#despite how he owns how pretty he is

[deathfavor]

@yeonban said: "just stay like that and let me admire how beautiful you are." It's half a teasing order, considering the hands that continue to roam all over Seiroku's body even after Soma's paused his previous endeavor, as well as half an unadulterated desire to take in everything Seiroku is presently gracing him with before continuing - from every insignificant detail of his body, to the pose he's holding, to the sounds and movements now forever ingrained in his memory.

A breathless laugh gently finds its way past his lips as lithe limbs lay amongst rich fabric. His skin glistens in the dim lantern light, reflecting in the dip of his collarbone. Stray strands of midnight hair stick to his cheeks, alongside his throat and shoulders while vibrant blue gaze up at Soma above him. He sucks in a sharp breath when he feels fingertips glide over his sides, coming to rest upon his hips when the order is granted to him.

" You say that as if I have a choice. " Seiroku teases back, lips drawing into a relaxed smile ( if a bit playfully scheming. ) In truth, he probably could change it if he so desired. He is a strategist after all, and should he wish to turn the tables, there is no doubt he could find a moment to enact a playful scheme. Though he also knows well that he need only voice such wants and Soma will grant them. But Seiroku is happy to let Soma have what he wants, to enjoy the teasing orders and power play even if it is for fun. It makes for an interesting dynamic ; to have two people who yearn for the other's enjoyment above their own.

Perhaps that is how it is meant to be. The desire to sate the other that in turn leave both pleased. But for his experience, he cannot say he's ever met someone so intent on his pleasure above their own. Some have cared, some haven't. But those who did was not to this degree. It makes his chest ache with a painful warmth like a welcoming fire after hours left in the cold. No matter how many times Seiroku is reminded of this, it never fails to flood him with warmth. He could almost cry from that alone, not to mention the looks and words that are granted to him too.

" Soma. " The name rolls from his tongue, euphonious and lovingly spoken to draw his beloved's attention towards him. He lifts his chin slightly in an unspoken wish for him to draw closer and give him a kiss. A kiss that he fully sinks into, where he can press his love into the slide of their lips together and his hands move to slide over Soma's shoulders and keep him closer. I love you. Each kiss, each breath, every movement so full of the overwhelming affection. When Seiroku does pull back, it's with a warm smile, lips pressing to his jawline. " You look like you're at a feast ~ " He murmurs playfully; but he enjoys seeing the open desire on Soma's face. He enjoys hearing what Soma craves and wants even if it is as simple as to be admired. ( Even if it causes shades of pink and red to paint over his skin. Such sweet words still never fair to fluster, especially behind closed doors in private intimacy of each other where they ring twice as powerful and true. )

One hand slides down from Soma's back, gently roaming down his shoulder and his arm. He can feel each muscle, trace their curve till he reaches Soma's hand, splayed against his own hip. He shifts one leg, baring himself a bit more to Soma's gaze even with the knowledge that Soma already knows every inch of his skin as it is. It takes nothing away from the playful tease and invitation of the moment, on the contrary, to know what is there might only make the yearning stronger with the promise of what is at hand.

" You can do whatever you'd like, admiring included. " Seiroku murmurs, smiling against Soma's throat. " Although if you choose to only admire the whole time, I might have words. " Sweet, clear laughter chimes in the air with a lighthearted cheeriness to it. Yet it is truth both in this scenario and any other, so great is his love for Soma.

He presses one more kiss to Soma's lips before he relaxes once more, lashes lowered halfway in invitation to the desires. " I'm yours. " A simple statement, a powerful promise.

[chloesimaginationthings]

I love the idea that Michael is always gloomy and low-energy with a bit of snark but the mere IDEA of Foxy turns him into the most easily excitable person on the planet

YES, but I also extent that to every animatronic he really likes!!

