#i got super religious on her all of the sudden

[stillagoodwitch]

i spent sooo much money on this random cat my mom is so mad

[prolix-yuy]

Crawling Back to You

Pairing: Incubus!Dieter Bravo x Virgin F!Reader

Summary: Have you no idea that you're in deep?

Word Count: 8.2k

Warnings: Explicit, 18+ MINORS DNI, religious corruption kink, bastardizing prayers, brief drug use, mentions of alcohol consumption, grinding, oral sex (f receiving), fingering, breaking a hymen, descriptions of blood, biting and drawing blood, pheromone incubus anatomy, size difference/kink like whoa, monster transformation, monster fucking, PiV sex, wildly unrealistic sex, kind of dubious consent in the way that she has no idea what she's getting into so Dieter checks in A LOT, consent is sexy and monsters especially should ask for it, Reader has no idea what she's doing when it comes to summoning an incubus.

Notes: Like most things Dieter's involved in, it takes twice as long but you reap the most rewards. A little late for Halloween, but spooky season is 24/7 and I needed to put this out into the world as soon as possible. Very special gold star mutual thanks due to @ezrasbirdie who gave me the prompt for this story and then talked me through some of the ideas she had. Religious corruption kink is super new for me, not being raised in a formal religion, but it was incredibly interesting to explore in this way. Apologies for the sacrilege, friends, it's all in the pursuit of sexyness.

A big disclaimer! This is not a blueprint for losing your virginity! This is some wildly unrealistic sex, especially for someone who has never experienced PiV intercourse before! Please be safe and careful with your bodies. While we thirst over these scenarios and would love to take monster cocks, always practice safe and fun sex with partners who care about your comfort.

A second disclaimer that in this fic, the Reader defines losing her virginity as experiencing penetrative sex and breaking her unbroken hymen. Virginity does not look the same for every person, and each individual's circumstances may be very different. Virginity is also a social construct that has some gross stigmas around it, which we'll be briefly addressing. I've also kept the reader's age unspecified (18+ of course) but that she has gone to college, so whatever age you may be reading this, your own sexual journey moves at your pace and if/when you define that you've passed this milestone, that's the right time for you.

Cross-posted on AO3

The lines chalked into your hardwood floors glow with a sudden and panic-inducing heat, smoldering as a phantom breeze whips around your kneeling body. The lights in your apartment flicker and dim as a sooty haze hangs around your ankles. Springing to your feet, you frantically search for something to smear the careful symbols to nonsense while a crackle of electricity raises all of the hair on the back of your arms and neck.

It’s much too late to go back now.

Something pulls in the center of your chest as the room expands and contracts like a great beast breathing. You try to stand strong but the tremble in your frame chatters your teeth. Suddenly the room plunges into darkness, and a crack echoes in your ears before the light swells back to full strength. Bracing yourself for what may be in the circle you foolishly copied, you peel open your eyes. 

Then, your mouth falls open, because never in your wildest dreams did you expect Dieter Bravo, famous actor, to be sitting in the middle of your half-assed summoning circle.

“What the fuck?”

He looks just as bewildered as you do, cross-legged on the floor and pulling his lips from a turquoise bong cradled in his lap. He’s wearing sunglasses - did you spirit him here from halfway around the world? - and an open silk bathrobe patterned with roaring tigers. The waterfall of folds bundle in his lap, and for a mouth-drying moment you wonder if he’s got anything on beneath. Then he shifts, billowing a cloud of skunky smoke at your ceiling and placing the bong at arms length. 

Well, he is wearing socks at least, pulled halfway up his legs and under Crocs. You don’t know whether to laugh or choke on your tongue.

“What the fuck to you too,” he grumbles, creakily getting to his feet and dusting little frills of ash from his shoulders. It’s now easy to see he’s sporting tiny black boxer briefs, and your eyes fight to land anywhere but there. They finally find the book, opened to the page you scoffed over until your finished glass of wine goaded you on.

“This can’t be happening,” you finally squeak out, shifting on the balls of your feet as you spin and press your fingers into your cheeks. 

“Sure is,” Dieter says, one hand on his hip and looking at you with naked curiosity. He’s swept back the robe on one side, showing off the shapely curve of his thigh, the soft definition of his stomach, how large his hands…

“I didn’t…I couldn’t have…you…go back,” you stammer, heart and head pounding. Does this mean you’re a witch? Did you honestly summon something with a book you rented from the library? Nothing makes sense with this man staring at you - practically leering - as you contemplate whether you’re having a dusty-old-book-based hallucination.

“Breathe, baby,” Dieter purrs, hands making soothing motions in the air between you. Taking in a big breath and letting it out explosively, you follow Dieter’s motions to sit down with him. The floor is hard and unforgiving on your bottom, but you criss-cross-applesauce with him as he leans back on his hands.

“Normally when I show up, people aren’t all that surprised,” he says, and his voice is raspy and sonorous in the room. You swallow hard, finding comfort in twisting the hem of your pajama shirt in your palms.

“Well, it’s pretty damn surprising to have THE Dieter Bravo in my living room,” you say, a momentary swell of pride when you realize your sarcasm hasn’t flown the coop with your sanity. Dieter chuckles, tilting his head onto one shoulder.

“Who were you expecting?” 

“Honestly, no one. Nothing,” you lie. Half-lie. You were hoping for something pretty specific.

“Very cute, but let’s not pretend we don’t know what’s going on here. I know exactly what you were hoping would pop up in this pretty little circle of yours.” 

Your eyes wander to his inner thigh, then snap to a symbol on the floor. 

“I thought…” You sigh, ducking your head. “I thought I was summoning some sort of…sexy demon. At least that’s what the book said.” 

“An incubus,” Dieter offers, and you nod. 

“But clearly something went wrong, because you’re here, somehow.” You scrub a hand over your face. “No idea how I messed up this bad. I didn’t even know you could mess up this badly.”

“Oh, you didn’t,” Dieter says in a carefree voice. “Mess up, that is.” You arch an eyebrow at him.

“But I got…you.”

Dieter leans forward, elbows on his knees as he cocks his head with a knowing smile. In the dim light of your apartment his eyes seem even darker than before.

“Exactly what you asked for. At your service.” He tips his head, tongue slipping from between his plush lips to swipe along his full lower one. A sudden patter of arousal grips your hips, and he half closes his eyes and breathes deep.

“That can’t…you’re Dieter Bravo.”

“Yes.”

“You’re an…incubus.”

“Also yes.”

The next question blurts out of your mouth too quickly to stop.

“Why?”

His laugh is just as quick and breaks some of the tension digging into your spine. The warmth of it wraps your head in cotton, smiling along. 

“Oh, starlet, I should be pissed as hell to be pulled away from that fantastic party I was about to ruin, but this is turning out to be much more fun.” Your cheeks warm at the affectionate name. “How many people do you think summon incubi these days? A demon’s gotta get by.” He’s sliding closer to the edge of the circle but not moving past it. A small voice in the back of your mind notes that he might not be able to.

“So…acting,” you say, not without a little smirk. He seems to like that, smile stretching wider and crinkling the corners of his eyes.

“What, should I be slinging burgers?” he asks with another snort of laughter. “C’mon, don’t tell me it doesn’t make sense. Beautiful people, sex appeal galore, fast living and high octane relationships? I haven’t been hungry in ages.”

Your hands still in your lap, studying your fingers as you let the silence linger. Dieter allows it for a time before his voice pulls you back.

“But you summoned, and I came. You must have a reason.” 

Now that the silly half-buzzed fantasy is mere feet from you, saying it aloud is daunting.

“You’ll…you won’t get it.” 

His eyebrows lift in slow surprise. 

“Try me.”

You're turned on more than you’ve ever experienced in your life, and Dieter’s nostrils flare as his jaw ticks.

“I was having a drink. A couple,” you correct, the dregs of the bottle giving you away. “And I was just hating the way I was feeling about everything going on and I looked at this book and it seemed like a funny thing, to try and summon a demon…”

“Incubus, get it right,” Dieter purrs, and the air thickens.

“I didn’t think it would work,” you protest, hands coming up to cradle your temples. 

“But you hoped, enough to do all this work on the one day of the year when magic is easiest to grasp,” he teases, tilting his head to the side to catch your eye. It’s definitely not helping the situation that he’s Dieter Bravo, solid C-list star who’d captured your attention in more than one of his movies. Thoughts of his dark eyes and full lips drew your hands down your body on more than one occasion before…

Dieter growls low and frustrated. “Let’s cut to the chase, starlet. You’re laying out a buffet and I can’t even have a taste.” You blink owlishly at him before he smirks, licking an incisor. “I can smell how much you want me.”

Shock slams your mouth shut, face burning. Your traitorous body has failed you again.

“You called and I answered. I’m still in your circle, so you could send me away, but I doubt you know how to do that.”

He’s right. You’ve trapped him here. With little old you.

“Or, you could tell me what you really wanted when you spent all this time writing all these little symbols so carefully.” Dieter’s fingers dance along the chalk lines, smile turning cheekier. Steeling yourself, you let the truth out into open air.

