#even if i'm wrong a little or a lot depending on the context

[lxvebun]

flurry of colours

synopsis: asking the genshin boyfriends what color they see you as

content: Alhaitham/Kazuha/Wriothesley x gender neutral reader. Fluff! Use of nickname darling/dove. Wrio is pretty short I wasn't entirely sure how to write him😭. English is not my first language so i'm sorry for any mistakes♡

D*rk content blogs do not interact (*a)

Alhaitham

"It's not your problem if Kaveh's struggling with his color schemes, darling" he replies quickly, not even bothering to look up from the page in his book.

"Archons, Haitham, it's not like that. Just look at me and imagine what color I radiate :)

he sighs a little, closing the book but keeping his fingers between the pages. Even if he thinks it's a bit of a silly question, he does take a moment to let his eyes trace over you, shamelessly letting them linger on your lips too. for a second you think he's actually going to answer your question but then you see him failing to suppress a smirk and his gaze meets yours with an expression you can only describe as Are you serious?

"Humor me Alhaitham"

Alright, let me think.. he completely closes his book this time, placing it in front of him on his desk and rests his head on his hand

"Colors can actually invoke a lot of thoughts and impressions. Most people associate red with warmth, and passion, but also with danger or fear depending on the context. A lot of people view black as a masking color be it clothes to hide certain parts of yourself or the shadows in your nightmares, but you can also see it as a protective color as it doesn't reflect. Blue is usually related to the sea, the lighter tones with sunny mornings walking along the shore, darker tones of blue can relate to the deep cold unknown depth that's hidden from prying eyes......if I had to describe you a color..it would be green. Not necessarily because of the associations with it, wisdom, calmness, and hope. which do apply to you don't get me wrong, but green is my favorite color, and you're my favorite person. Simple as that. Now, care to read with me for a bit?

*he's so annoying but he does it so well. Bites him*

Kazuha and wrio under the cut♡

Kazuha

kazuha has been a bit gloomy as of lately. His usual flowery words have lost their petals, His leatherbound notebook has not made an appearance in a while, neither have the little poems he writes for you to wake up to, and his fingers are clean, not covered with his usual, and at this point, you believed to be permanent, ink stains. It's clear he's been going through the infamous writers block. something that most artist go through and also get out of but it's nonetheless an infuriating part of being an creative individual. But since Kazuha has made you his muse as he told you many many times before, who are you to not try and help inspire your lovely boyfriend.

It takes you a while of bringing him to random locations for sunset walks or stargazing and asking him random questions until one finally hits the spot. His eyes immediately lighting up as he turns to you with such a warm expression of love and adoration you're pretty sure your heart skipped a beat

"That's a very beautiful question, dove"

He takes a moment to think about it, eyes lovingly tracing over every little detail of you, the backlight of the sun, the glimmer of the waves shining in your eyes

"I don't think describing you as one color does you justice. You shift hues as softly and gently as the day shifts into night, and the sun makes place for the moon in the sky. But if I do have to say just one, I see hints of purple in you, but that could also be because the color reminds me of my hometown and everytime I look at you, my soul feels at home" He answers with a new found excitement in his voice

"Actually, maybe I can use this for a poem-"

*i'm projecting can you tell?*

Wriothesley

You often come down into the fortress to spend some time with him on his break. With both of you living on different levels of Fontaine, you'll take any chance you can get to be around him and even when it's not officially his break time, he could never say no to you....or tea time

That's why you're here now sitting on the edge of his desk as he hastily discared the paperwork to make room for the teapot and biscuits. As quickly as the tea flows, the conversation passes from deep and meaningful, romantic ones, to terrible jokes and banter as both of you just talk about whatever comes to mind.

So he doesn't raise an eyebrow when you ask him what colors remind him of you. it's quite endearing how he just goes along with whatever silly questions or requests you throw at him without making you feel embarrassed about it

"Probably between a pearlescent white and a warm honey yellow."

"Interesting answer...why?"

"the colours remind me of the sun and the moon, and living at the bottom of the ocean here in the fortress we don't have either of those of course. You're the closest thing I have to feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin or experiencing calm atmosphere of the moonlight. And to be honest I prefer you over the real thing♡"

Hes so cute *cries*

Thank you for reading angels!♡

[crumplstiltskin]

i love ur aus! your interpretations of the relationship dynamics in new ways that still feels true to the characters is really cool- take supernatural crazy stuff and making it fit in a more normal dynamic can't be easy.

do you have any opinions on how sukuna or choso get along with wasuke? (and do sukuna + choso both privately think of themselves as The Oldest Brother, or is one of them a middle brother?)

hey!!! thank you for sending this. i take it as a really big compliment ! i get very particular about that kind of thing so i'm glad it reads the way i want it to.

i'll answer this in the context of my aus. depending on the au there are minor differences though! and i hope you don't mind if i yap a little bit under the cut!

the most important part of this question is how wasuke's personality would mesh with them respectively so it's important to first consider what type of person wasuke is and how he would engage each of them. besides his appearances in the manga/anime we can deduce some of his personality through yuuji (how he was raised, his conduct, etc).

wasuke seems to be very even-tempered, family-focused so i think choso would get along the most with wasuke. choso is very gentle at heart and also family-oriented himself so wasuke would think highly of choso who is very outrightly passionate about it. wasuke himself doesn't seem to be overly affectionate physically or verbally but we know that he cared deeply for yuuji. choso being sort of the opposite way complements him well, at least in the context of caring for yuuji and i see him appreciating choso for making up for perhaps what he would consider his own limitations. wasuke would probably find it embarrassing but as a grandfather who loves his family he would be grateful for having choso in their lives.

sukuna and wasuke would clash more but not to the point where there is any real tension. i think they would bicker a lot, but only because they both seem like the stubborn type....probably share other personality traits too...idk..i feel it in my bones (and tbh in normal peoples au sukuna had a weird edgy phase where wasuke found him cringe af and he never let sukuna live it down 😭). in unckuna au and 12 years au they would both be very involved in rearing yuuji so they'd have long discussions about things after yuuji went to bed or something so this gives them a purpose to get along. not saying that sukuna wouldn't get along with him but to be completely honest sukuna is not the type of character to really care about much beyond himself. so they're like coworkers........but the work is yuuji. sukuna would respect wasuke out of principle (principle being he is an elder, he is his father/grandfather) and wasuke expects that from him, the end.

but knowing people like wasuke, neither of them are getting praise from him no matter how well they do or how much they impress him lol. he will tell them off immediately if they do anything wrong, and is not the type to say pretty words. if he wants to be nice to them he'll probably show it through action though; he'll go out of his way to buy their favourite fruit ("i got x today at the market, peel/cut them up for us"), drink tea and have snacks in the same room instead of sitting on the porch alone, things like that.

about the birth order...i think that's complicated. in normal peoples au i usually consider choso the oldest by a couple years (kaori's child from a past marriage or an ex). if it's the cousin choso au (where kenjaku is kaori's brother) he's around the same age as sukuna give or take. in sorceror au where he is a death painting choso is the oldest by far but sukuna won't acknowledge him as family for reasons (usually infantile and superficial) 😭😭😭.

in most aus sukuna kind of looks down on him for not looking like them and/or for not being human, and in most aus choso is not interested in sukuna beyond asking him to stop being mean to yuuji. almost writing off sukuna as yuuji's brother at all. almost... if it's any uncle au it's harder for him to ignore that i think...choso respects his elders...unfortunately...(he secretly thinks ill of sukuna in his head).

[wonuwrites]

Seventeen Vs. Silent Treatment

angsty thought I had at 4:13am before I had to work the other day. being a creative is rough~

warnings: cracky angst, not my best work but I tried my best xo

❥ S. Coups:

Seungcheol will either force you to talk to him or will give you space there is no in between. He would be like "are you tired of being mad at me yet?" If it was serious he would be so confused why you both were not being adults about it. If it was a prank he would just be pouty and be like "don't do it again."

❥ Jeonghan:

Honestly I can see Jeonghan sighing then just sit next to you and say, "I guess I will wait until you wanna be an adult and talk." He would just be near you until you were ready to talk or come clean about the prank you were attempting to pull. I don't see him be as affected as other members tbh.

❥ Joshua:

You know the Taylor Swift song "The Story Of Us?" Well basically the line "This is lookin' like a contest of who can act like they care less" represented Jisoo and you when you were doing a silent treatment. If anything, he'd be like "two can play that game baby cakes." Whole time you didn't talk to him would drive him crazy (crazier) though. Even though he hates to admit it, he would break first and try to break the treatment.

❥ Jun:

Oh if you did this to Jun, I'm sorry but you are simply an asshole. I don't make the rules just write them. Jun would be so confused and would just be trying everything to get you to talk to him. He'd feel like shit and so confused by the thought of you being upset with him. If it was a joke he'd just be like "I thought jokes were supposed to be funny, (Y/N)." LMFAOOOO

❥ Hoshi:

Soonyoung would just stare at you and keep asking why. He would get a little annoyed by it and would just keep trying to get your attention and get you to talk to him. I can see him being super super dramatic about it and just sighing hella heavy lmfaoooo. He'd just spout random bullshit and just be like "you are ignoring the last tiger in Korea. That's so rude." Just a mess.

❥ Wonwoo:

Wonwoo would just have to give you a look which would make you fold quicker than a house of cards. Between both of you, you would be more of the yapper so if you were quiet or giving him a silent treatment he would find it weird and would be even more confused if it was a joke. If it was for serious though, he'd give you a look and maybe arch an eyebrow lmaooooo

❥ Woozi:

When Jihoon noticed you were quieter than normal he would ask what was up. If you said nothing was wrong and then continued to give him the cold shoulder he would just roll his eyes. You were being petty and would come around when you were ready. It was annoying but he would respect your need for space if you needed it. If you got upset by him giving him space, he'd just tell you "well you could've used your words..."

❥ DK:

Seokmin would just talk at you and try to get your attention if you suddenly did it. He would simply be like "hey, you can't ignore me forever. Come on. Please? Baby... Babe... Y/N... lover." He would be just so confused why you would ignore him so quickly. He'd try to hide it but he would be panicking a lot on the inside.