[strawberriederror]

“Cuando tengo que admitir a mis propios errores para aprender y crecer:”

i HATW it, but ig someone’s gotta get me off my high horse once in a while

Odio estar en lo incorrecto pero alguien tiene q ponerme en lo correcto de vez en cuando 🙄 (broma)

[joshuamj]

Linktober Day 8. Tunic

[mohntilyet]

i’m having illario dellamorte thoughts. what if instead of knowingly betraying lucanis he did it like, unknowingly. idk how this would work but i’m intrigued by what it gives us. illario ‘i accidentally caused my cousin’s death & can never tell anyone’ dellamorte. genuinely grieving. blaming himself. does he take advantage of the year before lucanis comes back?? does caterina still ignore him the whole time?? how different is the canon plotline once rook shows up with lucanis post-rescue…..

anyways i would love your thoughts!!

95% of what i do with illario operates on the idea that he is frighteningly competent so you can see why the way the crows plotline plays out in the game might frustrate me. it’s also this reason why i don’t actually think too much about “illario got lucanis killed, but didn’t mean to do it”, because i like the idea that everything illario does in his life is planned to the second and that he’s too well trained to mess up this badly, if that makes sense. with that being said. 5% of my brain power does sometimes go towards “and what if he just sucked actually” and it was a theory i enjoyed before the game even released. so i have in fact been thinking about this anyway LOL . maybe he tries to honeypot zara, accidentally actually reveals lucanis’ next assassination job, and zara gets rid of him as a ‘gift’. illario is horrified and that gets even worse when lucanis’ body shows up, and he assumes this must be because he spurned zara by leaving her and not having the guts to seize power.

i think we could make his inferiority complex worse. illario’s worst fear confirmed: he is as worthless as his grandmother believes he is, botching something so badly that he accidentally sentences his cousin to death when what he wanted was lucanis just… out of the way for a bit (maybe while he kills caterina. LOL. i still think his resentment of caterina trumps his jealousy for lucanis though those two things are very intertwined its hard for him to differentiate them). so incapable that he got the only person who actually supports him killed, and now he’s dreading the idea of becoming first talon. he doesn’t want first talon without lucanis backing him, and now the only person left is caterina which is suffocating and makes him even unhappier. at least he hadn’t lived through her alone, and now through consequences of his own decisions, illario has no choice but to.

i think that would affect his plans for talon because of how horribly he’d fucked up, and tries to mask it because if he suddenly actually doesn’t want to be talon that would be a red flag for everyone. lucanis coming back would delight him (talon is within his sights again if lucanis comes back!) and freak him out. i think the plotline would actually be pretty similar because of this freak out, so he still shows up to zara’s fight to cover his tracks. lucanis can never know, caterina can never know, because what little faith they have in him will be lost. like he committed fratricide and didn’t even MEAN to😭 ...corpse whispering still happens, and zara is like “ohhh that coward. he can never finish what he started, can he?” + “elaborate.” + “i gave him what he most wanted in the world and instead of being grateful, he ran away.” so lucanis finds out about what happened but feels a mix of “illario, you idiot” + pity because turns out he didn’t even mean for it to happen, and keeps his secret for now, otherwise he’d probably have to kill him.

i also think not meaning to kill lucanis would sour his feelings towards the venatori, who are a reminder of how badly he failed, so the alliance wouldn’t happen. this does mean if the story goes on as it does in canon, he has to take desperate measures another way and kidnap caterina for some other reason but i can’t think of why….. maybe a thing where illario is like “ok. lucanis is distracted by the elven gods. this time i just have to kill nonna for real and then nothing is in my way” and recruits disgraced houses or houses that don’t like caterina to do so? not sure tbh but i don’t believe caterina made it so far without making enemies lol. this would happen post bloodbath + corpse whispering— lucanis leaves his cousin unchecked because while he knows illario didn’t mean for him to die, he has no idea how far he would go to have caterina dead. teia could find out about this and send word to foil the kidnapping and assassination attempt

so ‘murder of crows’ is still about saving caterina, the illario-lucanis fight still happens, but it’s a little more hesitant and lots of “why won’t you just let me kill her? i’m doing this for the both of us”. he’s had to live with being the un-favorite, but never would have thought lucanis would actually pick caterina if it came down to it. with all of his missteps here, i think the final decision (and i think it should be like this in canon anyway) would be to imprison illario or kill him. imprisoning him is just a lot of “i can’t kill illario as much as he couldn’t kill me”, vs killing him as is expected from him as talon, and what he knew he would have to do after finding out about illario's failures. unlike canon, where illario is actually meaning to kill him and can be seen as a 'good crow' despite the sloppiness, here he's like. just bad at everything. the allied traitor houses that went against caterina would also have to be imprisoned or killed. no happy ending at all here, and lucanis still becomes first talon. now that i’ve written it out this is actually probably the worst ending LOL

