50000, Teen, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

80s AU - Harry and her high school boyfriend's sister become friends…and then eventually more. Popular, sweet Harry and seemingly tough/loner Louis.

Reccer says: I'm such a sucker for girls slowly realizing they're into girls specifically by realizing they *like* like each other. Sweet and funny and soft with just a tiny bit of angst. It's four parts - one for each season - it's just so lovely!

still, somehow by disgruntledkittenface (1124, Not Rated, Liam Payne/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post Warnings: Depression

Louis trims Liam's split ends.

Reccer says: This fic has such tender and care. It holds such a special place in my heart.

You Make Lovin' Fun by homosociallyyours (109915, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson)

Silver fox Louis and 28 year old travel writer Harry meet on a gay cruise.

Reccer says: An all time favorite with such amazing character development for Harry! And incredible side characters keeping everything fun!

tis the damn season by YesIsAWorld (17901, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

Harry returns to her small hometown over the holiday season and starts to think about the road not taken.

Reccer says: Loved the chemistry between all the characters and especially the love story between Harry and Louis

Daydream by allwaswell16 (2024, Teen, Zayn Malik/Louis Tomlinson) - fic post

Every Thursday, Louis nods hello to her fellow regulars at Horan’s Cafe, one of whom is the woman of her dreams.

Reccer says: So funny and charming!

Study Dates and Coffee Taste by AlwaysHazandLou (2000, General, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson)

Prompt: college au - Harry and Louis have the same class and they have a crush on each other but they're disaster gays and one of them is great at the class and the other one sucks so they have to tutor them.

Reccer says:

[thecameronchronicles]

Peppermint

TW: smut. Language. Spit kink. Choking kink. Spanking kink. DOM!Topper. Slight bondage. Degrading language. 

SUMMARY: Being Topper's stepsister comes with certain...perks. 

WORD COUNT: 3200

REQUESTED 

a-dorkier-book-keeper asked

Oh my GOD I had  a Thought TM: stepbro!Topper 🥵🥵 he'd be so sweet - a little too sweet, but that's easy enough to brush off as him just being a good big bro, and jokes around with you a lot, even if the jokes are a little weird... He takes you to meet all his friends and they're so nice, but you're not sure they've got the right idea: telling Topper that he'd better take his girl home before you had too many drinks at the country club.

*HOPE THE CHANGES I MADE ARE OKAY! ENJOY!*

Peppermint 

You drank to forget while everyone else stayed sober to remember. The decorations for the yearly parade of wealth the country club set forth had only worsened the sting of your recent heartache. The sight of happy couples set early within the 'Honeymoon' stage had made your stomach churn as you decided against any ideas of romance given the result of your recent betrayal. And somewhere within the back of your mind you were annoyed that Rafe's words rang true. 

What could you expect from a pogue? 

But the details didn't matter now. Not the sight of another girl's bra on the floor of The Chateau. Not the sound of her moaning in the same cadence he brought you the very night before. Yep, those same details that you had been trying to forget since you walked in on the sight this morning. 

And now you were trapped needing to feign happiness to save face for the Thornton family you had recently become apart of over the last summer. Luckily, this came with the 'perk' of Topper. But this was only because he had a habit of showing you a kindness when you needed it most. He was simply sweet. A good guy you wished you could find somewhere on the island.

 If only he wasn't your stepbrother...

"I know it's hell, but luckily the adults are drunk on the eggnog to notice if we'd slip-" You began to feel as if there had been hope for the evening just yet until hearing that laugh over your shoulder. The familiar laugh you had been responsible for up until this morning. Your stomach turned and your eyes narrowed at the sight of your ex having crashed the event with the very girl whose tasteless set of lingerie sat over yours just hours prior. Topper sensed this tension and released the bottle willingly as you took it to your lips. 

You drank for any reason you could find, talking to yourself as you managed to distance your steps further from the party. The poor attempt to modernize the event with covers of popular Christmas songs faded until the effects of the alcohol took you to a slumber like a thief in the night. 

You awoke sometime later to the feeling of arms lifting you from wherever your body had decided to fail you. Unfamiliar arms. Strong and sturdy. But ones that kept you against an equally built chest as you found comfort in this kind notion. The weight of your eyes reigned over your attempts to make out any further details, the last thing you remembered having been the scent of peppermint lingering as your eyes closed. 

Daybreak had yet to dawn as you felt the weight of your overindulgence from the night before. You swore off both eggnog and vodka from that moment forward as you attempted to gather your bearings. But as your hand searched the sheets for your phone or something to use for light in the unfamiliar setting, you felt a body. A bare back beneath your palm. 

Immediately, your eyes adjusted and whatever remaining effects of the alcohol had now shortened to sobriety. You knew the lines beneath your hands well as you'd fantasized about them more than you should have. 

Topper. 

You were quick to assess your own body as you had a habit, and reputation, for being a coquettish drunk. A flirt from the second your lips wrapped around any bottle. Because of this, you cursed to yourself for the recent mistake. Topper was the only thing that kept you sane since you'd moved to The Outer Banks over the summer. You became close with his friends and had become welcomed in his circle, even after you began dating a pogue. And he was always so sweet. Always so accommodating and supportive. Almost too much…

But now, he was lying in what appeared to be the nude as you wore only his shirt and a lack of panties. Familiar with the way your body existed after sex, you were relieved to find an absence of the ache you knew would remain if you'd been penetrated. But still, a buzz of some kind had remained. As if perhaps you were touched or even kissed at your most sacred apex. 

"You feeling any better?" He asked as your eyes made a quick note of the nail marks across his torso. Ones you believed had been from the origin of your fingertips. Because of this, you narrowed your eyes to him and altered from confused to enraged. 

"Why the fuck are you naked?! Why am I here with you?! Where's my underwear?" Before he could answer, you were on your feet.

 "I swear to God, Topper, if you touched me-" His eyes sharpened, insulted by your words. 

"I'm going to make sure our parents-" He was suddenly out of bed, shameless in only a only of boxers as he caught your wrist on your attempt to flee. 

"You aren't going to do anything." He spoke against you for the first time. Those kind eyes darkening to the controlling hue you were warned at by Sarah during a party of introductions. 

"And why's that?" You shot back after being bewildered by his response. But he would only further your confusion as he led a hand to your hip and continued directing you until you were against the wall beside the door. 

"Because if not for me, who knows whose bed you'd be waking up in right now...Someone who would have definitely taken advantage of how pathetically drunk you were-"

"And you're such a good guy?! Where the fuck is my underwear then?!" He clenched his jaw as your hands came to his chest. 

"Tell me! You always love to hear yourself talk, so fucking talk!"