❥ Mingyu:

Depending on the context of silent treatment is how Mingyu would react. If it was over something he found a bit silly or could tell it was in jest he would be SUCH a diva and just say shit like "I knew you didn't love me." If you were being serious I can see him being mad or annoyed. He'd be like Seungcheol and wonder why you both couldn't just be adults about it. He would do everything in his power to get you to talk.

❥ Minghao:

Minghao would just give you a look if you decided to give him a silent treatment. It would honestly piss him off a little if you were genuinely giving him the silent treatment because he would want you to be an adult and use your words that you needed space instead of just ignoring the issues. However, if it wasn't serious and he knew it, he would just ignore you back and see who would crack first.

❥ Seungkwan:

Oh Seungkwan could go two ways. He'd either call your childish or he would be on hands and knees trying to get you to talk to him. He loved talking with you, he loved being with you, so when you took away what he found comforting, he would be so annoyed and hurt by it. If you were giving him the silent treatment as a joke, he would be so annoyed if he was pranked lolol.

❥ Vernon:

ngl, Hansol might not catch on for a bit but if he does he'd find it pretty childish. He'd want to have open communication on your arguments or whatever because, how can he fix something if he doesn't know how or what is broken? If it was a silly reason he might squeeze your cheeks and just be overly flirty to get your attention which would cause you to crack lol.

❥ Dino:

Oh Channie would be so confused if you just stopped talking to him. He might go to Soonyoung or another one of his hyungs for advice. He would find you so confusing. He would apologize and bring you flowers and chocolate even though he wasn't quite sure what the fuck he was sorry about. When you would talk to him again, he would just be like "baby, can we talk it out instead of being silent next time?"

[jo-gakky]

Can you express how much you love Nezha? I’d love to read about your rambles ❤️

WAAAAAAAAA this is such a flattering ask to get! 

I'm really bad at expressing myself when it comes to things I love, but I LOVE talking about and pointing out the little details about my favorite little guys!!

(also a quick note! I tend to describe things using examples/scenarios. If it gets a bit confusing, please don't be afraid to ask me about anything <3)

Nezha, specifically the LMK version of him, brings me a kind of stability and comfort that no other character really does/ever has. The comfort derives from sort of a combination between his general presence/movement, ideals and actions.

Have you guys ever met someone who just OOZES stability? They're dependent, and manage situations with grace, even despite their own troubles?

That's the kind of guy I read Nezha as! He's a noble guy with a stable moral compass, and he's self-assured in his actions and his righteousness, however, he's not afraid to admit his own wrongs when they pop up. He's stubborn, sure, but not to a fault. Despite knowing of Wukongs reckless behavior, he entrusts the responsibility and himself to Wukong’s plan(s). And to be honest, what deity in this show is NOT a bit stubborn?

Nezha is everything I'm not, and I ADMIRE that so much. There is something comforting in watching him whenever he comes on screen, because he is what every other deity pretends to be. He is just an honest guy, and honestly what's better than that? 

He's just the type of guy you could trust wholeheartedly!

Again, I could be reading his character wrong. Rewatching LMK always makes me notice new things about characters that provide a new context to them, and Nezha is no different. 

But that's absolutely okay with me, because that means I get to re-explore all these characters over again!

But for my current impression of Nezha, I read him as a stern guy with a heart of gold!

I could imagine, even if he was on duty, he'd be the type to help out if someone asked him for a hand. He'd probably hesitate, but only because leaving his post probably feels like sacrilege to him, but in the end he can't neglect a person in need of a hand. He's a generally kind, nice and reliable guy, but betraying that trust would make him incredibly doubtful of whoever slighted that trust, for a long while. His trust is preserved for those who deserve it. He seems to be a good judge of character, and wont give his full trust to those who are suspicious.

I also just feel like he's the stern type, that actually hides a side that's more cheeky, but in fear of becoming a joke or looked down upon, he represses that side of him.

I don't know how to really express exactly what I mean with all of this, but I generally just love him so much for being such a stable, kind, responsible and grounded character!

Something about him screams safety, and I'm genuinely so sad that I didn't pay him much mind on my first watch.

Aside from his general character, his design also just SCREAMS comfort and happiness to me!

The Pretty pinks and teal speaks to his calmness and general kindness and goodness, while the bright reds give a hint of his ferocious battle skills and power. And perhaps his temper, but I don't really think he has much of a temper. He gets a bit annoyed, but if i'm being honest, i would get a bit irked too if someone who could help wasn't taking something, possibly dangerous, seriously.

Beside his pleasing color scheme, his general shape-language is GORGEOUS and i love it so much! His hairstyle specifically makes me so happy! It's so beautiful!

He's also just generally really fun to draw, which adds a lot when it comes to a character's appeal for me.

This is just a minor detail, but I thought I'd add it anyway : His english voice BRINGS ME SUCH JOY! His voice is such a perfect fit for the kind of person he is! (tbh all the english voices are perfect, but specifically Nezha's voice strikes a chord with me.)

Um

yeah

That's just the basics!

TL;DR : I really like Nezha bc he's very cool and nice and awesome and responsible! <3 He makes me happy :)

[everythingblackblack]

How do you think Kaito acts when he's flustered? What flusters him the most?

I have a feeling that it depends a lot on whether he's KID or Kaito.

For example, as KID, I think he'd be completely silent, turn around, or blow up a smoke bomb and get hurt, and this would make the person who made him nervous feel uncomfortable. Inside Kaito is chaos, outside he's mechanically "don't let your poker face fall."

As Kaito, I think he'd be a bit more tsundere, you know? I feel like Kaito can't handle sincere acts of kindness or comments from the heart (that are directed at him). Kaito spends so much time hiding behind walls, earning people's admiration or dislike that he's used to "fighting with them or receiving praise," but, you know, for real things, he might be quite clumsy because he's not that used to it, and I think it would also depend a lot on the context and situation.

His reaction could be something like:

"Even though I don't agree with your methods, I like your magic, it makes me feel like for a moment miracles could be real."

That comment came out of nowhere from Hakuba, both of them just stood in silence, they were waiting for the girls to join them on the rooftop to eat, there was no previous conversation, Kaito was sure that Hakuba wasn't lying, so he ended up babbling some nonsense.

"I… what?"

"Wow, I didn't expect this to be enough to make you nervous."

"I'm not nervous, hakubastard!"

"Mmh, interesting, I just said that I think your magic is great, there's no need to raise your voice."

or also:

Having a peaceful moment with Akako is rare, just them, doing a task together without problems. It's strange, but nice, at least it is until she speaks.

"I'll protect you."

"What are you talking about Akako? Did your Lucifer say something to you again?"

"No, just that when you're in trouble, I'll protect you."

"You don't have to-"

"I'm doing it because I want to, I'm going to protect you."

When Kaito notices that she means it, and that she's not expecting anything in return he just looks away.

"Oh, this is unexpected." There's a small mocking laugh as she finishes her sentence.

"Whatever."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I think it's cute that you blush like that."

"I'm not blushing, let's continue with the task!"

"So Kaitou KID can be kind of cute, huh."

"I'm going to ignore you."

"Can't you handle a little sincerity?"

Maybe, mmmh, idk.

[queerfortress2]

Hope your day is lovely so far 💕 I was wondering if I could request headcanons, perhaps, the Support Class (or just Sniper and Spy) getting into a heated argument with reader? Like, how they handle it, who apologizes first, how it would play out, yk?

I'm such a sucker for tear-jerking angst to cheesey comfort, it isn't even funny. Your writing is so good, love all of it so far! ❤

aww hell im a sucker for that type of stuff too, its just too fun to write — mod engie

GN!READER X SUPPORT CLASSES ; ARGUMENT

MEDIC

i think it’s not as hard to get into an argument with this man, he always wants to be right, it’s kinda hard to disagree without arguing for at least 10 minutes with this man

he’s just that stubborn!

however fights usually end quickly, he’s a lot more logic-based in argument and not so much focused on the emotional aspect of it, so once he can’t find anything else to say, he will simply end the argument, concluding it all fancy-like

One day both you two had gotten into an argument, Medic had been staying in work later and later as the days progressed and as a loving partner you of course got concerned with it! as much as you two argue over stupid little things and get over it, you couldn’t just get brushed off over something like this, so you continued pressing "And who cares? Work is important, more important than you seem to understand, I can’t just quit halfway—" His hands gestured as he spoke, he accent getting thicker as he seemed to stress more on the argument, he wanted to end it quickly, as he usually does. "Aren’t I important too? You can’t keep ignoring it— You’re barely home! I deserve to know a little bit too!" Now that was a decent point, pulling at heart strings but, Medic wasn’t an emotional person. "And so? My work is none of your business! If anything at all— Who are you to question it! You don’t understand any—"

medic wasn’t an emotional person but it was clear he could understand your worry and how emotion seemed to cloud your vision, while he thinks he’s perfectly in the right (which he usually isn’t), he understands you can get hurt. Which is why he silenced himself upon seeing your upset expression, however it’d been too late, you’ve already decided to leave the room.

he just gave you time. if he did come after you immediately it would only rekindle the argument and made it worse— he realises this, and so he only leaves you alone.

depending on where this is, will be how long he waits. if you’re a fellow mercenary he just decides to catch you the next morning, if you’re not, then he will usually give you 10 minutes before searching for you and trying to "apologise".

going to be completely honest, he also just isn't the man to apologise... he would either (depending on the context) tell you you're wrong but he forgives you for it, or shy away from admitting defeat and just comforting you instead, saying he didn't mean whatever harsh words slipped his mouth at the time

medic lovers.. this yo man?

SNIPER

he is a lot calmer about it, and probably gives the best apologies out of the three

he can easily realise if hes wrong and unlike medic, his ego isn't that far inflated to where he can't man up and apologise to you.

fights probably don't last long with him, i would imagine him to be the one who avoids it, and if it does come up, it has to be something hes extremely passionate about for him to seriously argue with you, otherwise its just fun and games, bickering over something stupid.

assuming you were a mercenary, maybe after a battle if you were extremely reckless and he saw through his lovely ol' scope, he would confront you after. not in public of course, but somewhere like your own quarters or his van.

