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secret-smut-sideblog · 9 months ago

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Unpunishable

Astarion x F! Tav

(Girl Talk part 4, can be read alone)

18+ love triangle dynamics, possessiveness, blood drinking, tav being a menace, dom/brat, angry sex, power play, fingering (f!), mild restraint, spanking, spitting, p-in-v, prostate orgasm, some silly fun at the end

After Karlach spent the night with Tav, Astarion is feeling very normal about it. So normal that he needs her in his tent all night. Just to feed, he swears...

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

"You can feed from me tonight, if you'd like."

Her words were sweet, alluring. He knew he should express gratefully, but he was tight. Breathing through his nose.

"I'll see you tonight, then." He intoned in his best pantomime of casual.

Pretending he didn't see her emerge from Karlach's tent this morning. That he didn't go back to his tent to scream into his pillow.

Oh gods, no, no. Why had he waited?

Well, he knew. Fate had aligned against him, like it always does. He had planned to tell her, he truly had. But then she had nearly drowned. By his own idiotic actions, to boot.

Some god truly had a vendetta against him, he just wasn't sure which.

He tried to reassure himself, watching her mill around camp, it didn't appear they were together. Yet, anyway. They exchanged sly glances but beyond that their chatter was relatively the same.

Maybe he still had a chance.

Oh who was he kidding, it's Karlach. He's done for.

No. No, he couldn't give up.

Tonight, he had her for tonight.

Watched as her long legs kicked out in front of her as she sat down, leaning conspiratorial to whisper something in Shadowheart's ear. Saw the cleric's cheeks go red.

Feeling his eyes she glanced up, smiling cat-like at him. Pulling her hair over her shoulder. Tipping her head back slightly, beckoning him.

Gods below, he was in over his head.

Her face smeared with a smile, arms coming up. Arcane power pulsing wicked through her. "Umbra!"

Their enemies were swallowed in darkness. A flash of red hair as she dove in. The sounds of thrashing death from the darkness.

He pulled his focus back to the light, firing down on those on the outskirts. Pointedly ignoring the sounds of her viciously tearing into bodies.

He had asked before why she could still see in her spell.

"Ironic, isn't it?" She had laughed, pointing to her demonic eyes. "The blind leading the blind, truly. Well, previously blind. It's the Devil's Sight." Leaning on her hip, flourishing with her fingers. "What can I say, I'm thorough. I intended to never be without sight again, and I meant it."

He knew it went deeper than that, if her reaction to Volo's "help" was any indication.

When he had pulled a needle from his pack she grabbed his wrist tightly. Her normally charismatic eyes tight with icy rage. Sitting up.

"You are not putting that in my eye." Her voice a hiss, grip tightening.

Volo had flinched, endless apologetic words flowing from his mouth.

She had reminded him of their other Drow, Minthara, in that moment. Could see the same cold controlled anger in her. He understood why they were close. Both Drow nobility. Both raised with the same frigid hand.

The more he got to know about her, the deeper the rabbit hole went.

Now, their enemies were felled and he let out a relieved sigh. They had gotten into a powerful rhythm of combat, all knowing their role and executing it well. But that didn't guarantee victory.

She emerged from the dark, absolutely soaked in blood. Shaking the excess off of her blade with a flick of her wrist. Her usually neatly pinned hair falling out of its plaits. Chest huffing with exertion.

Gods below spare him.

"Call off?" She shouted, eyes scanning.

Since she fought almost entirely in darkness, she usually didn't know how the others had fared. So they worked out a system.

"Aye!" Karlach called cheerfully.

"Aye!" Minthara growled, pulling her greataxe out of a body with a grunt.

"Aye!" He called, more breathily than he meant to.

She smiled at him. "Excellent. Good job, all. Though I had no doubts."

"Minthara, check for injuries. Karlach, take account of the dead, throw any scrolls to me. Astarion, help me with this locked chest."

He let out a great sigh, pretending to be put upon.

She leaned into his play, looking at him with great pleading eyes. "Astarion, pleaaase~"

He could never tell her how shockingly effective that was on him.

"Alright, you child. Step aside." She laughed, stepping away with a flourish of her hand.

He crouched down, taking out his tools with sure hands. Beginning his ministrations.

"You know," He jumped at her voice in his ear, her warm body crouched behind his. "You make this look so easy, surely it must be harder?"

He resisted the shiver that sat at the bottom of his spine. Her velvet voice directly in his ear.

Of course she was still drenched in blood. She knew what she was doing, the she-devil.

"I assure you, it's difficult for most." He huffed, focusing back on his work.

"Hmm, do you think I could do it if I practiced?" She murmured, he could hear the smile in her voice. "I've been known to have very nimble fingers."

He nearly dropped his tools. Memories of their first night assaulting his mind. Regained composure.

"I'm sure you'd make a fine locksmith, darling. Now if you don't mind." His voice was snippy, irritation thinly veiling his arousal.

Always teasing him. Gods he wanted to push her against a wall.

Shook his head slightly. No. Less of those thoughts. Focus.

"Oh, you're no fun today." She giggled, rising to feet. He immediately felt the absence of her body.

"Prickly, I'll have to watch that I don't nick myself." At the word nick, she waved her wrist past his face as she passed. Rejoining their companions with a look at him over her shoulder.

Oh he was going to take her apart tonight.

He paced in his tent. So many emotions crashing around inside him. Longing, fear, anger, desire. And the one that surprised him the most; possession. That had been at the forefront of his mind shockingly often.

He wanted her. Badly. And he wanted her to himself.

He had a great fondness in his heart for Karlach but if it came down to it, he wanted it to be him.

Rest assured, he wouldn't go down without a fight, and he didn't fight fairly.

The flap of his tent lifted slightly, her white eyes asking for entry.

"There you are." He purred as she stepped inside.

She tied down the fabric. The universal sign of do not disturb.

Oh?

His dead heart raced a little.

"Well, are we planning for more than a feeding tonight?" He stepped closer, smirking.

She pulled the pins in her hair, kicking off her boots. Shaking her head, her red hair fell and bounced down to the base of her spine. Her eyes cutting up to his.

Hells below it wasn't fair.

"If you play your cards right. Now help me with my armor."

He stepped forward and she turned her back to him. Pulling her hair away for him.. His quick fingers went to work on the buckle on her shoulder.

The smell of her well-oiled leather breastplate, the blood still caught in its creases. The oils in her hair, something sweet. Appleblossom.

"...Are you smelling me?"

He sputtered, heat rushing to his neck. "Certainly not. Gods."

He saw contained laughter in her shoulders as he lifted her breastplate off. She sighed in relief, stretching.

"I don't mind." She turned her head slightly, winking at him. "I'm sure your keen senses tell you a lot. Don't they?"

She stepped back into him, sliding her head into the side of his face.

He leaned in then, giving in completely. Eyes closing, breathing in like she was the most enthralling perfume. If he could bottle it, he would wear it on his wrist.

His hands came up to pull at her hair, nuzzling down into the curve of her neck. A small moan in his throat. Exquisite.

She kicked off the last of her armor, now in her damp underclothes, still sweaty from their fight earlier that day. Her musk coming to swirl into the heady bouquet.

"How do you want me?" She asked, sighing and leaning her head back.

That question send a quick shock of pleasure into his already hard cock.

"Down. Down with me." He pushed on the back of her knees with his own.

She kneeled down with him, straddling around her back. Pressing his erection hard into her lower back. Making his intentions clear.

This was the first time he had taken charge between them and it sent a delicious thrill up his spine.

He bit down into her with a groan. Pulling her into his throat in pulses. Her taste sending his eyes into the back of his head. He would never get used to it.

Her little sighing whimper stroking down his cock.

He latched on harder with a growl, his frustration brought to the surface again. How many times did he have to bite her to make it clear that she was his to the others?

His.

That she felt the need to seek out other bodies. Oh he would make her certain that she needn't do that tonight.

He pulled off with great effort, laving his tongue obscenely up her neck. They had more pressing matters to attend to.

"So I couldn't help but notice," He started, fingers trailing up her arm. "That you spent the night with our sweet Karlach."

"I did." She agreed, pushing her ass back into him cheekily. Subtly moving her hips up and down. "Do you have any feelings about that you'd like to share?"

He expected her to deny it, to get flustered. He should know better by now.

Gods below, he wished he could warn that idiot on the beach that he was about to walk into the vipers' den.

"Feelings?" He intoned, playing up for time.

"Mhm," She hummed, reaching up and playing with his ear. Her skilled hands pulling, the sensitive skin betraying him. He stifled a moan.