"I brought you back here so you'd sleep off making a mistake and you started touching yourself." Your eyes widened. "Saying my name...saying you wanted me...." As he spoke these words, you began to remember...

"Please..." You moaned as you bit your bottom lip. 

"We can't..." 

"Nobody has to know..." You rose to his shoulder, directing his diverted gaze back to you while ghosting his lips with your own. 

"I'm so wet for you Topper, it would be so easy for you to come...you wouldn't even have to touch me...you could just come..." He fisted the sheets beside you. 

"You don't mean it, you're-" You silenced him with a kiss. A slow start to what became a French buss. His fingers tangled within your hair as you moaned to his widening kiss until you were flat against the bed. 

"You're always so sweet to me...But I want you to touch me." You explained through muttered speech. 

"However you want...just please don't stop touching me..." 

You deepened your scowl at him now. 

"So you just took advantage of it?!"

"You literally made me finger you. And you felt so fucking good..." He clenched the same hand he'd used at his side as you swallowed hard to his change of volume. 

"But I didn't do anything. Not for long. But you made it easy to want to..." 

In remembrance, you could feel him over you. His breath hot at your chest as you had removed your dress prior to his fingers at your hip. 

"I want to ride your fingers...please...I won't come yet...I just want to feel them. I know what I said but please-" He bit his bottom lip as you brought those thick digits to your lower lips. 

"Yes! YES! TOPPER!" 

He clenched his jaw then just as he had now. 

"You were so tight and wet...and I could have taken you so easily..." He lowered his head just enough so you understood his sincerity. 

"But I wanted you to remember. To remember when I touched you. Not because you were drunk or just being a slut." Your lips parted to reprimand him for such a title, as he took hold of your hair. 

"I've been patient. I've waited. I've watched you make mistake after mistake because I wanted it to be where I could console you..." He scoffed. 

"But I'm done being nice." He set those same two fingers from the night before into his mouth and then to your sex. 

"Topper!"

"You begged for it last night. You told me how you've always wanted me. You wanted to ride me and have me fuck you like a whore from behind while he heard you..." You recalled those moments, your cheeks flushing and your thighs dampening in the recollection. 

"And you still want it now...you're dripping on my fingers and I haven't even touched you yet..." The wrap made in your hair tightened into white knuckled as he took you to the bed. 

"You should be showing me gratitude that I saved you from being fucked by some random tourist or another pogue...But lucky for you...I know exactly what you need."

"Whatever I said, I-"

"Shhh.." He moved closer, fingers rimming your sex. 

"Nobody has to know." He plummeted both fingers at once inside of you at once. Your legs trembled as he held you upright by the grip of your hair, the piston of his fingers, and his body pinning you between him and the bed. 

"I always knew you wanted this. Told me how much last night when you said you came every night wanting this..."

"Ahhh...Topper....mmm…Wait…" You moaned against his fingers as he led you to his lips. The vibration from your continued approval interrupted his kiss with a smirk until he withdrew. 

"So now you're gonna have it." He lowered to you, continuing to finger you, but slowing as you needed him to accelerate. This sent your hips to rise and accommodate him, only to feel the grip in your hair keep you in place. 

"Such a greedy and impatient little whore aren't you? Wanting to come already? Not after I waited all night...just to wake up to you bitching at me." He scoffed. 

"Knees. Be a good girl for me?" He feigned a response that he took by his dominant hand as you obliged. You licked your lips to the sight of him coming to life from beneath his boxers. 

"Shut the fuck up and take me further than you took even him." He pulled your hair before leading the second hand to your jaw. Pulling apart your lips, he spat on your tongue. 

Peppermint.

"Spit it out on me. I need a bit of motivation." He lied, using it as a means for your obedience. His eyes darkened further to your consent as you spit out onto his angry shaft, already tearful by the thought of your touch alone. 

"I know you can make me come this way. What else is a little slut good for?" He scoffed. "But MY slut is going to let me come inside of her...not down her throat..." You showed your understanding by beginning slowly. The width of his cock wore heavy on your tongue as his length made you gag immediately. You began to breathe through your nose and open your throat to him as he loosened the grip made of your hair. 

"Fuck..." He breathed in commemoration as he nearly let your hair. 

"He's a fucking idiot to give this up...oh shit..." He looked down to you, "Look at me." He growled as you hesitated to obey due to your angle. As you weren't immediate, he took hold of your hair once again. Only this time to lower to you, his cock forced away from your suctioned lips, as you gasped. 

"If you want to come, you better start fucking listening..." He threatened as you kept your eyes to him. 

"Such a good stepsister..." He explained as your eyes rolled for a moment onto to rise to him again. The moment was nearly pornagraphic for a multitue of reasons. But nothing more than just how submissive you were for him. 

"Stand up." He ordered after you'd neared him to yet another edge. 

"Off." Motioned for his shirt before you obliged. The second your bare chest faced him, he set you to the bed. 

"I want you to do it for me now. I want to watch you touch yourself for me. Get real close to that orgasm…the one you've had so many times thinking about me…without me…"

"But I want you in your knees. Looking back at me. Because once you're nice and wet, I'm gonna take you exactly how you wanted." You swallowed hard, setting yourself into the doggystyle position. 

"Topper-" A slap to your ass made you shudder over him. 

"Even that sounds better than I thought…" 

"I want-" 

"You told me enough about what you wanted. You give me what I want and then we'll see about you…" He smacked your left cheek before smoothing the sting with a loving caresses. 

"Slow strides. You don't come until I say." Your face was feverish with embarrassment but the need between your legs became too boisterous. Annoyingly so as it seemed to have the same effect as the alcohol. Each glide made over your clit had you moaning for him. 

"That's good…shit…"

"Don't play with yourself." You ordered as he swept his dominant hand to your untouched cheek. 

"You don't get to make demands, baby."

"I want every drop for myself…" You whined. "I wanna feel you come inside me, Top…I want it…" You mewled as he scoffed in disbelief. The same disbelief that brought him into his knees from behind you. 

"Just a bit more for me…this shit is too fucking good…" He spit on your folds, unnecessarily yet for more of the principle of the moment as you gasped. Two fingers made their way inside of you, forcing yours to focus on your clit. 

"Don't come." He reminded you. "I can already feel how you want to-"

"Top, please!" You bent forward, his breath to your slick chilling your lust from the inside out. You wanted to feel him touch absolutely every nerve that was ready set on fire because of him. But he was more patient than you. And you loathed him for it. 

"Please-" He drew another hand to your ass, now silent, as you continued to plead. The stinf was made quiet by the deafening need for more. His tongue. His cock. Anything more than the slow strides he made purposely lengthy against your desperation. 