“I called you because…I’ve never had anyone before.” 

Dieter’s face remains cooly neutral, but you can see his nostrils flare briefly. 

“You’ve never…”

You shrug, self-deprecating smile cutting through the awkwardness.

“I’ve done some things, by myself, but never…I’ve never had sex with anyone in the…classical way.” The words are starched and wooden but hit a chord with Dieter. He repositions to sit back on his knees, hands splayed on his bare thighs. The smooth expanse of his chest begs to be touched.

“I thought I smelled something special here, and I was oh so right,” he rasps, nipping at his lower lip while he drags his eyes over your body. “Human virginity is a social construct, but inexperience in pleasure? Being allowed to revel in your body discovering all the ways it can feel? That is a rare treat.” 

You don’t expect the sudden rush of emotions at Dieter’s eagerness. Years of people either finding you broken or fetishizing your “purity” had given you an even larger complex than you thought. 

“It’s not…fucked up that I’m doing this?” you ask. 

“What sounds better to you, letting some Chad fumble through trying to pleasure you when his dick can barely handle your sweet cunt, or allowing someone with centuries of experience give you everything you ever desired?”

Your aforementioned cunt knows which one she wants.

“May I ask why you’ve waited until now?” he says, interrupting your railroading thoughts. Shyness and shame clouds your eyes.

“My parents were very religious. Lots of ‘thou shalt nots’ and ‘obey thys’. But I wanted to be a good daughter. So badly.” Dieter’s eyes are darkening as you speak, fingers pressing divots into his thighs. “So I did everything they said. Followed all the rules. And I grew up their perfect little girl. Never got caught sneaking out with a boy, never drank or smoked or anything.” 

“How…boring,” Dieter comments. It stings between your shoulders.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much all I heard when I went to college. That I was boring for not liking weed. A buzzkill because I was nervous about breaking rules. And sex…”

Here you swallow, your lower lip trembling before you bite it back. 

“I thought I was doing everything right. Everyone told me I was doing everything right. And then I get into the real world and nobody wants…” Looking up you catch a softer expression on Dieter’s face, true understanding blunting the lust.

“How have these fumbling fools tried to pleasure you?” he asks, and maybe the wine is still thrumming in your veins (it’s not), but your tongue is looser than it’s ever been.

“Grinding mostly. I think they’ve…cum…but I don’t. Not like when I do it myself.” 

Dieter snarls softly. “Fuckers,” he rumbles, an oncoming thunderclap crackled with electricity. 

“Every time I feel like I’m damaged goods,” you sigh, wrapping your arms around yourself. “I thought maybe this would…fix me.”

The lights in the room dip low as Dieter chuckles. Darkness seems drawn to him, settling around his shoulders like a fine stole.

“Betrayed by the God you worshiped so faithfully,” he muses, rolling his shoulders and licking his lips. “Don’t worry, starlet, I’ll take care of you tonight.”

“Can I…do anything for you?” you ask. Dieter’s smile softens, tutting quietly.

“Believe me, you’ll be perfect,” he praises, the heat in your cheeks even more unbearable. “Like I said, I’m rarely hungry anymore, but your arousal will be delicious. I’ll gorge myself on your peaks and leave you sated…and ruined for any after me.”

That should be a warning. It only makes your want greater.

“Okay,” you breathe out. Dieter’s smile widening again. Are his teeth…sharper?

“Now we can fuck to our heart’s content in this summoning circle here,” Dieter says, tapping his finger in the air. Motes of copper light and sparks rain down from an invisible barrier. “I’ve had more challenging obstacles. But if you would like me at my best, break the circle starlet.”

Standing back up, you retrieve a cloth from your kitchen table. When you return Dieter is standing in the center, prowling ever so slightly in his tiny prison. You move to wipe the line connecting the circle when…

“Are other celebrities incubi?” you ask, kneeling in front of him with open curiosity on your face. Dieter’s predatory smile quickly shuffles to confused and incredulous.

“I mean, maybe, I don’t keep close tabs.”

“Tom Hiddleston could totally be one. Or Robert Downey Jr. Heck, maybe Marvel just employs incubi to keep their revenue going…” Leaning down, you move to wipe the mark. 

“Strange little starlet,” Dieter chuckles, and a warm breeze tickles the back of your neck. With one swipe the circle is broken.

“Hannah Waddingham would totally be…” you start to say, nerves tumbling words from your lips, but thankfully Dieter’s stop them. 

He moves so quickly for a moment you’re sure he’s going to devour you, tear you limb from limb for imprisoning him. Instead he crashes your mouths together, hand firm on the back of your neck as his broad shoulders press you on your back. His hips slot between your thighs so smoothly you’re arching into them before you can think straight. Once your head is carefully lowered to the floor his hands find your wrists and press them above your head, maneuvering your thighs to wrap you around his waist. The dizzying feat of agility pales in comparison to his kiss.

Dieter commands your mouth to submit, tongue hot and lewd between your lips. You’re afraid you’ll choke on your own but he strokes delicate paths into the lush depths that keep you barely breathing. His lips are plush and yielding, pulling away to drag against the corner of your mouth or teasing the edge of your lips. And his teeth. You’d had boys clack against you, or press them harshly against your lips. Dieter knows exactly when to scrape them against your tongue, how much pressure to put with your lower lip trapped, the anticipation of them sliding against your skin before he dives in again. 

“What a soft, pretty thing you are,” he rasps, and there’s a deep grinding quality to his voice now. Like stones moving slowly past one another, it vibrates straight to your clit as he inhales deeply behind your ear. 

“Dieter…” you manage, his face lifting from his ecstasy to study your own. His eyes are somehow losing the edge of white, expanding into inky blackness. He lazily laps at his lower lip, and when you lean up to kiss his chin he snarls and presses deep into your apex.

“I’m sorry, starlet, I forgot you’ve been waiting to break promises,” he teases, sliding a hand down to knead at your ass. As quickly as you were laid out you’re suddenly in the air, legs wrapped around Dieter’s waist as he carries you out of your living room. His strength has you feeling light as a feather, barely a nuisance as he searches out a place for his plans.

“The bedroom.” You motion to a half-opened door and Dieter’s knowing smile precludes entering. 

“Eager, aren’t we? What if I wanted to lay you out for everyone to see?”

The image of your body laid bare, covered in moonlight and monstrous hands, flutters your eyes as the bedroom door shuts behind you.

“No, tonight you will remain in my confessional,” he says, kneeling down on the bed and letting you fall back into the mess of pillows and sheets. 

“You’re very fond of religious metaphor,” you rib, rubbing your thighs together as Dieter sheds the robe and his Crocs, a brief moment of clarity bubbling a giggle up your throat. Dieter’s motions slow as he regards you again, kneeling between your legs.

“Maybe I am rather fond of…corruption,” he husks, the word lighting on your skin like sparks. “Maybe I like seeing you forsake all for me.” 

If he asked, you just might. The high of his attention is so great.

“But in this moment, what I mean is we will speak no lies in this room.” His hands trail down your thighs, and now your body remembers it has no experience from here. You shake, heart pounding as Dieter crawls up your body with only brief brushes to guide his way. “My promise is that you will know pleasure as great as I can offer. And you will tell me everything you think, and feel.”

He hovers over your body, broad enough to block the paltry light through your window.

“Would you like to be pleasured?”

“Yes, Dieter, please.” 

His smile is wicked, and the scrape of his fingernails up your ribcage arches your back. In a fluid slide of his fingers your shirt is over your head and tossed into darkness, leaving you bare-chested under him. He hums with appreciation as his face descends, curved nose dragging along your tender skin. Time hangs in the balance as you tense for what may come, but Dieter only traces dizzying paths with the tip of his nose and the fullness of his lips. Up one side of your ribs, placing kisses at intervals, then along the underside of your breast. His hot breath warms skin, nipples hardening sharp and sensitive at the scratch of his facial hair. Then down the center of your stomach, a long and cyclical detour around your bellybutton. Stomach trembling, he hushes you as his fingers slide under your waistband and bunch your sleep shorts and underwear in his hands. 

Another fluid drag and you’re nude, still swimming in endorphins at Dieter’s skilled touch. It’s only when hot palms wrap around your knees and begin easing them apart do you balk. Instinctively you clamp your legs together, heat flooding your face. Dieter tuts, smoothing his hands up and down your jittery thighs.

“What are you afraid of, starlet?” he asks, ghosting his fingers over the apex of your sex. Just the brush against your mound steals your voice, that same hot shame and anxiety pulling you in on yourself. When you don’t answer, Dieter commands more firmly, “Look at me, sweetheart.”

Dragging your eyes from the ceiling back to him doesn’t help. He’s all mischievous eyes and knowing smiles, pressing a kiss to both of your knees as he rests his chin on them. 

“I can make it easier for you,” he says, fingers finding a soft crease in your hip and stroking along it. “Give you something for the nerves, for any pain. I’ll only let you feel good here with me.” 

You take two more grounding breaths and ease the pressure on your knees.

“”Sorry, I’m just…no one’s ever…” you say, but before you can explain your woeful inexperience he’s wedging his way between your legs and holding your thighs open in his firm tight grip. 

