#and streetwise is just some guy

[they-hermes]

i dont the protectobots should be cops (looks at g1 marvel) they're protectors they should be in search and rescue like how hot spot is a firetruck and first aid an ambulance. streetwise is a car, groove is a motorcycle and rook is a truck and none of them are apart of the police force <33

[harbingersecho]

Lasombra fashion show?

Now how did you know I've been meaning to draw fashion 'shows' for all the clans…?

But! Here's some Lasombra fashion stuff for you!

+ bonus because I love bullying Lasombra abt their tech issues (:

[nkn0va]

Wagner, Tsubaki, and Kaguya with a s/o who grew up very poor? I mean ghetto type of poor, like Cali and vegas.

Straight Outta Compton lookin' ass S/O lmao

-Wagner...has no idea how the hell she ever managed to fall for such a "commoner" like you. No matter how much time passes she will never really have an answer.

-Her family is absolutely not going to approve of you if they found out about you now, she knows that, but she can't help but stay with you anyway. She finds such an act of rebellion exciting, though she'll never say that to anyone.

-That said though, if she really wishes to stay with you in the long term, she'll have to teach you proper rich person etiquette. She low key makes a date out of teaching you how to best behave in front of her family for when the day inevitably comes.

-She grew up pampered and in luxury, so getting to know you on a more intimate level was like learning about an entirely new world. As primitive and beneath her as she felt it to be, learning about growing up the way you did was...intriguing, if nothing else.

-It definitely took Wagner a while to warm up to the thought of dating you. She needed to truly test if you were really in love with her, not just her money considering your background. She made you do some...really obscure things, and leave it at that. Especially if you're a guy.

-That said once she did finally convince herself her growing attraction was mutual, she found a surprisingly down to earth, albeit maybe vulgar S/O that could match her hot-headedness and determination. That was something she never knew she needed before.

-Tsubaki is much more open to the idea of an S/O from a rural area. Likely you managed to get into the Torifune Academy through sheer talent in one area or another, so she immediately had some respect for you getting into such a prestigious academy without a rich family name backing you.

-You were...among her more assertive acquaintances, but she understood to an extent. You had to be strong-willed to survive in the lower levels of a Hierarchical City. She was about to stand up for you when you were facing bullying from other students from noble families, but you quickly showed you were having none of that, verbally destroying them much worse than Tsubaki was about to.

-That was the first huge boost of admiration she had for you, which would eventually become attraction the more she got to know you. You were...skeptical at first, but her sincerity and earnestness was unlike anyone else there and she started winning you over before you knew it.

-There was a palpable romantic tension throughout your years at the academy that everyone could sense, however it took an accidental slip-up on Tsubaki's part for her feelings to come out, resulting in a very prominent blush and a reluctant, nervous confession, which you were more than happy to return.

-The two of you make a surprisingly good pair in battle. Her methodical, graceful fighting style combined with your streetwise, relentless ways of fighting. You made it extremely difficult for any opponent to learn how to adapt to both of you at once, and together were almost undefeated in sparring both at the academy and in the NOL itself.

-No matter what her old man may think of you, she will do everything in her power to defend you regardless of your Ars Magus aptitude. You're the best partner she could've possibly asked for, and she'll fight to keep you by her side no matter what it takes.

-Kaguya definitely understands your attitude the most. She used to be much the same during her childhood, as embarrassed as she is about it. She won't ever be telling you about it, though.

-She actually sees quite a bit of her old self in you, finding it rather amusing. This went doubly so for when she eventually started catching feelings for you. She didn't really know what to make of it.

-There was no denying her feelings however, and when she gets feelings, she conveys them by teasing. She will stop if you ask her to but that won't stop her from doing it again eventually, it's just too much fun, especially if your reaction is to get angry or flustered.

-She might try to fix your manners like Wagner will, but she's much less strict on it. If you don't want to, it's not a deal breaker for her, though she will ask you to maybe tone down the cursing if you do it a bit too much. You're too good looking to have a such a dirty mouth, at least if you ask her.

-If you're an In-Birth she is more than willing to follow you in and will probably end up provoking someone to fight you if you don't do it first, purely to see you in action, all with a smug smile on her face. Of course she'll jump in and help if they prove to be too much for you but that doesn't really make it better.

-She's going to protect you of course, even if you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, but she just wants to see her big strong S/O do their thing. It rolls off her tongue as if it's totally normal to put your partner in dangerous situations for your own amusement. She really kills you sometimes...

[tf-cyberaligned]

The Protectobots

The Protectobots founded the Rescue Academy and Rescue City. The gestalt all had a base coding for rescue work, with sub coding for positions such as fire rescue, medical, scouting, and enforcement.

Hotspot is their leader, and the oldest. He leads his teams by word and deed. He is a very enthusiastic and energetic leader, sometimes tiring out his siblings. His leadership keeps his team out of harm's way, ensuring that their time in battle or rescues are swift and without complications. His fighting style is considered to be brash, being more of a hand to hand combat guy. However he does have the ability to mix acid with his water-lines, and he owns twin fireball rifles. When him and his siblings combine, he forms the torso and head of Defensor.

Blades is the youngest, but the most experienced fighter of the group. He is fiercely protective of his gestalt, which sometimes scares his fellow Autobots whenever he is pissed. Many mistake his protective nature for being arrogant and unhinged. He supplies air support for his siblings, while also being able to take over some medical rescues in the case that First Aid is busy. His fighting style is very gruesome, whether using his own rotor blades are swords, or using his twin energon pistols, he is a force to be feared by both sides. Several Decepticons who had the misfortune of fighting him have nicknamed him the "Angel of Death." He forms the right hand of Defensor.

First Aid is the resident medic of the team. She is a very timid mech on a normal day, but in the middle of a fight or rescue she can be the most level headed mech there. She is very empathetic, considerate, and kind. Her compassion knows no ends and she will work relentlessly to fix anyone and anything, from broken down tech to Decepticons. She served as an apprentice to Ratchet, having grown close to the old medic to consider him a honorary brother. Her beliefs are rooted more in pacifism, but if anything or anyone threatens her gestalt or the academy, she will not hesitate to stand up and defend those she loves. She has a forcefield just like the gestalt, but hers is able to extend further and take more hits. She forms the left arm of Defensor.

Groove is the scout of the team. She is a free spirited bot, and times before the war she was known to go off on adventures by herself for days on end. She loved her gestalt, but sometimes the long drives are needed for her sanity. She is a true pacifist at spark, she hates the violence of war but has no way to avoid it. The threat the Decepticons have on the academy puts her into a moral struggle, where she wants to protect but without violence. Her weapons are considered to be more pacifist, temporarily stunning the enemy instead of killing. She forms the right leg of Defensor.

Streetwise is the interceptor of the team. He follows his logic, but is led by his spark. He is the smartest mech in the gestalt, and is able to track down any mech, using his processor and speed to outsmart anyone. His weapon arsenal is a combination of long range and short range weapons. He owns twin tonfas, alongside his favorite smoke grenades and explosives. He is often underestimated by the enemy, only to flip that mechs world upside down when he ends the fight. He forms the left leg of Defensor.

Designs

Plus their holoforms

The team originally wanted to keep Rescue City as a true neutral in the war, with their teams and recruits helping Autobots and Decepticons alike. But after Megatron deemed them an enemy due to them helping the Autobots, the Protectobots joined the war on the Autobot side. They kept the academy neutral, while becoming the city's sole protector.

Their fall during their battle with Devastator at Tagan Heights left Rescue City without protection. In the Vorns following the fall Megatron called for the destruction of the city and its inhabitants, leading to the Rescue Bot Massacre.

Unknown to them at the time however, a Sigma ship was in deep space, its crew in stasis.

[terrence-silver]

What signature moves do TIG's characters have (any that you want, but as always I'm partial to CK Terry and Cash) when trying to seduce beloved for the first time? I know that most mortals would hop into bed with him without him needing to lift a finger, but let's say for argument's sake beloved doesn't want to seem easy.

---

― For Terry Silver, one would think his signature move of seduction is flaunting his wealth, money, connections, mansions, cars, material possessions and himself too primarily, because, well, he's Terry Silver and he knows entirely the effect he has on people, a factor he majorly and very gleefully exploits at any given opportunity, but I feel strategies like this are ironically reserved for individuals and situations he has an entirely transactional leaning towards. You scratch my back, I reward you for your due diligence once you deserve it because nothing's for free. He's a shrewd businessman and Machiavellian after all and some things in life are strictly business. For people he genuinely likes, though? His seduction equals with big promises he entirely intends to make come true to their fullest and then some. Promises of everlasting devotion. Protection. Fealty. Pretty much fixing someone's life from the bottom up. Helping his person get away with bloody murder, if need be. You name it. Terry flinches from nothing. Never. He's a shockingly gracious and stubbornly forthcoming person to be loved by when you really think about it. At his most honest, Terry can be as blunt and transparent as grabbing someone by the shoulders, looking right into their eyes and just openly telling them everything he intends to do for them for the rest of their life, always, and then staying true to his word with every fiber of his being seeing as how he makes it his life's mission to do right by his beloved. If that isn't enough to not only seduce someone but make them swoon with intoxicated wonder and bewilderment, then I don't know what will.