"Now—" He held the bridge of his nose, have you seated in front of him. His free hand on his hip, gripping his side as he tried not to seem to angry with you. "Do you know what coulda happened to ya' out there? Bloody hell— You coulda been blown to pieces!" It was clear you didn't mean to, but he still wanted you to be safe, even with the respawn, it hurt to see you die in so many ways. He didn't want to witness it over at over again. At least you didn't have to see how many spies got him, or how the enemy sniper caught him out of his element. "Cmon! Look at y'self, so what if you were barely scathed, I still had m'self on end! Quit thinkin' about only yourself for once in a damn while!" Now he wasn't quite sure how harsh it looked to you, borderline yelling at you for what you thought was good fun, but once you stubbornly stood up and beelined for the door, he realised he was still a bit in the wrong there. Gently grabbing your arm, his frown softened from one that was of anger to one of pity.

he apologised upfront, he was quick to fix himself, and he only expects the same from you whenever you upset him. its just how healthy relationships go, no matter how cooped up he is, he was still raised right enough to understand what is morally right. hes professional, and professionalism contains being polite don't it?

im a little bias i love myself some sniper

SPY

don't even

like genuinely dont start arguing with this guy i dont think he would even apologise

like you would have to ask for one to get one outta him

mostly because he always thinks hes correct, even its so clear that hes not, he has a reputation to keep! so he more often than not refuses to accept the fact hes incorrect, and stubbornly keeps his opinion

so in the situation where he would argue with you, he would never accept he was in the wrong even if you were bawling at him. ...but he would comfort you, hes not that bad of a partner.

he would ease the conversation away from the argument and focus more on your tears, saying something along the lines of 'oh dont waste your beautiful tears on something like this, mon trésor.' or 'ah.. n'inquiète pas ta jolie petite tête pour ça, mon amour'

honestly hes trying to sway you away from being mad at him, even if he wants to be right, he still is very much your lover and wants to keep it that way. you being mad at him almost makes him feel bad enough to apologise

almost

after each argument i believe he would coax you into getting in bed with him and just relaxing together, sleeping away whatever ails you.

going to be honest i don't know what else to write for spy, he just isn't the type to apologise to you after an argument, hes SOOO stuck up. also my formatting broke three times while writing this so if you see a mistake, no you dont.

[howtofightwrite]

Followup: Oragnized Crime Recruitment

The Godfather book and the Mafia games, specifically the first Mafia game, are the closest examples of what the Original Asker wants for his game. Goodfellas is another potential example to base the process of one's recruitment into the criminal underworld. In general, recruitment in fiction is generally based on doing jobs and earning a reputation as to one's success at doing jobs. In Goodfellas, Henry Hill started off doing simple, legal-ish errands for the local mafia before the gangsters saw his potential and entrusted him with more illegal jobs. Original Asker's character could therefore be someone who is affiliated with a mobster, but not part of the inner circle until the character pulls off jobs which makes them someone worth recruiting to the organization. Or one could go the Tommy Angelo route and save a mobster's life. -ironwoodatl01

So, it's worth remembering that Goodfellas is (in broad strokes) non-fiction. Henry Hill was a real person. (1943-2012) He was an associate of the Lucchese family. There are some historical, “inaccuracies,” with the film. Though, his arrest in 1980 for narcotics, and turning state's witness is historically accurate, though the film skims over the part where he was ejected from the witness protection program in 1987. Goodfellas was adapted from Nicholas Pileggi's non-fiction book, Wiseguy. I haven't read the book, but it's plausible that some of the historical discrepancies may have come from the book.

In this case, the OP specifically wanted to avoid a background where someone grew up in the neighborhood. Which, I mean, that is their choice, but it is a very popular recruitment method, in part because it's very effective at screening out potential cops, or even recruiting potential tame cops down the line.

Ironically, thinking back now, Mafia, the original Saints Row, and Franklin's arc from GTA5 are all potential reference points for what the OP wanted, and thinking back on it now, they were asking for input on a game, rather than prose, so I should have factored that in with the original ask. The tricky thing about each of those examples is that they're dependent on a lot of very specific moving parts in their respective stories. (Though, to be fair, I barely remember the original Mafia.) None of them are strictly realistic, but they're all internally plausible, when you start factoring in the various character motivations at work.

For some reason, I'm reminded of the Thieves Guild recruitment in Skyrim, which is one of the goofiest criminal recruitments I've seen in a non-parody. Brynjolf grabs some random psychopath wandering through and says, “ah, yes, you must be a master of pickpocketing and interested in a life of crime.” Does it make any sense? Nope. Does it go a long way towards explaining why the Thieves Guild is falling apart? Yeah, kinda, when you think about it. Does the introduction work? For some players, yes.

If the player wants to get into a questline, the justification can be pretty flimsy and still work for that player. Usually we talk about suspension of disbelief like it's a universal constant, but it's individual per member of your audience. Normally, you want to do whatever you can to ensure the suspension of disbelief is as strong as possible. However, in a game, the player's own emotional investment can help shore up weak points.

I'm going to take a quote out of context (a little), but I'm reminded of a quote from Richard K. Morgan about Halo, “[it] is full of these bullshit archetypal characters and there's no real emotional effect.” And, while he was certainly dragged for that quote (and, really the entire interview, it was a mess), he wasn't wrong. The writing in Halo isn't what does the heavy lifting, a large part of that is the player's effort to get through the story. And, in basically any other medium, this would be an exceptionally bad thing.

You won't make your novel better by forcing your audience to complete reflex tests before they start each chapter.

But, with video games, the gameplay interludes, can actually build emotional investment for the player. Even on very flimsy premises.

I've often written about how writing in different mediums requires different approaches and has different strengths. If you want gorgeous combat, then live action or animation are the best forms for you story. If you want visually striking images that linger, comics might be the right choice. If you really want to get into a character's head and live there, prose will let you do that with a level of fine control that is difficult to replicate. (And, note, there's a lot of different pros and cons, so this isn't an exclusive list.) The funny thing is, if you want your audience to do the heavy lifting for suspension of disbelief, that's one of the places where video game writing really shines.

And so we loop back to the Skyrim example. Brynjolf's approach to finding new talent is absolute clown shoes, but it's something you might not notice if this is why you wandered into Riften. It only becomes a problem when you're just there to snuff Grelod the Kind, or are looking for someplace to unload all this garbage you picked up while delving into a Dwemer ruin up in the mountains.

This doesn't mean you should abandon the idea of good writing, but if your player is on the same page as you, you won't need to worry about having something completely believable. For example, the plot-line of Mafia, or (the original) Saints Row.

-Starke

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[mumms-the-word]

Illithid Souls - Part 2

The Case Studies: Tav/Durge and Orpheus

In Part 1, I went over some of the basics of what a soul normally is, where souls go after death, and whether mind flayers have souls. I ultimately ended up saying that most humanoids have apostolic souls (souls that deities recognize as being capable of divine worship), while mind flayers have some other kind of soul, one that isn't recognizable by deities or devils. This is why Jergal and Mystra and so on think that illithid don’t have souls. When a humanoid with an apostolic soul turns into a mind flayer, their soul is either ejected and moves on to the Fugue Plane, or their soul is transformed into a non-apostolic soul (depending on what you want to believe).

But the problem is, that's normal lore, and BG3 has made things a little strange by imbuing all the tadpoles that infect our characters with Netherese magic. And that, friends, makes the BG3 mind flayers different.

This post is going to look at some interesting context from the game for the Emperor, Tav/Durge and Orpheus. (It got pretty long so I'm moving Karlach and Gale to a third post.) We're going to figure out whether the rules about mind flayers and souls change now that there's Netherese magic involved. The ultimate answer is yes, but how? And is it consistent?

(Spoiler: it isn't, but you can use this lore to come up with your own theories and ideas)

Let's take another deep dive! Buckle up, and don't worry, I have a short summary at the bottom.

The Case of the Emperor

I'm actually not going to linger too long on the Emperor because for many reasons he breaks the lore. If he's Balduran and a mind flayer, he shouldn't have lived as long as he says he's lived. Not only that, his memory is allegedly flawless when the lore states he shouldn't remember any of his previous life (there are other inconsistencies too, but that's a different post). However, I do want to touch on a couple of things.

The Emperor both is and isn't our baseline for how a mind flayer normally exists. He should be a normal lore-accurate mind flayer (though a rogue one), because he wasn't infected with a Netherese-touched tadpole. But he's a Special Mind Flayer instead, for reasons we don't entirely understand (again, he generally breaks the lore). Perhaps this is because of his brush with Gortash and the other Chosen of the Dead Three, or perhaps he just somehow has a strong enough personality that when he broke free of an elder brain's compulsion a lot of his memories came back to him. Who knows?

But regardless, a few conversations with him reinforce the idea that mind flayers typically aren't completely soulless. At the very least, they still contain memories (he has his memories of his time as Balduran), intelligence (he's a schemer, that's for sure), and personality/emotions:

Emperor: You think that mind flayers are soulless husks who feel nothing. Belynne thought the same at first. You are wrong. Feeling is vital to the pursuit of anyone's goals. Even a mind flayer's. Like you, mind flayers know fear. Like you, we crave recognition. But unlike you, unlike the others of my kind, I am no slave to either. My end is and has always been freedom.

We can quibble about whether or not he's manipulating the player here, but his words are generally true. As discussed in part 1, mind flayers are not soulless husks. When they're enthralled, they might be more devoid of independent thinking, but they have emotions/feelings and can create memories. They just might have a smaller range of emotion than humanoids do (thus his reference to "not being a slave" to fear or desire) and their memories might not be entirely their own (more on that with Karlach in part 3).

Regardless, the Emperor is our leading authority for what it's like to be a mind flayer, so we're sort of forced to trust him when we ask him to explain what full ceremorphosis is about to do to us, especially because its his Supreme Tadpole that is about to change us.

Player: What would happen to me? Emperor: You would be altered in mind, body, and soul beyond all recognition.

So this is interesting. Altered in mind and body, that's a given. Altered in soul, though...what does that mean?

Remember in Part 1 where I offered two theories about what happens to the original soul of someone undergoing ceremorphosis? Theory 1: they just die and the soul moves on to the Fugue Plane, and the mind flayer gets a new illithid soul from...somewhere. Theory 2: The soul transforms and remains tethered to the mind flayer body, different than it was before (potentially unrecognizable as the original soul, but some elements of the original may remain).