“I’m the first to taste this forbidden fruit?” he asks, and you clench involuntarily. He waits as you gather yourself enough to nod. A deep, dark chuckle falls from his lips. “Starlet, you have no idea what you’re in for tonight.”

The question claws up your throat but no sooner has he glanced at your pussy he’s diving in to press his tongue deep and sweeping through your folds. The velvet slither arches your back off the bed, a strangled cry earning a satisfied hum between your legs.

“Holy shit, Dieter, oh my god,” you rasp as he flicks his tongue in fast swipes over your clit. It’s foreign and taboo, so much wetter and softer than your fingers and you can barely stop your hips from bucking into his mouth. One hand presses you down to the bed, his chin tilting up to catch your eye. Slick shines his mouth, and your pussy throbs when you realize his eyes are the shiny black of nightmares and creatures used to the dark. 

“No god here, sweetheart. Only me. Only take my name in vain,” he growls, and the rush of blood in your ears speeds up when you realize the hand pressed on your abdomen spans the width of your hips. Black-tipped claws indent the flesh, prickling your skin just shy of pain. Dipping low again, Dieter swirls at your entrance and prods in, nose pressed tight to the button of your pleasure. The supple stretch is unfamiliar, pulling at a primal need to let him fill you. It tightens your thighs and shudders you against him as he forces you down again, the bite of claws a sharper warning. His jaw doesn’t stop, plunging and delving into you as deep as he can manage. 

“Dieter, it’s never…oh fuck, it’s never felt this good before, please…please, I can’t stand it,” you beg, a rush of slick coating his tongue. Now a true snarl seeds your cunt, and in the charcoal dark his silhouette thickens, shoulders broadening under your knees. He pushes you further up the bed, pulling even greater cries from your chest. Dragging his tongue from your sopping hole, he sucks greedily on your clit, hands wrapped around your waist to lift you half off the bed. Suspended and flowing with arousal, your hands unclench from the sheets and circle his wrists. The skin is hot under your palms, and they dig deeper in at your scrabbling touch. It’s not enough, so with a boldness you pull from a dizzying depth you bury your fingers in his curls. 

At first touch they’re soft. Long enough to wind around your fingers. You give a gentle tug and swear you feel a shudder around you. But as you bury them deeper another sensation tickles your palm. Something unyielding and curved, smooth like bone. Two protrusions fit in the webbing of your thumb and forefinger, short enough that the blunt tip brushes your knuckles. Horns, you think. A demon is eating me out and he has horns. And where you might have tried to wake yourself from a nightmare at this thought, instead you wrap your fingers around them and tug.

Like lightning something changes in Dieter. His lips tear from you with a roar that fills the room, your mind, spreading like forest fire and drying your mouth out. You hold on as he drops you back to the bed, the sound still ripping from his throat. Then there’s pain, supernova-like in intensity and scorching through arousal and fear. Your eyes snap down to Dieter’s mouth, but it’s no longer defiling your pussy. It’s clamped hard on your inner thigh, air puffing sharply through his nose. The pain radiates, and you realize he’s bit you. Not an overzealous love bite, you can feel the puncture of incisors and pump of blood into his mouth, the same pattern as your racing heart. Your hands release his horns, pushing you up as your mouth drops open in horror. 

“Dieter,” you gasp, but with his horns released the pressure abates. His eyes open slowly, catching your terrified face. The curve of his brow morphs from surprise to apology to determination. Then a thumb presses firmly to your clit and circles it, washing pain away with pleasure teetering right on the edge. His fangs remain in your thigh as you stare at him, incredulity on your face but pleasure rocking your hips. He adds pressure to the bite again, speeding up his fingers as your brain struggles to differentiate one from the other. 

Then, just as your spine begins tingling and your fingers go numb, one slick finger penetrates your cunt, smooth and deep, barely noticeable compared to the symphony of sensations. Like a reward, Dieter gives you the final stroke that crashes your orgasm over him, slamming you back to the bed as pain and pleasure and shame and exhilaration floods your brain. You barely register Dieter’s jaw releasing, fingers working you through your orgasm as the slow laps of his tongue lull you back to your body. Every muscle quivers, attempts to sit up failing twice before you manage to come up to your elbows. 

Between your legs Dieter is pressing devotions to the spot he bit, open-mouthed kisses with peeks of tongue soothing the injury. His finger is still inside, a lazy caress of your walls foreign but not unpleasant. Finally he lifts up to his knees and turns his attention back to your face.

“I’m sorry, starlet, you got me a little too riled up there. I’ve fixed it, but you might be sore tomorrow.” A bloom of teeth circle your inner thigh, but no blood oozes out. You felt the pop, felt him inside you, and somehow he’s taken it back. “Can’t have you injured because of me, not very professional.”

“I hope it stays,” you pant, fingertips tracing the dark marks. The tenderness arcs down your spine. 

“Fuck, you’re made for sin, starlet,” Dieter purrs, and now your attention can turn back to him. Grounding yourself with a healthy, “oh fuck,” is the only way you can fathom what he’s become.

He towers over you even kneeling, broad body only more tantalizing as he’s grown in stature. The well-known triangle tattoos you’d seen in paparazzi photos are joined by swirling patterns up and down his arms, concentric rings and text you can’t read patterning his skin. Where only wild curls were before now jut two smooth horns, curved away from his face and looking suspiciously similar to a goat’s. His skin almost steams in the room, wisps of smoke or condensation haloing his silhouette like an ominous aura. 

Then his hand flexes again and you realize how full you are with just one finger inside, even observing how thick and wicked they’ve become.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, and there’s only a hint of teasing now as he works his finger inside.

“It’s…okay,” you gasp, staring at the place where you’re connected. His thumb ghosts over your clit again, but so soon after your high it’s over sensitive, making you hiss and tremble. 

“Shhh, starlet, just relax. Thought it would be better to take advantage of the pain.” With a final stroke that lights up your nerves he slips out, holding his fingers up for you to see. They’re wet with your arousal and a little blood, a lot less than you thought. “Now that’s out of the way, we can take our time giving you the best fuck of your life.” With a knowing smile, he pops his fingers into his mouth and licks them clean. 

“Fuck, you really are…an incubus,” you say, acquainting yourself with the dull ache of your loss. There isn’t much fanfare, no swelling of emotion. If anything, breaking your hymen is probably the least memorable part of your night. Dieter’s smile falters briefly, and in a dizzying turn of events he shrinks back, closing in on himself. Ducking his head, you might think he was embarrassed, or shy. It looks stranger than the horns on him.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Touching the horns got me a little too worked up. Let me open you up on my fingers for a little while longer, that’ll give me enough time to…change back.” His smile is sheepish now, hands roaming your thighs and stomach. Instead of the skin-crawling terror you thought that would instill, you’re practically preening under his touch.

“Is this you? This form?” you ask, and you let your boldness move to your hands. You stroke your fingertips over his, investigating the smoothness of his claws, how the joints of his fingers are more pronounced than yours. He scoffs an uncomfortable laugh.

“Uh yeah, mostly. But you’ll have a lot more fun bragging that you lost your virginity to THE Dieter Bravo,” he redirects, shaking his head like he’s annoyed he’s not that man yet. 

In your brief and paltry handful of intimate moments, you never considered yourself bold. You’d let men touch you until your discomfort was too much, or your embarrassment pulled to the forefront. You never asked for the touches you enjoyed, or sought out the pleasures you dreamed of. But now, with a creature that’s endearingly vulnerable before you, your voice is finally strong enough to be heard.

“I’d like you to stay this way,” you say. Sitting up further, you skim your hands up his arms to cup his face. Your touch snarls his lip briefly before he settles.

“You can’t handle that, starlet. I’ve kept my human form reasonable, but you will not be able to take my cock,” Dieter husks. Tugging your wrist down to his waist, you palm him through fabric barely able to contain him. Thick and long in your hand, he drops his head and thrusts against you and gets bigger.

“Ruin me, then,” you whisper, filthy and naive into his ear. “I’ve waited all this time, saved myself for no one but you. Make me take no lover but you. Make me pray to you for ecstasy.” Leaning in to the metaphor rewards you. With a dangerous rumble he pushes you flat on your back, one hand wrapped around your throat.

“You want this, starlet? All of it?” he grits out, sickening cracks and pops echoing in the room. His hips force yours wide, planting his other hand by your head and carefully watching your face. The shine of his fangs whips your heart into a gallop, more ink dancing on his skin as he transforms from something beautiful to something magnificent. The room darkens perplexingly until you realize wings spread from his shoulders, thin light gleaming through the stretched web of skin. His aura crackles with molten motes, a whiff of fire and smoke making a home in your lungs. When he looks back at you, half familiar and half transcendent, his roguish smile brings one to your lips.

“Strange little thing, wet and ready for me,” he croons, removing his hand from your throat. A rip of stitching signals he’s as nude as you are now, and your eyes widen when the heavy length of his cock rests on your mound, curving past your navel and thicker than your hand can circle. 