― In the case of Terry McCain, jumping into bed isn't paramount to him, because in his own words, vaguely paraphrased from memory, that isn't a priority to him and he's not that kind of guy. Even though, validly, he could get all the action he wanted if he wanted. Thing is, he doesn't want it. Not from just anyone. Only one special person. Catholic principles, huh? As such, his signature move is poised more on love and how he achieves that is by being available for his beloved whenever and however --- whether they agree to it or not. Which means this man will almost stubbornly be in beloved's shadow, tail them, be close at hand, pester them to a degree if need be and pretty much insert himself into their life until he's accepted by them however long it takes. Breaking into their life, privacy and sphere, literally and figuratively isn't entirely out of the question either. He is stubborn, he is temperamental and he won't give up until the subject of his affection accepts him and his advances; a tactic slightly contradictive for a man who's existence is dedicated to the upholding of law and order. But, you see, Terry doesn't think he's doing anything wrong or that he's even some sort of sleaze with ulterior motives who's committing a crime of passion. Not like those lowlives on the streets he apprehends. He is himself and they're...them. No, no, he seduces by being consistently there until it becomes a given he's sleeping with you. And eventually? You'll simply have to understand and accept just how much he cares for you. That he's the best for you. Always was. Just took him never giving up for you to see it.

― Gus Travis is a gangbanger and his method of seduction is, initially at least, typically streetwise and the approach any tatted up bad man in a leather jacket with a gun tucked into his jeans would go for; a hint of danger, a hint of sexiness, coming at you first and doing so boldly, buying you a drink or five, putting his arms around you, heated banter, flirting very openly, jealously getting in your space and ensuring every other person within eye distance steers clear of you because for the time being, this is his turf. But, it ain't that simple, because Gus has layers to him and while he might seem like a dangerous, detached criminal sort (and god knows he is) the very process of the seduction it takes to get you into bed might just hit Gus harder than the very subject of the seduction and he very well could end up smitten with you when it was you was supposed to be enchanted by him first and he might end up smitten way before he gets anywhere near second base. Man falls into his own trap, in a sense, and yeah, suddenly, getting to fuck you simply isn't enough anymore. He's here thinking being exclusive, claiming you, making you the Bonnie to his Clyde, tattooing your face over his heart, marriage, being partners in crime, and for all we know, sailing the seven seas with you in a boat bearing your name. His imagination runs wild and he seduces himself where you are concerned. Man's actually pathetically in love and he gets to this state awfully quickly. What starts out as him trying to get into your pants might just result in being tied to him in matrimony a week from then.

― Jack Blaylock's signature move of seduction is being relatable. Being more or less just some guy working as a PI out abroad. Posing himself as interesting enough to be peculiar and catch the attention of those who seek him out and even those who don't, with a dash of being seemingly ordinary enough to feel secure. Being that whiff of civilian normality, safety and the known in an unknown place. You could almost be relieved wherever you're travelling in the world that you stumbled upon a kindred spirit like him in a sea of strangers and that as a result, you've someone to share similar topics with, similar interests, anecdotes, worldviews, desires, but little do you know Jack, or rather Timothy, deliberately placed himself on your path and designed whatever persona he presents to you to intentionally appeal to you so far from your roots. To get you to trust him. Open up to him. Come to him for help and advice. Put your guard down. To give him the chance to befriend you. Sure, act the honeypot by taking you to bed and making it seem like a spontaneous development of things. This is a professional deformation of his, being an undercover Hitman --- utilizing subterfuge to get a target disarmed. Not that you're a target...but in a way, yeah, yes you are. You're his target. The prime target. The target that matters most. So, fact is, Jack will literally befriend you straight into seduction, into his bed and then right into his crosshairs.

― When it comes to Cash, I don't figure he seduces --- he just takes. Because, keep in mind, he's not the oratorial type. He isn't a schmoozer. He won't charm in the classical sense. He won't act slick. He won't be braggadocious. He won't utilize big words. Sometimes even no words at all. He won't jump through verbal hoops of fire to knock someone off their feet because that's just not in his character to do. His signature 'move' isn't him being any sort of Casanova. His signature move is his quiet audacity. The fact he'll know all your whereabouts. The in's and out's of your life. Your comings. Goings. That he'll totally abuse the privileges of his badge to discover all he can about you. What's the worst that can happen? He'll get suspended? Heck, he already got suspended for much, much worse. That he'll watch. Observe from afar. In broad daylight, if need be. Yes. Stalk. And he doesn't even particularly care if it's stalking. He developed an interest and this territory? You in it? It's all his. One step at a time, without beloved, beloved you even noticing he slips closer and closer to the target and by the time you two officially 'meet' you'll never really know that Cash has already met you months ago and knows everything there is to know about you. Who would've thought? He seems so unassuming too. Strong, silent type. Cop. The way you 'met'? Undoubtedly just as unassuming and day-to-day ordinary to the degree there's no discernable tactic one can single out for Cash to use. He just appears in your life. And yet, all the strategies he utilized to get there were undoubtedly a web of complex machinations tucked behind a silent facade that ensure you'll never even put two and two together that this man basically besieged your whole life and virtually took you hostage a long time ago.

― Jan Valek doesn't have signature moves in the modern, contemporary understanding of it all. Man's medieval. Quite literally speaking. His manner is medieval. His view of things is medieval. And his approach is, in weird ways, medieval too, regardless of the fact he's been alive for six centuries; much of him hasn't changed and remained frozen in time, just like he himself has. There's something almost chivalrous to him in spite of him being quite literally The Father of the Damned. There's something worshipful and adoring as he presses a lingering kiss to his beloved's hand, talks about them in highly idealistic and poetic terms and looks at them like they hung the stars and the moon itself on the sky right from the get go, mixing raw eroticism with an anachronistic, near courtly feel for romance, quite literally loving them into seduction and it could, technically, taking a vampire's innate, supernatural charm into consideration, take him no time at all to consummate beloved, as such, his trick, if it can even be called a trick, on how he gets beloved to open up for him like a blossoming flower is by downright wooing them like they're heavenly perfection itself and in his eyes --- they are. None of this is a ploy or a ruse. Manipulation. Strategy. For Jan Valek, this is absolute honesty. His undead heart wholly and entirely on display. So, if beloved gives in, it'll be genuinely because of how unabashedly lionizing and reverent Jan Valek is towards them, bordering on deification. After all, how many people, immortal or mortal will compare the subject of their interest to God's light and the Sun itself and actually mean it?

[wri0thesley]

Genshin men as cat dads because I’m sick right now and bored

Diluc: best cat dad. He is a walking heating pad so the cats follow him around waiting to swoop onto any unoccupied thigh or foot permanently binding him to the chair. He also is the kind to pick up a mischievous kitty and pepper them with kisses because they’re too cute to be mad at. Any kitty no matter how thin they were before their care will become a plump beast in days of staying at the winery. Not only will Adelinde be spoiling him but Diluc is weak to their cute little meows and pleading eyes even if its their second dinner.

Thoma is just the perfect animal dad. He’s such a ray of sunshine that even the most terrified and scared kitty ends up warming up to him and cuddling beside his thigh.

Itto the kind of cat dad who probably takes in a orphaned kitten thus turning them into a overly clingy and playful cat. You bet that cat isa hefty one too and is well fed. Such a well loved and plump kitty

Lyney would be a literal cat dad. He probably has a better understanding of cats than anyone else to the point where it is like a genuine child to him he’s taking care of. He probably attracts tons of cats.

Pantalone would spoil his kitty rotten. Likely a purebred white cat to lay on his lap for him to pet like a cartoon villain. But cats aren’t always serious and often are foils to their owners. So i think it would be funny if his kitty was more needy and playful than one might expect. It pats at his jewelry or loose hair. It meows rudely when it wants food. Still he keeps the little guy. If anything their defiance of normal cat behavior is amusing and entertaining to a man who hardly leaves his office. Besides, nothing is better than sitting at his desk with a purring kitty laying on his paperwork giving him a much needed break to gently stroke their fur.