"Would you have liked to join?" She smiled, giving a little tug.

The band of frustration snapped inside him. Catching her wrist into his hand.

She gasped and he could smell a new wave of arousal rising from her.

"No. I did not." He growled.

"As a matter of fact," He hissed, pulling her hair in his fist. Her neck bending open to him. "I was not pleased to see that at all."

She moaned, arching her back. "No?" Her voice coming out hot. "Not into sharing?"

He reached around her front. Pulling her chest wrappings off in a harsh flick of his wrist. Falling away into her lap.

"Not even a little, darling." He warned, directly into her ear.

Fingers twisting her peak. "I intend to make you mine."

She shivered, much to his delight.

"Prove it." She hissed, turning her head just enough to look in his eyes. That devilish smile on the edge of her lips.

He shoved the space between her shoulder blades, pushing her face down into his pillow. Hiking her hips up.

She groaned, then laughed. Laughed.

He growled, pulling her underclothes down roughly. His hand snapping hard down on her ass.

She mewled, burying her face in his pillow.

Oh now we're getting somewhere.

He struck the reddening skin again, the crack of his hand hanging in the air. Seeing the wetness start to drip down her cunt.

"You evil little thing." He chided. "Are you going to be good?"

She hooked her legs around his knees, pulling him off balance for fun.

"Hmm, I'll consider it." She mused.

He reached around her front, fingers circling against her clit, other hand pushing two fingers inside her. Fast and angry. She moaned, pushing her hips into him.

"You'll consider it..." He repeated, goading in his voice.

He thought about how she had him in the same position not long ago. Felt a thrill of fresh arousal fire down his cock.

He blurred his hands against her clit, curling his fingers and slamming inside her.

She arched her back up like a cat, her hands held out to balance her curling. Little choppy breaths.

"Astarion," She moaned, nearly whimpering.

Oh that was doing it for him. Pre-cum pooling in his leathers.

"Say my name again, or I stop."

She hit her fist against the ground in frustration, not wanting to give in. He smiled wide. Oh, he could get her to play his game by the rules.

His hands started to slow in warning.

"Astarion!" She whined, incredulous. That same tone when she asked for help earlier.

He started back up again dutifully. Her shooting daggers at him. Giving her a smug preening smile.

She was rocking back into him, sweet little urgent moans pushing out of her. He loved to hear her sing for him. Him and only him.

"Tell me you'll only make these sounds for me." He leaned forward into her ear.

"Is that what you want?" She panted, hand coming up to cup his head.

"Yes." He bit at her ear. Hands punishing.

"Swear it."

She panted, nearly there. The smell of her blood burning with heat.

"I swear. Now fuck me like you hate me."

He groaned, his cock throbbing against her backside. Suddenly remembering that she had never taken a man before. His arousal doubling.

He released his cock from its painful cage. Lining up to her with as much restraint as he could muster.

Planted a hand on her lower back. His cock steadying at her entrance.

"Hold on, darling."

She slammed back, sheathing herself on him to the hilt. He groaned, nearly buckling over.

Gods below, she was going to kill him.

"All out of venom?" She teased.

"Do I need to gag you?" He held her hips harshly, restraining her. Rolling into her at a punishingly slow pace.

"You can try." She moaned, gripping his length. Clenching down around him in pulses. The languid pace making her shake.

He gripped down on her hair again, fisting it at her scalp. Pulling her head back.

Saw her smile, eyes closing in pleasure. Hips meeting his in rhythm. Finally giving in to him.

But he wasn't done with her.

He leaned over her back. "Look at me."

She opened her eyes, those haunting white eyes. Filled with desire for him, pupils blown wide.

"Open your mouth."

She looked surprised but obliged dutifully. Those perfect plush lips falling open.

He spat into her mouth.

He saw her eyes hitch back, clenching down hard around him. Knew her orgasm was close behind.

He said her name sharply as he slammed into her, pulling her hair again. "You look at me while I fuck you through this."

She nodded, swallowing his spit. Face flushed.

Gods now he could barely keep his eyes open.

Her face cringed in what looked like pain. Eyebrows knitting together. Keeping her eyes open with what looked like great effort.

"Oh Gods," She whined, as the first contractions hit.

He focused on keeping pace but it was a futile effort. Her cunt taking him at the rapid pace of her undoing.

He felt his own face screw up in pleasure. Her eyes still locked on his.

Whimpering and begging moans pushing through her. Body shaking against him deeply.

"Please come, Astarion." She urged, her voice so sweet.

He could hold off no longer. Hearing his name said like that again the match striking to the powder keg.

His pelvis contracting in vicious pulses. His body remembering her pleasures had activated his prostate without touch. Those same hard tremors shooting through him. He spilled inside her in unbearable pulses. He bit down on his arm to not scream. Coming so hard he saw stars, and then coming more after that. Unable to maintain eye contact anymore, his rolling back into his head.

"Oh Gods. Fuck." He groaned into the muffle of his bloody arm. The pleasure finally winding down.

She squeezed his thigh reassuringly as she panted, head fallen into the pillow.

He pulled out of her slowly. Groaning at the obscene amount of his spend pouring down her backside.

Gods he didn't know he had that much.

He grabbed a cloth and wiped it away from her. Though he would love to stare at it for hours.

"Oh thank you," She purred tiredly, smiling at him. "What a gentleman."

She sat back on wobbly legs, reaching for her clothes.

He grabbed her wrist.

"What are you doing, darling?"

"Getting dressed." She said simply. Looking at him confused. "Don't worry you'll be free of me soon." She said easily.

Gods below how did she still think he didn't want her.

He pulled her into a searing kiss.

She squeaked in surprise.

"I Don't."

Bite.

"Want you."

Bite.

"To leave."

She moaned quietly into his mouth, wrapping her legs around his back.

"You're sure?" She asked, eyes soft. Melting him through.

"For the love of... yes!" He admonished, to her little smile. Biting her lip.

Blushing.

He never thought he would see the day.

"So you want to be my boooyfriend~"

"Oh Gods, I'm regretting this already."

"You liiiiike me~"

"Yes, you demon." He grabbed at her waist, biting at her playfully.

She squealed out a laugh. Trying to get away. "No biting! No biting!"

"A little late for that, don't you think?" He laughed. Digging his fingers into her sides to reignited laughter. Wiggling to get away.

"No! I'm ticklish!"

"Oh, you've made a grave mistake, admitting that." He leaned down and nipped at her sides.

He smiled evilly at her hands shoving his head, her mouth open wide in a gasping laugh.

He could get used to this.

(okay I think this is the last one of these, I hadn't planned to make this a series but the gods of smut took my hand. thank ya'll for all the feedback on this series!!!)

#i love a tav who can put him through his paces #put that man in a situation. and the situation is madness induced sex #astarion smut #astarion x tav #lyrics from: take me back to eden - sleep token

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acupofqueercoffee · 2 years ago

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“With her sweetened breath and her tongue so mean”

Andromache the Scythian x Witch Reader

gif ▸ queen-shuri ( i don’t know how to link a gif ㅠㅠ )

request ( found here ) by @nightly-polaris

i left her powers to your imagination though i did play around with the idea of them being soulmates. wow it did take me a while. this was harder to write than i thought. frankly, i’m not very pleased with it. i went too long without writing and i feel like i’m getting rusty. i just hope that i managed to do your idea justice 🥹

(=^･ω･^=) leonora the cat made a cameo appearance

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Myriads and myriads of millennia. That was how long the Scythian had been walking the earth. There was not a corner of this world where her soles had not touched. Many a time had the sky borne witness to her downfalls, and thereupon, her immediate beginnings. Throughout her journey as an immortal, she had seen it all, privation, plenty and everything in between. The wonders and weirdness of the world could no longer provoke in her a sensation that would otherwise have six thousand years ago.

Regardless of her very old age that could have her certified as a living fossil, and the boundless knowledge that she had collected throughout her very long life making her a walking encyclopaedia, there existed many mysteries that even Andromache had yet to see. Amongst them, magick was a concept that still remained foreign to her; therefore, a threat. Unfamiliar though it was, it was not entirely unheard of. After all, she herself had been caught in the crossfire while trying to free the accused from the witch trials. In the end, they were just that: accused. There ended the extent of her experience regarding witchery or anything supernatural for that matter.

The only occult phenomenon that she knew to be bona fide was their immortality. The rest was sham. That was, until her team notified her of the all too familiar dream. Until a family of four bar Quynh and Booker, became a family of four, plus a hazardous, peculiar individual.

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The arcane parts of you that had remained concealed for the better part of your life had only recently come to light when you unfortunately faced your demise.