“Say you want Dieter Bravo back, and I’ll have just as much fun wrecking you in that form,” he says, but there’s something cautious between you now. A shimmer of anxiety and distrust. You’re holding a thread of something truer than he intended to give you, and if you drop it you’ll never find it again.

“Can you help me make it feel good?” you ask, sliding your palms along his chest. Without proper pupils it’s hard to track his expression, but you think it’s awestruck.

“Of course, starlet. You’ve learned to cum from pleasure and pain, but I won’t have you suffer more than necessary.” Dieter leans down and cups your head, bringing your nose to his neck right where it meets his shoulder. “Breathe,” he instructs, and you inhale deep. Below the smoke and heat you smell sweet new earth, lush and fruitful. It makes your mouth water, clutching at his shoulders as he begins rocking his hips against yours. His monstrous cock slips in the wet mess between your legs, slicking the underside generously.

“Fuck, you arousal is so delicious, I could taste you for centuries,” Dieter whispers. Lifting up, he smiles at your dazed expression and wandering hands. They trace his features, lingering on his lips. “How are you feeling now?” 

You want him inside you, filling you up to bursting, to breaking. The need is hotter, all-encompassing. It’s surety that he won’t hurt you, that you’ll be shown pleasure beyond anything you’ve experienced. It’s lust but also trust. 

“Can you kiss me?” is what you say, and Dieter’s smile is a touch softer before he leans down and claims your lips. 

You swear you hear a hiss when he touches you, his skin scorching but not enough to burn. Parting his lips and nudging your jaw open, he traces the inside of your lower one with the tip of his tongue. One hand cups the back of your head, cradling you to his mouth, and with a forbidden thrill you realize his hands are now large enough that his fingertips caress the perimeter of your face. The threatening pressure of claws in your skin arcs arousal back in your cunt, winding your fingers into the curls at the base of his neck.

“Tell me if it hurts,” he orders, and with a magnificent beat of bat wings his silhouette glows with dancing light much like a breath sparking fire to life. The warm hue of his human skin has gilded to gold, tattoos moving along the dips and peaks of his body. Eyes black and fathomless, his smile is a lifeboat in a raging ocean. He lets the heavy weight of his tongue wet his lower lip as your eyes widen, hefty cock lifting from your mound to press at your entrance. Scrabbling fear overtakes you, and you clutch at Dieter’s shoulders as the pressure mounts. 

“Again, starlet,” he croons, but his voice is the rumbling of great stones moving over one another as you inhale deep of his scent. Cool water pours through your limbs, easing your muscles and letting your legs drop open wide. His other hand presses at your lower back and arches you off the bed, resting your thighs atop his own. Then, with a controlled push his head breaches you, wrenching a wrecked moan from deep in your chest. He stops as soon as he’s engulfed in your heat, the only betrayal of his own state residing in the long exhale of breath that tickles across your chest.

“Fuck, you’re so tight. Tell me if you need me to stop,” he grits out, but you shake your head and roll your hips. It’s sloppy, inexperienced, but he moves ever so slightly within you and it punches a groan from between Dieter’s clenched teeth. 

“Please, Dieter, more,” you beg, his claws tightening around you again. Another measured advance, another wail, more snarling and groaning from the creature stuffing himself inside you. Whatever aphrodisiac he’s fed you is working magnificently. You’re full, the pressure intense, but the pain is dull and quiet. He’s watching where you’re joined so closely, stretched obscenely around his cock, waiting for your thighs to unclench before backing out and pressing deeper in. 

“Touch your clit,” he gasps, “Rub that pretty clit so you can take all of me.”

Your fingers are nowhere as decadent as his tongue but they pull bursts of ecstasy close to the surface. Venturing a look down, you’re dismayed to see he’s barely halfway there, so much more of his pulsing cock still to take. He already feels like he’s in your stomach, battering against your lungs. Tears spring to your eyes, lower lip wobbling.

“It’s not going to work,” you whisper, and even with the knowledge that Dieter could turn human at any point you still wallow in the rejection you anticipate. Not good enough for anyone, not even the person you called for.

“Shhh,” Dieter soothes, easing you back down to the bed. He tugs over pillows to tuck under your hips before covering you with his body, still looking in your eyes even at his towering height. “Breathe. Do you want me to stop? I can let you rest, change back to my human form. If you can take all of this…” His hips twitch forward, a soft cry tumbling out. “...then you can take my human cock perfectly.” With a tenderness your eyes water for, he strokes his thumb along your cheek. “Do you want me to stop?”

It’s already so much, so intense and mind-blowing, but you can’t help yourself. 

“I want all of it, Dieter,” you say, consequences be damned.

Much in the same way touching his horns unleashed something in Dieter, hearing those words unlocks something even more primal and greedy in his face. Dropping down to his elbows, he presses your face against his neck. 

“Bite,” he orders, the word igniting every pleasure center in your body. “Hard, starlet, give me one as good as I gave you.” The words are barely out before you sink your teeth into the crook of his neck, but instead of blood or other ichor you’re flooded with pleasure. The sensation rips an orgasm out of you, hips bucking on his cock. You register Dieter pulling out to the tip before slamming his hips into yours, seating himself fully inside your throbbing cunt. You don’t know how your body makes room for him, how you’re not screaming (well, maybe screaming some), but he’s inside you and littering your body with, “oh fuck, oh fuuuuucks” as he swirls his hips. 

“I did it,” you coo in pleasure-dipped delirium, head flopping back on a pillow as Dieter starts thrusting into you in slow passes.

“You sure fucking did sweetheart, look at that perfect pussy taking my monster cock,” he praises, now sliding along your clit with focus. The overstimulation rolls right into desire again as your cunt learns how to gorge itself on pleasure. 

“It feels…good,” you say, bearing down on his thrusts to meet him with a little more force. He purrs in admiration, starting to speed up ever so slightly. 

“Yeah? Like how good you feel all stuffed full?” Dieter asks but it’s nonsense now, his focus pulling between your face and his cock pumping in and out of you. There’s a little more pain now, places where his cock brushes that zip sharp up your spine, but it’s far from unpleasant. In fact, you might like it. Maybe really like it. 

“More, Dieter. Want to feel you. Please,” you moan, restraint flickering in Dieter’s eyes. 

“Fuck, baby, you can’t say shit like that when I’m so deep in you, I won’t be able to…” His thought falls off as his thrusts speed up, a little more force at the end each time. It’s kissing at something devastating inside, something clawing its way to the surface through years of shame and dread.

“Please Dieter, I’ll beg for it. I’ll…” Your brain wraps around a wicked idea. “I’ll pray for it.”

That does the trick. Dieter’s lips curl back in a snarl as he rears up to his knees, wings spreading to fill the room with only him. Hands gripping your hips, he looks down at you not like a lover, but like a fallen god. 

“Then do it, starlet,” he challenges. His smile is cool, but his cock twitches in your cunt. You have him. 

“Glory be to you, Dieter,” you say, and hellfire light erupts around him. Dragging himself out of your cunt, he holds tight as a bowstring.

“And to your…fucking massive cock,” you continue, eyes rolling back as he fills you to the brim. “And to your true form, in all its beauty,” you add, softer now, drawing his eyes back up to you. Time hangs as he studies your face before dipping down and sealing your lips with a kiss that means too much for words. When he lifts away you finish the prayer.

“As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.”

Dieter’s smile glints.

“A-fucking-men,” he rasps, giving you just enough time to press your hands against the headboard before he starts railing you. 

You’re lost in pleasure and ache and sin and Dieter pounding recklessly into your cunt. His grip paints bruises along your waist, battering thighs marking the inside of your hips. His claws dig into your flesh and sharp scrapes tighten your nipples. Hands roam up over your breasts, around your neck, pressing your wrists into the bed as ominous splintering and cracks echo in your ears. 

“Another before I cum on your tits, sweetheart,” he pants, spitting down onto your clit and circling it with vigor. You cry out, hips bucking as the thickness of his cock impedes on your quivering walls. “It’s so close baby, just cum around me. Let me feel you cum on all my cock this time.” 

“I can’t,” you cry out, shaking and sobbing around him. Dieter tuts, his rapidly increasing slap-slap-slap of thrusts maddening. 

“You can, and you will starlet. You didn’t think you’d take my cock. I didn’t think you’d take it, and look at you now. So you’re going to cum. You’re going to cum now.”

The order shakes the room, pictures rattling on the wall as a final flick hurtles you off into oblivion with Dieter’s roaring triumph right behind. He’s somehow still fucking his cock into you even though you’re so tight it almost hurts to be cumming so good. A final crackling roar and you’re achingly empty, followed by a hot splash of cum across your stomach. Then another cresting your breast, and more and more until you’re covered in it, sticky trails sliding to pool in your bellybutton and drip over your sides onto the covers. Dieter is gasping above you, glowing like a sacred artifact as he pumps the last drops from his cock. 

You close your eyes once and it’s a mistake. As soon as you let your eyelids touch exhaustion grips you, fighting your desperate attempts to reopen them. It’s battling this bone-deep tired when you experience Dieter’s return to a human form. The horns receding, tattoos fading to just the ones that grace tabloid pages. The wings fold away, and soon a sexy as hell rumpled and soft body replaces the supernatural one. 