Neuvillete in my humble opinion, has a weakness for small and big eyed critters. Especially ones with pure hearts or simple minds. From the adorable and sweet melusines to the mischievous but sweet cats. Its rare he gets to stop and pet a cat but if he does see one on his way to work he will pet it at least once. My personal idea is that his dangling clothes and fabrics would attract a playful and persistent little kitty who would follow him everywhere until they had to be kicked out of the courtroom. But he can’t bare to kick them out so he simply puts them in a room and brings them home later. He knows cats can handle themselves, but he can’t resist the adoring eyes of such a small creature that meows at him for something.

i hope you have been feeling better since you sent this ask, anon!!! thinking about all of the genshin men and the cat dads has me smiling silly... if i may add some more thoughts;

alhaitham tries to take absolutely perfect care of his cat; nutritional meals and scheduled playtimes and such. unfortunately, kaveh is a Spoiler and so the kitty that lives with them becomes an entitled little creature meowing at all hours and desperate and needy for snuggles and love whenever either of the two are around. alhaitham ends up accepting this because how can you say no to that little face!!!

venti attracts cats he is certain because he is allergic; mostly he can manage to hide from them, but there's this one incredibly persistent little orange who seems to have imprinted upon him who can find him no matter where he is . . . and diluc of the angel's share takes great pleasure in allowing it into the tavern to rub along venti's legs and purr and sit beside his dandelion wine on the table.

wriothesley cannot keep an animal because of the conditions of the fortress, but that doesn't mean he doesn't love them. he's more of a dog person than a cat person, but he has a soft spot for older streetwise alley cats with missing eyes and a limp and gives . . . rather a lot of money to animal charities within the court of fontaine.

[loadednachosao3]

Do you think Lalo was ever poor? Or it's a completely unrelatable person situation? Because for a rich kid he blends in very well.

it's an interesting idea... I personally have always figured the Salamancas were well-connected and rich by the time he was born, but... by my count, Hector was about 20 when Lalo was born. we can say that older Salamancas were already dealing drugs/in the cartel/from well-off families by then and it kept them comfortable until later when they became millionaires officially, but then again, in canon -- I know they don't digitally de-age, so this is a little unreliable, but let me cook -- Hector looked to be at least in his 40s-50s by the time the Eladio poolside scenes began. timelines are hard... whatever, work with me here.

we also know that the cartel didn't even start dealing the (more profitable) meth until after Gus joined up and convinced them to switch gears. they were dealing cocaine before, which, sure, the cartel would still be full of millionaires from that, but maybe their operation was smaller? less of it to go around?

so let's spin a yarn: if Lalo's family was poor until at least the age of 18 (when TD says he was shipped off to a "good school" in the US, which would require both visa and school money), what would that be like? I imagine his family was always involved with drugs in some form, be that using or dealing. users becoming dealers is not at all uncommon, after all.

so, little Lalo, not yet a cartel prince, family scraping by on drug money without being affiliated with any official organized criminal groups... he knows what it's like to want for more. knows exactly why, for example, Nacho joined up (and sees himself in him).

let's think. Lalo, maybe 15, dealing where he shouldn't because it's all he knows and he wants more money he can't get in his family's tiny little patch of unofficial "territory." business-smart even in those days -- little Lalo all holed up in the sparse libraries nearby, learning English just so he has more options to read about business and money and all that stuff.

the cartel in bcs was apparently built by Eladio and the Salamancas. maybe it was Eladio's family who was rich and well-connected, but the Salamancas who worked street-level as muscle and dealers. maybe Lalo is the reason. streetwise and book-smart kid running around, making schemes to muscle out the competition, catching the attention of Eladio's family, who had been dealing longer, more, still new, still without a huge grasp on the market, but they see potential with young Lalo Salamanca and his ruthless family.

maybe Lalo is the way he is because he NEEDED to be. smiling because you make friends and connections that way, hurting people because you get their money and (frightened) loyalty that way. going off to college a few years after his actions introduced his family to Eladio's. coming back to see that they're millionaires now. letting it get to his head because he was so instrumental in it. being resentful when Hector takes the lead and the credit. (you can stay at Casa Tranquila, tio. they have such good care!)

he doesn't want to go back to that early life of smoke-thick rooms and cigarette burns and drunk parents who would rent you out if it meant getting another hit. he doesn't ever want to feel what it's like to not be able to afford something ever again. to not get what he wants.

so what if Lalo isn't spoiled because he grew up a pampered cartel prince, but because he DIDN'T? because he thinks he deserves every penny he and his family have? because he's terrified of the idea of being destitute again? because if all it takes to be rich is a little ruthlessness, a little willingness to hurt people the way he was hurt, why should he ever try to act any other way?

but it comes out, his past, just a little, when he's playing poker with the guys, or chatting with a corner store clerk, or helping an abuela across the street. it comes out in the crinkle at the corners of his eyes, and his genuine laughter, and his relatable, friendly body language, everyone's friend, people pleaser, look at Lalo, he's so nice! you'd hardly even think he was born into the cartel (because he wasn't, because he never thought his life would turn out this way, because sometimes he wonders what it would be like if he had the chance to go back and rewrite history).

maybe this Lalo would understand why Nacho poisoned his uncle. maybe he'd see Manuel working hard for an honest life, and Nacho charmed by the cartel's dazzling facade, and empathize. maybe, if Nacho were to tell him about the blackmail, he wouldn't skin him alive. maybe he'd kiss him and tell him "I get it" and "I'm sorry" and maybe even "thank you." maybe he'd try to help Nacho get free, even if that meant sending him to Canada with his father and never, ever seeing him again. maybe that's the right thing to do.

maybe he doesn't want to do it, though, because he wants to keep getting what he wants. maybe he's selfish.

maybe that's okay.

WELL ANYWAY like I said, I tend to think of him as being born into wealth even without the cartel and being super spoiled because of that, but this certainly was fun to think of and ramble incoherently about! thanks, anon!

[sullustangin]

SWTOR Secret Santa 2023

This is for @levedor-legacy for the SWTOR Secret Santa 2023 – thank you @frauleiiin for running this!

Here’s a Life Day story starring “a deadly can of Arizona Iced Tea,” the Himbolorian himself, Orriel Devero.

~~

Orriel stared at the Galactic Trade Network.

…Math was hard.

Life Day was one of Orriel’s favorite holidays of the year.  He knew it was expensive, so he made it point to pick up a few extra bounties.  He even did some of the silly ones that really didn’t require a bounty hounter, but hey, if they were willing pay to see him get mauled by an agitated loth cat stuck in a tree, Orriel would do it. 

He went to scratch his head, but then he remembered that he still had his helmet on – always did on Vaiken.  The problem was the Life Day sales.  Were they really sales?  Or had the prices been jacked up a few weeks before and now there was a ‘sale’?  Orriel wasn’t a genius, but he was streetwise enough to know a few tricks people used to boost sales. 

Sale or not, credits came in on the regular – Orriel was a damn good bounty hunter.  Hell, he was the Grand Champion of the Great Hunt.  That said, Gault was the one who tracked the credits and investments, and Mako made sure all those credits continued to exist for Orriel – not Gault. 

Somehow, though, whenever Life Day rolled around, Orriel felt uneasy about whether he’d have enough.  Anxiety wasn’t his thing but… he wanted to get it right for everyone. 

…well, almost everyone.  Orriel still wasn’t sure what to do about the newest crewmember.  It probably hadn’t been the best idea to pick up a new crewmember from Belsavis, the Pub’s secret prison planet.  At the time, Orriel had needed a hand, and he never really knew how to end a contract with someone…

Ok, so he did, but that was going to be a mess for 2V to clean up, and even droids deserved Life Day.  And Skadge seemed like one of those guys that would always turn up again, even if he was dumped on an abandoned asteroid.  Fortunately, he kept mostly to himself underdecks.    He had little interest in the other members of the crew.

It wasn’t just the new crewmember that had Orriel worried about the finances for Life Day gifts.  There was Mako.

…she was his best gal.  His only gal, if he was really honest.  He wanted to get something special, but… whenever he looked at the ads for rings and stuff like that, none of the women were like Mako.  They didn’t have dirt and oil under their nails, and they definitely didn’t seem to know their way around a blaster or a kolto probe.  In the type of work they did, a ring that could get dented, broken, or have the stone fall out was no good.  Or it could get stuck on her finger and have to be chopped off – Mandos liked women with scars and battle wounds, but Orriel was pretty sure Mako wanted to keep all of her fingers, regardless of how hot he thought it was.  

A group gift from the entire crew was considered, to play it safe… but Orriel wanted it to be from him – just him.  Advice for personal gifts to girls was also not probably going to be found on-ship; the only person he knew that had a girlfriend in the past was Gault, and that apparently didn’t end well for her. 

“Orriel!  Su'cuy, vod!”  Orriel turned at Torian’s greeting. 

“You got everything you needed?” Orriel asked. 

“Had a plan.  Carried it out.  Easy enough,” Torian replied.

“Ori’jate.” Orriel eyed the GTN kiosk.  “…did you get a gift for everyone?”

“Yeah.  Having trouble?”