"Please, Top!!!" 

You were taken by the back of your neck and led to his bare chest. A breathless rest and moment of silence making the sensation of his cock in a slow penetration somehow more intense. Almost as if it had been in slow motions itself. 

"You're not a good girl. You're my whore-say it…" He breathed deeply, a slow thrusts making it difficult to breathe, let alone speak. And yet, it was what he requested. And to keep girdled at risk for edging or overall abandonment, you submitted to him. 

"I'm your whore."

"Aww…you really are desperate for my cock, aren't you? Enough to degrade yourself, baby?" You clenched your jaw. 

"Maybe I should be a bit nicer? Softer?" You only tightened your jaw, certain hour teeth could shatter with the strength behind. 

"If you were my girlfriend, I would. I'd make love to you. I'd be soft and tell you how beautiful you are. But you said it yourself…you're my whore…so you get my hand to your ass and around your neck…you get my cock deep and hard…but don't worry…you still get to come like you're my girlfriend…" He teased. 

"You feel what you do to me?"

"Topper!" He curves your face to his, a deep French kiss making you silent. 

"You feel how hard I have to fuck you do you understand?! Shit!" He forced you back at rest on your palms. 

"I've gotta come! You're making me come!" He spoke quickly as you nodded. 

"I'm close-" But he withdrew, pulling your hair to such a degree that allowed him to make out your expression. 

"We're going to try this again. You're going to come for me and I'm going to get to watch you. I've already seen you touch yourself. You've done it for me. You even came for me last night while I fought very fucking nerve to keep from coming…so now…you're gonna come because of me…"

"Topper!" 

"Not yet…Let me savor those moans just a bit longer…"

"Please! I can't stop it!"

"If you want to come again at any point in the future, you'll fucking wait." You groaned as he quickened himself inside of you. Every thrust, almost meticulous as it hit against you to perfection. Every inch of your body vibrating to his actions. 

"Top I can't…I'm trying I can feel it…I'm gonna come…I'm-" you announced. 

"Come on then my little slut…show me how you come for me…" 

"Topper!" Your body seized for a moment, his cock continuing to batter into you as you fisted the sheets beneath you. 

'Keep coming…Do you have any idea how you look when you come? Fuck!" He grunted. 

"Open your eyes…'

"I-" He smacked your cheek one final time. 

"Open." You obliged, watching his face contorting because of your body clenching around him. The rise and fall of his chest acting as a reminder to his anatomy you'd fought to touch until now. The same torso wearing sweet from this endless interaction with you. 

"I'm-" 

"Again?!" He scoffed. 

"Please…" you whined as he turned you onto your back. Using the shirt of his you'd disposed of just recently, he bound your hands above your head. 

"You've made enough noise. You come quietly for me now…gotta know that you can do it for when we get back home…" 

"Topper-" 

"If you expect me to keep my hands to myself after this…you're sorely mistaken…every dinner…" He was between your legs as he spoke. "Every second alone…after my mom goes to sleep next to your dad…You'll have to get used to this…" He savored you in silence for only a moment. As you built to that edge, he would retreat. 

"Now since I know you're a screamer, gonna have to train you to be quiet for me." His tongue returning to you would pull your eyes into a roll. 

"One more time…" He smirked, leading your legs over his shoulders in a final moment of relief. That familiar wave just beneath his fingers as you bucked into his tongue, riding into his favoring tongue. 

"Mmm…peppermint.' He winked as you realized he had been dutiful from the night before, making him more deserving of this. He was chivalrous until provoked. And you wanted to provoke him. And doing so in repetition.

TAGLIST: @hopebaker @iovdrew @penny4yourthoughts @magnificantmermaid @pickingviolets @lovedetlost @trikigirl271 @maybankslover @slut4starkey @slvtherinseeker @obxiskewl @bluesongbird @slut-era @ailee-celeste @camilynn @sweetestdesire @onmykneesforrafe @drews1love @phildunphyisadilf @mashdan0916

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[thelordofgifs]

A Completely Objective Rating of Gil-galad Origin Theories

So! My Research(tm) has informed me that Tolkien conceived of at least four potential parentages for Gil-galad, last High King of the Noldor, at various points. This plothole/controversy/mystery is deeply, deeply funny to me, so I decided to make a post arbitrarily rating various Gil-galad theories and providing examples of fics where they appear.

Some disclaimers:

I am very very new to the silm fandom and also tumblr and don't actually know anything! so there is a very high chance something will go wrong here

in compiling this I was very much indebted to this post by @sweetteaanddragons and this one by @tanoraqui

your headcanons, of course, are extremely valid! no shade at all to anyone who likes one of the theories I’ve rated a bit lower, and thank you for doing your bit to deepen the controversy. the more Gil-galad theories the better

Unsurprisingly, this turned out LONG. I split the parentages into four sections: Part 1 covers supposedly canon/canon-adjacent Gil-galad theories; Part 2, popular fanon theories that I've seen in a variety of places; Part 3 will cover rare fanon theories that I've only seen basically once, and ideas I literally just made up myself.

Baseline assumptions I'm using:

The "historical record", in-universe, is primarily the Quenta Silmarillion which states that Ereinion Gil-galad was the son of Fingon; and other documents variously suggesting that he was the son of Orodreth or Finrod, or a descendant of Fëanor. Sources give him the additional names Finellach and Artanáro/Rodnor.

It's fairly widely agreed-upon that Gil-galad was an adult and the High King by the time of the Third Kinslaying, when he was based on Balar and came too late to Elwing's aid.

(This means I won't further consider some rather fun, cracky theories that are based on the argument that Gil-galad only became the High King after the War of Wrath. That seems like a slightly excessive amount of historical revisionism for my taste, when he's named as the High King well before the WoW.)

So, with those established, what makes for a good Gil-galad parentage theory?

It has to make the confusion in the historical record, in-universe, make some sort of sense. Would someone with this parentage have a claim to the crown? If not, do they have a solid motivation to lie about it? Providing a neat explanation for other aspects of Gil-galad's characterisation and the way he rules would also be a bonus.

A storytelling concept I call weird questions must have weird answers. Neat origin theories that "make sense" tend to score low on this metric. The Gil-galad controversy is funny and needs to be kept that way.

How narratively satisfying is the theory? Does it ruin anyone else's arc, or fanon I personally like? Then it's scoring low.

This is already so long-

Time for looking at the four canon-ish Gil-galad parentages!