the above sticks a lot to what is canon to the game (plot points, choices, etc) and i didn’t go very far away from it so it's like canon 3 inches to the left. tho my thoughts on this are not fleshed out* because i think illario works better as an antagonist character that sets things in motion !! not necessarily the villain in a cain-abel story, but a character who opposes lucanis while still not wanting to hurt him. that kind of discipline where he finds a way to get what he wants (first talon) without compromising what he also cares for (family) is so much more fun for me than a man who apparently just loses it and decides to enact a bad plan to get rid of his cousin. if he waited 20+ years to become talon i think he’d be more careful when it came down to it. if i had my way illario would be playing insane 5d chess to rival solas (insert black sails “i once thought that to lead, to be liked was just as good as feared. and that may very well be true. but to be both liked and feared all at once, is an entirely different state of being.”)

[bean-spring]

Mel haters are so funny to me because they quite literally have nothing to say against her besides "nooo she used Jayce for hextech!!" well, it's what happens when that's your fucking job

[existentiol]

something that pisses me off in RA is that Flanagan will occasionally hype up Pauline as this super important and prominent figure in Will’s life, even treat her as a proxy for the mother he never knew, and yet will just refuse to show it beyond the like. two or three (personal) conversations that they have in canon. I get that he was attempting to make her an important person in Will’s life but why not do that by actually making her an important person in Will’s life

[arcsin27]

It really is a shame that the only sonic games I can think of where silver had a prominent role in the plot are arguably the two worst games in recent memory: 06 and forces

Idk much about him yet but I get the feeling bro deserves better

[syn0vial]

man, i was having doubts about romancing wyll as astarion (mostly bc karlach is also RIGHT THERE) but then i had astarion confess he was a vampire spawn and wyll's answer made me laugh so much. does this mean he knew the whole time in my tavs' playthrus as well? literal monster hunter immediately clocked that tav was traveling with a vampire spawn and just went, "eh, he's cute though so i'll let it slide." that's perfect. romance activated.

[morelikesin]

Light, ash brown hair fell past his shoulders, smooth and straight and pulled back from his face to show his widow's peak. Green irises, marbled with rich brown close to his pupil, watched with careful consideration - his posture poised and his hands slow and elegant as he patted his flushed cheek with his cotton handkerchief to rid it of the evidence of the heat of the day.

-

Jadrian Marjanović, graduated student of ESMOD Bordeaux and creative partner to a certain Senegalese Fashion Designer. His tastes include cheesy polenta with truffles, kremšnita washed down with strong espresso, and short men who will treat him to a slow-stride walk in the Villa Angiolina.

[artemisbarnowl]

If I had a nickel for every time my dad and to go to hospital for: choking on a piece of meat during a post golf meal

I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot yadda yadda but damn dude how do you get a piece of steak crammed that far down in your oesophagus??

[firefl1ezz]

i just. hit s+ rank in splatoon and i never honestly thought this would happen?? am i cool now.. do i get to be a part of the s4? do i get to be watered down to my running joke all the time?

[sarasade]

Part of me almost hopes that Viren's story arc will end in a disproportionately cruel way, you know.

I'm just so tired of seeing a character doing one good thing before they die or trying to change before they die and instead of the audience taking that as purposeful ambiguity the discussion will center around if the character was "Redeemed".

But imagine if he was punished so harshly that even the Viren haters would feel bad for him. Now that would be interesting! I've seen some dark speculation around season 5 so I'm looking forward to seeing how the show will contextualise his arc.

I don't understand why "Redemption" is such a popular talking point when centering villains (ok I actually do. I'm looking at you, Zuko).

"Sin and Atonement" and "Redemption" are deeply Christian themes. I don't think those should be a universal frame of reference to all stories.