Orriel nodded.  “No idea what to get for someone who makes the ship run.  How do you express how much you appreciate them?”

Torian sagely nodded.  Then he told him, “Explosives.” 

Orriel stared at Torian.  “Seriously?”

“Don’t overcomplicate things,” Torian advised him.  “I know we buy Blizz ordinance weekly, but sometimes ‘more’ of a person’s favorite things is exactly what they want.”

Oh.  Orriel touched his hand to his helmet. “Thanks.  I’ll keep that in mind.” 

Then he stopped, and slowly, surely, he had a thought.  “Torian, did we keep the scraps around from when we recast my helmet?”

“Think so.  Have to check the cargo bay.” 

“Great.  Grab a crate of iced tea from the station cantina, and I’ll meet you back at the ship.”

~~

Somehow, accidentally, Skadge was left at Vaiken.  Somehow, for unknown reasons, none of his messages were getting through the main comm boards. 

Blizz told Orriel that he’d fix it … after Life Day.  “Blizz need to fix engine room.  New guy messy.  No system!”  Orriel had been completely unaware of any system of organization created by Blizz, but he took the little guy’s word for it. 

Torian had been right; Blizz just wanted more explosives, and he was happy as a droid in an oil bath.  “Thanks, Boss!”

Gault, as usual, had printed “GIFT CARDS OR CREDITS” across the top of his LIFE DAY GIFT LIST.  He had plastered numerous copies of the list to the interior of the windshield of the Mantis, so Orriel would get the hint this year.  He did.

Torian’s gift was one that that Orriel took some pride in.  He’d managed to source some spare parts for Torian’s antique techstaff; it’d been passed down on his mother’s side for centuries.  Techstaffs themselves hadn’t evolved very much, but that particular model had been discontinued way, way before Torian was born.  Orriel knew a guy who knew a guy, and the well-packaged crate had arrived well ahead of Life Day. 

Torian hadn’t said much – never did.  But Orriel didn’t miss how those blue eyes sparkled at the sight of the parts and then how quickly he’d disappeared off to the ship’s worktable.

Orriel smiled at the small pile of gifts on the dashboard.  He wasn’t that hard to shop for:  give him gas canisters and cartridges, a vibroknife, and explosives, and he was happy. 

That said, Mako had done the best:  she got him a new weapons rack that latched into both of his closet doors.  When the door was opened, it expanded out to its full size, but when the door closed, it got all nice and compact.  Mako was the absolute best. 

And when the chrono clicked over and Gault came up to the cockpit, it was time for Mako to get her gift. 

Gault clapped his shoulder.  “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Orriel gave Gault a quizzical look, then he headed below to the crew quarters.  Mako, being the only girl on the ship, got her own little partition, and that’s where he found her, scrolling through the Holonet on her datapad.  She immediately looked up when Orriel leaned in her doorway and gave him a smile.  “Hey.”

“Thanks for weapons rack.  How’d you get it in there?”

Mako got up from her bunk and walked past him into the hallway.  “Blizz says we need to do duct maintenance.  Really dusty in there, and the last thing you want is any mouse – droid or otherwise – nesting in there.” Mako tossed a teasing grin over her shoulder as she made her way toward the big viewport.

“Blizz is awesome,” Orriel said, as he followed her.  “He seemed really, really happy with all the ordnance.”

“I don’t want to hear it when one of you blows your hand off.”  Mako rolled her eyes, but he knew she was teasing him. 

And that was his opening.  “Yeah, and see, that’s why I didn’t get you a ring.  Hand blown off, no more ring!”

Mako looked at him as if he was nuts.

“You’d still be cute, but I didn’t want you risk losing anything because of our line of work – statistically more likely to get injure—”  Orriel trailed off at she continued to stare at him like he'd grown a tail.

Ok, probably not the best idea to talk about casualty statistics with her on Life Day right before giving her a present.  “But I still want to give you something you can wear, all the time.”  He tapped his armor’s chest pocket, and the hydraulics hissed open.  “So I’m always with you.”

Her face immediately went soft at those words.

Carefully, Orriel fished the chain out of his pocket.  He held it up to dangle between him and Mako.  The ring threaded upon it spun and reflected the light of some nearby sun shining through the viewport.

Mako stepped forward, her eyes large, to gently cup the bottom of the chain in her hand, letting Orriel hang onto it for now.  “It….it’s green.  And the ring– pink –”  She stared at it a moment longer.  “It’s from your armor?” she whispered.

Orriel nodded, rubbing the back of his head with his free hand, ruffling up his red hair.  “When Torian and I recast my helmet, we saved the scraps and the shavings for patches, but then…you.” He rested his hand on the back of his neck for a few moments before gesturing toward her.   I—Listen, I don’t know how you feel about the big, big long term – but you should know –”

“Shut up” was the only warning Orriel had before Mako pounced on him, sending the armored figure clattering to the floor, still valiantly holding up the necklace –

Which was soon snatched away and quickly worn.

It was a most excellent Life Day.

[t00fumaple]

The State of Paimon

The Fontaine AC, Furina SQ, and Roses and Muskets event spoilers possibly, rant, so not really cohesive

Sorry for all the people who expected Paimon slander, that isn’t happening here. I am Paimon’s strongest defender, she is my daughter I would never say anything mean to her!

That said, I just want to kind of defend Paimon but also rant about how the writing team has wrote her recently, or perhaps that could be localization’s team fault. I would like whoever can understand what the original text was trying to get that out there.

If you guys have done Furina’s story quest, you would know how insensitive they wrote Paimon there for no reason.

(Screenshots courtesy of Streetwise Rhapsody on YT, thank you.)

Like this is really insensitive to Furina, but I can literally excuse it by the fact Paimon is like 4, she doesn’t fully understand the situation. Paimon never found out what Furina had to go through, also Paimon legit lacks the critical thinking skills to realize “ oh wow I should lay off “ without being told to do so.

In my opinion, Traveler is even worse. Even though they don’t comment on it as frequently as Paimon. They know, they’ve seen it. All the times Furina had to suffer for those hellish 500 years just to play a part. In some capacity they understood what happened to her, Paimon hasn’t. And yet, they still force her to try and act in a play when she would never feel comfortable with the fact.

Paimon was insensitive throughout the whole quest but it’s kind of weird for most of the fandom to only point fingers at her when Traveler does the exact same thing lol

Hell, Paimon even comments on it

Like I will admit, I don’t like how they portrayed her in this quest, nor the Traveler. Especially since Furina shot up to one of my favorite characters since 4.2 dropped.

I think this quest is kind of held back by the fact they had to force Furina to be put into the position of a director, which would explain why the Traveler and Paimon are so mean to her, why they wrote them like that? Who actually knows.

Though recently in the new event, Furina has bit back now and you can see that Paimon is starting to become a little kinder to her than before. Hell they even pose together. Which hopefully means that we won’t get anymore Paimon insensitive moments.

Another character I want to mention that Paimon is especially disrespectful for, and gets mentioned a lot in how Paimon is the worst and she should be banned from this character.

Wanderer, Scaramouche, Kabukimono, bro has like 20 names and yet still goes by none of them.

To be honest, I really don’t get why people bring this guy up on how Paimon shouldn’t be as rude to him as others. Which like, it makes sense

Even after he erased himself, I’m like 99% sure Paimon is still aware that he’s tried killing the Traveler multiple times.

Paimon has every right to be mean to this guy since the Traveler are the only constant in Paimon’s life. They are her whole world, they are practically her parent at this point.

I genuinely can see from Paimon’s POV that she has no reason to feel bad for Wanderer. Even in the scene where she tells him to hurry up on his remembering shit.

To be honest, hella based Paimon at that moment. Like it’s one of the worst things to do, really insensitive but I can forgive it because the Traveler was about to die protecting his ass, also mind you, she is a toddler. My only problem is that like, it feels really out of place.

Don’t get me wrong, Wanderer is great, I love him, he’s actually amazing. But it’s good to understand that Paimon has every right to be disrespectful to him, and to be honest, he would do the exact same thing to Paimon if that happened to her.

Now I will admit, these two instances of her being disrespectful is really terrible by her, and I really blame that mostly on the writing team.

I feel like it’s just weird that they seem to write her however they like? Her character hasn’t been that consistent, she can show a lot of empathy for some characters but absolutely shred other characters for no reason?

It’s sad to see since I adore Paimon, she’s amazing but it’s really tiring to see that they’ve kind of made her really annoying, when they could’ve kept her character consistent.

It’s really sad to see, and I really hope in the future they are able to just, write her better hopefully.

That’s really just all, Paimon is my beloved and its hard being a Paimon fan in this fandom since so many people dislike her 😔

I wanted to put my thoughts out there too, it’s okay if you hate Paimon!!! I can 100% understand but it’s really sad to see because most of that is because the writing is doing a terrible job at writing her.