The cause of your death had been as good as silly, slipping on a wet tile and cracking your head open on the edge of your bathtub, but it had shed light on an important piece of information nonetheless.

One second, you were dead, and the next, you woke up in a pool of your own blood. To you, who had been revealed to the bombshell of an information about a week ago, that you were a witchling, you were just in assuming that it was part of your newfound identity.

However, on the following day, with the arrival of a mysterious woman on your doorstep, your life was turned upside down. Going with her had not been of your own free will, having been meticulously knocked unconscious and finding yourself on an unfamiliar bed upon awakening.

The root of your sudden perturbation stemmed from the absence of Leo, a majestic Somali cat with gorgeous red mane that resembled a smaller version of a fox. She had been your greatest companion long before you had been made aware that she was your familiar. It appeared that the bond between a witchling and her familiar became only stronger once a witch unlocked her true potential. Only when a fluffy ball of scarlet hopped onto your bed could you calm.

In addition to, quite frankly, the charismatic complexity of a woman that you eventually learned named Andromache, you met three other people; Nile, who looked the closest in age to you, Nicky who had the kindest face out of the four, and Joe who appeared the most laid-back. All five of whom, four who you had just met, and the remaining one who, as explained by them, was away to carry out his punishment, were not entirely unfamiliar to you. You had seen them in the dream that had sought you right after your very first’s death.

Regardless of your non-involvement in being here, the decision to remain here was done of your own free will, reached by not only your instinctual feelings but also the support of Leo. Growing up alone, you had no one to miss you, and no one to be missed by you. It seemed sound to stick with those as peculiar as you were, than to stick out like a sore thumb amongst the ordinaries, or so you had believed.

Oh, how terrible of a mistake you had made by assuming that being immortal would make you the same as them, or them the same as you.

Although the others welcomed you warmly, making you feel at home as best as they could, your confession about your true being was not received kindly by Andy as the others called her. In fact, even the nickname was a privilege that was beyond your reach.

“That’s Andromache to you.” so she had corrected, lips the very picture of a straight line, when you had made a slip of your tongue.

Being forced out of slumber one night by a curious dream, similar in kind to the one you had on your death’s day, led you to seek the group with a question in mind. No sooner had you set foot in the room than the Scythian made herself scarce without so much as acknowledging you.

“Andy, albeit not being the most open person, can be ridiculously protective of her team. You are now one of us which means that she cares.”

“Humans harbour fear of the unknown. Even Andy cannot be entirely immune to it. Give her time.”

“She’ll come around. Take me for example. I had been killed once, beaten to a pulp, and had my bones broken by that woman, all of which transpired within the same day.”

Despite the reassurances from Joe, Nicky, and Nile, you would rather she kill you than disregard your existence altogether. Her aloofness stung you all the more for you felt oddly, albeit rather profoundly, connected to her.

You wanted to believe that it was time she needed, and time, you gave her, but when you were being actively avoided by her like you were the very plague, it only made sense that your tolerance would eventually run thin.

Unlike the Scythian along with Joe and Nicky who had been protecting humanity for centuries, and Nile who used to be a marine, you lacked experiences when it came to being a warrior. Additionally, being a witchling meant that you were a complete novice in magick. During one of your first missions, due to an error on your part, you had hindered your team by causing their unnecessary deaths.

You were not oblivious to the fact that the Scythian’s immortality had reached its end. In fact, it was by dumping all your attention onto the woman that you had not a dot to contribute to your part of the task. Although the mistake was borne of your all consuming concern for the Scythian’s safety, appreciation was the farthest thing from which you ended up receiving.

“Andromache, I keep having this dream of a drowning woman. Is she someone like us?”

When you had brought the question to her with a flimsy hope of instigating communication, sapphire green eyes had coldly held your soft-eyed gaze.

“There is no us.”

Such had been her words, thickly laced with venom that it rendered you absolutely crestfallen.

Thereafter, you were left alone in the room along with your question neglected. The answer to which was being delivered to you presently in what you could only describe as the most unkind fashion.

“You wanna know who that woman in your recurring dream is? That’s Quynh and if I could, without question, I would trade you for her. You should be the one locked up, not her. Quynh isn’t a witch. You are!”

“I- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-“

“Every day, I worry over whose immortality will be stripped away next now that you’re in existence. What use are your abilities when you can’t even make good use of them? A hazard to the team. That is what you are! Nothing but a liability.”

Razor-sharp and poison-bitter, her frankness certainly did a splendid job of maiming you.

Despite not only being shunned, but also having your sorry little heart wounded by the very kingpin of the team, withering was the last thing that befell you. If it did, you were doing a good job of putting up a front, fragility hidden behind a tough facade.

You trained more. You smiled more. Always so cheery, always so carefree until one day, a relatively trying mission brought about the shattering of the mask that you had painstakingly put in place.

“Have I done something wrong? Why does she loathe me so?”

Having been bursting at the seams with bottled up emotions, it was no wonder that your heart reached its breaking point.

“I can’t. I can bear it no more.”

An endless leakage of tears marred your features as you came apart at the seams, revealing to the team the depth of the wound the Scythian’s coldness had burned into your psyche.

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You were different as they were but at the same time, you were different from them altogether. The Scythian had her suspicions to begin with when, after swiftly sketching the picture of the one who had visited their dream, Joe had handed her the book in which a familiar face stared eerily back at her.

Losing her immortality meant that she was no longer privy to these interconnected dreams. However, there was no mistaking the face that had been plaguing her dreams for years. Andromache did not know what it suggested for them, and it was disconcerting to say the least. Then, once the fact was made known that you harboured powers beyond immortality alone, with her suspicions solidified, you were deemed a threat.

As was with Nile, there, too, was a strong possibility of you coming to be at the cost of one of the veterans’ immortality. The staggering awareness that it could very well be Quynh was a bitter pill to swallow. It did not make it any more palatable that Quynh was unfairly accused of being a witch, and locked up in the bottom of the ocean for centuries upon centuries only for a real witch to take her place.

If her rationality had not been muddled by stress, and the deeply rooted guilt and resentment of having to lose Quynh, she would see that her judgement about you had been done with extreme unfairness. Cruelly subjective instead of reasonably objective.

In the end, Joe and Nicky had to play the role of an eye-opener.

“What’s wrong with you, Andy? You’re being unreasonably cruel to the kid.”

“She proved hazardous to the team.”

“She is a part of the team!”

“She’s not entirely like us.”

“That’s absurd!”

“I lost my immortality upon Nile’s arrival. Quynh is next in line. What if she-” Brushing her palms over her face, a sigh was heaved into the cocoon of her hands. “The innocent has to suffer while the guilty takes her place? Don’t you think it’s unfair?”

Joe levelled her with a glare that screamed incredulity while both of them sounded truly disappointed.

“My god, Andy, are you hearing yourself?

“Where is the Andy I know who’s endlessly caring to her people?”

“Your anger is dreadfully misplaced. It is those pea-brained bastards that should be rightfully crucified, not an innocent kid.”

Even amidst being chastised, Andromache could not help but be awed by the couple as they effortlessly supported each other.

“You’ve been nothing but, to be brutally honest, a heartless bitch towards her, and yet, she’s always been heedful of your safety. Despite her lack of experience, the kid’s been tirelessly pushing herself. Can you not really see? Or, did you blatantly choose not to?”

“The way you treat her is cruelly unfair. You know it to be true. You can’t tell me otherwise. Whether she is a witch, or- or say, a vampire, or whatever the hell she is, she’s irrevocably one of us.”

“Poor kid’s devastated by your actions. You would do well to own up to your mistakes and ask her for forgiveness.”

Slowly but surely, the Scythian was beginning to see the errors of her actions, but it was only after having been knocked some sense into her by her very family could she truly grasp the extent of her callousness.

And thus, she came seeking you, a mission that was accomplished rather swiftly.

The sight that she had walked in on forced her to a stop. Keeping herself hidden behind a wall, she was caught off guard by a pang of…perplexity, she decided to name for now, that started pounding against her ribcage.

You were locked snugly in Nile’s arms, face buried in her chest as you dissolved into tears. Seeing you so broken, and knowing that she was undeniably the culprit behind your suffering did something inexplicable to her, but when the pang only intensified, her mind was transported back to a period of time many many moons ago. She had found the amour who she was particularly fond of mingling with someone else, and needless to say, it had not sat well with her.

The green-eyed monster had taken possession of the Scythian then.

Now, the same monster was knocking on her door, bringing with it an unpalatable sensation.