The Emperor's words suggest more of theory 2 here. But is that, in fact, what happens when we become illithid? Well...let's find out.

The Case of Tav and Durge (or most Origin runs)

When you do turn into a mind flayer, the narrative typically focuses on how powerful you feel. Your mind and body feel as though they are one and you are also desperately hungry. There isn't much in the Narrator's dialogue or your dialogue with your friends to suggest that your soul has been completely obliterated, though.

In fact, there's an interesting moment that happens if you turn into a mind flayer without the Emperor there and go up to Orpheus still in his cage. The way I accomplished this was to ask to change into a mind flayer so the Emperor would give me the Supreme Tadpole, then I said I would change later, then stopped the Emperor from consuming Orpheus so he would leave. Then I used the Supreme Tadpole to turn into a mind flayer and went to examine Orpheus.

Narrator: *His eyes are unseeing, his voice silenced. But even with his mind caged, you can feel his power. You can almost taste the fluid beneath his scalp, cushioning that sweet, dense brain, and the power within it. You are hungry.* Lae'zel: I see that look, I know that look. Don't you dare. Player: [Wisdom Check] Cling to your former nature. Quash your hunger. This is not who you are. Narrator: *Your mind and body whine with disappointment. But your soul lets out a gentle thrum of relief.*

I find this fascinating for a couple of reasons. One, the check I chose (there are two, the second is a strength check) meant reaching out to a "former" nature and reminding myself (or my Tav's self) that this is not who she is. When I succeeded, my Tav's mind and body protested, but her soul was filled with relief.

So she has a soul! And it seems to be her own soul, but perhaps transformed. So this sort of supports theory 2, that perhaps when humanoids turn into mind flayers, their soul is altered. This could also just be a quirk specific to those infected with a Netherese tadpole, or even further, someone who transformed using the Emperor's Supreme Tadpole.

Because here's the thing. When Tav/Durge, Orpheus, Companion!Karlach, or any Origin character transforms into a mind flayer using the Supreme Tadpole, they become a special mind flayer. This is mostly due to the Netherese magic, which adds some weird and undefined changes to the whole mind flayer thing. I'm going to use "I guess it's the Netherese magic/Supreme Tadpole" as a scapegoat this entire post because I don't know what else to point to to explain how these guys are just Different Than Your Average Mind Flayer, so be prepared for that. But at the very least, we know something's different.

In fact the Narrator literally says you're probably different than the average mind flayer after you defeat the Netherbrain!

Narrator: *You are a mind flayer, the very thing you sought to eradicate. Whatever self you still possess is quickly ebbing away. Your friends and enemies alike are ripe for manipulation, and if not manipulation, then consumption. Soon you will be able to trust yourself at all. You will be a monstrosity beyond redemption. Or not. Perhaps you are unique among illithid-kind. Perhaps you will retain enough of who you are to resist your nature. A rogue mind flayer. Like the Emperor. The risk is certainly yours to take - will you?*

Unlike normal mind flayers who lose most of their memories (and allegedly most of their personality/former selves) almost immediately after transforming, it takes Tav/Durge/most Origins longer to lose that sense of self, if indeed they lose it at all. The Narrator suggests we might be losing parts of ourselves, but there's a chance we're unique and might retain our sense of selves.

We do see glimpses of us retaining our personalities in the epilogue of course, but what is more interesting is if you decide to imprison yourself post-ceremorphosis. Withers will visit you in prison for a final conversation. (This conversation shifts a little if you're a Durge, but here is the Tav conversation.)

Withers: Thou remainest in thy chains. A hero, sacrificed. I told thee once that an illithid hath no soul, and yet...something glimmerest about thee. Something is not lost. Dost thou feel it? The spark of the divine within thee? Or does thy hunger consume thee? Player: [Option 1] I'm still myself. I don't know if I belong here. Player: [Option 2] I feel the hunger. But I feel myself, too. I'm not sure which to trust. Player: [Option 3] Have you come to torment me with hypotheticals, old friend? Player: [Option 4] Does it matter? This is my life now.

If you go with option 4, you hear Withers ponderingly say, "Thy life...yes..." before moving on to say that fate isn't done with you yet, which is his response to all the other options as well.

But the more important thing is that even Jergal recognizes a "spark of the divine" within you. Your soul should either be cast off and already wandering the Fugue Plane (if going with theory 1) or so completely transformed that it's no longer an apostolic soul that Jergal would be able to recognize as a god. Yet Jergal recognizes the soul within your mind flayer body as being...well, partly apostolic.

Interesting!

We get a similar dialogue if you sacrifice yourself as a mind flayer, too, though this is fascinating because now it's Withers literally finding your soul (still shaped like a mind flayer, which is interesting) somewhere that is...very gray. There's a suggestion that this might be in the Fugue Plane, or in some limbo state where souls sometimes end up, but regardless, Withers, the soul-finder himself, was able to track down your lingering soul.

Withers: Thou flickerest in the dark - but with mine keen eye, I hath scryed thee. I told thee once that an illithid hath no soul, and yet thou seemest to have something of the spirit about thee. I cannot account for it. How delightful. Tell me, how doth it feel to roam about as thou art now, transformed? Player: [Option 1] Where am I? [mumm's note: he basically doesn't answer this question lol] Player: [Option 2] I still feel like myself. My memories, my feelings - all intact. Withers: No matter how many aeons I have roamed this world and beyond, I am ever-surprised by mysteries new and old.

Even Withers is surprised that the soul you have is something he not only recognizes as a soul, but as your soul. I love how amused and intrigued he sounds when he says "I cannot account for it. How delightful." He even smiles when he says it. He thinks you're super neat! And also a new phenomenon.

(As an aside, I wonder if you being mind-flayer-shaped but still recognizable as you is a hint that your soul did indeed transform to be illithid, but didn't fully transform into a non-apostolic soul like normal illithids would. Like, I wonder if your soul is now half-apostolic and just permanently mind-flayer-shaped. RIP. But this would explain why bringing you back via True Resurrection is kind of a nonviable option since you'd just come back as a mind flayer, and this is the ending where you took your own life to avoid being a mind flayer for forever, so I doubt you'd even want to come back if you couldn't come back to your original body. Things to ponder!)

Anyway, you having something that has glimpses, sparks, or hints of the divine/the spirit about you does tell us that as a mind flayer, your soul wasn't destroyed. It may have been transformed, but you're not as soulless as you thought you were going to be, and you're actually still pretty close to being who you were before the transformation.

Close, but not perfectly or exactly like you were before. You did transform, after all. But these changes become more obvious in other examples, such as with Karlach.

You having a partly-apostolic soul that retains all its memories and most of its original personality is obviously VERY unique and different to what most mind flayers experience. For example, if you turn yourself illithid and then free Orpheus (again, see the same steps above, but go a step farther and actually free him this time), then Orpheus will be utterly shocked that you're capable of independent thought.

Orpheus: What is this... A mind flayer in possession of its mental faculties? This is the stuff of fables. It is as if I am reliving the legend of Oryndoll. You are the illithid Urengol, rebelling against your own hivemind. And I am the noble githyanki Valraag who must now reconsider his position. An illithid capable of rebelling against the Netherbrain's instruction... Not only capable but willing... If your intentions are as righteous as they seem, this is an advantage I cannot overlook. An advantage that must be grasped, for our enemy is formidable indeed. Very well. I propose an alliance.

A couple of notes here: Oryndoll is/was a real mind flayer colony far, far below the surface in the southern regions of Faerûn (beneath the Shining Plains). Not only is it ancient, but the wealth of knowledge stored inside via illithid technology rivals and probably even surpasses that of Candlekeep's library. There's at least one book in the game that talks about a foolish drow adventurer searching for Oryndoll, only to end up a mind flayer, while another hints at Oryndoll's role in the history of the Duergar race. But these are the only mentions of Oryndoll in the game.

Oryndoll has a history in D&D lore, but there's no mention of Urengol and Valraag (that I could find). If this is a fable Orpheus knows, it's apparently so ancient that only he remembers it. But that itself is interesting, because it makes Urengol his closest reference to you having become a rogue, independently-thinking, and emotionally driven mind flayer. He can't think of any other examples, that's how unique you are.

The most important thing here is that Orpheus literally considers your independently thinking self as so baffling, so impossible, it should only exist in fables. That, I think, says a lot.

The next question is, does he think he would become just as unique?

The Case of Orpheus

We all know Orpheus can be convinced to turn into a mind flayer and sacrifice his soul for his people. I'm sure he genuinely does think he is sacrificing his soul, as there is no real precedent that he or anyone else seems to know of for a person who turns into a mind flayer and keeps their soul (or at least keeps their same memories, personality, and intelligence). But if he's surprised that he's kept all his memories after turning illithid, he doesn't really show it.

You can ask him about it, of course, after he's turned into a mind flayer and after you've defeated the Netherbrain. His response is kind of interesting.

Player: You're a mind flayer, but you're still you, aren't you? Orpheus: Yes. But for how long? My mind screams. It will never stop until it has slipped away from me entirely.

No one else seems to define their illithid experience this way. I'm curious if his mind screaming is referring to the hunger he feels, the same hunger he is actively trying to resist, but he doesn't elaborate on this. Regardless, he's certain that while he has retained his personality (and probably his soul) for now, it's not going to last.

This is why he asks for an honorable death after the defeat of the Netherbrain.

Player: You don't deserve to die. Orpheus: I will not be ghaik! I did what I did to save my people. [...] The rest is up to them. Someone else must rise within the ranks to lead the revolution against Vlaakith. Give me my freedom from this form, release my soul to the Astral Seas while I still have one to call my own.

Orpheus believes that he only has a temporary grasp on his soul or consciousness, which may or may not have transformed into a different kind of soul. Then again, if he thinks his soul is going to the Astral Seas, maybe it doesn't matter whether his soul was transformed from apostolic to non-apostolic. I'm not even sure if githyanki have apostolic souls at all, since they wouldn't really be interested in the deities that govern matters on the Material Plane. I mean, for a long time Lae'zel wants her soul to be eaten by Vlaakith (a literal lich queen who eats souls) via "ascension" so...