“Wore you out, starlet?” Dieter Bravo asks, kneeling between your parted knees with a rakish smile. You try to return it with a nod but your whole body is heavy, the mess barely bothering you. Dieter hums thoughtfully, and in a few moments a warm washcloth is cleaning up his cum.

“Side effect of my influence, helps a lot in the moment but it’s got some pretty strong sedative properties. Good for a speedy exit.” His chuckle sounds faraway now, even as you try to clutch at it.

“Stay,” you manage to croak out, hands seeking his body. You find his hair again, nose buried in your sex as he licks softly at your folds. The building ache there creeps back down to something dull and manageable.

“Our contract is up, can’t stay once you’ve given me what I’m owed.” Dieter’s lips start leaving small kisses along your abdomen, fingers soothing your skin. “Even if it was very, very good.”

“Please,” you try again, racking your rapidly puttying mind for anything to keep his hands on you. 

“Even when you say it so sweetly,” Dieter says, but there’s melancholy now. It glances off your fingertips as sleep pulls you under. 

In the between world of dreams, you think he says something more to you, but Morpheus snatches it away. 

Hail, starlet, full of grace, Dieter is with thee. 

This might be the silliest thing I’ve ever…well, hmm…

Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, all those delectable orgasms you gave me.

Holy starlet, bringer of…something special.

Pray for this sinner.

There’s blood on your sheets when you wake, though less than you expected. There’s also less pain, though the ache takes your breath away when you sit up too fast. Hobbling to the bathroom with the cool pink of morning light guiding, you inspect your body in the mirror. 

You don’t look much different than before. Some strange notion of losing your virginity making you suddenly appear “mature” is dashed away. Maybe there’s a little glint of a secret in your eye, but not much more. Actually, surprisingly not much more. You expected bruises, scratches along your body and love bites marring your landscape. Instead your canvas is unblemished, no marks or injuries to hide. It’s almost as if he’d never been there.

Sitting down on the toilet, you wonder if maybe he wasn’t. That you dreamt up debauchery due to food poisoning or someone spiking the punch at the Halloween party. You couldn’t possibly have summoned an incubus. 

A dark mark inside your thigh catches your attention, and any doubts dissipate. A ring of teeth, four larger fangs prominent, marrs the inside of your thigh. Brushing your fingertips over the circle, the skittering thrill of those memories settle in your chest. 

You ride on the endorphins for a few days, a handful of people noticing. A work friend tries to interrogate you on it but “a lady never tells” is a saucy enough reply for her to give an approving look. You buy a new bed online, the base of yours splintered to ruin, but you keep the cracked headboard like a souvenir.

Online dating doesn’t seem as daunting now that you’re not so worried about the dreaded “first time.” You even accept a few dates, meet some generally nice men with generally boring personalities. They don’t make your heart race like a certain celebrity whose name you googled briefly before slamming your laptop shut. They certainly don’t kiss like him, or make sexy little jokes or terrify you as much as intrigue you. 

So for a while you try to move on. There’s no other option, right? Dieter Bravo the Movie Star would never give you a second thought. Dieter Bravo the Incubus surely has better things to do, more lascivious living. So you try to find something even remotely like what you felt that night.

It’s mid-November when you find yourself sitting on your living room floor again, piece of chalk in hand. You lit candles this time, bought black lace lingerie, made yourself up to feel pretty. It doesn’t help your shaking hands as you pull the rug off the summoning circle. Touching up a few spots, you settle by the broken line where you released Dieter. It all popped off when you completed the circle last time, so with a deep breath and a swipe of the chalk, you reconnect the chalk.

And you wait.

And wait.

A bulb in a lamp flickers but it’s brief. An errant breeze almost snuffs out a candle. But nothing happens. Your knees are sore, eyes watering but you blink the tears away. 

It was a long shot, you have to admit. A fluke chance, never to be repeated. You’ll have to settle for something bland, safe, loving but…

Nothing like Dieter.

You’re about to get up from the floor when one other idea tempts you. Something you thought he might have said before leaving you ruined.

Pray for this sinner.

Clasping your hands in your lap, you close your eyes and take a deep breath. 

It’s been a long time since you last prayed.

“Dieter…” you whisper. The fine hairs on your neck rise up, but you press on.

“Dieter, I pray to thee,” you continue, closing your eyes. “Come to me in my hour of need.”

A pause, then a final entreaty. “Please.”

A rumble creeps into your body, tiny puffs of candles snuffing out reaching your ears. You dare not open your eyes yet, too hopeful for disappointment. Instead you wait, and hope.

A hot hand, thick fingered and human, slides up your chest, over your throat and cups your chin. Relief floods your body, melting back against a solid chest and chuckling lips.

“Hello, starlet,” Dieter croons in your ear, wrapping his arm around your waist and tucking his head into the crook of your neck. Your fingers search for curls, burying in his hair as you lace your fingers with his.

“You came,” you breathe, sparks igniting on your skin as he presses a line of kisses from your shoulder to your ear.

“How could I not, when you prayed so sweetly?” he teases, tugging you back to sit in the cradle of his crossed legs. “Smart of you to try the circle, but outside of all hallow’s eve you don’t have access to enough power for that trick.”

“But you came,” you repeat, turning your face into Dieter’s ministrations. He nips at the side of your jaw, soothing it with his lips before murmuring a confession into your skin.

“I hoped you would call again.”

A thick emotion swells in your chest, and you spin in his grasp to crash your mouths together. The momentum knocks him backwards to the floor, letting you straddle his waist and feast on his ample lips. His hands roam your back, reverent in their paths. When you break to suck in lungfuls of sweet air he leans up to mouth at your neck, possessive hand on your ass urging you to grind against him.

“Have you let anyone else fuck you?” he growls. To your delight the anxiety and trepidation that colored your first encounter is nowhere in sight. You smile wolfishly down at him.

“How could I? You’ve ruined me for any man,” you tease, and under your body he writhes, the whites of his eyes trading for inky black. “Plus, one time is hardly enough to know if I even like sex. I’ve barely begun to explore.”

The fangs flash between his kiss-swollen lips, and under the promise of any delight you desire you glimpse the even more exciting fondness that will draw you back to him again and again.

“Then we have a lot of work to do.”

END

Crawlin' back to you Ever thought of callin' when You've had a few? 'Cause I always do Maybe I'm too Busy bein' yours To fall for somebody new Now, I've thought it through

The Arctic Monkeys, "Do I Wanna Know?"

[milgram-tournament]

MILGRAM Best Song Tournament, Round 2, Match 4 TEAR DROP vs. BACKDRAFT

Propaganda for both options under the cut!

Propaganda for TEAR DROP:

"yuno kashiki enthusiast here anyways tear drop propaganda WE BALL

let's start off with the lyrics! holy fuck, i'm so glad yuno finally got to say what she's wanted to say!!

and she fully shows the fact that she does compensated dating through the lyrics ("the wanted wanting the wanted")

and even if it sounds like she's scolding the audience for the song, she's also scolding her clients! they only perceive her as a certain type of character and deciding that's all she is. She's upset that we decided based on how "naïve" she looked instead of her actual crime (to be honest, I could write a whole analysis into why her murder is perfect for her character anywa) and she doesn't care what will happen to her, she needs her opinions heard

also kinda rap section?? banger fr

THE VISUALS!! GOOD LORD THE VISUALS!!! THEY ARE SO BANGER!!! they're really pretty and gosh i literally don't know what to say, the scene where vampire is in the background and it transitions to yuno sitting on her bed... the pink tinted glasses (YES FUCK I LOVE THAT MAN!!!!) THE COAT!! THOSE INBETWREN SCENES i'm obbing

AND THE INSTRUMENTAL!! PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU ALL LISTEN TO THE INSTRUMRNTAL OF HER SONG THERES SO MANY SMALL DETAILS!! SIRENS, TEAR DROPS RAHHH THE CLAPS/CLICKING TJE TECHNO PIANO GUITAR??? THE INSTRIMENTS I CANT NAME I THINK THEY ALL HAVE SOME READON OF BEING IN THE SONG AND I WILL FIND OUT IN AN ANAKYSIS POST I JUDT LOVE IT AUEUEU

literally tear drop is the banger ever i listen to this shit religiously thank you for listening to my tear drop propaganda"

---

-Yuno’s voice. Enough said. -The imagery in the MV is brilliantly used, and doesn’t shy away from the horrors of Yuno’s line of work. -Vampire cameo!!! -Almost Lo-Fi vibes to the instrumental?? I can’t really explain it but it’s a vibe and I’m 100% here for it,

---

"For teardrop: The pink aesthetic in the MV as a whole makes it super nice to look at :D"

Propaganda for BACKDRAFT:

"Backdraft may be a minute shorter than Bring It On, but it’s still over three minutes long, and it makes up for the lost minute with a complex form. The “Pressure! Pressure!” might be the only part that truly repeats.

At the beginning, Fuuta is showing off, acting cool. Then the music slows down as he ponders his verdict. Then the music picks up the pace again and gets more and more frantic as the consequences of his actions catch up to him.