Justice for Paimon

[cantsomeoneelsedoit]

Ch 58: Eyes of the Dragon

This chapter starts with three lead pages before the title page, which I think is a new record for UU. Tozuka's like HERE TAKE THIS FLASHBACK, TOO! WE CAN MAKE IT FIT!

He really makes the best appetizers, too, bc Shen's origin story is guaranteed to be interesting. Unlike some of the other Negators, his life was already rough even before his ability awakened; maybe that's why he relies on his physical strength more than his ability since it's just second nature to him.

It turns out that Shen was once a fighting street urchin with a heart of gold! Notice how Mei is telling him in this scene and the scene from the previous chapter that she already has enough and Shen doesn't have to fight. But Shen isn't easily satisfied!

Little Shen was a streetwise orphan who wasn't content to just exist. Something was always driving him to try to create a better version of himself and the lives of those around him.

Unfortunately, Shen wasn't able to win the tournament. Still, his showing as the untrained-but-incredibly-gifted-kid was enough to gather the attention of someone.

Shen has a Xianxia origin story: A plucky orphan who has some kind of unquenchable drive for strength, plus a dependent sibling and "eyes of the dragon," is recruited by an old master whose current #1 student is poised to become an unwilling rival, and so he joins his mysterious martial arts school to train to become the very best. We're still missing some Chinese magicians, alchemy, and immortal hermits to complete the genre lmao. Tozuka may yet surprise us!

His teacher's ability to sense strong chi/ki/talent will be important to the story later.

But first, the title page:

Poor Shen! He really would've enjoyed training that way! He just can't sleep at night knowing that there might be strong opponents out there.

"Hey, Shen, I heard you're pretty strong!"

Shen's like a little brother trying to get all the JUICY DETAILS about Andy's EXCITING ADVENTURES and TALES OF COMBAT while Andy's like "Actually it was extremely traumatizing. So anyway, about the firework monsters..."

A mysterious staff appears! And is that Summer's core?

The Summer arc has so many gorgeous panels. I really like the white space in the next one.

It's Feng! And he's put the core into one of the Juniors before setting them loose to cause destruction.

The UMAs take off and shoot vertically up the skyscraper. Andy tells Shen to stay back and fight Feng, but Shen's already gone!

Fuuko and Mui both get caught in the crossfire of the guys yelling at each other.

Feng scoffs at Shen because he eagerly chased after the Juniors instead of recognizing that Feng was the greater threat. It seems that Shen hasn't yet mastered the ability to sense a person's strength.

Another zombie fight! Feng's prayer beads produce four jiangshi who take fighting stances. Shen hits that subscribe button right away.

This is finally Shen's chance to fight the great fighters of the past, just like he wanted!! Just look how happy he is!

The jiangshi attack at the same time with a variety of styles, kind of like the enemies Bruce Lee faces as he fights his way up the tower in the movie Game of Death. He also fights Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which is totally worth watching.

Interestingly, Game of Death is an unfinished movie. I believe that fact gives us a clue about the Artifact of the same name in UU, but I'll have to come back to that later.

Shen uses his ability in a fabulous double spread. He's literally punching their faces in! That's our boy!

But something interrupts his smile...

Even though he beat all four easily, both Shen and Mui are unsettled. He has a dark shadow on his face instead of his usual grin, and she's worried what this means for Shen's future.

Holy shit! It's that guy who beat Shen at the tournament in the flashback! And Feng killed him at some point?! If Feng has already killed off Shen's old rivals, then Mui is right to be worried.

This spread is so cool. Feng was testing the waters with Shen, asking if his emotions would affect his fighting. Shen reassured Feng that he was just here to test his own strength and find satisfaction in the battle itself, and Feng grinned right back at him. These two seem like a perfect match!

Masterpost

[watching-pictures-move]

Steven Seagal is... OUT FOR JUSTICE!

In the crossover event of the season, @thechurchofsplatterdaysaints and @watching-pictures-move have decided to join forces and tackle the human ponytail himself, Mr. Steven Seagal, starting with the 1991 John Flynn-directed classic, Out for Justice. There will be twice the bone-breaking, twice the indignant speechifying, twice the atrocious outfits, twice the weird cosplaying as members of other cultures. You can find @thechurchofsplatterdaysaints's thoughts on Out for Justice HERE. We hope you have as much fun reading about it as we did revisiting and writing about it. Enjoy!

Among its many qualities, Out for Justice has an all-timer title card. Seagal is sitting in a van with his partner on a stakeout when he notices a pimp beating on his hoes. Because he is presumably an honourable man (not in real life, and maybe not onscreen either), he decides to blow this bust that was likely several months in the making and dishes out some of the justice of the title on the pimp. Because Seagal is a foot taller than the pimp, he handily brushes off any swings the guy takes at him, and then tosses him through a windshield. Freeze frame. “Steven Seagal,” over the hole in the windshield, between the guy’s limp torso and Seagal’s scowling face. Cut to black. “Out for Justice.”

The movie is, in my humble opinion, Seagal’s best movie, in large part because it most entertainingly solutions for his shortcomings. Seagal can be an awkward physical presence (we’ve all seen that clip of him running in Above the Law), but this movie gets a lot more mileage out of the way he towers over his co-stars, like a spectre of death descending upon them, his hands kept busy with weapons both improvised and deliberate so he doesn’t flail them around awkwardly. The movie gives him a convincing streetwise swagger, and while his disinterested line readings and slipping Italian accent could be the source of laughs (and the latter certainly is), they place him intriguingly between both sides of the law. He gets scenes where he pleads with his captain Jerry Orbach to let him use less conventional methods. “I'll feed you every dope-diggin' dive he's got, but let me do it my way. You just give me an unmarked and a shotgun, alright?” In a first for movies about loose cannon cops, Orbach agrees after a few seconds of deliberation.

These alternate with scenes where he pals around with the local mob guys, alternately paying his respects and insulting them depending on his mood. Seagal at this point was cosplaying as a man with connections to the Sicilian mob (something that was truer of producer Julius Nasso), and he tries to sell this by lovingly reminiscing about the time his mob relation left some poor bastard in the trunk of their car while taking him to the movies, his Italian accent disappearing for large stretches of dialogue only to pop up when you least expect it. (That’s just Seagal keeping you on your toes.) The movie originated as a heftier story about the mob, and traces of this ambition can be felt in the Arthur Miller quote that opens the movie, and the smoky widescreen cinematography that wrings a certain grim atmosphere from the Brooklyn streets. Squint at some of the shadowy wood-paneled interior scenes and you see hints of Gordon Willis’ work on The Godfather. Given that this is a movie about Seagal beating the bejesus out of half of Brooklyn’s population, the finished film lacks such depth, but these elements do give a certain weight to the violence that transpires.

Less successful are the attempts to position Seagal as a family man and animal lover (he finds an abandoned puppy and christens it “Coraggio”, which is the strongest his Italian accent gets during the entire movie), although we do get a scene where Seagal tells the grocer he won’t buy dog food from New Jersey (“I don’t want no radioactive stuff”) and a hilariously out of place punchline to end the movie ("Is that a police dog or what?"). The scenes with his wife, a nice Italian girl who had the misfortune of having Seagal inflicted on her and is looking to get a divorce, have a really uncomfortable energy, especially when they have a heart to heart conversation him sitting on the couch and her kneeling in front of him. Moments like this, and other scenes where he speaks crudely to women, intimidates them or jerks them around, are where Seagal’s real life sleaziness seeps in. I understand that this may make parts of the movie hard to watch for some, but I do think these scenes carry a certain meanness that works with the overall movie. This is a cruel world, and that extends to our supposed heroes.

But the movie’s masterstroke is the villain. Seagal has never agreed to lose a physical altercation, so a more physically imposing villain would be a non-starter. Instead the movie pairs him with a villain who’s crazier and totally unpredictable, a totally demonic William Forsythe who goes on a crack-addled violent rampage seemingly with a death wish. Within the first few minutes, he not only offs Seagal’s partner in broad daylight in front of his friends and family, but then shoots a motorist in the head over a roadside argument. Anything can happen.

Because Forsythe is a maniac and Seagal is ruthless, the violence here gets pretty unhinged. Every altercation is a twist on Newton’s third law: every action has a disproportionately gruesome reaction. (The movie had to be edited down from an initial MPAA rating of NC-17.) Pull out a meat cleaver on Seagal? Expect some fingers lopped off. A shotgun is within reach? There’s a good chance somebody’s losing a knee. And don’t even think about picking up that corkscrew. The most entertaining stretch of the movie has Seagal insult every single jag-off in a bar and then take them out one by one with the help of some billiard balls in a towel, in a bone-crunching twist on Eddie Murphy’s star-making shakedown of a redneck bar in 48 Hrs. (Among his opponents is Dan Inosanto, sparring partner of Bruce Lee, referred affectionately by the other patrons as “Sticks”. In real life Inosanto could likely kick Seagal’s ass, but the scene is still a lot of fun.) And the final confrontation is less a fight scene than the systematic destruction of the villain’s body.