Confused and overcame with labyrinths of emotions, Andromache who had never, in her immortal life, willingly backed down from a challenge experienced her first surrender. Incapable though she was to approach you, the Scythian’s night was spent fruitfully as she dissected her puzzling reaction.

By morning, the puzzle was solved, and her feelings, understood. The pang of perplexity, as it so happened, turned out to be a pang of jealousy, followed closely by guilt and something else entirely that she was not yet ready to admit out loud.

The question however was, had she been too late in realising her mistakes, and thereupon, her feelings?

She had every intention of talking things out with you, but the sudden emergence of a mission compelled her to put it on hold.

Joe and Nicky took care of driving, and as much as she disliked seeing you stick to Nile the entirety of the ride, she knew that she had no rights interfering. For that, she had but herself to blame.

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Raining down around Andromache in a violent downpour were bullets. None of them were offered a chance to reach her, for as she fought with her foes, her team had taken it upon themselves to guard her. They were playing defence while she did the offence. Although at first, their strategy was working remarkably well, as the troops multiplied on the opposing side, their stance faltered.

Being a burden to her team was the last thing she wanted, and having had enough of her team suffering in her stead, she took off from the formation, aiming instead towards the enemy line with her beloved labrys in hand. At her lead, her team followed suit, coming to grips with the enemy team. They covered her, as one after another, the opponents were annihilated by the Scythian’s effortless execution.

Everything had been working in their favour until, all of a sudden, Andromache found you planted firmly in her way. Although, if only for a moment, she was confused, she learnt just as quickly that a bullet had found home in your flesh. A moment later, and her axe, too, found sweet purchase directly between the eyes of your aggressor. Together, you made light work of defeating your opponents. As you kept them restrained with the help of your powers, she delivered finishing blows.

Between using your powers to assist her in combat and taking damages for her should the assaults were to prove lethal, one too many times had you use yourself as a shield. As a result, your body was riddled with many an injury which the Scythian noticed were taking longer than necessary to heal. Through the wounds leaked blood, and it made Andromache nauseous with worry.

What she perceived next, she heard it first, before she saw it. A loud bang of a gun that sounded from behind you.

Almost instinctively, her hands found home on your hips, soft flesh yielding beneath her calloused fingers as she quickly did a swap of positions. If a bullet were to hit, it would be her instead of you. The inevitable pain, which she was bracing for, never came. She understood why by the time her eyes fell on you. Tendrils of glowing green were dancing to your fingers’s desire as a protection was conjured around the pair of you.

The mission, once again, accomplished, she took the time to admire the delicate blossom of a smile on your lips. A feeling that quickly dissolved into worry upon hearing the little whimper that escaped them. By the time your eyes slipped shut, and your legs gave out, with her heart in her throat, she caught you in her arms.

━━━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━━━

The shock Leonora the familiar felt upon seeing you in the Scythian’s arms only continued to crescendo when you were carried not into your room, but, hers.

“She isn’t healing. Why isn’t she healing?”

The question was evidently for her, and so, she answered.

“Immortality doesn’t grant her immunity to damage done by her mate. A mate’s rejection to a witch is quite possibly the most harrowing form of torture. It leads to deterioration of the body.”

Her response took a while to come. “How can I find them?” Leonora eyed the Scythian curiously as plethora of emotions flashed across her face before the words were hissed through gritted teeth. “Her mate.”

“A witch’s familiar cannot be understood by just anyone. Only her true mate can.”

“What are you implying?”

“You’ve been seeing her in your sleep, have you not? Long, long before her immortality came.”

By the way she was looking at her, sage green eyes shimmering with shame, she almost felt bad, emphasis on almost, because in the end, she did not shy away from rubbing salt on her wounds.

“Given your time on this earth, I had surely believed that you would know better than to jump to conclusions. I’ve overestimated you, it seems.”

“My time on this god-forsaken place is precisely why I can’t trust people outside of my team. On more than one occasion have I been led to plight by pity and my sense of duty. Some of which have caused me my comrades.”

“And you thought it wise to reject one of your own?”

━━━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━━━

“I fucked up, I know. But I don’t want to fuck up any more than I already have.” The Scythian’s voice was laced with genuine upset as she pleaded with your cat, eyes desperately beseeching. “So, tell me, please. How can I fix this?”

“There are quite a few things you can do. That said, physical contact with her mate is the easiest and the most effective way for a witch to replenish her energy. I would strongly advise cuddling.”

Thus landed the Scythian into her bed that was presently housing your unconscious frame.

Only now, as she was lying face to face with you, did she realise how little she had looked at, let alone appreciated, you.

Tentative fingers touched a cheek so soft to unveil your face curtained by a few strands. Battle-hardened though they were, they executed the task with tremendous tenderness.

The scars that her eyes discovered upon wandering down your neck had the effect of jogging her memory. With the long forgotten memory now dug up and on the forefront of her mind, she was transported back in time.

During one of her travels, she had chanced upon a house on fire. Even though, normally, she would avoid involvement in fear of exposing herself, and consequently, her secret, she felt compelled to enter the roaring flames. What, or rather, who she found was a little girl trapped inside a room. Instead of crying as any child in such predicament most likely would have, she was busy murmuring reassurances to the little kitten that was cradled protectively in her tiny little arms. There was no doubt that she was in intense pain if the wound that had been leaking blood on her neck was any indication.

Now that she thought about it, the familiar dreams began on the very same night. It had been so dark in the house that she did not get a chance to properly see your face. Nevertheless, your cat was right. Andromache should have known. If she had only taken the time to think carefully instead of rushing to conclusion, all the suffering would have been spared. After all, in all the dreams that she had of you, you had never so much as harmed a hair on an ant’s, let alone, a person’s head. How big of a nitwit had she had to be to harbour the thought that you would be capable of intentionally sabotaging them.

With your face as sweet as Baklava and your heart so golden, you had to be the quintessence of innocence, pure, unsullied white, sent into her life to remind the Scythian, who was tainted with darkness and death, that the world was not only teeming with war and wickedness. In contrast, she had to be the wickedest of them all to be able to trample a delicate little bud without giving her a chance to prove herself.

She had, Andromache admitted, oh so cruelly, snuffed out the little shimmering ray of light. Come hell or high water, it was now the Scythian’s duty to chase away the heavy, stormy clouds that were threatening to devour the little sunshine.

If you were to allow it, she would, in fact, declare you her sunshine.

━━━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━━━

Meanwhile, feeling rightfully smug, Leonora the cat revelled in having her head scratched as the ginger fur-ball lounged in Nile’s lap.

She might have made a drama out of a crisis while playing cupid, but what she had said, in her defence, were not entirely incorrect. She would be a fool not to make the most of a stellar opportunity if it meant making her best pal happy. After all, unlike you who was annoyingly upright, she was a firm believer that if used wisely, trickery always bore the sweetest of fruits. Plus, if you finally found someone to cuddle with, then, she would hopefully, thankfully be spared the odds of being squeezed to death.

And viola! If love was on your side and luck on hers, you would win yourself a girlfriend, while she got to experience freedom. It might just be the best example of killing two birds with one stone, if Leonora did say so herself.

━━━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━━━

Waking up to a muscled body pressed against yours, and strong arms cocooning you, you had half a mind to believe that it was a by product of your sleep-ridden mind.

Only when you heard Leo’s voice in your head did you realise it was in fact not a hallucination.

“You really don’t have to do this.” Unlike your utterance, your actions suggested otherwise. As if possessing a mind of its own, your face had sought solace in the warm dip of her throat. When you spoke again, it was but a murmur. “I’m aware that you love Quynh.”

Her reply came a moment later in the form of a merciless stab to your heart. “I won’t lie to you. I do love Quynh.” Your endeavour to escape from her embrace was doomed to failure. “But, it is no longer the kind of love that I felt once upon a time. Loving her doesn’t equal falling in love with her.”

“It was hard, losing Quynh, and I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive myself.”

You were wounded, and thereupon, healed by her words. The choice, essentially, lay in her hands.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive myself either if something were to happen to you.”

She coaxed your face out of its little haven in favour of her soft-eyed gaze roaming over the planes and hills of your face.

“You must have felt scared. Lost. I was supposed to be there for you.”

In addition to the collapsed eyebrows, her voice had a sad lilt to it as a thumb gingerly caressed your cheek.

“I know a simple sorry cannot fix all the pain I’ve caused you, but if you’ll let me, I truly wish to earn your trust.”

Since the mood had been too gloomy to your liking, you opted for a lighter, more benign route with your response.

“Now, now, Andro-“

“Andy, please. Call me Andy.”

“Andy.”