Gil-galad son of Fingon and, presumably, some unnamed wife. This is rubbish. Makes no sense. Not a fan. No. Primarily, it is boring, the death knell to any Gil-galad theory. Also, Fingon is never actually mentioned to have a wife because he's married to Maedhros and, while textual ghosts are obviously common in the Silm, I find it slightly harder to believe that a High Queen of the Noldor managed to escape being named anywhere. You could, I suppose, argue that she died before Fingon became King, but I don't want to. The confusion in the historical record also seems unnecessary here, because Fingon's son would presumably have a pretty ironclad claim to the crown after his death and certainly after Turgon's. No fic recs here, I don't like this theory. 2/10.

Gil-galad son of Orodreth and brother of Finduilas. Even more boring, and also makes less sense. Was Gil-galad in Nargothrond during Leithian and up to its fall? In that case, why wasn't he mentioned at any point, and if he survived the fall of Nargothrond and escaped, why didn't he go after Finduilas? If he wasn't in Nargothrond by the time of Turin, we can at least forgive his failure to rescue his sister, but why was he sent away from Nargothrond when, prior to the building of the bridge, everyone believed it was safe - and why wasn't Finduilas sent away with him? Again, there's no particular reason for obfuscating this parentage, so it fails on that metric too. At least Artanáro/Rodnor is a good Finarfinion name. Fics which use this theory: What is Wrought Between Us by @nikosheba, which voids all these objections of mine quite nicely - Gil-galad son of Orodreth, adopted by Fingon and Maedhros! Also it's one of the most heart-breaking, beautiful, canon-compliant Russingon series around, go and read it. That excellent example aside, 3/10.

Gil-galad son of Finrod and (iirc) a wife called Meril. An earlier version of the legendarium discarded when Finrod was made childless. This is potentially my least favourite of the four canon-esque theories, because Finrod's childlessness is imo a fairly important part of his arc, and Meril was replaced by Amarië, to whom Finrod was very much not married at the time of his death. Pretty much the only positive is that, again, Artanáro/Rodnor suits well as a name for Finrod's son. I don't think many people like this theory - we need not consider it further here. No fic recs. 2/10.

Gil-galad descendant of Fëanor. By far the most intriguing and also most implausible canon-esque theory, and as I understand only from one early draft of the legendarium. But there is so much to play with here. If Gil-galad's father is one of the sons of Fëanor, he has a rock-solid reason to lie about his parentage. His claim to the throne is also dubious, because Maedhros abdicated on behalf of the entire house. This gives excellent con-artist Gil-galad flavours to play with. On the narrative/emotional arc metric, this one falls a little short, though. We don't need another descendant of Fëanor in the Second Age struggling with the dark and messy legacy of their family - we have Celebrimbor! And Celebrimbor's status as the last scion of his house, and how his eventual tragedy owes so much to his heritage, is very important to me. Besides, the house of Fëanor going from 7 sons in the first generation to literally just one grandchild is so haunting. On a more practical level, I also don't think Gil-galad reads as particularly close to Celebrimbor? They seem more "distant relations" than first cousins. On the other hand, if Gil-galad simply doesn't know who his parents are, a lot of these problems disappear. We can also double up a few textual ghosts by making his mother one of the unnamed wives - preferably Maglor's or Caranthir's, because Gil-galad son of Curufin feels. doubtful. Fics which use this theory: A Gift from Father to Son by @amethysttribble explores every single potential Fëanorian parentage which is very fun, for a value of "fun" involving "sobbing on the floor about how terrible all these people are". Check it out! Theory as a whole gets 5/10.

[theguardianace]

Can I politely ask you to elaborate on the Aroace Nene fic you talked about some time ago? Or just simply how you see her in your brain after finding out she's aroace? If it's not much to ask, of course

OMG YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! absolutely. i will ramble about aroace literally anybody on the drop of a dime this is one of the best anons to get actually

nene's story is actually the one i have the least about, to be perfectly honest. i have a plot for both emu and tsukasa's stories, but haven't quite figured out one for nene. honestly, i think nene's the type of aroace to not really... care about it that much. she'd never cared about love or romance to begin with, so when she realized it was because she was aroace, it was mostly like "hm. cool. im gonna go play animal crossing now".

as for finding out... i think it would have happened in middle school, back when she was Online Gamer Nene TM full time. with how much she loves games and storytelling, it really only makes sense she'd want to engage with fandom content like fics. however, just... seeing the way people sexualize her favorite characters, or only write/draw shipping content... she didn't care for it. she didn't want to engage with that. not that there was anything wrong with it! people can do whatever they want with fictional game characters. she just. didnt care about it herself. which led to her feeling even more isolated even within her favorite hobbies. i think this would sort of lead her to playing a variety of games so she doesn't have to worry about getting absorbed in fandoms she doesn't care to be a part of. she still checks, every once in a while. for games that she really likes. i think its through this that she eventually stumbles across a popular aroace headcannon, goes "what", googles it, and is like "wow. thats me. sick". and then moves on

but like. even when she's moved on. it's still really nice to know, yknow? it explains why she felt like the odd one out not wanting to ship stuff, or even care to entertain it. there's people out there just like her. it makes her less anxious, a little more sure of herself.

she doesn't ever tell anyone. not even rui. (i mean, they hadn't talked in ages. how is she supposed to? "hi, we havent had a genuine conversation in years, how are you? by the way i discovered im aroace and you probably don't know what that means and honestly i dont really care about it myself. have a good day".) (and once they do start talking again, it just... never came up. she never felt the need to, and he never felt the need to ask.) until my epilouge chapter where they all end up coming out like WHAT WERE ALL AROACE THATS SO SILLY anyways

in casual life, i think nene would have been the type for adults to go "oooh, you have a crush on him, don't you? look at you, all red and shy just thinking about him" when shes simply Just Like That. it was really annoying. she knew she didn't like them like that and that was that. but shes too scared to say that so she just took it. definitely didn't help the "nene needs to learn how to make friends" department. honestly, her only relief from it was with rui- both her parents and the kamishiro parents recognized that the two really did care about each other, but it wasn't like that. also no way in hell they're ruining the one friendship their kids have.

later with emu, i don't think there was any point where people even considered a romance, at least not at first glance. it wasn't like people at school even knew about emu (minus when she snuck in, but why would this hyperactive pink thing be looking for that shy second year?). and people walking the streets didn't really assume they liked each other like that since they were two girls. nene's mom was a little curious if they were dating since emu comes over so often and is so physically affectionate, but she never really pressed. she was mostly just happy nene has friends over that aren't just rui. (also, emu's aroace too, so nothing in her demeanor even made nene consider it could have been romantic. shes just Emu.)