And holding all this together is a constant state of movement, with both the villain and Seagal driving around Brooklyn wreaking violent havoc, the movie exploding unpredictably into violence every few minutes. All bets are off.

[honor-among-thieves]

🥀 back at you and 🍂 for Connor, and a 💫 for you?

🥀 How would your OC decorate a notebook or journal? What kind of things are written in there? Could you give an example of a nice entry?

Well, I'm canonizing his Deku notebooks, which are just a collection of notebooks categorizing all the villains and henchies he knows about and their powers and mods, filled with scratchy handwriting and doodles. It fits his, "I'm somehow streetwise but a huge nerd" vibes. I think he gets like... one anime sticker from sticker machines you see at grocery stores and sticks it on the cover and is internal like "heh, yissss" when he sees it and gets his singular molecule of dopamine for the day.

🍂 Does your OC enjoy hugs? What do they do as a show of affection for: their friends, their family, their significant other(s) or for strangers? Over all what are they like with recieving affection from others?

He does not enjoy hugs in because he sees them as a performance that put him on the spot. If he turns down a hug it's going to be awkward, also where does he put his hands now, and his face is way too close to someone else's and how long is he supposed to do this anyway? He doesn't mind other forms of physical affection as long as he knows they are coming on some level (ok with being shoulder bumped, leaned on, arm hooked, hand held etc.). He likes cuddling because it can be as little or as much physical contact as he feels like and it's easier to disentangle himself if he decides he wants or needs to.

💫What is your favourite fact about this character and why?

His first name is just a really common Guy Name and even though he was jokingly named after RK800, the name Conchobhar means "lover of wolves" or "master of hounds" which is fitting given the context of Sidestep as a canonical dog-lover.

[iangallagherisadeadman]

I made a post another day about how I can't comprehend those imagines people write about Lip cause they're just describing a totally different character, Lip has never treated none of his romantical partners that way so I just do not understand where that comes from, and therefore I said I can't understand how people are attracted to him.

I do stand by what I said but it kept me thinking, cause I received some answers and now I do see what the appeal is: Lip is a malandro.

I don't know if there's an equivalent translation for the term cause I believe it is essentially a Brazilian thing but a malandro would be this man who always has the upper hand since he's streetwise and has some brains which leads to the ability to take the best of every situation. Like a rascal? A scoundrel?

A malandro lives life kind of freely, lightly; he fits the space he is put in, he is a natural. He would avoid the complicated and to compromise, wants to live an easy life, and his motivations can be perceived as laziness. The term is associated to young criminal men usually — no good thing could come of someone like this —, and there's this appeal of this boyish man, a bad person but not necessarily a bad boy, who knows how to have a good time and is always breaking rules, the men no father desire to their daughter, the way he's a promise of a good time for any women, that leads to his attractiveness.

A malandro also has the gift of the gab (which I love cause in portuguese we say "ser bom de lábia" or "ter lábia" which directly translates to "have a lip" in the meaning of having its ways with words, knowing how to speak and convince and even fool someone easily).

Just from this description, Lip fits it better than any other shameless character.

there's how he made money easily: often scammed people like the northwest guys to work for free, later to visit Fiona's club, then when he was a trainee stealing money and taking their tablets and all, also selling weed and fireworks, selling homework and school projects and then the SAT thing — he never really gets a conventional job or source of income, and when he had aka s5 construction he left it to travel to Miami.

then his dating: he first got with Karen with the whole dirty tutoring and even madly in love with her he never really wanted her as a girlfriend; Mandy was flirting and having sex at his little sister's sleepover, and then she kind of made herself his girlfriend and he let her cause it was comfortable for him; Amanda's parents hated him and later she did too cause he gets sick of her and kind of ghosted her; he was smartfunny and had a quick mouth and got into his professor Helene's pants; i don't really remember Sierra but he was the cute boss younger brother etc.; and Tami was the easy fuck. The point is, he doesn't compromise, he's the promise of easy good sex, he cheats and lies.

and other stuff like he was not only a genius but smart, making good connections with older and powerful people like his professors; the way he never really looked forward to college or any other accomplishments really and he hated the pressure and expectations people had with him; how he was always committing delicts by breaking things, getting expelled from school, stealing, working with JimmySteve, underage drinking, etc.

[enarmor]

deep dive character sheet

stolen from: ree and everyone else tagging: every. last. one of you

NAME: SAIN

BODY

height: 188cm / 6′ 2

strength ★★★★☆ (he's pretty big as far as knights go, trained under wallace, and likes to flaunt his build)

dexterity ★★☆☆☆ (the lower of the two skl stats for this christmas cav pair. he's also just got more of a wild style that relies on strength and charging to overwhelm foes as opposed to deft lancemanship)

health ★★★☆☆ (reckless, but not neglectful of his health. has put himself in harm's way to use as an icebreaker with women)

energy ★★★★★ (he literally makes genki noises. c'mon.)

beauty ★★★★★ (ugliness is almost never among a lady's complaints about him)

style ★☆☆☆☆ (caelin moment. i will say he's getting somewhere with the scarf but there's an entire support chain that talks about how uncool lycians dress)

hygiene ★★★★★ (uses cosmetic product and almost always smells like flowers)

SKILLS

perception ★★★★☆ (can be willfully ignorant if he wants to be, but generally very perceptive. especially in social scenarios)

communication ★★★★☆ (can and will talk your ear off but faces a boy who cried wolf scenario with regards to his actual feelings. they are so pronounced at times that nobody believes him when they really get serious)

persuasion ★★☆☆☆ (kind of a tough one because sain gets a lot of no's but he is damn persistent and can excel in other areas. docking one star for being in an unpaired ending)

mediation ★★★★★ (he's so annoying that any would-be quarrelers will drop their fight in favor of ganging up on him)

literacy ★★★★☆ (not a scholar by any means but poetry counts for a lot)

creativity ★★★★★ (always trying a new angle. always improvising)

cooking ★★★☆☆ (i'm pegging this as a budding talent. he's got it in him but hasn't had the upbringing to bring it out)

tech savvy ★★☆☆☆ (a little simple-minded plus prefers the natural world)

combat ★★★★☆ (he was named subcommander for a reason, and this is postgame sain who participated in battles against nergal and a dragon so. pretty good)

survival ★☆☆☆☆ (his one star is earned by thinking thoughts like "what would kent say")

stealth ☆☆☆☆☆ (loud + clunky armor + doesn't like staying quiet)

street smarts ★★★★☆ (as one who mingles with the townfolk a lot, sain has to be streetwise or else fall into some pretty dangerous traps. this is also his only claim to being a mentor to anyone)

seduction ★★★☆☆ (HE SUCCEEDS OCCASIONALLY)

luck ★★★★☆ (his series of life events is pretty fortunate if you look at it all in hindsight. also has the higher lck base + growth out of his cav duo)

handling animals ★★★☆☆ (his horse bears the unfortunate tragedy of having watched him develop into a womanizer and does nawt like him for it)

pacifying children ★★★★★ (he is like a storybook character to them and also a funny fool)

MIND

intelligence ★★☆☆☆ (his reputation as a dunce is definitely a little bit intentional but there is something seriously wrong with his emotional intelligence)

happiness ★★★☆☆ (subject to change as threads progress. presents as a 5 though)

spirituality ★☆☆☆☆ (isn't really big on either of elibe's major religious systems but knows enough to make allusions while flirting)

confidence ★★★★★ (yeah.)

humor ★★★★★ (yeah...)

anxiety ★★☆☆☆(something that gets a little worse with each rejection but has yet to make any impact on anything)

patience ★★★☆☆ (definitely more of a 'this needs to happen NOW' kinda guy, though that naturally changes when waiting for his beloved to say yes to him)

passion ★★★★★ (he hails from caelin canton, home to men of passion and fire)

nice         ☆★☆☆☆ mean (can rag on people and can be a snide ass if you're mean first (or boss him around too much; though kent is immune) but generally very pleasant)

brave       ★☆☆☆☆ cowardly (you will never hear the end of this quality)

pacifist   ☆☆☆★☆ violent (sain is a man of war at the end of the day, even if he appreciates peace)

thoughtful ☆☆☆★☆ impulsive (schemes sometimes and thinks when it is desperately required of him)

agreeable ☆☆★☆☆ contrary (this one depends on who you ask)

idealistic   ★☆☆☆☆ pragmatic (lost in a world of fantasy~)

frugal        ☆☆☆☆★ big spender (very prone to spending money. very.)

extrovert   ★☆☆☆☆ introvert (going out into town is how he recharges)

collected   ☆☆☆☆★ wild (it's part of his charm, or so he'll have you believe)

ambitious / possessive / stubborn / jealous / decisive / perfectionist

SOCIAL

charisma ★★★★★ (i know we all like to point and laugh at him but he is genuinely charming and funny. "much beloved by the citizenry" to quote fe7 directly)

empathy ★★★☆☆ (the sylvain forging bonds really made me rethink this one. sain has his moments)

generosity ★★★★☆ (goes hand-in-hand with his money-spending, though he is more vocal about his generosity being ultimately selfish)

wealth ★★★☆☆ (was paid pretty well as subcommander, though sain's accumulated funds quickly dwindled when he went rogue)

honest  ☆☆★☆☆ deceptive (not deceptive for malicious reasons but he is quick to bury any feelings that aren't pleasant)

leader   ☆☆★☆☆ follower (he was second in command so lead but followed at the same time. marches to the beat of his own drum but that drum is also simping for lyn)

polite    ☆☆★☆☆  rude (he can be either and it depends who you ask)

political ☆☆☆★☆ indifferent (pretty much holds the "all politicians are stupid and corrupt" belief. has lycia proven him wrong?)