Her name tasted sweet on your tongue.

“You were saying?”

“-someone might think you’re trying to woo me.”

You came dangerously close to disclosing your desire, and if you were being honest, you had been entertaining the idea of confronting her after your facade fell in front of the team. It was an all-or-nothing decision.

After everything she had said and done, you would be lying if you said you were not hoping for her to ruthlessly reject you. At the same time, saying that you were not foolishly hoping for her to miraculously return your feelings, too, would be a downright falsehood.

“What if I am?”

In the end, it was neither foolish nor impossible, though, it did feel miraculous all the same.

You liked her. Tremendously. And although it was true that she had hurt you, you knew for a fact that her reason for doing so was not ill-intentioned. It was done out of worry for her team, and blaming her for it would be ludicrous. You did admit that she had been terribly unkind to you, but you knew that she was altruistically caring at heart. Not only could you feel it, you liked her too much to deem the errors of her way irreparable. Mistakes came to be in the first place as an opportunity for one to learn from them. You were all to willing to give her a chance.

“Well then, Andromache of Scythia, luckily for you, I’m not very hard to please.”

“Kiss me as much as you’re sorry, and I’m all yours.”

You watched, giddy and gleeful, as a smile bloomed on her handsome face.

“With pleasure.”

Fanning the flames of heart palpitations by bombarding one with kisses, as sweet, and soft as soufflé, should be included in the ever-growing list of ways she knew how to kill a man. Of course, she was allowed to use this delightfully tantalising technique on you and you alone.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

this is how i imagine leo would look like as a cat

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fraternum-momentum · 14 days ago

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This is so so stupid but I got very happy when I read in your strawpage you are from 2003 too, I've lurking around seeing your art ever since DOL caught my eye and you're one of my favourite artists so having that bit in common is cool! I also love your DOL designs, especially Kylar's and Whitney's but the fave gotta be your PC she's so pretty! Seeing your fanarts keeps tempting me into posting dol art of my own so if I ever draw dol I'll draw our wet cat (Kylar) together >:)

Also if you haven't played Fields of Mistria or Homicipher I definitely recommend them! The first one is similar to Stardew Valley in the sense you're a farmer, you can decorate your house and romance any of the bachelors/bachelorettes but this one is more fantasy-like and the artstyle reminds me of 80s anime and Sailor Moon. The second came out recently and I haven't played it yet but I saw the trailer and some fanarts; you wake up in a terrifying unknown world where you have to survive and the romance options are very creepy men, one of the appeals of this one is trying to learn the world's language, it looks fun

Wish you a nice weekend! PS: Is it ok to follow you if I like South Park? I know DOL is darker when it comes to sexual stuff but just in case I prefer to ask boundaries

HELL YEAA '03 BABIESS 🤝🤝 ngl that dol era was probably peak bc i was fucking around with a lot of my mooties and just interacting with the fandom in general, it was so funnnn :3 and ky and whit r probably the most popular ones out of the 4 school li's (designwise my favs r still my fallen syds bc pretty) so understandable (⌒_⌒)d

but thats insane that u find my pc pretty bc thats probably the most boring, most generic looking self insert ever 😭😭😭😭 so many people have cooler looking pcs out there so im flattered that u like mine 😭😭😭 ??????? for some reason 😭 ??????????

and you totally should !!!! (if u want to of course) despite me not posting as much dol as i used to i still love seeing dol fanart !! but do whatevr ur heart desiresss and no pressure :3

and i've actually been following the development of fields of mistria ever since i saw march in my twt feed !! i just want to wait for the full release so i dont have to keep repeating playthroughs n stuff (its the same with hades 2, i just tried out the beta test bc its free so i went why not lmao)

OKAY. I KNOW i said im gonna play homicipher but like,,,,,,,,, this is def just a me thing but when everyone keeps saying to play this thing or watch this thing (arcane,,,, homicipher,,,) it just disincentivises me to do it 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 especially when i know im gonna like the thing. IDK WHY,,,, maybe its kinda like the same philosophy as someone telling u to do the dishes when ur alr on ur way to do the dishes and like ok i dont want to do it anymore ?? idkkk its weirdd

Re: P.S. you can follow me from whatever fandom ur in ! as long as youre not a minor and u have either 'adult' or your age in bio then its all good

SORRY I WAS KINDA CONFUSED AS TO WHO U WERE TALKING ABT I THOUGHT IT WAS THE HORSE 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 i think u meant celia from tpof :3 ? that's probably one of my favorite drawings ive done ! i dont remember how i did it anymore thou,,,,,,,,

AND YEAA!!! i used to be an infamous irumatsu shipper back when i was active on my main on insta ! my silly lesbiabs,,,,,,,,,, they r everything to me,,,, my favorite chara is shuichi tho ♡

CATCHING UP WITH LORE 😭😭 U DONT HAVE TO DO ALL THAT,,, u arent missing out on much dw 😭 ty tho,,

weirdly enough i never got into creepypastas. i def stumbled into them from time to time like slenderman, jeff the killer, ben drowned n shit but i think ever since i got scared shitless by the smiledog.jpeg (??) i never stepped my foot into creepypasta territory ever again 😭😭😭😭😭 ok i like horror but im really really bad with jumpscares and suspence and stuff. i get scared easily orz,,

ive heard of it ! seen a lot of (really insane) fanart for it !! havent played it tho but i like some of the designs :3 i keep seeing the guy with the horns? malleus ? hes cute,, well tbh all of them r cute so its a hard choice

#this is all the same anon i believe !#i just wanted to put them all together so i dont spam and its neater that way #okay thats all :3 #franswers

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anotherferalrat · 19 days ago

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Arcane S2 Thought Dump: Ep2

As always, spoilers below

JINX- SILCO- PLS THIS IS SO SAD IM GONNA CRY STAWWPPPPPP

...I was not expecting a gang of dominatrixes (dominatri?) but slay ig also i dont remember the chembarons at all...

The feral kid who bit the goons is so me

LMAOOO Jinx got hit by the cat (feral child) distribution system

Who is this cracked out gremlin. Like fr. Get him outta my face.

Omggg Sevika defending Jinx i love herrrr (this is gonna go so wrong)

Yuppp she's gonna crack her over the head with a bottle

Waittt nvr minddd they're bondinggg

*sees Viktor* SMASH *horrified voice* "What... am i?" Oh...

OMG I FORGOT THE LAB ASSISTANT DIED. WAIT THIS SCENE IS SO SAD.

JAYCE NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO TRY TO GET YO MANZ BACK. GAYS FR BE BREAKING UP WITHOUT EVR HAVING GOTTEN TOGETHER JFC /ref. This is not the breakup I was expecting this season, thought it was gonna be caitvi lwk

HEIMERDINGER PLSSS BESTIEEEE UR SO SILLY

Bro why ekko and jayce introduced to each other like the ex meeting the current😭

The way Heimerdinger immediately clocked jayce on his post breakup crashout

Yo Jinx can nvr catch a break my poor girl

I TAKE IT BACK. DUE TO JAYCE'S BREAKUP HE CANNOT HAVE A PLATONIC BATTLE BUDDY DREAM TEAM. IM HERE FOR JINX AND SEVIKA

OMFG IS VIKTOR ARCANE JESUS??? LIKE I SAID B4 THERE'S NOTHING GAYER THAN DEVOTION. ESPECIALLY BETWEEN A GOD AND THEIR DEVOTEE

#arcane s2 #arcane #this episode genuinely had me screaming #bro the writers r cookingggggg #i love arcane #get rdy for more thoughts gamers #bc my best friend is an asshole and she refuses to watch s2 #shes dead to me now #looking for a new best friend #Day 285 of hiding from my friends

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divinewarp · 3 months ago

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Hi, I’m E! Indian, 22, Political Science graduate but currently preparing for UPSC with Philosophy optional (long story short Political Science was a mistake and Philosophy was my “true calling”).

This blog would be a mix of my desk pictures and some positive—or borderline positive—thoughts I might have. Because this is Tumblr and I fully embrace the tag of “girlfailure” 👍🔥 (emojis are for comedic effect).

As for my other interests and hobbies, I like reading, writing, discovering new music and I used to play Genshin before I deleted my account. But I am interested in its characters and lore so Genshin also counts as an interest. Trying to get back into anime (Evangelion I will watch you one day).

Uhhh… have a silly cat! Because I’m not sure how to end this.