for tsukasa, it's a similar thing. by the time people have realized the two are friends, nene's confident in herself and her feelings enough to shut down the people who would even dare assume she likes a buffoon like that star in that way. there's those people that go "oh but you're mean to him and girls are mean to boys when they have a crush on them" but she's tough enough to go "ew" and move on. (she did complain about it a little to rui on a walk home once. if he ended up in her classroom the next day to "grab her for lunch" and weaponize his dangerous reputation to intimidate them when she wasn't looking, it was sheer coincidence.)

also, i think out of the four, nene falls most on the loveless scale. tsukasa, emu, and rui are all beings made of love despite the fact they don't fall in it. nene's a bit different. she cares about her friends, and she's super good at making them (despite what she thinks), but she doesn't really... love them. not in the ways people usually want to describe love. she would kill a man for them in a heartbeat, don't get me wrong. she just experiences those sorts of feelings differently. it's care, and determination, and hope, and happiness, but not... love. not completely.

anyways aroace gamer nene so real fic will happen once i figure out how to tie these ideas to a plot 👍

[blackgirlsuperherorants]

Alright, thoughts on Kaos, after watching the first three episodes. I'm going to try to keep this more organized than it's gonna wanna come out, but no promises lmao.

I REALLY want to like the show. In fact, I don't hate it, strictly speaking. It's... interesting? But it's also a really frustrating watch, for me. I guess the biggest problem for me is that it very much feels like a show that would have worked better if it was made 15 years ago. Like, it's a very late 2000s, early 2010s show. Which isn't terrible, but compared to other recent shows in the fantasy genre, it just feels like... something that would've been edgy and boundary-pushing in like 2009, but falls flat in 2024.

And I hate to do a lot of comparing, but as a creator, as a writer, as a show runner, they needed to expect comparison to happen. Especially when they're dealing with figures from one of the most studied, most read, and most adapted mythologies in human history. And like, yes, please do your own take on Greek gods-- on Greek myth in general. I am not expecting a 1 to 1 interpretation, and the fact that the show is doing it's own thing with these figures is not a problem for me. It's just not hitting. And in a time when there are VERY POPULAR books, movies, shows, and plays using these same characters and telling versions of these same stories, like... you gotta compete. You gotta pay attention to what others have recently and popularly done with the stories, and yours has to be as good or better or it's just going to fall short. And for me, that's what's happened, here, with Kaos. I'm going to try to go into detail about what I think works well and what I think isn't working, so be mindful of spoilers.

Their version of Zeus... I dunno. I like him, I guess? But I'm not sure if that's just because Jeff Goldblum is very interesting to watch or not. I think the thing they got really right about Zeus, and many of the other gods depicted here, is the casual cruelty and indifference. A lot of shows and movies about these Greek deities are either afraid to depict them as too cruel (making them Good Guys TM), or make them just villains-- rarely is the balance met well. And, well, I think that's one of the things that this show does best. When Hera disguises herself as Zeus and fucks Zeus's little human lover, then makes the girl go through a full pregnancy in seconds and turns her into a bee and makes Zeus kill the baby-- that was GREAT. I hated it and loved it because it was so mean and cruel and Zeus just snapped the baby's neck like it was nothing, because it was nothing to him. A very good depiction, in my opinion, of how cruel these gods can be without even an ounce of remorse for the mortal they're being cruel to.

But, again, I dunno if I like what the show is doing with Zeus, in particular, or if I'd just enjoy watching Jeff Goldblum read the phonebook for 9 hours straight, you know?

Hera? She's wonderful. 10/10, no notes. I love this Janet McTeer as Hera, I love the way Hera is depicted, I love the way she looks. She eats.

Now, to my biggest problems with the series, and I apologize in advance because I have A LOT OF FEELINGS about it. I've been ranting about it every time I try to sit through episodes.

Let's start with my beloved Dionysus. Now, I want to be clear: Nabhaan Rizwan is great as Dionysus. He is giving such a good performance, it's just... something is lacking. Which makes me feel like it's on the creative side. Like, it's the direction or the writing or something that is off. So, they're obviously going for this... like... youthful boredom, with Dionysus. Dionysus is often depicted as, like, one of the youngest gods, and his whole thing is theatre, wine, debauchery, pleasure... so, yeah, having him be this kinda youthful party boy is perfect. I get it 100%. I just think the idea they had is SO GOOD and wasn't well executed at all. Here is where comparison is going to come in, so I apologize in advance if this is a problem for you--

We live in a time of very good television. Okay? And the trope they're going for with Dionysus is something we have seen done extremely well. Even, like... Klaus from Umbrella Academy fits that trope, and was done extremely well. The way they're trying to depict Dionysus is very pansexual, very life of the party, very "knows everyone who is anyone at all the spots", very "casual sex just because." And like, we LOVE those characters. Bratty disasters who live in the moment and are perpetually into some shit. And we've seen so many versions of them on recent television shows that, while ALL different, were all executed way better than this version of Dionysus. Lestat on AMC's Interview With The Vampire. Blackbeard on Our Flag Means Death. Klaus, as I mentioned before. The whole disaster bi/pan dude thing.

Dio, in comparison, seems very half-baked. Very 2009. I think out of all of the characters, he feels the most 2009, you know? Like, back when making a bi/pan character was edgy, and even then, it wasn't explicit or was even played for laughs. I know this is a comedy, but so is Our Flag Means Death, you know? And even when the whole Blackbeard/Stede thing was funny, it was never because being queer is funny. And like... this show DID THAT with Dionysus. There's a moment where he goes into The Cave with Orpheus and he casually orders drinks from the (male) bartender, and the bartender flips him off-- implying some prior knowledge of each other-- and then Dio goes off to have a quickie with the bartender. And like... he's getting fucked by the man, and in that moment it didn't feel like... like a male character having desire for a man and having a sexual tryst with him. It felt like "isn't it funny that Dionysus is getting FUCKED in the ASS?!" Which, like... no? Like, that's so 2009. It's so passe to play the gay for laughs. Like, even in other fantasy comedies, like What We Do in the Shadows and Our Flag Means Death-- the CHARACTERS are funny, but their same-sex attraction never is. It's not funny that Stede and Blackbeard fall for each other-- it's lovely.

And let's be clear-- I'm not expecting Dio to "fall for" the bartender or anything, but it's clear that they were going for "Dio is a fuckboy who has probably had casual sex with this man before, and probably scorned him in some way, and so he uses the casual quickie to make up with the guy and possibly get free drinks." Cute, fun, I like that. I don't like HOW they did that idea. Like, Dio did not react like someone who enjoys getting fucked. He reacted like a straight boy playing getting fucked in the ass for laughs. IDK.