See that structure in the three distinct verses that sound nothing like anything else in the song: cool, contemplative, and “oh no, what have I done”.

The “chorus” (burn burn!) never stays the same. You’ve got the “cool” first chorus. Then you have the muted second chorus as it sinks in that Fuuta’s victim was a middle-school girl, which leads into the tense final chorus (which is twice as long as the first) as the victim and Fuuta both burn.

The instrumental and the spoken-word from the beginning combine in the end, changing the mood of the stanza from confident and showy to panicked and desperate.

And the words… You can hear the wordplay in the last stanza, even if you don’t understand it.

Appreciate this chaotic masterpiece of a song."

---

- Fuuta being very cocky at first before realizing how fucked he is (it is kinda funny) - The use of spray cans and overall graffiti symbolism, it’s so good - The multiple eyes and people off camera showing how paranoid Fuuta has become, it’s really well done without being obvious - The name backdraft meaning when a fire deprived of oxygen gets a sudden influx of it. A kind of metaphor for what Fuuta did. Then it being shown through a spray can explosion, aaaa it’s really cool! - Fuuta’s overall look changing, being more realistic on how he actually looks contrasting Bring It On’s idealistic version of himself - Es at the end!! The only time Es shows up in a prisoner’s MV!!! And they looks so damn cool - Also the entire eye thing referencing the audience, he perceives us lmfao

---

"Back draft is incredible because it not only has great visual symbolism with the use of the spray cans but its visual symbolism shows a progression from ‘Bring it on’. In ‘Bring it on’ the channelling is glorious , fuuta is surrounded by people and fuuta idealised himself (taller , better teeth , better posture ect) , the people he cancelled were portrayed as these powerful rpg monsters but now in back now the channelling is portrayed as vandalism a crime as destructive , the ally is empty we only ever see others as hands or his victim fuuta is alone and fuuta is no longer idealising his appearance and his mind is now portraying his victim as a harmless cutesy drawing. This shows a change in how fuuta views his crime between T1 and T2. It wasn’t glorious, it wasn't justified , he was at fault. The fire being recontextsied as something out of control , all consuming and out of control which is the opposite of how it was portrayed in ‘Bring it on’ we really see how the vote has changed fuuta."

"There are so many things in the song that show a progression "

-“ deliciously scorched till your mouth waters” > “I don’t want any more”

-fuuta spray paints the camera hen as the end es spray paints him/the camera

-the pressure graffiti changing

"There’s so many interesting details like the applause towards the start of the song , the personality in the subtitles like them going from “Burn , burn!” To “burn , burn?” But the pressure’s punctuation mark stayed the same:   “pressure , pressure!” , the way FIRE is the only word in full caps till LIES. The thumbs down fuuta does during “the fights up here! Come up to the ring and face me!” Part which is like his T1 art , the way the lighting changes from green towards the start and becomes red by the end (stop go colours) , The way fuuta is constantly interacting with the camera , spray painting it twice and kicking it."

"Backdraft actually makes amazing use of the camera , things are often shown from the (camera)audience’s perspective rather than us seeing the events removed. We are there like we are the ones doing it/looking through the eyes of the person doing it. When fuuta/the others spray paint the graffiti of his victim and the ice gorilla it's from the audience’s perspective , we don’t see them do it, we see it like we are doing it. When the spraypaint can explodes it's like it’s exploding in our face and then when es spray paints fuuta at the end they are spray painting the camera(audience). "

"Backdraft makes the most references to the voting system and uses it well to make the audience re-examine if they really are any different. Aren’t we using little information and inferences to hold people accountable for crimes we have no stake in? Aren’t we causing unintended harm? Aren’t we judging them from the safety of our screens? "

"And on a more silly level"

-ARTHUR CONANT GOES SO HARD IN THE VOCALS!!!! COME ON LISTEN TO BURN BURN AND TELL ME THIS MAN ISN’T GIVING IT HIS ALL!

-cat mouth fuuta :3 how can you not love cat mouth fuuta?

-lowpolydog designed amazing graffiti 

[remcycl333]

I got my first few (desired) results through states!

Basically, I’ve known about law of assumption for around a year now officially but I’ve known the idea and concept of it through subliminals for around 2 or 3.

I was never able to manifest anything I wanted but I never gave up on the law since I was desperate. I would affirm 24/7, listen to subliminals but all from a state of lack. I knew that I needed to assume that I already had it but it felt too hard so I just attempted to delude myself. I also kept the mindest from when I believed in Law of Attraction.

Eventually when I got into loa communities through twitter, tumblr, Reddit etc I thought the idea of states was stupid. I would ignore anything having to do with it since for so long since I believed you NEEDED to affirm, visualize, wtv to get results. I never understood it nor tried to understand it.

But it all changed when I came across your posts a few days ago, I saw states in a whole different light and it finally made sense to me and I felt a sort of relief/excitement, like when you don’t understand a math problem for so long and you finally get it and feel so happy. I tried it out and of course the law never fails.

The first time I really didn’t want to go to school and I just assumed that I didn’t have to go and I didn’t! It doesn’t seem that cool but I literally skipped a whole week of school prior for being sick and there was no real reason for me to not go and my mom all of a sudden offered to let me skip. I refused her offer out of guilt all of a sudden but then all of a sudden the bus’s were all delayed and mixed up so I missed the bus and ended up staying home :). I did the same thing the next day for this after school religious program me and my siblings do and OF COURSE the law never failed me and I didn’t have to go (which is even more insane than the school one because my parents are like super duper religious).

My last and fav result is getting rid of my period 🤭! Basically yesterday I woke up and obviously saw a little blood since it was supposed to be the day I get my period. Since I really didn’t want it I remembered using states and told myself “I don’t have my period” and also asked my self “if I didn’t have my period, how would I feel” let myself relish in the thought and continued my day. I didn’t even put a pad on “just incase” since I KNEW the law would never betray me. Now guess who’s typing this on my second day where I would normally be popping pills while sobbing from cramps happy and normal :D.

In conclusion I hope this post can motivate someone out there and you will probably see me again with results talking about my desired face and how I’m a billionaire now 🫡 I mean I was literally able to manifest not having a biological thing literally GAZILLIONS of all female that’s ever existed have gotten I can do anything :) and so can you!

omg love!!! i lovee manifesting my period away too!

i’m so happy i was able to help you and i CANT WAIT to read more of your success stories !! 🤍🫶🏻🤍

[good7luck]

personal, real life

negative, depressing (giving me a headache, at least)

mention of illness, hospital, passing away, etc

asking for your opinion(s)

(more under the cut)

.

This is very personal all of a sudden,

but I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this OTL

I know I cannot provide every single info and the full context, but I did my available best for now.

Summary exists at the end!

.

My mother (full housewife) has been ill and currently hospitalized since a while ago (as a part of her medical treatment, not some unexpected emergency), which would last for a month or so.

My father (full worker) has been pretty kind to her overall and helped her with everything needed.

But...he has had a problem with her housework ways, mainly with piles of stuff (which is sure a lot tbh). Recently, he has tried to randomly "organize" things (unbox, see, re/move etc) at home multiple times, which annoyed and stressed her very much everytime.

Now that she's in the hospital and not coming back anytime soon, it seems he decided to take it as a "chance" to re-organize all the stuff piled he didn't like in the house. Even if he's obviously not young in 40s or such, not so healthy, and still needs to go to work almost everyday.

The thing is...he's even going to dispose of her old religion-related books (Buddhism), including mostly given as presents when she was doing some volunteer works at some religious place(s) years ago (maybe some were purchased, idk). It's not that she read them often, but she has saved them there for years for a reason. And yet, today he already took many of them out of the shelf and put them in boxes to remove later (maybe in 2 days). Of course, he did NOT get any permission from her and did NOT tell her any of this at all.

In fact, I, too, have had a problem with a lot of the boxes and things she has purchased but often abandoned for years, even if I understand it's cheaper to buy things a lot on sale at once. I do feel very irritated when I newly find a bunch of food which expired 2021 or such.

Still...I wouldn't carelessly touch her religion-related books or such?? Especially when she's suffering from the illness right now, and the religion has been one of her rare comforts (even long, long before the illness), and the books are basically her private, not his?? I'm not even so religious myself, but this looks quite rude and abusive??

Unfortunately, he sincerely thinks he's ~finally~ doing the "right" job that should've been done long ago, and realistically it's plain impossible to persuade him. He would never listen, much less change his mind because of me (or even her, perhaps).

All I can possibly do is probably to hide her books. But it's quite a lot for my room; he's checking almost all the spots in the house, and no guarantee he wouldn't enter my room. I'm not sure if it would even work tbh, as he seems sooo determined about throwing away "unnecessary" things, and he might notice some are missing idk.

Honestly, I'd like to let her know about what's going on to her books, so that she's at least aware and can make her own choice. But...she's literally sick and very weakened, she had better not get stressed. She's going to take some serious treatment soon, which might or might not succeed. Strictly speaking...the possibility of her passing away in the hospital is not zero. It's surely not a good idea to add more problems there.