Edit: Anonymous asks are open (mostly for if the question is related to what I’m studying or about the products) but I’m not very good with interactions so I might not answer fast

📺 Currently watching: Arcane

🎵 Current music fixation: Tamino and Beyonce

📖 Currently reading: The Collected Works of Kahlil Gibran and the Rig Veda

#studyblr #upsc

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frankendykes-monster · 1 year ago

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Countdown to Halloween 2023, Ranked

43. Swamp Thing (1982)

42. Curse of Bigfoot (1975)

41. The Haunting (1999)

40. Orca (1977)

39. Teenagers Battle The Thing (1958)

38. The Beast (1975)

37. Don't Go in The House (1979)

36. Countess Dracula (1971)

35. Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967)

34. Beware! The Blob (1972)

33. Alien Space Avenger (1989)

32. Baby Blood (1990)

31. Shriek of The Mutilated (1974)

30. The Mutations (1974)

29. Phase IV (1974)

28. Curse of The Faceless Man (1958)

27. The Sadist (1963)

26. Jennifer (1978)

25. The Wasp Woman (1959)

24. Noroi: The Curse (2005)

23. Girls Nite Out (1982)

22. The Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959)

21. The Cat and The Canary (1927)

20. Tell Your Children (Reefer Madness, 1936)

19. The Company of Wolves (1984)

18. It's Alive (1974)

17. The Wolf House (2018)

16. Michael Jackson's Halloween (2017)

15. The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963)

14. The Omega Man (1971)

13. Gamera: Rebirth (2023)

12. Student Bodies (1981)

11. Night Caller From Outer Space (1965)

10. Inhumanoids (episodes 1 - 5, 1986)

9. Blind Woman's Curse (1970)

8. Maniac (1980)

7. The Child (1977)

6. Zombie 3 (1988)

5. Return of The Living Dead (1985)

4. Spider Baby (1967)

3. Basket Case (1982)

2. Messiah of Evil (1973)

Godzilla (1954)

Woof. Okay. This has been a mostly disappointing viewing experience.

Critical difference between this year's countdown and the past two is that now that I have stable employment, there is far less time to be watching horror films. I normally begin the countdown in September but we started in July of this year and still barely managed to crack 40, with my original goal being a full 100 this year. Timing. As such a lot of my plans and possible viewings were cut short and compared to last year specifically we fell back on a lot of "seen it already" at least for the top of the list.

This year's batch of viewings were largely blah, but a step up from the shitshow I put myself through last year (watching nearly every Texas Chainsaw sequel does things to a person). As such it'll be difficult to conjure up words for a decent chunk of these mostly because yes, these movies exist, I watched them, I would not recommend that you yourself watch them. That is all. If I write briefly on a given film that's not necessarily an indictment of its quality as there a decent number of these that I saw and enjoyed it's just their impact might be a bit fleeting. You will know which ones I actively disliked. I mostly just want to write about the top five or so but I will play fair.

Our grand loser this year is Swamp Thing, the DC Comics adaptation by Wes Craven. I watched this pretty much entirely because I finally got the Alan Moore Swamp Thing run in paperback this year after quite some time of having it on my to-buy list. Longtime Rachael/Ray/Ratchet fans may recall me reading it in early 2019 alongside [REDACTED]. Still one of the best Moore comics, and a second volume of Swamp Thing wouldn't have been possible without the success of this film. For context I did read the early Swampies by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson and my general reaction to those was a'ight but there was definitely material for a serviceable film adaptation there. This is not that serviceable film adaptation. I'm not hung up on details like how Abigail has no connection to Arcane now despite being his niece in the comics, but this film is just kind of painful in how relatively unambitious it is which is saying something for Swamp Thing sword fighting another human mutation at the end of this. It's just silly and stupid and not scary or awe inspiring or anything, the Swamp Thing suit sucks, the action sucks, any sense of pathos is not there or gone, it stretches for 30 minutes too long like it's a padded TV pilot, the only highlight is being able to see Adrienne Barbeau's breasts. Fuck this it's a miserable experience to sit through. My mistake for watching a Wes Craven film that doesn't have "Scream" in the title.

Our next shitter is the two-for-one abomination that is Teenagers Battle The Thing (1958) and Curse of Bigfoot (1975); these are the same movie except Curse of Bigfoot has a 25 minute opening scene framing device that is bizarre given that "The Thing" of the original film is a Native American mummy of some sort unearthed by a group of white high school students. It's the rare personal pet project movie made for fun by some locals but the only highlights are the occasional kill scene, Curse of Bigfoot ranks lower just for making me sit through it longer. Blah.

Speedrunning through a bunch of these because theyre all varying degrees of bad and I don't want to spend any longer writing about these than you probably do reading about them: The Haunting is awful and I don't even super care for the original film so adding shitty CGI monsters and a moral lesson of "it's about family!" doesn't help. Orca is a shitty Jaws cash-in that's like a reverse Moby Dick where the sea animal hunts down the human, nice finale where the orca and shitty poacher guy are fighting it out in the Arctic but otherwise avoid. Don't Go in The House is a mysoginistic torture porn movie that really doesn't sell the "seemingly normal guy is a closet nutcase" thing even though movies made before and after have done it well (see Maniac several paragraphs below). The Beast is advertised as this really scandalous porno film but most of it is French aristocrats sitting around in stuffy rooms arguing about real estate. I think I only watched Countess Dracula for its inclusion in the "if this is her vibe I would fucking cum" meme and it's barely worth bringing up at all. Hillbillys in a Haunted House has an absolutely lovely Tennessee country soundtrack that I wish I could listen to without having to watch the actual movie which is devoid of both scares and laughs. Beware! The Blob gives off the feeling of sitting at a funeral for a family member that was just distant enough for you to be aware of them but not actually be upset but it's still a funeral so it's not like you're smiling, stick with the 1988 Blob film. Alien Space Avenger has some decent gore effects but that's all I can recall from it. Shriek of The Mutilated has one of the best titles for an otherwise uninspired yeti movie that has a needless third act twist about it being a cover for a cult and blah blah blah fuck you. Baby Blood has an alien mutant whatever crawl up a woman's vagina into her womb and she has to eat people to feed it and yeah I'm actually struggling to remember what happens here. The Mutations has a scene where a guy cuts into a tree and it bleeds, I think he's played by Donald Pleasance. Yeah, it's like Freaks except it plays to the freak show straight so you get to laugh at all the outcasts of society, no thank you.

Some odds and ends that I'd say are decent-to-pretty-good: Phase IV has some footage of ants and synth music. All you need is some footage of ants and synth music. Curse of The Faceless Man employs a rarely seen archetype of the living statue monster, it's cute. The Sadist is another starring vehicle for Arch Hall Jr., who was also the star of last Halloween's Eegah! (1962), though this film is a bold trendsetter for the 1960's with Hall being a unhinged killer holding people for ransom until they can fix his car and he can make a getaway. The film lives and dies by Hall's performance and it's mostly the latter until we get to an absolutely superb final act with him hunting down his remaining victims, it makes the whole film worth seeing. Jennifer is an oddball that plays out mostly like a character drama ("It wasn't my fault Daddy it was that stupid hillbilly bitch Jennifer") that suddenly remembers that it's supposed to be a cash-in of Carrie (1976) in the last 20 minutes and cue our titular character being able to summon and control snakes to send after her tormentors. Girls Nite Out is a plodding meandering slasher that's oddly hypnotizing considering so much of it takes place in pitch-black night and the killer is wearing a bear mascot costume with serrated knives hidden under the glove, not sure what fully to make of it. The Monster of Piedras Blancas is made up of leftover parts from the Gillman, Mole People, and Metaluna Mutant, but still manages to star in a decent enough film that gives a sense of what a series of monster attacks would do to a small seaside community. The Cat and The Canary is "cute" for lack of a better term being a horror comedy before the former genre had fully crystalized. Reefer Madness is horror adjacent more than anything but a hilariously good time about how the use of "marihuana" will drive today's youth into becoming crazed fiends and get involved in organized crime.

We can do this.