BELIEFS

higher power ★★☆☆☆ (saint elimine exists sure but the only time he's kneeling and invoking her name is to flirt with a lady)

fate/destiny ★★★★★ (this is one of the cornerstones of fe7 and also a thing that gets brought up in numerous sain interactions. even if it sounds like he's just using fate as a sweet nothing i think a big part of him genuinely believes in every woman he happens across. hence why the letdown is always so great)

magic ★★★★★ (spells aside, sain bears witness to morphs, draconic resurrection, legendary weapons, and now--elementals)

soulmates ★★★★★ (everyone can be The One unless proven otherwise)

good and evil ★★★★★ (in a poetic justice sort of sense. knights are good, scoundrels are evil)

luck ★★★★☆ (personifying her as a woman is very on-brand of him)

PRIORITIES

family ☆☆☆☆☆ (i headcanon that he killed his father, and if he had any siblings or a mother in his life we would have heard about them by now. they do not matter to sain)

friends ★★★★★ (the lyndis legion are who sain lives and dies for. nothing comes before them...)

love ★★★★★ (...except maybe this one)

home ★☆☆☆☆ (now that it's been abdicated there's not much of a home to prioritize. one star for keeping its memory alive)

health ★★★☆☆ (he's reckless but he eats, exercises, and sleeps right)

praise ★★★★★ (especially from ladies. especially from lyn.)

justice ★★★★★ (he is a knight, after all)

truth ★★☆☆☆ (cares about honesty until doing so requires admitting to some ugly things)

power ★☆☆☆☆ (wants to look big and strong but actual power interests him little if the results aren't tangible)

fame ★★★☆☆ (sort of goes hand-in-hand with praise, but he doesn't care for infamy even if it seems to follow him)

wealth ★☆☆☆☆ (as long as he can live comfortably)

others' opinions ★★☆☆☆ (sort of. he's very aware of his reputation and doesn't change but he would care if his loyalty was questioned)

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/19/2022: THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (1962)

"PLEASE…LET ME DIE!"

I have a slightly fraught relationship with Mystery Science Theater 3000. For the most part, my feelings are highly positive: Especially in the Joel Hodgson era, the show oozes love, finds pleasure in maligned and forgotten movies, and only veers into negativity when the film is really insulting. In some cases (many, possibly even most!), MST3K renders the unwatchable watchable, opening the viewers' eyes to a whole world of production that they might otherwise consider unthinkable. Occasionally, though, I worry about some of the programming choices. I don't think that the beguiling oddity PHASE IV really deserves to be riffed upon; ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE may be ridiculous, but it knows that and enjoys itself accordingly without anyone's help; and when we get into the territory of a gorgeous work of art like DANGER: DIABOLIK!, it's really like…what the hell are you guys thinking?!

Anyway. Just in case you're worried that I'm about to try to hot take-ify the infamous BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, that's not what's going on here. This is a perfectly absurd, surprisingly gory and sleazy movie with about one page worth of original content couched in enough padding to protect it from a nuclear holocaust. It's the perfect movie for MST3K, and it's a good thing that so many people have seen it that way. Still, I think it has a little more to offer than just being mindbogglingly dumb and incompetent. A little.

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, which crawled so FRANKENHOOKER could run, concerns the exploits of cold-hearted surgeon Bill Cortner (Jason Evers), who is frustrated by the cowardice of colleagues who won't let him randomly experiment on the patients who enter his operating theater. He gets a golden opportunity to dick around in God's domain when his shitty driving decapitates his fiancée Jan (Virginia Leith); he hauls her noggin off to his country estate, where he is fully prepared to preserve her consciousness until a suitable replacement body can be had. While Bill cruises strip clubs and bikini contests for transplant material, Jan discovers that his reanimation techniques have given her psychic powers, and she forms a deadly bond with a Thing (Eddie Carmel) locked in a nearby closet. The two monstrosities plot their bloody revenge amid an avalanche of exciting monologues from Jan about her horrific existence.

In spite of its astounding cheapness and its shred of a plot, THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE has a certain amount of chutzpah that makes it endearing, perhaps even uplifting in some perverse way. You think for sure that when Jan wakes up in the pan, it's going to break her heart, but she immediately downshifts to righteous wrath. Virginia Leith reportedly hated this movie, but you wouldn't know it from the gumption she gives her bombastic tirades about how nothing could be more horrifying, and thus more powerful, than herself. Meanwhile, Bill encounters a string of hardboiled adult entertainers who are so streetwise, and so fiercely protective of themselves, that it's actually kind of affecting to watch this seemingly well-heeled doctor slip around their defenses with his veneer of normality in order to do something awful to them.

Adele Lamont in the much shorter, less gory, less nude cut of the movie. Always check your running times!

Of particular interest is poor Doris (Adele Lamont), implied to be a lesbian with the most beautiful body anyone has ever seen, but with a hideously scarred face courtesy of a man who she once "trusted—all the way!" It's painful to watch Bill maneuver relentlessly to gain Doris' hard-won trust, especially since they used to know one another; back in school, Bill defended the disfigured Doris from male mockery after her "accident", and now he's leveraging his heroic track record to fuck up her life even worse. Bill has a Patrick Bateman-like habit of speaking so frankly as to appear to be kidding, escaping all suspicion. He plies Doris with the promise of an experimental makeover, not-joking, "I'm gonna make your face beautiful again. Cut it off and give your body away." Finding this threat impossible to take seriously, Doris relaxes, and heads off to her potentially tragic fate. In this sequence, the padding and repetition almost work to the film's benefit; Doris tries so hard, over and over, to get rid of Bill, that you really wind up feeling like it's not her fault that he eventually bends her to his will. Especially if you've ever been worn down by an ill-intentioned man like this, you gotta feel for Doris.

"A Jewish giant at home with his parents in the Bronx, N.Y." Diane Arbus, 1970

The other cast member you might feel for is the "mass of flesh" made of "broken limbs and amputated arms" that Bill keeps in the closet, played by sideshow performer Eddie Carmel. The "Jewish Giant", made most famous by Diane Arbus, is caked in makeup to make him look optimally freakish, even though "freak" was once an official job title for the actor. Carmel is an interesting guy who also held titles such as mutual funds salesman, standup comedian, and rock singer in the band Frankenstein and the Brain Surgeons. He's worth looking up, even if his presence in this exploitation movie is limited to the finale.

The last thing I'll say about THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE is that it is occasionally stylish, much to my surprise. In between the endless monologues and meandering-around, there are shots that look like cinematographer Stephen Hajnal actually enjoyed setting them up—and there is occasional evidence of some form of humor, like the Grecian-style bust that foregrounds Bill's entrance to the country lab with Jan's severed head under his arm. Just because I noticed this, today I am going to find out if Jennifer Lynch's art house shocker BOXING HELENA would make a good double-bill with THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE. I actually feel slightly worse about that movie, since Lynch made it when she was very young, laboring under her own immaturity and her father's towering reputation, which is apt to magnify her youthful mistakes. Somehow that feels just as grim to me as what happens to poor Doris.

Forgive my shitty picture of my TV, I have limited means here!

PS Jennifer Lynch's SURVEILLANCE is one of my absolute favorite recent genre films, in case it sounds like I'm dismissing her outright! It has my highest recommendation.

[thebuckblogimo]

For me, this is when "the '60s" started.

October 23, 2023

Since we roomed together as freshmen in college almost 60 years ago, my buddy Eric and I have shared numerous letters and e-mails. Over the last few years we have compared personal insights into our early years at MSU. Recently he caused me to reflect on the subject of "when everything changed" on campus. I thought you might enjoy my reply to him. Here is my communication, edited slightly for the blogosphere:

Eric, My Boy...