Before she got hospitalized, I did tell her that he might dig up the whole house, and she said he wouldn't cuz he should be too busy with his work (especially when she cannot do the housework for him). I was more joking, and she sure didn't take it seriously, but now my concern came true, much worse than I ever imagined.

I'm pretty sure she'd get super angry, no matter WHEN she gets to learn about this. Or, would she actually be able to take it better if she hears about this after coming back home? Cuz it's all "ended" then, after all?

I just...don't understand why he had to make things (even more) complicated and worse. Seriously, it's even not like she's very likely to pass away soon. He didn't mean this for sure, but more than often he doesn't realize how insensitive and impolite his action can be. Her religion books were not so many and so not a real problem, in the first place...

Summary:

My mother (housewife) is currently hospitalized due to her serious illness. My father (worker) is going to dump many of her old religion books (Buddhism) in 2 days, which were already half-boxed today. I could try hiding them in my room at best, which might not succeed. And/or I could contact her and inform her of what happened, which would give her a chance but definitely stress her a lot.

...I feel I'm probably being ridiculous and immature here, but I'm genuinely so stressed about this now, especially when I have my own real life problems to take care of as well OTL Maybe I just wanted to vent idk ^^;; I cannot guarantee I'd strictly follow the poll result or comments, but I'd like to know what other people would do. I appreciate your attentions!

.

(sorry this post cannot be reblogged and can be deleted in the future. this post is also not meant for screenshot or such spreading for obvious reasons. thanks for understanding...!)

[borbtrek]

this jesse tyler & zq podcast is so wild djskadjkasl

starts with zq and jesse ordering food and zq going oh i want the greek chop salad can i get that?

immediately veers into zq talking about his religious trauma as a child and how he was brought up to be afraid of being gay and coming out, especially professionally

talks about how he mentioned wanting to play spock in an interview and the hiring manager for star trek sought him out and had him audition!! And he met nimoy the night before his audition but didn't tell him he was trying to get the role of spock

he got the job for spock super fast, apparently the role hinged on nimoy's approval, so nimoy HAD to agree on whoever they chose to be spock, and he chose zachary!!

nimoy took on a father-role to zq and they visited each other all the time and it was very sweet

zq talks abt how after his mom died he worried that he didn't have all of the traditional hallmarks of adulthood like kids and a spouse, but doesn't worry about it much anymore because he likes the freedom

he's super glad to be childfree (girl me too)

SUDDEN turn to zq dropping a bomb abt how after his dad died his mom never dated again and instead put all of her emotional burdens onto zq and he was basically a stand-in for a spouse which???? bro??????????????????? says his mom had narcissistic tendencies but he doesn't fault her for it

Jesse asks if zq ate enough food and zq is like "ya i ate the chicken,,, and picked at the salad,,,,,"

[creepylittlelady]

I need to know more about Lazari in your AU

She deserves more content from fans

Hi! I'm so sorry it took me so long to answer this ask, and also thank you for sending me an ask in the first place! I love answering questions, even if it takes me a bit to respond :3

I agree with you, Lazari deserves better. I mean like, even her own creator did her dirty man, SHE HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL!!! Her concept is so cool and her own comic did her SO DIRTY. I hate the treatment she gets from fans too.

Yeah I get it her comic was terribly written and was the origin of the 'I HAVE CRAYONS AND PAPER!!!!!' meme and the characters were poorly written and the lore was inconsistent and the fanservice was weird and the story/tone was ALL OVER THE PLACE. But like, don't take it out on my baby Lazari please she deserves better.

I wanna do some more silly headcanons of her this time around, I might make a separate post on more serious stuff about her ;)

So, let's get cracking!

Lazari Headcanons!

-She's on the Autism Spectrum, diagnosed and all :3. She also has ADHD, also diagnosed! She's the representation we deserve to see in this fandom lol.

-She's Chibiworks. Okay, let me explain:

SO, when Lazari first came into the Mansion, she was just an 8 year old girl with demonic tendencies who was abused by her hyper-religious mother who hated her. She hated herself, she was shy, and she believed that she was nothing more than a monster, a mistake. But all of a sudden she goes from that to the DAUGHTER OF THE EMPEROR OF THE UNDERWORLD, a literal DISNEY PRINCESS (cuz yk she's his daughter), and now she literally lives in a Magical Forest in a Magical Mansion of Serial Killers, Ghosts and Demons.

She thought that the world around her was super interesting considering she never got to see much of the outside. She loves drawing, so she drew about it. She drew about the potential greater stories unravelling around her, making her own characters based on concepts she learnt about whilst exploring.

She made I Eat Pasta for Breakfast as a way of letting her imagination go wild around this new environment she found herself in. She made characters to interact with the people that already existed, and gave them purposes.

(Btw, several of the weird stuff and the not kid-appropriate scenes in the comic are retconned out of this version.)

She also made Creepy Frozen Pasta, just saying. She also wrote The Seer. She wrote every Creepypasta comic in existence. Found a cool Creepypasta comic series? Lazari wrote it.

-She LOVES drawing. Her artstyle is very much manga-inspired and she loves creating her own OCs, which are littered throughout her work. A lot of them are directly based on concepts, such as many of Zalgo's followers in IEPFB being based on the idea of Zalgo having a cult of personality around him.

-She's definitely an animation meme kid. I'm deffo self-projecting but she is the DEFINITION of the weird kid. She makes animation memes of everyone in the mansion. She makes animatics of actual stuff that happened. She makes amateur dubs of her own comics.

-Manga is her biggest hyperfixation. She collects TONS of them, and directly draws panels from her favourite manga to improve her drawing skills. Her favourite Manga series of all time is Fruits Basket :3. Her room is basically just all of her drawing scattered around the place.

She specifically likes Horror and Shoujo anime, despite the fact that they're basically polar opposites. Alongside Fruits Basket, she really likes Madoka Magica!

-She definitely makes AMVs of her favourite animes. She deffo writes terribly written fanfiction about her favourite anime couples kissing and giggles whilst writing it.

-She's also a Gacha Life kid FUCKING FIGHT ME SHE DEFINITELY MAKES GACHA OCS. She definitely stays up until 2am with Sally watching 'Hated Child turns into Hybrid Princess' videos. Lazari gasps in shock every single time and Sally is just sitting there extremely confused.

-Sally is her best friend. She lore-dumps to Sally all the time about her special interests, and Sally listens intently and nods along. She even writes notes about the lore of her favourite series! Sally is a super supportive best friend, and any time any of the ghost kids make fun her for her autistic behaviour she puts them in their place.

-Despite this, the two of them argue a lot, because they're kids and just of course they do. Fun fact! The reason why Sally only appears like once in IEPFB is because Lazari initially wrote her in, then the two got into a fight and she took her out of the story. They made up soon after but Lazari thought it would be too awkward to add her back in and Sally just accepted it.

-She has a very unorthodox form of common sense. With that I mean she has none at all. Once the mansion was on fire, and Slender screamed at her to get up and evacuate. Her reaction? She told him to leave her alone and let her sleep.

-She really likes Vocaloid, and her favourite Vocaloid isn't even a Vocaloid. Her favourite, uh, singing bank, is Kasane Teto! She claims that her robotic voice (before the SynthV AI transfer) was pleasant to her ears.

-Her favourite Vocaloid Song is Kasane Territory, because of the animation meme of course >:D.

-She also definitely tried to make a Storytime Youtube Channel but everyone in the Mansion made her delete it because she was sharing personal information about them all. Like genuinely she'd be like 'SO THE OTHER DAY MASKY AND HOODY WERE ON A MISSION FOR SLENDERMAN AND THEY KILLED THIS ONE GIRL WHO LIVES AT THIS ADDRESS IN THIS STATE'.

She has like zero concept of Internet Safety.

-She's a massive Melanie Martinez fan. She got Sally into her music, and back when Melanie Martinez was like just getting popular she'd sing all of her songs super loudly in the shower. Once Slenderman referred to the house as a 'Dollhouse' and Lazari screamed 'DOLLHOUSE BY MELANIE MARTINEZ? HEY GIRL, OPEN YOUR WALLS, PLAY WITH YOUR DOLLS-'.

-She used to be a massive Roblox kid in 2017 and was also an MSP kid. Christ she was on so many virtual worlds, she was even on Animal Jam sort of.

-Fanon Masky, Hoody and Toby were invented by her. Fanon Masky was made PURELY out of spite for him. The first time they met was not pleasant, as he called her a brat. Lazari vowed to humiliate him in every way possible from that point forward. She found out that he hated children, hated Slenderman, hated Cheesecake, hated the texture of Crayons, and hated jokingly being called a twink by Toby.

All of that combined? You got the Crayon-having, Cheesecake-eating, Skinny, Scrawny, Slenderman dick-riding Fanon Masky that we all know and love. The other residents found out about this strange new version of him and it became so popular she drew individual fanarts of him and handed it to all of the residents. Even Slenderman has a picture of Cheesecake Masky on his Office Wall. Somehow Masky didn't find out about this until a long time after the fad ended.