I also have no idea if his soul, once released to the Astral Seas, would be mind-flayer-shaped. I guess that's the great mystery. I would assume yes, but I also don’t know how souls manifest in the Astral Seas and finding sources on this has been difficult (it all boils down to “ask your DM”).

Orpheus can be convinced to stay alive and just hang out in a far-off "corner of these realms" to watch his people fight against Vlaakith from afar, and there's kind of a hint that him agreeing to do this means he isn't actually afraid he'll lose his entire soul. But at this point, we're getting too far into "maybes" and "what ifs" to suggest anything concrete.

Quick picture break of Orpheus contemplating the Supreme Tadpole to break up the text (I just thought it was a good shot)

Now I do have to acknowledge two things about Orpheus: one, he could be a special mind flayer precisely because of his unique abilities to shield his mind from elder brain compulsion, which means his unique abilities could also be the reason why he retains so much of his personality and therefore his soul. Since most of the time you end up eating his brain and absorbing his abilities, this could also explain why you retain so much of your own soul if you become a mind flayer instead.

In this scenario, you’re a special mind flayer because (1) you have a Netherese tadpole, (2) you transformed using the Supreme Tadpole, and (3) then you ate Orpheus’s brain. All three elements could be at play.

But not everyone eats Orpheus’s brain, so that theory has holes. I genuinely think you just end up being a special mind flayer because of the Netherese magic that messes with your tadpole. The Supreme Tadpole plus Orpheus’s abilities would only be the icing on the cake, so to speak.

The second thing I want to acknowledge is that there’s a glaring plothole for Orpheus even turning into a mind flayer at all, if you play the game a certain way. If you send the Emperor away to free Orpheus before the Emperor gives you the Supreme Tadpole (for example if you send Lae’zel over to smash the chains holding Orpheus captive without talking to the Emperor, which is what I did one time, and the Emperor was literally like “don’t talk to me again bye” and left), then how does he turn into a mind flayer? He doesn’t have a tadpole and you don’t have the Supreme Tadpole to give to him.

He gets around this with you or Karlach by saying he’ll lower his mental shields so that your tadpole hears the Netherbrain’s orders to transform and then replace the shields again.

Orpheus: My defences keep the voice of the Absolute out, but just as I can raise them, so I can lower them. I will allow the voice of the Absolute in. Once it reaches you, it will order you to transform. It will only take a moment. And once you are a mind flayer, I will fold you under my protection once more. You will be the saviour of empires, not least my own. Narrator: *With the withdrawal of Orpheus' power, your mind is rushed with the full force of the Netherbrain. You feel a compulsion unlike anything you've ever known - excruciating and exhilarating in equal measure. You wish nothing in the world but to evolve. Then - complete silence, as you are once again closed off from the Netherbrain's mind.*

So that makes sense, and it means you being a special mind flayer could boil down to your personality being hella strong + you being infected with a special Netherese tadpole. In this scenario, the Supreme Tadpole can’t be used to explain your unique soul-keeping abilities, and neither can you attribute your soul-keeping abilities to consuming Orpheus's brain (since he's still alive). So maybe the Supreme Tadpole and/or Orpheus's brain doesn’t have any effect on why you keep your mostly-unaltered soul.

In the end I guess it’s just the weird Netherese tadpole that does the trick? Honestly, I wonder if it all boils down to the fact that the Netherese tadpole doesn't eat your brain, it just lies dormant and incubating in your head, so you're not losing brain matter. (But this ignores or forgets that when you eat other tadpoles you literally watch them burrow into your brain matter so I'm sure the magic has something to do with it too.)

But anyway this still doesn’t explain why Orpheus, who shouldn’t have a tadpole, somehow turns into a mind flayer by, I don’t know, manifesting it??? Or why he is also a unique mind flayer once he does this without the Supreme Tadpole. I mean in his case I’m sure it is because he has special mind shield abilities but still. How did he turn into a mind flayer without a tadpole? Make it make sense, Larian.

He literally just touches his head with a psionic magic effect, which is the same gesture he uses to lower his mental shield to allow the Netherbrain to force you to transform. It's also interesting that if you have him transform using the Supreme Tadpole, then he doesn't say anything as he accepts the tadpole from you and absorbs it. But if you have him change without the tadpole, then he says, "The Netherbrain will be only too pleased to claim me."

Which...kind of implies that he's somehow able to communicate with the Netherbrain or hear its voice, so...maybe he secretly does have a tadpole? I mean, a popular theory is the Emperor probably did tadpole Orpheus off-screen since he seems to have a level of compulsion over Orpheus, but this is never explained or mentioned in the game so do whatever you want with that theory.

But I digress.

Let's do a quick summary, shall we?

TLDR: You're probably a super special mind flayer who gets to keep their soul mostly intact (or mostly unaltered) because your tadpole was imbued with Netherese magic and generally doesn't eat your brain. You might also be super special because you transformed using the Supreme Tadpole (optional) and/or consumed Orpheus's brain (also optional). Orpheus might be a super special mind flayer simply because he's Orpheus, and that is why he can still retain most of his soul/personality, even though he keeps thinking he's going to lose it. His status as special mind flayer seems unchanged whether he transformed using the Supreme Tadpole or not, so it really must be an Orpheus Thing.

Phew. That was a lot. And honestly, Karlach and Gale only complicate things, so they're going in a separate post. Keep an eye out for Part 3!

~*~*~

You made it to the end!!! Amazing, you deserve an achievement or something, but all I have are more gold stars.

✨⭐️🌟⭐️✨⭐️🌟⭐️✨

Tags for those who wanted the update! @galesdevoteewife @stuffforthestash

[triangle-strategy-notes]

The Hierophant and Automatons Concept Art

Concept art for the Hierophant and the other puppets/automatons you face in the final battle! Translation notes and image id under the cut.

Translation notes:

Japanese doesn't usually include gendered pronouns, so when I use "it" and/or "her" for the Hierophant, I'm inserting those based on my best guess given the context—it's not anything the designers intended to include.

The word I translate as puppet/doll/automaton is in most cases the same word, but I use the different English translations interchangeably depending on the context.

"Homunculus" on the first page is literally "nculus". I'm assuming it's shorthand for homunculus so that's what I put for clarity, but I might be wrong about that. On the second page, the actual word for homunculus is used explicitly.

"The threads are manufactured using a special growth process" seemed to have a typo or two. I tried to account for that and I think I got the translation more or less accurate, but I still feel a little bit uncertain about it. Notably there might be something about 2 strands being woven together.

"Do not defy" might have also been translated as "do not betray [me]".

Image Ids:

[Image id: Two pages from the Triangle Strategy artbook centered around the Hierophant and the automatons. The first page is titled, "C Hierophant (puppet) Rough Draft". There are several drawings of the hierophant and her doll-like construction. One note reads, "Sought after and made a human". Another reads, "A. Puppet — Ball-jointed doll". There is a subheading labeled, "B. Flesh" with some text that reads, "Even though it comes from a desert country, the skin is white and pure to the point that it looks bloodless." Another note reads, "Lifeless eyes" and another says "Do not defy". One note that points to the Hierophant's clothing says, "The garment is modeled after the Goddess of Salt's." Another reference drawing has the note, "The most complete one at the moment (Hierophant Puppet)". Another note says, "I call it 'homunculus', but it's in fact only an extraordinary puppet that has the appearance of being alive. That said, it was indeed given some human body parts during its creation… The human 'hair' is not only the doll's puppet strings, but also its internal parts, which enable the puppet to circulate magic efficiently and to manifest a level of power beyond that of a mere puppet." Another note gesturing to the puppet strings says, "The threads are manufactured using a special growth process." Another says, "Countless unfinished things." One drawing has the puppets attacking and grabbing onto a man with a sword. A nearby note reads, "If they get a hold of you, it's pretty dangerous!" An illustrator's note at the bottom reads, "The request for this included a surprise: 'the hierophant is a puppet!' I remember having a lot of back and forth about what puppets are in the context of the world, and Mr. Ikushima's ideas concerning the setting also helped. (Yasuaki Arai)".

The second page has several images, including one large one of a smoky purple room with automatons crawling down from the ceiling with Idore in the center pulling the strings. To the side there is another illustration of the puppets hanging up near the throne room's domed ceiling. At the top is a note that says, "From a distance, it looks like there is a painting on the ceiling, but in fact there are count- less unfinished puppets hanging in the shadows, and the puppeteer can control them all at once to attack." Another nearby note reads, "In the shadow of heaven, countless unfinished puppets are hanging." Next to Idore is the note, "His Excellency, The Puller of Strings. Controls countless homunculi at the same time and causes them to attack. Similar to spellcraft, it is a highly refined technique." There are some additional drawings of the automatons and hierophants showing some of their more inhuman traits, as well as some conceptual drawings of internal organs including a brain. A note reads, "If they really are just puppets, then there's no need to bother with brains or internal organs." At the bottom is a designer's note that reads, "This is a rough idea of the final boss Idore, the Hierophant, and the other puppets. I believe we also make good use of Mr. Ikushima's ideas in the battle planning. (Arai Yasuaki)" /end id]

[viaviv124]

Adding on my offer to beta read specifically the german in tf2 stuff, i'll also correct some common mistakes i've seen in this post!

Frustration & Insults

You cannot just freely translate "fuck" and put "Fick" instead. While the translation of the word is correct, the context isn't. In germany we don't use the word like that in frustration. If you're a very vulgar person you might say "ficken, alter!" but that's not commonly used, mainly by teens. I'd say you opt for one of the following: Scheiße (shit), Verdammt (damn/damn it), Verdammte Axt (literal translation would be "damned axe" but it's just a more frustrated "damn it"), Gottverdammt (god damn it). There's more words but these are the most common by far.