The Company of Wolves has an excellent story book like setting an atmosphere that you can't get in films nowadays and it's a shame that it's mostly remembered for its transformation sequences. it's Alive is the best Larry Cohen film by default of not sucking but it's still not "great", genius however for playing the concept of mutant newborn killer baby completely seriously without any sense of humor to the proceedings. The Girl Who Knew Too Much is almost a parody of giallo films which is interesting given those hadn't fully sprang up in 1963; absolute highlight is the main character being interviewed in bed by doctors and reporters and the like that yes she did see a murder and no she doesn't drink. I've always been fascinated and haunted by I Am Legend and while The Omega Man doesn't really capture the novel to a superb degree it's so beautifully shot that it lands high in the rankings for that alone. Night Caller From Outer Space is hilarious to me because of how it shifts halfway through from a Hammer-esque mystery about a meteorite with radioactive properties to a film about an alien that lures women in through a modeling advertisement. Blind Woman's Curse I've mentally confused with Irezumi for a while now (haha all 1960's Japanese genre films where woman have large animal tattoos on their backs are the saaame), and it's one I mostly watched for being directed by Teruo Ishii, but there's enough bloody yakuza fights and cats licking up blood for me to stick around; not the strongest Meiko Kaiji vehicle compared to Female Prisoner Scorpion or Lady Snowblood. Maniac I find mostly interesting as a precursor to American Psycho (2000) but also it's probably the only serious film to successfully pull off it's ending trope (which I will not spoil here). The Child is an absolutely lovely 1970's only-a-dozen-people-made-this-and-not-much-more-watched-it horror that oozes atmosphere, I could watch stuff like this all day. Aaand Zombie 3 is far and away the best film that Lucio Fulci has been involved with that I've ever seen. I love random scenes and set pieces of ghouls just massacring people that are shit out out of luck.

Okay, now for the ones I actually want to write about.

The Wasp Woman is one that sticks in my head way more than any other random monster movie that Roger Corman directed in the latw 1950's. I've said on here and Letterboxd that it could have served as a standard pop-feminist piece about how the cosmetology industry is built on misogyny and invariably a monster is accidentally created because of that, but this most recent viewing has made me sort of "get it" because that might be what the film is going for considering Susan Cabot's performance leads me to believe that she is aware that she is becoming a homicidal wasp monster but views it as a tragic means to an end where she still has the ability to have a new advertising campaign with her as the star. Tragic. This is why you don't wear make up.

Both Noroi: The Curse and The Wolf House are ones I didn't care for whatsoever but I put them in places on the ranking that I thought were fair given that people should probably watch them regardless of my personal thoughts. Noroi's format didn't really lend itself to the escalation of tension and reveal of information that the plot demanded and I found myself thinking it meanders quite a bit. The Wolf House was an odd one where everything that was happening onscreen bounced off of me mostly because I felt intimately aware that I was watching a movie, that someone had made something and that I was now being shown it. Blah. People like these so don't let me stop you.

Our animated offerings this year...

Michael Jackson's Halloween more than anything feels like an unlicensed creation that later had an English fan dub commissioned, not something that actually aired on CBS twice. Any laughs that I found in this thing were the unintentional type as we open up with Bubbles talking and being Jackson's chauffeur; you know exactly what you're getting into. Very little of the plot is explained but I'm assuming Jackson (who has no lines given this was made posthumously) orchestrates a dark fantasy adventure to hook two...teenagers? People in their late 20's? And convince them to follow their dreams of performing instead of working a deadend dayjob. I'm not sure who the actual audience for this was given it feels like so much of it was made for children but I will say anything that has this much of Michael Jackson's music in it can't be all bad, though I'm not sure why they didn't largely stick with tracks from the album Thriller (in the contention for best album ever, I don't care).

Gamera: Rebirth is one I feel like I'm on the outside on compared to most other tokusatsu fans because I didn't really *love* to a serious degree even though, yes, Gamera is finally back. The first three episodes are mostly just kind of a slog for me with the backhalf not doing enough to retroactively make me think highly of it, though giving off End of Evangelion vibes may make me consider that a second viewing must be in order down the line. Rebirth's strongest attribute is that it feels like it takes into consideration and influence from every prior era of Gamera, no stone is left unturned, and it's a marked contrast from how every recent Godzilla property only captures a single facet of their respective character. But that also creates unique issues like how a lot of criticism of ongoing US military presence in Japan is undercut so there can be a white kid in the main cast (because white children were always present in half of the Showa series) or having the ancient civilization that genetically engineered the kaiju now being malicious and actively sacrificing children as a means of reshaping the world gives me vaguely anti-semitic tones, I don't know, Gamera is still here, I guess.

"I was just a little twerp who liked Scooby-Doo and Smurfs, now I was viewing Cthulhu mutants ruin the Earth."

Everyday that we have Inhumanoids is a gift. Inhumanoids is another Hasbro/Sunbow production like G. I. Joe, Transformers, or Jem and The Holograms, and it is truly tragic that it never got anywhere near that level of attention compared to its siblings. The fact that a 1980's action figure tie-in cartoon is named for its antagonists is only the start; the series follows a small paramilitary outfit of scientists named Earth Core that are tasked with more or less saving the world alongside the Mutores, elemental beings, when the Inhumanoids, eldritch abominations, are unleashed. The degree of world-building beyond your typical "good guys vs. bad guys" affair is astounding with villainous humans and virtuous monsters abounding, but Inhumanoids is mostly magical and remembered for saying fuck all to any type of broadcast standards. Seeing giant monsters destroy cities, undead armies, and spelunking deep into the Earth (where nightmares begin...) are just standard fair here, as are witnessing the actual Inhumanoids such as Metlar (basically the devil) or D'Compose (giant undead entity that can zombify people by touching them and uses his ribcage like a jail cell) in action. The first five episodes here are the pilot movie of sorts for the series which only lasted thirteen overall, and they get more grissly from here on out, but maybe it's best that Inhumanoids is the short lived cartoon and no the cartoon that went soft as early as its second season. I will never not love this show, to this day it's one of my favorite animated series from any decade, much less the 1980's.

Back to our regularly scheduled live-action programming...

Student Bodies is a fascinating film for a myriad of reasons the first of which is that there were somehow enough slasher films by 1981 for there to be a comedy poking fun at all the already established genre-cliches. It's essentially Scary Movie (2000) a full 20 years ahead of the curve only actually funny in spite of the subject matter frequently being as juvenile and prejudiced; but it also reminds me quite a bit of Scream (1996) with stuff like two killers working together. All I know is I was in for a decent time when the film opens with three identical shots of a house just with different framing text: "HALLOWEEN," "FRIDAY THE 13TH," "JAMIE LEE CURTIS' BIRTHDAY" and then the killer, The Breather, calls the opening kill girl doing nothing but breathing heavily, she hangs up, he calls back with "I SAID [heavy breathing]."

Return of The Living Dead is one of those films that should have destroyed the any artifically-imposed boundaries between "high" and "low" art. Every aspect of this film is brilliantly made, it just so happens to be made for stuff like Scooby-Doo music overlaid on top of thunderstorms over graveyards where one female character is stripping to the concept of dying. Media involving ghouls is incredibly oversaturated, and this was still the case in the 1980's where a film like this had to redefine the rules to make it so killing ghouls was basically a non-option. It only recently struck me on this viewing that that's the whole purpose of removing virtually all weaknesses they have, to keep the characters as the nail instead of the hammer. Compared to the Romero films, there's never a point where anyone is in control of the situation, it just escalates further and further until there is literally no way out. Taking that into consideration, there's no way this film couldn't have been a comedy that frames people getting swarmed and eaten by ghouls as hilarious.

The soundtrack and the faux-punk sensibilities lend this a daft feeling of "you shouldn't be watching this" in spite of it not being one of the MOST gory horror films of the 1980's. I still don't get how this never broke into the mainstream. I mean somehow people know that ghouls (in this film) speak and only eat brains but I can't go down to Target and get a Tarman action figure like I can one of Michael Myers. As such Return of The Living Dead remains a criminally overlooked film regardless of its subject matter. It's made me laugh and cringe and feel disgusted and revolt at the concept at dying but mostly it's made me feel a delicious sense of joy at seeing corpses rise out of the ground to the tune of "Do you wanna party? IT'S PARTY TIIIME!" Some of you need to sit in the corner and think about your life choices for making stupid shit like Re-Animator (1985) or fucking Shaun of The Dead (2004) more popular than this, fuck you.

The act of watching Spider Baby is like discovering the missing link. For as much as 1960 gave us an explosion of horror (Eyes Without a Face, The Ship of Monsters, Psycho, Jigoku, Black Sunday, etc.) and Night of The Living Dead (1968) reins as the perennial transition point of the genre, Spider Baby is the road by which we go from The Cat and The Canary and The Old Dark House to the likes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Eraserhead, it's magical finding an essential piece of a genre you love so much. Both the former and latter points of comparison are apt as a family of now only children [and their butler] suffering from Poe-esque hereditary illness have their condemned house set upon by distant relatives and everything slowly unravels.

Lon Chaney Jr. is an actor who for the longest time I felt never got a proper chance to shine wherein the last 25 years or so of his career was spent playing as side character actor in independent films. Spider Baby is his crowning achievement. Seeing him smile through almost tears on several occasions as he has to play bridge between worlds of sanity and madness and lie to everyone that he has some sense of control over the situation is brilliant in ways I always knew he was capable of but had never seen before this point. Bravo.