To be fair, this version of Dionysus is very bored with his whole debauchery schtick and we do see him boredly getting his cock sucked by a girl in a club in an early scene, too. But even that looked more like someone who enjoys getting their cock sucked but is just bored, and less just... "it's funny because of what it is." Does that make sense? IDK.

Like, it feels like a direction problem. Because this Dionysus seems to work very well on paper, and the actor doesn't seem poorly cast, to me. It just seems... executed like it's directed by a dudebro older man who was very cool in the 2000s and still thinks the way dude filmmakers thought in the 2000s.

Then there's the Orpheus.

2/10. I do not... like him. And like, not because of the story-- we all know Orpheus and Eurydice. (Which is part of the problem.)

I think it's because he very much gives CHRIS MARTIN, gives COLDPLAY, and not in a good way. Like, yeah, I like Coldplay alright. They're fine. But for ORPHEUS? Orpheus' whole thing is that his music is supposed to be... extremely special. Like, nobody is touching him. His music is so beautiful it can like... literally change the world. Move the gods. All of that.

And they chose to make him... COLDPLAY? This man whose music is the most special, beautiful thing anyone has ever heard. Like, I don't understand that music direction choice. At all. Who... decided that this was the move? I need something otherworldly. Something ethereal. Like, when he's playing the piano at The Cave for the fates in an attempt to get them to allow him to go into the underworld to retrieve Eurydice's soul... as soon as he started, I was like "This basic ass piano." Like, THAT IS NOT "the greatest, most beautiful music-- music that breaks your heart so much that you'd let him defy the gods and get his lost love back." It sounded like he was playing Christmas hymns at the Christmas morning service. Basic as fuck.

And again, I hate, hate that I have to compare, but YOU CANNOT GIVE SUCH A MEDIOCRE MUSICAL PERFORMANCE IN A WORLD WHERE HADESTOWN EXISTS. Like, we cannot hear Reeve Carney give the most beautiful performances of the most heartwrenching songs in a hit Broadway musical as the same character, and then you give us Chris Martin playing Christmas hymns.

Again, you are allowed to make your own interpretations, and the showrunner did not need to try to copy Hadestown. That is not what I mean. But you need to pay attention to what perhaps the most popular telling of that myth OF ALL TIME did, and you need to try to match or exceed it. Why even both with Orpheus and Eurydice if you're not going to slay us with the music? YOU NEED TO SLAY US WITH THE MUSIC! THAT'S ORPHEUS' WHOLE THING!

Honestly, full stop, even though they have every right to tell their own versions of these stories and create their own versions of these characters, you're fighting an uphill battle when AMERICAN GODS, PERCY JACKSON, and HADESTOWN exist and have done EXTREMELY WELL and been EXTREMELY POPULAR touching this same mythology. You have to MATCH OR EXCEED. Because why would I want to sit through your mediocre Orpheus when I could listen to Hadestown and hear a far superior Orpheus?

Now, their Eurydice? She is beautiful. She is fierce. She is heartbreaking. I love her. Hera and Eurydice are the best characters on the show, and the only ones I just full-on like without much complaint.

And maybe the point is that the men suck? IDK. Like, I don't give a fuck about this Orpheus. I'm not sad for him. His reaction to Eurydice's death is selfish and not at all heartbreaking. I don't even believe him that he wants to go into the underworld to retrieve her. I feel like Dionysus wants it more than he does. But Euridyce. I feel so sad for her. She lost her mother to Hera's cult. She dies tragically. Her stupid husband took her coin, so she can't even pass through to be Renewed and have a new life. She wasn't happy in her marriage, and she isn't happy in her death, and all I want is for her to succeed.

IDK if their goal was for us to dislike Orpheus, but if that is the goal, they've succeeded. Like, I want my heart to break for Orpheus. But I just feel like he's shitty. And I don't care about him at all.

And the other thing was small, but Theseus and Nax being in love was brushed over and not fully explicit and the Nax actor didn't play it well enough. Theseus actor was believably in love and heartbroken that Nax might die at Minos' hands, but Nax was almost playful, like his whole purpose was to reveal that Theseus was not for Ariadne rather than to truly be Theseus' lover. Which, again, feels like a director problem. They WROTE "Theseus is revealed to be gay and in love with Nax, the secret prince of Troy". He DIRECTED "and then we learn that Theseus is actually gay and Nax sassily reveals it to Ariadne because lol they're gay and she doesn't get the man isn't that amusing?" Which, again, is very 2009. Very "see? It's EDGY, the character is GAY! But not too gay, because eww, amirite?" And like, again, in a decade in which we have OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH and INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, that just doesn't work anymore. We have pirates and vampires being openly gay and kissing and being casual about how in love they are with their partners... and you play your gay Theseus as if it's edgy just to imply he's in love with this prince and that you don't need to show us that he is because you let the prince call him "babe" and let their hands touch a bit and let Theseus cry for him. Like? Coward shit, man, it's so outdated. I don't know how else to say it. Like, even having Nax just show an ounce of empathy for his partner who is terrified that he is going to be executed would have been enough, but Nax was just sassy and smirking and resigned to his fate as if it was just words on a script. Even a man who knew he was probably going to die because of his actions to save his people should have more emotion and conflict than just "Oh well, I'm not afraid to die, lol, Theseus babe stop crying omg lol"

Anyway, I think this was more negative than positive. But... I like the modern setting. I think it's fun. Very "Romeo + Juliet", which is I think what they were actually going for. I love the Fates and the Furies. I think they look so cool, and I think the gnc Fates was a great choice. I liked their Poseidon. Didn't like their Hades and Persephone, but there's nothing wrong with them, actually. I just don't like what they did with them personally.

I like Prometheus, and I like that he's serving as the narrator. I think that's interesting. I like that Zeus keeps summoning him and sending him back-- again, that casual cruelty thing that the show does so well. (Also, when Poseidon drowns the servant girl for no reason. That was very fun. Just, perfect Poseidon behavior-- he's such a piece of shit, and I love that this show decided to show us that.)

I also like the story it's trying to tell, with the three humans who are prophesized to bring down Zeus/the gods. I'm interested in seeing how that works out, and especially in seeing Eurydice's role in it. The show has a REALLY good premise, and has some REALLY nice elements. It's just, honestly, the execution that leaves something to be desired. Like, I feel like I'm pulling my hair out every time I try to watch an episode. Like, I pause every few minutes just to rant about something.