For insults in general, most you google should be fine (allthough i suggest googling specifically for german insults instead of google translating them), but i'll clear up two mistakes in the game itself that happend due to the VA not being german. "Dummkopf" for example. The singular word is fine but the game puts the plural as "Dummkopfs" which is wrong. You don't put words in plural by adding an "s" in german. It'd be "Dummköpfe". Another case of a german insult in the game is "Schweinshunds". "Schweinehund" is the correct singular form and the correct plural is "Schweinehunde". "Schweinshund" would be the word but with a dialect but i'm not going into all that now. (Also for everyone who doesn't know: the word effectively means "lazy bastard")

I'd be happy to teach more german insults if required because it's fun but this is getting too long anyway lol

Pet names

Don't frankenstein words together you put into google translate independantly. Yes german consists on randomly combined words but especially with pet names these words have gender depending on who you talk to/about. What i've seen a lot is "Mein Lieb" and that's just wrong. If you want to say "my love" it's "Mein Lieber" (male) or "Meine Liebe" (female) and even then that's not correct. It's something you tend to say in a dismissive, mocking/sarcastic or scolding way. "Mein Geliebter" (male) or "Meine Geliebte" (female) would work for my love but that word isn't something you use casually in every day conversation. It's a very high expression, often used in poems or songs. Likewise, please don't freely translate the pet name "love" as "Liebe" or "Lieb".

A few casual and common german pet names you can choose from are:

Schatz (treasure)

Liebling (love)

Hase/Hasi/Häschen (bunny)

Maus/Mausi/Mäuschen (mousy)

Engel/Engelchen (angel)

Täubchen (dove)

Bär/Bärchen (bear)

Spatz/Spätzchen (sparrow)

Kleine/Kleiner (little one)

Große/Großer (big one)

As you've seen, some words are cutie-fied by adding an "i" or a "chen". And generally words ending in "e" are grammatically feminine while words ending in "er" are grammatically masculine (note: just specific for the words given in these examples!! German grammatic rules are complex). You can also prefix every word with "Mein". (on that note: if you put "Mein" in a sentence, even if it's the only german word in it, put the whole sentence in a translator first to see if you need "Mein", "Meine" or "Meiner". Someone who doesn't speak the language sees very little difference but to someone fluent it can change the vibe of the entire sentence depending on the situation.)

Of course you can also be creative with your own pet names, but then please if you translate it put it in a sentence to see how it works. Sometimes just putting "my" before the word is enough!

Now something i've seen in NSFW specifically (if you dont care about that you can skip that paragraph dw) was the expression "guter Junge" or "Mein guter Junge". Which- please don't. It's very uncomfortable to read. While "good boy" can be sexy in english, in german it's (at least to my knowledge) really not. It's how you refer to children. German dirty talk always sounds incredibly cringe to me personally but if you really want to write parts in german and want Medic to say dominant lines like "good boy" please opt for using "brav/braver" instead of "gut/guter". Both words mean the same thing but entirely different vibe.

All in all german is a language that thrives on the mere vibe of a word, especially with insults, as well as the gender of the word as it's a gendered language. Please don't just translate singular words and mush them together. Use them in a few sentences beforehand to be able to see how the word behaves in different situations, because german grammar is a pain in the ass.

I hope this could help a little and if there are any questions or anything you'd want me to proof read, please don't hesitate to reach out!!

[fictionadventurer]

Little House in the Big Woods is a masterful depiction of the simple joys and mindset of very early childhood. Which, oddly enough, makes the book work better for me as an adult than as a child. As a kid, I saw this as one of the lesser books--there are some fun moments and interesting stories, but nothing really happens. As an adult, that's one of the main draws--nothing happens! Laura gets to see the frost on the windows and play with her cousins and get Christmas presents and look at the pictures in the animal book and play house and nothing goes wrong. It brings back those innocent, simple joys of very early childhood in a way that's much more welcome now that I'm much further away from it.

With an adult's perspective, it's also easier to catch more details about the wider world surrounding that little cabin in the Big Woods. The family ties binding together the adults. The historical context of the 1860s. You catch the fact that they're choosing to live like this--the rest of the world is pretty advanced, but they're living on the very edges of civilization where you have to do things for yourself in a way few other people do.

As a kid, I just saw the historical moment as "pioneer times where they live like this because they haven't invented technology." As an adult, I know that there's a ton of technology already being invented at a faster rate than ever before, and even here on the fringes of society, it's got a huge effect on how they settle the area. They buy machine-made traps to catch animals for a huge fur industry (at least, I don't see a local blacksmith making these). They use a complicated threshing machine. They buy machine-made cloth and cane sugar and have little store-made knickknacks. Their way of life is pretty heavily dependent on a world where railroads and steamships can rapidly transport goods around the world, which is a huge reason that life changed so quickly during Laura's lifetime--the world was already pretty modern, and just had to get out to where she was. It's a perspective that added a lot of depth to my view of the setting.

The book's also better from an adult viewpoint because it's not just the story of early childhood, but it's a woman in her 60s looking back at her early childhood--nostalgic for it in the way a lot of adults are nostalgic for a time when the world seemed simpler and safer--which makes the perspective oddly relatable.

I can still see why it's less exciting than the other books--even apart from the lack of deadly perils, Laura's extremely young age means she's not an active protagonist. She's just watching life while other people go off and do things. Most of the events are things we hear about--Pa telling stories of his childhood or of what he's done during the day. Laura doesn't, for instance, go out to the bee tree--she sees Pa get the wagon and then come back and tell her about it. Even this simple event is something that Laura's not actively watching, which makes her perspective feel a bit disconnected from the world.

But for all the story's flaws and virtues, the very best part of the book is how much love goes into it. Laura is writing this out of love for the family that gave her such a childhood. She'll pause to note Pa's laugh, or talk about how pretty Ma was while making hominy. She loves the landscape, delighting in the details of every season. She loves the daily tasks of farm life. She's not just detailing things like cheese-making or churning because these skills are dying out, but because she's lived her life on a farm and takes genuine joy in the details that go into completing all these tasks. She loved farming so much that she spent years writing a column about farming life, and that absolutely comes out here.

Then, at the very end, we have a line that's my contender for one of the best last lines in all of literature. Laura's watching her family and the firelight as Pa plays his fiddle in the cozy little house, singing about remembering the days of long ago. And this sixty-some-year-old woman, looking back at her childhood, bringing back a vanished world for the children of today, ends with a paragraph that perfectly sums up the bittersweet truths of the story--that childhood thinks it will last forever, that time will pass in the blink of an eye, and that memory and storytelling can, in their imperfect way, make the past immortal.

She was glad that the cosy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.

[tumblingxelian]

I have to admit I'm impressed with how awful a father CRWBY made Taiyang while giving him a veneer of reasonability.

To the point that his ability to just spout off things reminds me of an Aunt and Uncle who have no idea just how badly they are painting themselves.

As in - when he makes a judgement call about how Yang lost her arm that fits it into his "Over dependence on his semblance" it's incredibly telling about him not ever actually asking anyone about what happened.

It means he never talked to Yang about it, or even you know offered because while Yang wouldn't have said everything she'd probably have said a little.

Or talked to any of the students who probably got information about what happened from Blake when she dragged Yang to safety. Which wouldn't have been much but probably included the fact that Blake was attacked by someone, Yang intervened.

Given that students presumably died when Beacon fell and that Yang was a first year student... Like by itself, Yang being alive enough for a teammate to save her is a victory.

Nevermind context of her going up against someone that fought Blake, who came back injured herself, and Adam probably did get ID as going around killing students. So the fact that Yang was vastly outclassed would have been known, you know if Taiyang asked at all about "What happenend". Or worse - he did and still blames Yang. Like what did he expect her to do - leave Blake to die? Yang got Blake enough room to run, Blake used the opportunity to get both of them out of there but Yang bought that opportunity for Blake.

Meanwhile I'm looking forward to the Belladonnas actually talking to Yang. Because I don't think it's an accident that we didn't see said interaction before we started being shown in detail the grease fire of the Xialong Rose family.

From my perspective Tai is a rather interesting execution on the archetypical father on these fronts. IE, he's not a classic bad father the way Jac is, or the classic emotionally distant husk archetype. Yet to me, he is still 100% a big problem and done a lot of harm to Ruby & Yang with lackluster parenting & 'teaching'.

As outlined here.

I think this is one of the reasons why a lot of people struggle to actually see him as flawed even when e gets basic facts wrong.

Another reason is just how much undue credit men are given by default that women have to earn. Hence lots of people shrugging off Qrow's drinking or Ozpin's manipulation, or Ironwood's authoritarianism until they couldn't anymore.

Though being more charitable, I would also note how CRWBY often play these characters against their more traditional archetypes to help offset the audiences presumptions.

For instance,

Ozpin is a mysterious headmaster of an adventurers school but he's the 'fun' headmaster who both helps the kids go on adventures but unlike certain other headmasters sends an adult escort with them.

Or Ironwood, he's a big military hard liner who wants more tech, bigger weapons and to throw his military around. But he asks about the kids, he jokes casually, he's not just some General Ripper.

& Qrow of course is the bitter veteran and mentor, who is super badass & drinks/smokes, but in contras, he's also seemingly functional, friendly and clearly has a good rapport with his nieces.

Its easy to see why people saw those aspects and were willing to ignore things like:

Ozpin sending teenagers into terrorist dens, Ironwood backstabbing his allies while making himself out to be the victim, and Qrow's blatant dependence on alcohol to function.

Cos CRWBY made them characters & not archetypes.

So when the shit hit the fan and subtext became text, subtly problematic behavior became blatantly problematic and festering problems once seen as comedic now had real weight.

I feel Tai fits the same mold, he's on the surface 'functional', he definitely cares, and even seems to do some 'fun dad' stuff. He just also as no idea how Yang's Semblance works, & was absent or otherwise none functional for so long its left deep scars on Yang having to keep the family together & Ruby outright says Yang raised her.

He's in many ways a more realistic and nuanced portrayal of a dysfunctional or toxic parent who may not obviously have issues the way an open abuser like Jac, or an absentia parent like Raven might but can still do harm.

Also excellent breakdown on how the surrounding context of the Fall of Beacon. Team RWBY are first years, Blake is an incredibly experienced combatant, Yang had been put through the ringer. Literally everything was on fire and even people like Ozpin died.

The fact the whole team made it out at all is nothing short of a miracle. But accepting that "Sometimes bad things happen" is a surrender of power, its an admission that there was nothing to be done and that is terrifying. Especially for a man whose had two of the most important people in his life vanish on him without a trace.

He wants there to be something in Yang to blame because then there is something that can be done about it. Add in his clear and overtly stated projection of Raven onto her, and hos incoherent his reads on her personality are given Yang's addressed stuff like stubbornness & strategy well before this.