I will never not love Basket Case with everything I've got. This is the epitome of 1980's horror and my clear pick for best of the decade. It has everything from being a grungy putrid grindhouse spectacle to being an intimate character drama to everything presented through a wry ironic lense where you can't tell if any "bad" performances are all done on purpose. Between this, Brain Damage (1988), and Frankenhooker (1990), there is literally absolutely no reason why Frank Henenlotter shouldn't be more popular than Stuart Gordon, Brian Yuzna, and Lloyd Kaufman *combined*. It's tragic that the world of cinema being enclosed and captured by studios again in the late 1980's prevented us from getting more from him, but realistically could we ask anymore than what we already got from Basket Case? I could watch this every day and never grow tired of it. I will never stop making more and more people watch this.

If Basket Case is the apex of 1980's horror, then Messiah of Evil is the same for 1970's horror. This is one of the most efficient horror films ever made in how not a single frame is wasted, the opening scene is literally a guy running from unseen force, seeking refuge, getting his throat slit, cue title card with synth music that then leads us to a sunburnt hallway as our narrator descends into acceptance of complete lack of control of the situation. Every night shot in this film must be 50 - 75% completely black with whatever headlight or store front there is just making the scenery look like a dollhouse that our characters are trapped inside. There's so many shots of people running away or walking down streets that make them look tiny as the camera is so far.

Every scene is an exercise in building up dread. There's no point where the film relents, something awful is not only coming, it's already here and there's nothing anyone can do. What I love particularly is that the mystery being laid out doesn't offer any answers because there's another mystery on top of what our characters find out only too late. Layers upon layers of dread that even the titular Messiah of Evil isn't the center of. The world is a cruel fucking place where this film languishes in obscurity whilst shit like The Exorcist enjoys mainstream attention. A lot of my taste amounts to "why isn't this thing I like more popular" and cases like Messiah of Evil vindicate me.

"Godzilla is the son of the atomic bomb. He is a nightmare created out of the darkness of the human soul. He is the sacred beast of the apocalypse." - Tomoyuki Tanaka

Generally a yearly trend is that a #1 pick for Halloween is self-evident to me and this year it was Basket Case for all of 30 seconds until I picked Godzilla back up.

There's something to be said how Godzilla isn't quite a horror monster? Terrifying but not necessarily creepy, but what power do things that go bump in the night have against the destruction of everything you know? Everytime I watch Godzilla is like the very first time, when flashing lights out at sea destroy fishing ships I have no idea what happened, or at least any much of a clue as anyone in film does when we're told that the entire ocean exploded.

Godzilla is a reptile, but lacks scales and its entire body is coated in keloid scars. In 1954 Godzilla must have been the largest monster every committed to film, trains are derailed from running against its ankle and bell and radio towers are throttled for being a sensory inconvenience. Godzilla's first on-screen appearance on Odo Island is obscured by a hurricane but the impression is clear; you can't fight Godzilla in the same way you can't fight a natural disaster. When Tokyo is reduced to complete ruin amidst a sea of flames, it's an onslaught of destruction never before seen in a film of this genre. Survivors being afflicted with radiation poisoning shows that Godzilla will claim victims long after being driven back to sea.

There's a sheer apocalyptic dread to all of this sensed by all the characters. Love tries to exist on the edge of annihilation. There's nothing that can be done but persevere and maybe hope tomorrow will be better. A scene that always strikes me is when Serizawa is adamant about not using the Oxygen Destroyer until forcibly confronted with the results of one night of Godzilla making landfall in Japan. The absolute pain felt by everyone in the finale starts here, things couldn't play out any differently as the "scientist of the century" can't join in and celebrate his victory.

Godzilla is a rare perfect film. I will never tire of it.

#long post

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nickeverdeen · 9 days ago

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Hii I’m resending this so its more specific for you <3 Im requesting a matchup for Arcane and TLOU (it doesn’t matter which game), only women please <3

My pronouns are she/her, I am Caribbean-American and have brown skin, my hair is naturally really really dark brown but I have reddish brown braids rn. When my hair is straightened (I’ve only straightened it once recently, I don’t like doing it cuz of heat), its like past my shoulders a bit in length. My eyes are really really dark brown as well.

I am 5’4 and on the curvier side, my thighs are on the bigger side with some muscle (I played soccer and danced all while I was younger) so its harder to get bottoms to fit how i want but i make it work :p

Its hard to explain my style but its like a mix of stockholm style, downtown girl, but also pretty simple and minimal. I like lace tops, dark colored jeans, colorful scarfs, linen pants, soft hoodies, low cut tops (I like showing the girls off every now and then :p. I’m a gold jewelry girl but love silver in shoes, clothing, and my bag.

I unfortunately have one of the worst resting faces. Sometimes I look sad (when I’m nott), sometimes I look upset/mad, and sometimes I just have a blank stare. I’ve been told many times from friends and family that they can’t tell what I’m thinking. In reality I have a very silly personality, I like making jokes and being sarcastic here and there but I think this part of me only comes out when I’m comfortable and close with the other person. In general I’m introverted but will usually be the first to start the conversation with another introvert. I’m pretty shy and have never really been approached or approached anyone in a sober setting. I’ve been compared to being most like a bunny or a cat in that sense.

I’m reserved but at the same time love going out with friends. Recently I was working in a group project and when I was in a group project last year, I naturally take on a leader role where I make sure ever is ok but I’m also a bit bossy bc I like getting work done. I admit I can be mean at times but I’m quick to apologize in a group setting. I can get quite annoyed easily but I never let it show unless I want it known I’m annoyed. I’m a big sister. My mbti is INTP.

Interests wise…I loveee the beach. Especially the beaches in California (I don’t live here, visited a few years ago) and the Caribbean for the clearer water. I love cats, my favorite domesticated animal. My favorite animal in general are penguins <3. I like music sm you will almost never find me without my airpods or headphones. I go to concerts as often as I can. I like anime, not into kpop in terms of the industry happenings but love the music. My career interest rn is data analysis and I actually did a data analysis on my Spotify. I listen mostly to dance pop, bedroom pop/indie, kpop, rap, grunge, and a lot more other genres.

I don’t like people with toooo much energy. I love my extroverts but they know when to be chill and serious. I don’t have a preference on whether my partner would be introvert or extrovert. I love someone that can catch my sarcasm and my jokes. I like it when ppl are honest and upfront with me, I don’t like dancing around topics. I am confrontational only when I notice something is seriously wrong in the other person. There are times or days even where I just need to be alone but I still like being checked on. My love language is definitely acts of service and quality time.

Tysm !!

Your Arcane match is…

Mel Medarda

Mel would absolutely adore your fashion sense and gift you elegant gold jewelry to match your style, appreciating your ability to mix minimalism with boldness

She’d love hearing your sarcastic jokes, always catching your wit and playfully teasing you back with her dry humor

Beach vacations would be a regular thing

Mel would book trips to stunning Caribbean beaches where you could relax together in luxury

She’d love watching you in action during a group project, impressed by your leadership and organization

Mel would make sure you feel cherished, surprising you with acts of service like preparing dinner after a long day or organizing your music library

She’d enjoy quiet evenings with you, sipping wine and listening to your curated playlists while you talk about life

Mel would absolutely respect your need for alone time, but she’d always check in with a sweet note or a small gift left in your space

She’d make it a point to understand your data analysis projects and even request you to teach her some basics

She’d pamper you by brushing your hair or stroking your back when you’re relaxing together, making you feel deeply cared for

Your The Last of Us match is…

Maria Miller

Maria would appreciate your bossy but efficient leadership style, often joking, “You’d make a great deputy.”

She’d admire your love for music and encourage you to play it loud when you’re working on something or relaxing together

Maria would surprise you with thoughtful gestures, like fixing something in your room or leaving you notes with little reminders about how much she loves you

She’d encourage your career interest in data analysis and proudly show off your projects to others

Your love for the beach would make Maria to plan trips to beautiful coasts, where you’d both enjoy quiet days by the water

She’d be the one to check on you when you need time alone, leaving you snacks or tea to show she cares

Maria would love your resting face, teasing you gently about how mysterious you look

She’d be upfront and honest in conversations, appreciating your confrontational side when it’s needed

She’d respect your independence but cherish every moment of quality time you share, making sure you feel valued and supported

#request #matchups #arcane reader #arcane #mel medarda #mel merdada #mel x reader #tlou #the last of us #maria miller #maria miller x reader

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