And to be fair, I'm a mythology girlie. I read a lot of mythology. I watch a lot of mythology shows and movies. I listen to mythology podcasts. Like, it's my special interest. But also, I understand completely when people adapt these myths to tell their own versions, or use these characters in their stories in ways that don't match the mythologies. I understand, and I've even done it myself. And so does the mythology. There are so many different versions of these gods, of their myths, so many different ways they were worshipped and things they were worshipped for-- it's perfectly on-brand to change them in your own ways for your own purposes. I don't think that's my problem with Kaos. I just think... I don't like how it was executed. It's a very "sounds good on paper" show, at this point. And I feel for the cast, because they're not doing a terrible job. It really feels like the problems are on the director/producer side. I even think what the writers wrote sounds better than what the creative team did with it.

And... that's all I'll say. I'm still going to finish the season. Maybe I'll give final thoughts after I finish the season. Sometimes things that you think are problems are there to pay something off in the end. But some of these things, IDK, I just think they're problems in general. And, like... I'm kinda disappointed, because I really want to like this show, and right now, I can't say that I do.

[decepti-thots]

1, 8 and 12

"the character everyone gets wrong"

moving over to exRiD for this one. arcee is imo subject to this a lot, despite fannish sentiment around her being overall very positive. i suspect a part of this is that the segments of idw1 fandom i hang out in either haven't read much or all of exRiD and/or do not read it as often as other series like MTMTE, so she tends to be subject to a lot of 'flattening' into her most iconic, meme-y characteristics. fun murder lady who likes murder! yay! but the thing is that the popular perception of arcee in a lot of circles is perpetually stuck in what she started as, not where she was ultimately taken. arcee's arc in the latter parts of idw1 are about the ways she grows out of and beyond the original concept of her as Scary Violent Lady TM, and about finding personhood for herself beyond that. by the time you're a dozen or so issues into phase two, that entire concept of her is being questioned and developed by the comic! it would perhaps bother me less if that entire original presentation of her wasn't so heavily rooted in phase one's (trans)misogynistic portrayal that we're ostensibly all on the same page about being bad, and the later stuff that is largely ignored wasn't a direct attempt to work with and rectify. (this has gotten better in the past 3-4 years, though.) i don't think anyone is deliberately leaning into that, it's just a side effect of most folks in the places i hang out not being overfamiliar with the actual canon stuff. but. well. it does make me a little sad. she's got such a compelling arc! i would like to have more enthusiasm for it, as opposed to making fun jokes about her stabbing people. (on the plus side, discussing this before has persuaded at least three people i know of to read exRiD and they told me they loved her in it, so!)

"common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about"

anyone who thinks exRiD is light on character work, as per the above, is wrong. sorry. it has great character work! the division of 'MTMTE is for character stuff, exRiD is Plot TM only for dudebro nerds' is incorrect, and unfortunately remains a common sentiment. barber did not do it the same way that roberts did, but exRiD is intensely interested in its characters and barber has spoken at length about how interested he was in digging into character dynamics. if anything is barber's signature, it's his extensive use of internal character monologue, even! yes, he also really likes doing convoluted plots- and it's fair that is simply a turn off for people- but the perception he doesn't care about characters or interpersonal relationships is very unfair. this man did not do All That with thundercracker for people to write that off.

"the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them"

i did this question previously for aileron but also! also!! more people need to give some love to idw needlenose. as with aileron, it's not that people DISLIKE him, it's that he is great and i want more people to understand this. he's got a complicated cross-faction sibling relationship with tracks! he's a gay widower and it's really sad!! he's a hardcore True Believer in the decepticon cause and imo a wayyy better exploration of what a generic non-high-command decepticon is struggling with in the aftermath of the war ending as a real believer in the cause than stuff like the scavengers that gets more play in fandom. but he gets way less attention as idw exploring that, unfortunately. i love him so much, please join me in the needlenose stan corner.

[accirax]

initial thoughts on DCAS episode 20

^ reminder for everyone that this applies to these initial thoughts as well! it was quite the surprising sight to have pop up at the beginning of the episode, though.

... what is Emily's motivation to kill Trevor here, exactly? i guess she took a page out of Riya's book when it comes to pushing gays off of cliffs.

yayyyyyyy, they're finally getting along! :D

does framing people for theft and twisting their already broken ankles count as "working"?

i guess we do know from Aiden in Season 2 that Tom and Jake were the most popular players. it makes sense (especially given the grandparent context Ally goes into), but it was still quite surprising.

i really hope that Tom and Jake talk this out at some point, whether in the finale finale or in the tomjake miniseries, because the truth of the situation is that Tom's absence from Jake's life was contributing to his misery, which was apparently much greater than anyone expected. i know that Tom never intended it to be that way, but i'm also sure that his fooling around with lying about having a boyfriend wasn't doing Jake any favors. i just want to make sure that the inadvertent hurt that Tom caused Jake doesn't get swept under the rug.

haha, it's puns in visual storytelling :)

this is understandable. Riya can and will use your backstory against you.

.......................................sigh

this might sound like an odd critique given how much people love to dunk on DC's writing (especially in All Stars), but i actually think that the ONC writers don't have enough faith in themselves. i mean that in the sense that, across the season, they set up really compelling plotlines and rivalries between both Jake/Ally and Connor/Riya that people will naturally want to see fulfilled.

for Ally and Jake, just being here and being forced to work together after everything they've been through is already enough, especially when Connor's hopes are stacked on top of it as well. we're in it with the characters for the ride. so, we don't need more bits of fake drama, like Jake being petty and shocking Ally out of nowhere last episode, or Ally reacting stupidly to Riya's obvious lie, to keep up invested. we don't need a huge last-minute spectacle to feel like Ally and Jake working together is a big deal, because they've been subtly and slowly convincing us of that through the entire season. instead, diverting from the steady characterization to inject needless drama in is just going to convince everyone that nothing matters.

i don't know if this could be a miscalculated flaw from trying to account for the fact that any viewer could hop in at any time on youtube, or appealing to the youtube/tiktok algorithm, or an internal, insecure standard to insert drama into the show at any cost, but i hope that the writers realize how good they are at using heartfelt scenes to build up character dynamics across entire seasons and stop breaking character for silly plot twists in season 4. i have a lot of faith in the writers. i hope they can find that faith in themselves.

y'know, everyone keeps saying that...