& you get a parent making being dismembers in a no win situation against a more powerful opponent the victims fault while giving vague, generalist advice to feel like they're doing something.

Gosh I want them to just adore her, and her to adore the Belladonna's.

Thanks for the ask, and good luck on that essay you mentioned, remember to tag me ;)

[kamimarroco]

more Bottom Ren fics pLEASE 😭😭 you’re the only one I trust for the task 🙏

HIII SWEETIE!! Sorry for the delay, I really struggled a lot with how I was going to do this, but I got this piece of work here

Officially my longest work, I did it all in the same day, there are probably mistakes, but I hope from the bottom of my heart that it is worth something ;)

Words: exactly 2200

CW: Handcuffing, anal, pegging, bottom Ren, noncon, unhealthy relationship, very toxic dynamics, MC is kind of an asshole, but they are too soft-hearted to be cruel for so long

“H-Hey, calm down...", Ren moved his naked body away from the middle of the bed to a point further away from you, his wrists struggling against the handcuffs, surely injuring himself in the process from the steel material. “W-Wait a second, do you have any idea what you're about to do?”

The panic rising in his voice made the smile on your face and excitement grow equally, or maybe even more, yourself placing your knees on the soft fabric of the bed, slowly approaching the beastkin.

“What's wrong, Renren? I thought this... was something you were already used to”, you made a point of pointing to the strap-on perfectly placed on your hips, a large phallus pointed directly at the man in front of you.

A beautiful sight to have, indeed. One that would certainly cause two people to cheer up depending on the context of the situation.

But for Ren, this is more than terrible, it's a nightmare.

And that's why the situation brings you such euphoria that you can't put it into words.

“Awe, don't be such a baby!”, you spoke in a playful tone, making the scene even more suspenseful as you slowly crawled towards him, giving him the false sense of hope that maybe he could escape you in time. Unfortunately for the beastkin, the handcuffs did indeed limit his power to do anything, and even if he managed the feat of getting out of bed, you had already locked the door in case anything happened.

He had nowhere to escape. He is a fox who fell into a perfectly orchestrated trap.

When you got close enough to put Ren within arm's reach, he futilely started kicking his legs, trying to push you away and hit you with one of his feet. “NO! Nonono, go away!”, he demanded, his voice becoming high-pitched as dread consumed him.

You didn't have the patience to deal with that kind of attitude at the moment, firmly grabbing both of Ren's feet and pushing his legs against his chest, automatically making him stop moving.

“Look, Ren", you said his name with a tone of voice that showed how thin your patience was running. “I'm trying to make things easy, I really am, but I can't do it if you keep trying to resist me”

You took a moment to look carefully at beatskin's face, his eyes big and bright, like he was about to burst into tears right here, a very different view compared to the one you had of him.

Days before, when you were the one wearing the stupid shock collar and when Ren was the one in charge and had control over you, you would be the one crying, begging him not to do something really bad to you, struggling and conforming to his desires just so he could go a little easier on you.

It's funny how things can change drastically in the blink of an eye, huh?

Ren looked at you with frightened eyes, scanning you, perhaps trying to find some sign of weakness that he could use against you and make you drop that completely crazy idea, but he didn't find anything.

“P-Please, how about we do something else? I-I'll do anything you want, anything!”

Oh, poor little Ren.

You clicked your tongue in disapproval, shaking your head slightly from left to right in denial, eyes closed and a too-happy smile plastered across your face. You even chuckled a little! Something Ren had never seen before and which would have been a wonderful moment if he hadn't found himself in the situation he was in.

What's so bad about this? Compared to what he's already done to you, he should thank you from the bottom of his heart.

“Oh, Ren…”, you brought his small body closer to yours, the dildo being pressed against his belly and cock, which for some very interesting reason was hard. “You say something, but your body clearly says something else. Tell me, are you secretly into this kind of thing?”

“N-No! No, I'm… not”, fucking liar, you can tell he's lying through his teeth.

“Oh? Well, it doesn't matter. It's not like you'd care about my opinion if the roles were reversed”, you moved your body away a little to point the tip of the phallus at his hole, releasing one of the hands that was holding one of his legs so you could guide yourself inside him. “You'll stop complaining in a second”

The object wasn't lubricated, and you hadn't even bothered to lubricate Ren to receive you. It's all dry and pure and raw, just like he always did with you.

You didn't give him space to say a word before brutally shoving the object inside his hole, receiving a high-pitched scream that sounded like an animal in pain and pushing his body lightly onto the bed.

“S-STOP, STOP IT! IT HURTS!”, he shouted a few more times with that same high-pitched tone of voice, which was genuinely starting to piss you off due to the agony it caused to your ears.

“Oh, shut up! It's not even that hard, stop being difficult!”, you ignored his screams of pain and pulled the dildo out, the movement not being as smooth due to the fact that you hadn't used lube. “You can take it. Stop acting like a… girl”

You had no other words to describe him nor did you bother to think, returning to the work of sticking the phallus once more inside his hole.

Ren was panicking, his breathing was shallow and fast and desperate, his body trying to escape the invasion of having an object forced inside him so roughly and suddenly, his hands unable to do anything about it, with some lines of blood already forming on the skin of his wrists from the steel.

All the beastkin could do was twitch his legs, and his legs he twitched every time the pain spread through his body, each nerve sending the sensation to another nerve until all he could feel was just that.

Your cheeks burned with lust and the power of being able to do something like this with Ren, your smile widening even further as you laughed maniacally at him, your chest burning with something akin to pride.

Proud to be doing this to him, proud to be able to respond in the same way he did to you.

Ren continued screaming, his body still trying to resist the abuse, tears forming in the corners of his eyes, which didn't dare open to look you face to face. He was scared, being violated, trapped by you, a fox in the palm of your hand.

“It hurts, doesn't it? It hurts when it's with you”, you punctuated with a rough, deep thrust, moving your hands to hold him at the hips to keep him in place. “It's kind of nice... to see you getting the same treatment you did to me, and probably to other people”

You didn't want to hear it, but a little voice in the back of your head told you that you were going too far with all of this. Sure, he's a little bastard, he forced you to kill a man, shocked you multiple times, raped you in the basement, and inflicted your skin over and over again-

Actually, when you think about it, he more than deserves this. This is more than justified for you and others, and you really don't want to kill the mood by suddenly changing your mind because of moral values.

You kept moving again and again for a while, getting the same animal reaction in pain as the other times, but slowly dying down little by little. Maybe because he had already used up all his energy, or maybe because he realized there was no point in continuing to fight.

The movement of Ren's legs also died, leaving only the rivers of tears that formed in his eyes, which finally opened to look at you and-

Fuck, you think he's beautiful like this, but you also feel a pang in your heart when you see him so worn out.

“I-I’m sorry…”, he speaks weakly as you continue to move, genuinely taking you by surprise.

You suddenly stop, your gaze remaining fixed on his, your mouth half open in surprise. “What?”

You seriously weren't thinking about stopping just because you saw him cry and apologize, right?

“What did you say?", you asked again, paying attention to his facial expressions, trying to discover any malicious intention behind the words.

“I-I said... I'm sorry", and he repeated it again, ears flat against his head, a wet trail formed on either side of his face by tears.

You're not gonna lie... You feel bad seeing this. You're not a monster, you're not someone who does these kinds of things just for pure sadistic pleasure. You are not like him.

Still, you can't just change your mind because he apologized! Anyone would do that in this situation, you can't be that soft-hearted-

“Ssshit, I'm sorry. I-I think I exaggerated a little"

well, shit.

Just as you were about to remove the dildo from inside Ren, you are unexpectedly stopped by him.

“N-No, I mean… You can go on, really, just... go easy on me”

You make a confused expression at his request, not knowing if you want to stop because of what you witnessed or continue because he is strangely cooperating now.

Ren senses your uncertainty and change of heart and decides to put his word in. “I-It's okay, it's just... the way you do it. It's too rough”

Too rough, he says.

“So, what should I do?”, you feel like a child asking an adult how to do the right thing. It's funny, considering you're a few years older than him.

For some odd reason, telling you how you should do it makes his cheeks burn with embarrassment, a completely different moment compared to what was happening minutes before.

“I would tell you to use lube, but I think you threw that idea out the window a long time ago”, you feel bad thinking that he most likely felt his insides tearing apart every time you moved. “Try to go... slowly, to make the movements smooth"

Slowly. Yeah, you can do that.

You breathe and concentrate on not going as rough as you did the previous times, making sure to hold onto his small body so he doesn't escape you. The difference is clear. You are gentle... and he doesn't let out a scream of pain when the phallus is inserted all the way inside him. Ren doesn't fight or cry or try to run away from the act this time.

He genuinely seems to embrace the feeling now, even though the pain may still be there.

“Is this better?", you ask right after doing so, not daring to move without first knowing the beastkin's word.

You can't help but feel stupid for now worrying about his opinion when you should be teaching him a lesson.

“Yeah, it's better”, he speaks softly, a little hoarse from all the shouting he did at the top of his lungs earlier. His tail touches your leg, the fur tickling your skin but not irritating you in the slightest. You welcome it. “Can you… kiss me now?”

“Kiss you?”, you are surprised by his request, but try to play it cool as you remember that you asked the beastkin about how you should do things the right way in the first place. “I mean, sure... If that's what you want”

You feel hesitant at first, a little nervous about kissing him. Why are you nervous? You've never felt this way before. Maybe the reason is because this moment feels more intimate, delicate, and you really don't want to spoil the mood.

You touch Ren's face, gently running your fingers over the soft skin, unconsciously wiping away the trail of tears that were still present, kind of feeling bad about how much he had cried. Feeling bad that you were the reason behind it.

He's so soft, so small, as if he could break at any moment, especially in your hands.

You bring your lips closer to his, first testing your skin against his, giving light nibbles to spice things up, always careful not to be too rough after what he's been through. You feel your heart flutter inside your chest as you feel him respond, but of course he does, in a way as sweet and calm as yours.

You feel encouraged to move your hands over Ren's body, touching each scar with care and affection, outlining the wounds with adoration. He trembles at the contact, his muscles initially tensing, then giving way to relaxing under your caresses. You gently ask for entry with your tongue and are answered by him opening his mouth, entering it with confidence and ardor.