Yes, yes, this is more of a fandom problem, not a show problem. But if people want to see a bad character harshly punished for their crimes maybe they should get that for once. I don't really mind because I think Viren, while unlikeable, is a sympathetic character already. Of course I feel for a character even if they are "irredeemable". That's what stories are for.

I don't mean it's a completely useless way to look at art but it's just- I don't know- I'm bored? Especially YouTube commentators talk about redemption constantly instead of engaging with the themes that actually are there.

Sometimes villains can't even really make up for everything they have done, just like some people in real life. Viren has committed so many crimes- like how do you even fix that? However it'd still be interesting if he tried to change. That's what I'm here for. Like Viren and Claudia are not just an antagonistic counterforce to our heros but they have a lot of going on as unique characters.

Viren has his saviour complex and values domination over cooperation. Claudia is interesting because she's both the victim and the perpetrator. It's interesting how self-sufficient she is while being deeply emotionally codependent on Viren. She has a ton of agency as a physically (magically?) strong person but not a ton of agency as an independent, emotionally strong individual. Viren and Claudia love each other but it's isolating kind of love where they don't really have anyone else but each other (Terry is really trying to get in there. Like sorry Terry you don't know how fucked up these two are lmao).

No wonder it was so easy to Aaravos take Viren's place as an authority figure in Claudia's life after Viren died. Or at least that's what I took away from Lost Child short and TDP season 4 in general.

I still think about the first information we got outside Viren and Claudia's POV about Aaravos's mirror: Runaan's warning about "A Fate Worse Than Death".

This framing device sounds really important. I've been wondering how it'll play out eventually. Is it something about Viren losing his old life he worked so hard to build, or will he lose Claudia in some metaphorical or literal way? Is it something even more personal?

Personally, I'd love to see Viren live and change as a person. There are plenty of high-fantasy male characters like him who go through that kind of transformation: Guts from Berserk, Geralt of Rivia, Jaime from GoT, Ged the Wizard... You know, characters who realise that the things they value are unsustainable or even harmful to themselves and to people around them and even to the world as a whole. Or they realise that superficial things like status and power are unfulfilling and only serve status quo. There are some parallels to toxic masculinity/ hegemonic masculinity, too.

However, I think it'd be interesting if Viren's story will be a deeply tragic one. Anyway I'm here for this.

[sskk-manifesto]

--

[gothmiqote]

Varha keeps poking at me with more Family Lore TM as an explanation for why her current relationship with Rhaya’ra is Like That & it’s coming in the form of “actually Three of us survived the calamity physically but one is suspiciously Not Present Now & also she was definitely Rhaya’s favourite sister :)”

I don’t have a name for this sibling yet but she’s. Definitely not going to be making any present day appearances that’s for sure.

[thedevotionaltour]

even for period typical ableism it still drives me nuts for karen to go oh poor matt how can he deal and get around as if he hasn't been blind most of his life at this point and living on his own by himself as an adult for his entire adult life after college and has also lived in the city his whole life like girl use your damn brain he can get around by himself just fine. good god. like take five seconds to use your brain. literally adult man who lives by himself if nothing else that should tell you he is fine and when he needs assistance has the knowledge and ability to go get it you act as if he can't even walk on the sidewalk by himself. he literally shows up to work by himself. it drives me up the wall sometimes how she sees proof of him functioning fine independently literally witnesses it on the daily and still thinks these things. like again foggy isn't great either bc again the period typical ableism (and just general ableism in the world outside of this period as this is a common attitude of viewing disabled people as helpless and unable to function even if they are people who do live independently (and im not touching on people who do need extra support and caretaking in this context. as this post is about these characters in the context of a story. so im talking about what we see there instead of any truly meaningful nuanced way) but the writing here is like. Particularly this way due to the time) he has a modicum more of understanding that matt is literally a capable grown adult man. literally told karen matt is a big boy who can handle himself and then karen went b-b-but you forget he's blind as if foggy hasn't known him for years of his life and is his best friend like PLEASE SEE HIM AS AN ADULT. I AM GOING TO GO INSANE. PLEASE RESPECT HIM IF YOU LOVE HIM SO DEARLY. AND EVEN IF YOU DIDN'T. JUST RESPECT HIM AS A PERSON!!!!!!