Two years ago you asked me what kind of thought process brought me to Abbot Hall as a freshman in 1965. Then, a couple weeks ago, you e-mailed a reference to what life was like on campus during that first year at MSU. It struck a chord, inspiring me to reminisce about the zeitgeist of those times. So buckle up as I unload. Some of this stuff you've heard before. Some of it you may not be aware of:

A month prior to the move from my East Dearborn neighborhood to East Lansing, some of my closest friends--Tony, Garry, Larry and Vince--had already begun their freshman years in late August at Western Michigan and U-M, schools that were on the trimester system. Other close friends--Joe, Butch, Keller, Bernie, the "Bear," etc.--probably hadn't thought seriously about what they would do after high school. Within a year they were all either drafted into the service, enlisted, or joined the reserves due to the escalation of the War in Vietnam.

MSU was on the quarter system back then. I would be moving into Abbott Hall at the end of September--on my own, without anyone from my considerable childhood "support group." For the first time since going to camp, I was beginning to feel--pick an adjective--apprehensive, anxious, lonely. 

For some strange reason, three images stand out for me from those last 30 days that I was home: 1) shopping with my Mom for "school clothes," including Italian "swirl" shoes and a brown corduroy-and-suede winter jacket at the downtown Hudson's store; 2) reading a story in the Detroit News--while sitting on a milk crate, in the doorway of my Dad's marble shop--about a 13-3 MSU football victory in the season opener against UCLA; and 3) sitting in my Dad's '63 Pontiac Bonneville, feeling melancholy as I listened to Johnathon King's "Everyone's Gone To The Moon" on the radio while he ran into Allo Bar at 35th and Horatio in Detroit for a "fast one" after work.

During the run-up to the start of school, I kept thinking about how I would soon be entering an unknown world. It was heady stuff for the first kid in the Bokuniewicz family to attend college.

Finally, on a Sunday afternoon, my parents drove me to East Lansing, helped me move my stuff into the dorm, and said goodbye. I didn't kiss my mother. I'm not sure I even hugged her, as my family just didn't do that sort of thing. My folks would never again set foot on the MSU campus.

I met my two roommates at 271 Abbot Hall that day--a couple of guys from "the thumb" of Michigan. One with a vaguely moppish head of hair, wearing jeans, penny loafers and "no socks" (that would be you); the other a pimply-faced son of a big-time sugar beet farmer who told me he was an "egg major." (Turns out he actually said "ag major." Who knew?)

Usually wearing tight pants and my Italian swirls during those first few weeks--and with a jar of Dixie Peach Pomade on my dresser, plainly visible to all who entered our room--it took only a few days for me to realize that in the eyes of the guys in the House of Abode, I had been judged as someone "different."

A couple guys, I would eventually learn, thought that I was possibly a member of a gang. I was being perceived by some as that "streetwise kid from Detroit."

I began thinking, What don't these people get about me? And what is it about them? When they dressed for Sunday dinner (as we were required to do in the dorm in those days), they wore herringbone sport coats, rep ties and wing tips. I wore a sharkskin suit and "thick-on-thin" socks. They liked tunes such as "Little Honda" by the Hondells, which I thought was kinda weird. As a matter of fact, I was amazed by the proliferation of Hondas (especially Honda Hawks) all over the MSU campus.

In my neighborhood, guys rode big-ass Triumph, BSA and Norton motorcycles. We listened to the Temptations, Four Tops and obscure groups on black radio stations. Where I came from, most popcorn-machine-riding, bubble-gum-music-listening types would be derided as "cake eaters."

So that's the backdrop to the period you succinctly described in a dozen words: "The times, they weren't a-changin' yet, but a change was gonna come."

And "Whoa, Nellie," did things ever change.

During that first quarter at MSU, I recall sitting in my seat at the Nat Sci building one morning, reading the State News before class started, about Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley. It seemed that people all over campus were talking about it. Also, I was aware that something called the Gulf of Tonkin incident had occurred the previous year, but now I was beginning to hear about a troop build-up in South Vietnam.

The change that was gonna come--at least in East Lansing--seemed to begin with the Ramparts magazine article a few months later (April of '66) about MSU's clandestine involvement with the CIA and South Vietnamese government. I remember well the four-color illustration of a large-breasted, Vietnamese-looking MSU cheerleader--Michigan State pennant in hand--on the cover.

Next thing I knew, shit was hitting the fan. 

That story marked the beginning of things radical and revolutionary on campus. I soon found myself reading more than just the sports section every day and listening to political debates among students in the grill. Sophomore year I started attending speeches in protest of the war at Fairchild Theater; and about "black power" and the class struggle, as espoused by the Black Panther Party; and about revelations concerning ground bits of bone and mouse ears that could be found in hot dogs, according to consumer advocate Ralph Nader.

After the Ramparts story, it seemed as though students were railing everywhere against the Vietnam War--in the State News, at gatherings in kivas, and at sites on campus such as the old administration building and Beaumont Tower.

Initially, I was bewildered by it all. My Dad and uncles were World War II veterans. I had never heard them criticize the concept of war. How could our country not be right about what it was doing in Southeast Asia, I thought? 

I can't pinpoint the exact moment that I came to understand that the War in Vietnam was "all wrong," but by the time you and I moved into 276 Abbot Hall (or was it 275?) in the fall of '66, changes of all kinds were indeed on. Some examples:

Long Hair. The style on campus was transitioning from Brian Wilson-like to Mick Jagger-like. (By Thanksgiving I was parting my hair rather than combing it back ala Bobby Rydell.) Guys began wearing "fatigue jackets" and girls were getting into the "peasant look." (Thanks to your influence, I ditched my typical footwear for a pair of Bass Weejuns in the fall and a pair of Bates Floaters to plow through the snow winter term. These were the first mini steps in a change of personal identity for me.) Along with the changes in hair styles and clothing on campus we began hearing terms like "hippies, radicals and freaks."

The Music. By September of '66, the Beatles had released at least a half dozen albums. Same for the Rolling Stones. The next thing I knew, you went from being a Chad and Jeremy fan to a devotee of the Mothers of Invention, as well as Captain Beefhart. Big-time change. I hung in there as the maven of Motown in the House of Abode which, of course, underwent a name change to the House of Abortion.

The Sexual Revolution. I recall walking alone to the auditorium across from Bessie Hall to hear someone--I have no idea who--give a speech about the sexual revolution. I recall sitting in my seat when the speaker on stage exhorted everyone to turn and look into the eyes of the person next to us, and, on the count of three, to yell "pussy"--ostensibly to help us get over our inhibitions. I thought to myself, Lenny, we're not at St. Al's any more.

The Generation Gap. I think it was Jack Weinberg of the Free Speech Movement who said, "Don't trust anyone over 30." I recall you concluding, "When I turn 30 I won't be able to trust myself anymore." And every time I would go home and see my next door neighbor, Mr. Phillips, some of my uncles and, eventually, work associates from the Greatest Generation, we would engage in a lively debate about "the war." I think of that time as the beginning of the first "great divide."

Politics. Now I was really paying attention to the national dissent over Vietnam. In fact, practically every student on campus was paying attention. I started subscribing to Newsweek and would do so for the next 40 years, in order to stay apprised of the great issues of the day. I even took an elective class called Great Issues, as well as a political science class called The Isms (socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Communism, Fascism). By junior year I was watching the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite practically every night. I couldn't wait to hear the insightful commentary of Eric Sevareid at the conclusion of each show.

The Civil Rights Movement. As a child, I had been aware of "colored" kids being escorted into an all-white school in the South during the Eisenhauer administration. But it was Martin Luther King who epitomized "the movement" in the early-to-mid '60s with his non-violent approach to civil disobedience. Then came the Detroit riot during the "long, hot summer of 1967." "The times they were a-changin'."

Drugs. I'm not even sure that I had heard about pot or LSD in high school. But during that first term at MSU there was all kinds of coverage in the student newspaper, Playboy magazine and other media about Dr. Timothy Leary and his experiments with LSD. He was exhorting everyone to "Tune in, turn on, drop out." Or was it "Turn on, tune in, drop out"? Anyway, by the time we graduated, it was the rare college kid who had not at least tried smoking reefer. Beyond that I did dexedrine a few times to stay up all night to cram for final exams, but I never did a psychedelic trip on acid.

Many times I have said that society changed more from 1965 to 1970--socially, politically, racially, musically, culturally, sexually, etc.--than during any other five-year period in my lifetime. And, while it was happening, our football jones was being satisfied by Duffy Daugherty, Bubba, and his All-American buddies, leading up to the first "game of the century," the 10-10 tie with Notre Dame in the last game of the '66 season, and a share of consecutive national football championships our first two years in school.

Oh, how the world turned in the '60s. For my money, it was the best time in history to be a student at MSU

Ad finem.