OOH THE MOTION BLUR??? POP OFF ONC ANIMATION TEAM I SEE YOU

the "Ally, you're going there!" sign was so fucking funny

that's not very "i'll never work with or trust Riya again" of you, Grett

i literally said before Riya struck her pose, "i hope that Riya does the 'aren't you gay?' pose when it's her turn" and then she did! it's her signature move for a reason ;D

this is, like, the exact same spot and pose as when Trevor initially found Derek and Kristal kissing. i wonder if that was intentional. also, the Gay Thoughts Montage(tm) was really funny.

why would you do it like that? hasn't Trevor suffered enough...? (/j)

@venus-is-thinking pointed out the hilarity of Jake being the one to say this, as he's one of the two contestants who actually has been in the mines before. i guess it just goes to show how disorienting the bags were.

get his ass!!!

i KNEW Ally was going to make a minecraft reference as soon as Kristal explained the challenge. miiiiiiiiiiiiine diiiiiiiiiiamoooooooonds...

way to keep your eyes on the prize, queen.

we love money laundering!! (i think that's close enough to what money laundering is? also i'm joking, obviously.)

again, what is Emily's motivation here? i know it's technically "get the show canceled to embarass Kristal," but she really believes in that so strongly as to put the lives of six innocents-- including an eight year old-- at risk to do so? idk, i feel like Emily's character fell off the realm of reality into supervillain status. it's sad :(

boy, i sure am glad that we witness Riya and Yul pick up 10 gems in this scene! (/s /j)

very brave, Jake. i feel like this parallels something in s1, although i can't remember what. maybe it's just Alec protecting Fiore? that doesn't seem particularly relevant, unless Jake is also auditioning to be her dad.

James: wait... does that mean Jake and Ally are going to fall madly in love with each other? #rivalstolovers.

they look like paleontological fossils in there. the fuck happened to them?

somebody, quick, give them a miniseries! this is too good of a poster opportunity to pass up!

you have to make sure you strike a slay pose, even as you're dying.

props to the trailer for making it look like Ally was the one who sent the rocks to James' face instead of Riya. that was a fun setup and subversion of expectations!

see, Riya can and will use your backstory against you! i was kind of expecting her to do this to Jake, too, given the setup from earlier in the episode. i guess they might be saving that for the finale proper, though.

(check out the reblog for my thoughts on the ending, i ran out of images)

[shuttershocky]

It really is something how beloved Shimousa is when if picked apart it wasn't even that good.

WAIT before you all throw your shoes at me, know that I fully agree that Shimousa rules. It's the only FGO chapter I really want to see animated and done right. I also just don't think it was that good.

Shinjuku had the stronger narrative arc for its primary protagonist (+ antagonist) Moriarty, Salem made better use of its setting with some fantastic paranoia and the surprising introduction of the outer gods into Type-Moon, and Seraphix (the CCC event) was just Nasu showing off his skills by using the structure of the ballet Giselle and making Meltryllis follow Giselle's footsteps while making something completely different while Shimousa was a straightforward "beat these seven guys and then the boss" adventure. If it wasn't for Agartha existing, Shimousa might have actually been the worst part of Epic of Remnant. All of its strengths would have been vastly improved by being in a different, more visual medium (see: the manga version and its sick art), as the format (and just the prose + dialogue in general) just couldn't capture all the cool shit it was trying to show you.

Yet it's the most popular, and it's just so damn fun. Musashi's charisma is among the best in Type-Moon, and everything about her just clicks. Her character design is simple and yet instantly recognizable, she can turn on a dime between being the dashing hero and the goofball oaf, and most importantly, she dual wields swords. (That's rad as fuck.)

Musashi became so iconic they're literally making a whole game about samurai so she gets to appear in something else after FGO killed her off. What a star.

This part probably doesn't apply to as many people, but if you're like me and like a lot of old Type-Moon it was also just really great to see TM do dark fantasy / horror again. Shimousa went MAXIMUM chuunige: servants get horrifically corrupted beyond the point of saving and their eyes weep blood, Musashi's duels take place in a field of skulls underneath a blood moon, there's a terrifying scene where Musashi beheads Lancer of Purgatorio, only for him to keep laughing and fighting while his head reformed from warped flesh from his neck. We even got a new EMIYA remix out of nowhere. What the fuck.

Shimousa ruled so hard. I want an anime so bad, but at the same time I don't know if I can trust an anime to do it right now that I've seen what the manga did with it.

[frostythefrostedfox]

Spoiler Alert for Inside Out 2, you've been warned, if you keep reading from here on, that's entirely on you friendo

Nuff time has passed, and I know it's only been like a week, but in internet time that is like 500 days

Inside out 2 was mid as fuck, not even Harry Potter makes me snooze this hard; is literally the first movie, with the same problems with the added problem of constant retcons and a super unsatisfactory ending. I would give it a 5.5/10, at least Blue Beetle made me feel something other than annoyance, even if that emotion was anger

I guess pixar wasn't lying, they are truly trying to massify the appeal of their new stuff by basically copypasting "The Current Trend TM" into the movie where it fits or not. What is this, a modern sonic videogame?

The scene in question was very well done, it felt very real, but don't forget there is still 85 minutes of movie to consider, and I bet it'll be just like the first one, where nobody remembers absolutely anything from the movie except for that one specific scene, the ending and the ending alone.

I really thought that pixar was onto something with Cars 3, when things seemed magical yet real, when the life lesson of the movie was something that is usually hard to hear, but no, instead we got "Be selfish and lie, that'll get you what you want", because that's exactly what the ending does by giving Riley what she wanted instead of punishing her for her blatantly shitty actions and being an even worse friend, nope, instead everything is solved with a hug and everyone's cool with her, what is accountability am I right?.

Joy apparently learned absolutely nothing from the first movie because now she has even more control and is doing even worse shit than before, in the first one she was just a control freak that kept the other emotions from doing anything, but in the second one she is even worse, now she straight up tries to make Riley forget things so she can create an idealized version that fits her perfect ideal of who Riley is, is like her whole take of the first movie wasn't that there has to be room for other emotions and that it is okay to not be happy all the time, her take seem to be that you should absolutely get rid of everything that doesn't makes you happy because that's just easier than acknoledge your mistakes, lie to yourself every single day of your life, that'll make you happy! And the least said about how Starbucks Karen coded she is in this movie compared to the first one, the better

I am not even going to talk about the huge ammount of inconsistencies with the first movie that were just shoved in for unknown reasons, like Nostalgia, did y'all forgot that Nostalgia is the emotion that Riley discovers at the end of the first movie when the memories of her past are a mix of sadness and happiness?

And lastly the marketing, it was the most corporate thing I've ever seen since the garfield movie, ew, never thought anyone could ever do it worse. Just product placement in bigger brands so they can hijack your attention for a couple of seconds while you consume another product and secure their money by force-exposing everyone to their movie. If those had been stand-alone ads I wouldn't have a problem, because that is the point of advertisement, to sell you something, and we know what happens when you barely show the movie you're trying to make money out of, like Elemental, but y'all could at least pretended to believe in your own product's ability to stand on its own two legs instead of ductaping it to literally every other brand that was popular enough at the time.