He tastes good... Fuck, he tastes good.

You don't need any further instructions and just start moving in and out at a steady, calm pace, feeling the movement more fluid as he opens up to you in more ways than one.

This is good. It's easy. You can do it easily.

[rxvera]

There has been a lot of reports that suggest that there are Israeli/Jewish settlements in West Bank and most of West Bank area is controlled by Israeli Jews. Is it true or not?? And a last question like why unlike pushing settlements out of Gaza they didn’t do it in West Bank. Just a question.

Yeah, that's true. About 60% of the West Bank is under Israeli control. I'm not an expert nor a politician, so don't use me as your main source, but I can give you the broad strokes. There's a lot of historical context and reasoning behind why the occupation has happened the way it was, but most widely it was a result of the Six Day war and the ICOJ's confirmation.

Right now, besides the violation of international law, the most pressing problem with this is that these occupied regions are under primarily martial law. This leads to unfair legal treatment and militant violence (although a large part of the violence is civilian as well). This causes a lot of problems for Palestinian civilians.

There are several reasons that Israel has not pulled out of the West Bank. First is that it would be logistically challenging depending on what route they took. If they removed every Israeli citizen, that would be kicking 450,000 people from their homes (670,000 if you include East Jerusalem), many who have lived there for several generations. Second is basically terrorism. There is a lot of terrorist activity and islamic extremism in West Bank. It would be a security risk to pull all control. The third reason is symbolic/religious reasons. Although, I think it's more important to focus on the functional reality, history, and human lives, than waste time about who deserves what based on what an old book says.

The validity of these claims depends on who you believe. I think the risks and challenges are real, but I also don't think the settlements are right. It's complicated because I think everyone deserves to live safely and displacing people is wrong, but there's so much violence and finding a solution is difficult.

I definitely think point blank pulling all occupation and removing Israeli civilians would end very poorly for everyone. I want Israeli civilians to have security, I don't want to create more hate and violence, and I also don't want an Islamic extremist militant group to take over like they did in Gaza. My aunts are Palestinian-Israeli escapees of Hamas' regime and I do not want anyone else to be subjected to that. I also do not think it's okay what Israel has done to Palestinians in the West Bank.

Overall, anon, I would takeaway that it's a complicated situation with a lot of problems and there's no simple solution that would make everyone happy.

I would recommend trying to avoid sources that make accusations/input opinions when talking about this and try to focus on ones that are purely informational. Even Wikipedia is tricky because it's been updated with a lot of opinions due to informational warfare (but I could talk about the problems of Wiki all day lol). Don't demonize either ethnic group based on this one issue/conflict. No group is wholly responsible for the actions of a few, and that mentality is really what got us into this whole mess.

And to everyone reading, this is just my basic description of the situation as your average person. I'm not the government. I'm not the Knesset. I have no power over the situation. And there will certainly be little value at getting angry with me if you disagree with something I have said.

[dragonsandphoenix]

Raising Your Husband in Danmei

So I've been in the danmei fandom for about 5 years at this point. During that time I've mostly hung around in international fandom spaces, since I'm not a native Mandarin speaker. But I do occasionally dabble in Chinese fandoms simply because the options for novels in English speaking danmei fandom are too limited. Once you've done that you familiarise yourself with many tropes and fandom slang that is so common in Chinese fandoms. They seem to be able to categorise any genre or trope with scientific precision. I'm by no means an expert so if I've gotten anything wrong feel free to correct me. I just wanted to talk about this one trope that I've come across on occasion but never really looked too deeply into. The idea came to me after reading this post, which features the AU idea of Xie Lian raising a little Hong'er. And it made me think of a few other danmei novels that also involve one of the main leads living together and raising the other, usually since they were young. If this concept makes you feel uncomfortable, then feel free to stop reading. TW's of every kind basically.

Raising your love interest or 养成

So while I've kind of seen this term used for danmei novels, I don't know where I first saw it. According to Baidu, the term's actual meaning is to "cultivate so that something can form or grow". 养成系 or "cultivation system", another internet slang term I see, is usually used to refer to "the development of idols" and in games to "cultivate a virtual character to become their ideal state". In the context of danmei novels, it means a story where the two leads have a significant age gap, and the plot revolves around the older one raising the younger and then they become lovers when they're older. Without mincing words, they're basically like grooming novels. Except where grooming in real life is a crime, in danmei fiction, the fantasy is seeing a male character having to be put in a nurturing position, and the other male character having to be dependent and become attached to his guardian not out of feelings of attraction at first. Just like most things in the genre, it's all about the moe factor. Also, a lot of it is unintentional grooming because usually the older character doesn't even realise the younger's budding romantic feelings until much much later. There may be time skips where they're separated and spend years apart, and incest or pseudo-incest may be involved.

Anyway, here are some popular examples listed under the trope that I know through going through lists of 养成 novels compiled by fans (basically I went on 小红书/red note and searched 养成系双男主文 or something):

Scum Villain's Self Saving System by MXTX

Yeah, quite a number of comments in XHS when discussing this trope will be like "oh you're talking about SVSSS right?" I guess any shizun fucker novel could qualify following that logic, but to be honest, we see so little of the "raising" in this one that I'd consider it light 养成.

大哥 or Older Brother aka Unknown by Priest

Another popular recent example that I keep seeing mentioned. It tracks, the MC adopted the ML and literally raised him. I haven't finished the drama actually (I'm sorry, I really should). Pseudo-incest too since they're adopted brothers.

落不下 or Can't Be Left Behind by Yousa

The incest danmei. Also maybe the only 年上 (top is older than the bottom) danmei with this trope that I like. Here the older brother actually intentionally grooms the MC. At least that's my reading. Theirs is a fucked up, intense and passionate relationship that compelled me nonetheless. I've seen this be described as gay Flowers In The Attic and while I haven't read the latter I'm definitely picking it up due to how much I loved this novel.

龙血 or Dragon Blood by Shui Qian Cheng

Adopted father/son. One of my faves from this author. Action thriller about a mercenary who finds a child in the middle of the jungle and trains him to be a mercenary, and the child turns out to be a secret government experiment who can turn into a mutant dragon hybrid. Good stuff. Hot smut too.

And that's it! There are a few more that I know of, but haven't read so I can't really vouch for them. Hopefully this reaches at least 5 of you filthy danmei fans out there.

[the-90s-music-colosseum]

(Wall of text warning, sorry! I have so many Damon posts saved for when the time came, now I don't know how to disperse them!) This is meant to be more of a five-mile view of Damon's "prettiness," band history more than personal opinion for the most part, but of course that'll never be entirely removed from it.

We're not wrong to laugh at his "it's difficult to be taken seriously when you're a prettyboy" quote, but he really wasn't the only person who thought it at the time; Damon was so pretty that it was regarded as an issue, and it redefined the way the band was marketed, the style of music they were pushed toward, and the way they were treated. Interviews were at times awkward as blushing hosts blurted out how he made them nervous, or took a gossipy tone about his looks and personal life over the music. On occasion they were introduced in pretty crass ways-- one that springs to mind is "the crotch-moistening Blur"-- even when expressing fairly little sexuality in the actual music. Whenever the stage was in reach of the audience, Damon was an object of devastating desire, cried for and groped and clung to no matter how serious the song, no matter how strung out or dead behind the eyes he looked. (I'm not criticizing fans for being eager or having certain expectations based on evolving performance styles through their career, and I think there's a complicated history of bands including Blur doing some distancing from fans themselves, but you do notice how... out of sync the energy can feel at times.)

Damon once spoke of getting rid of all the mirrors in his home (I believe around the same time he first shaved his head, but I don't have the quote/year on me at the moment) and stated that it gave him a sense of clarity to be free from seeing his reflection, and instead he would simply "know who I am." I'm sure his full feelings and motivations are complicated, but he seemed to rebel against his own looks just as often as (and in the end, more than) he took advantage of them.

This excerpt really sums it up, and features an especially great quote from Dave at the end. Sure, many people are pretty, but are they pretty enough that their bandmates advocated for mutilating them?

"The prettiness thing has been a problem. Damon Albarn is one of those people who is supernaturally handsome. He has the upturned nose of an aristocratic 16-year-old girl and big lips, which he licks a lot with a big, fleshy tongue. And, of course, there’s the eyes: fields of bluebells on a summer’s day. But people have a natural distrust of the unbearably pretty. So, in an effort to override the looks issue and get taken seriously, Damon took the objectionable route. In the early days he’d throw up on stage; he’d clamber like a deranged chimp over towering speakers and amps before hurling himself kamikaze-style into audiences; he’d come out with outrageous statements.

As Dave Rowntree, Blur’s drummer, once contemplated, “We should’ve taken a Stanley knife to him in the beginning and things would’ve been oh-so-different.”" - Minx Magazine, 1999

...And no, the irony of discussing this during an attractiveness tournament is not lost on me! Despite the context a younger audience sees him through I don't think of Damon as truly "Instagram pretty," but rather, that perceived shallowness we saw in his sun-kissed face and ski-slope nose became something of a mask on top of a mask on top of a mask, and neither the audience not the subject could settle on the reality because he could never stay comfortable. He wanted to be a pop philosopher, then he wanted to be an unbridled manic youth, then he wanted to be the untarnished English everyman, then he wanted to be the poet of the mundane, and all the while he so fully believed himself to be an artist in the skin of a celebrity; he wanted to be the songwriter to give voice to cruel and universal beauty and not just be the face of it... but he was, really. Maybe he was all of it, maybe none, it just depends on how you see it. His looks, and specifically the type of "obvious beauty" he had, are part of what makes him an interesting (if not necessarily always likable-- and hot take, I don't need him to be) figure I think, because Damon was not the male-fantasy protagonist who "didn't know she was beautiful." He was so aware of it that it made him neurotic and defensive and bizarre, and none of that seemed to change everyone around him having a fixation on it as well. 30 years since their debut, the conversation around Damon still fixates on it.

...Note that this doesn't mean I won't still be sending in prettyboy propaganda. Hey, he was one whether he appreciated it or not.

Very different world it would've been if Dave wasn't joking!