In my AU Hoody is a selective mute who doesn't verbally communicate with anyone besides the Proxies, so he was deathly silent when he first met Lazari. She misunderstood this as him just being shy and so Shy UwU boy Hoody was made.

Fanon Toby is just a sarcastic persona Toby puts on to piss other people off. She misunderstood this as his REAL personality and alongside the waffles thing that Jeff and Ben always mentioned (Toby stopped liking Waffles long before Lazari came), Fanon Toby was made.

-She made the Dollmaker (yeah he exists) make her plushies of everyone in the Mansion + The Zalgo and a few of her OCs. What does she do with them, you may ask? She roleplays with them with Sally. They've made a bunch of random ships with this, and now they're both avid Slender x Zalgo shippers. They also ship EJ with a lot of people as he has such a versatile personality, but they mainly like EJ and Jeff.

Lazari also found out that Masky was sort of intimidated by Nurse Ann so she shipped them very vocally in front of him.

-She's a massive Sanrio-girl, and her favourite character is My Melody :D. She's watched the entirety of Onegai My Melody at least like sixteen times already.

-She tried to learn Japanese, and failed miserably. She can sometimes read Hiragana if Kagekao writes it really carefully.

-Her own handwriting is really terrible, almost illegible. It's a gift to be able to read anything she writes.

-She's a part of the Mansion's Literature Club, and Ben nicknames her the Natsuki of the club, as she's always insisting that Manga is literature.

-She argues with Slender, as he believes that comics and Manga shouldn't be considered literature, as they're all pictures and barely any words. Lazari TO THIS DAY debates him about it.

-About her demonic urges, they're manageable as long as you give her a random body part to chew on every once and a while. She doesn't lose her control like she once did when she first came, and she's not as dangerous anymore. She's like a saint compared to EJ.

-As she's a half-demon, she has some godly amount of brute force strength. She can carry someone thrice her size and force open any door, no matter how many locks are on it.

She also has an incredibly high pain tolerance. Once she got scratched up pretty bad by EJ when he was in a particularly bad Demonic State, the girl didn't even notice until Lulu noticed.

-About Lulu, she was actually assigned to show her around when she first arrived at the Mansion! Lulu had told Slender earlier that she wanted to take charge of whoever came after her, and has a really good relationship with Lazari. She's one of Lazari's favourite people.

-Her relationship with her dad is...strange. On one hand when she does get to visit they generally have a nice time, however due to how much she reminds him of his deceased little sister, sometimes he'll accidentally call her 'Lily', which dampens the mood a little bit.

-Stripes ADORES her. The two sisters are very close and Stripes just loves her so much, she even made her her Teddy Bear that she's famous for carrying around :3.

-She had a phase where she called herself an irl Yandere. Thankfully she stopped after like a month but it was very funny lol

-She loves Nightcore! And Trance Music, oddly enough. One of her favourite songs is 'Be Alive!' By Stian K. (Search up the song. If you recognise the song from a certain animation meme of her then you deserve all of my respect).

-Her favourite food is Chocolate Strawberries.

Okay, if you want to ask some more serious lore-related questions then go right ahead and I'll answer! I just have so much of Lazari since she was one of my comfort characters when I was little and first got into Creepypastas. I see a lot of myself in her and I'm so peeved that the fandom either completely ignores her or dislikes her, like she's got so much potential! She's an incredibly important character in my AU actually, and one day I'll make a post detailing her correlation with the greater story :3

Hope you enjoyed! If you're new to this blog and are just seeing this post, then I have an AU named 'Puppet Strings', with its own lore and interpretations of the characters. If you're curious, come check out my blog and you can ask me questions!

[clunelover]

I did talk to BFF about my sister and it was overall positive but kind of challenging emotionally. Part of the issue is that she’s like "oh I’ve let that all go now, I’m not mad at her at all" but like…she is and I can tell from how she talks about my sister when the topic comes up. She also is convinced that I feel like I’m in the mom role and therefore have to protect my sister…not quite! My sister puts me in the mom role and I hate it, more like! But she brought up the good point that part of the reason she doesn’t say things about her baby in the chat that includes my sister, is because I never talk about my kids in there either…and I was like "oh yeah, cause my sister’s replies are always sort of off and they bother me so then I stop." Like this time I shared a pic of E after they came back from their first ever basketball game that they went to with Girl Scouts, and they were all pumped and had been given a cool hat with the gay pride flag inside the outline of Wisconsin, and I said something about how they were all of a sudden SUPER into basketball, and my sister just said "lol." Hard to explain why that made me annoyed I guess but it did! lol.

Anyway I was all distraught after she left, just feeling bad about things with my family, because it feels like I have to accept things as they are (but I don’t want to!) or get proactive about trying to change things, meet people where they are, etc (resentful that everything is on me as per usual! I don’t think these people consider meeting me where *I* am!)

Anyway I was turning that over and thinking about what exactly to say to my sister (cause I think she misunderstood my "hey you should invite us over" message but also I shouldn’t have said it in the first place so I was going to send some sort of "hey never mind, I was being controlling and trying to manage your relationship, do whatever you want" message but the thought of what exactly I’d say had me VERY UPSET and then something dawned on me - why the f am I spending so much mental energy on my sister who, regardless of what she actually feels towards me or my kids, isn’t really emotionally available to be the kind of sister/aunt I wish for…I should instead be trying to nurture relationships that DO make me feel good (or…dare I say…forge new ones??)

So I set up a dinner with me and BFF and my other best friend for next weekend. If I can decide some likely dates I’m going to invite over a family who we were pretty close friends with before we moved to this house, try to reconnect with them a bit.

And I was mulling over how else adults create community and find friends, and then I picked E up from camp and they randomly said "I think there are four Jewish kids at my camp" and I asked how that came up/why it was on their mind…they said "I don’t know"…I guessed it was maybe because we have common Jewish last name and so people often assume we are Jewish (they said no, that wasn’t it), and THAT led us to a discussion of religion in families and I was saying how daddy and I both come from families where our parents were raised very religious and then they decided not to raise their kids that way, so my parents didn’t take me to church and daddy’s mom didn’t take him to temple, which is fine, although maybe we would have liked those things and we never got to know. And that made me realize, oh yeah, religious communities are one big way adults meet each other!

I shared all of this with Jeremy later and said for various reasons I’m not that interested in joining the UU church in town, but I’d be interested in checking out a Quaker meeting, and he said "whoa, I was just today reading a substack post by someone I like, about how they are an atheist but attend Quaker meetings, and I thought it sounded really great! Let’s do that!" SO all this to say, I think we’re going to try that tomorrow! Posting here partly for accountability so I actually do it.

[sourlemonsz]

Just finished Midnight Mass (Spoilers!) Be warned this is going to be a very long post sorry to the 2 people that read all of it :[]

And wowie that was definitely an experience to behold. I wanna say that I love the idea that a priest so deep in his faith (and selfishness) would take a damn vampire to his hometown to "save" them. I would say that slowburn would honestly be an understatement lol, that was probably one of the slowest shows I've ever seen, and that's not always a bad thing! Some things take longer to develop and I respect and love that, but if someone had warned me of the dialogue heaviness of each episode I probably wouldn't have started it lmao.

And coming from someone who is not religious in any sense of the word, I got really irritated by the god speak. I'll just say this, if you took a shot for everytime they said "god" in an episode, you'd be sent off to the hospital with alcohol poisoning, though I think that's more of me a problem more than anything. To my untrained ears all of the speeches and god talk went right through one ear and out the other, to my dad who grew up religious explained to me the complexities of what they were saying, and I realized I was just missing a lot of context.

Now, my main problem with the show was that it's marketed as a horror show, and that's what I came for, but all I got was sort of scary moments. While I do think the reveal of the "angel" Monsignor found was excellently done, one of my favorite scenes, just seeing his little bitty eyes in the darkness was wonderful. But the show just wasn't a horror show and I really wished it leaned heavier into the horror elements it did have. While the first two episodes had blink and you'll miss it moments, I wished it stayed just that, no sudden noise or music that'll tell people that they had missed something.

With the sleepy town surroundings, I wish the "angel" had no jumpscare noises, and to the people who would have caught it on their first watch, I think it would've been much creepier and scarier, and to those who wouldn't have caught it, I would hope they felt unnerved that they were being watched and didn't even realize it. I guess what I was looking for was that quiet horror, and I think it would've fit amazingly in this show, but it just didn't take the steps to be one.

Also Riley, the only foil of a character in the show, the only character who wasn't religious and said so, I miss you so much sir, I need you back because I'm scared of all these religious people ohmygof. I didn't love or hate Riley, he was just (to me at least) a foil to every single person on that island, and the scenes with him and Monsignor were pretty well written, I loved that.

Talking about things I loved was the way vampires were written here, all we really know about newly turned vampires is that they're super hungry, have glowing eyes, and can regenerate. AND my most favorite thing is the way they perceive light, the way it dances, you can see why they think it's god that gave them a miracle. From all I've seen I've never seen a vampire interpreted that way, and I love it I LOVE ORIGINAL IDEASSSS.

Also free my man Hassan????? My man's never got any help from anybody not even his son until the very end of the show. Hassan you will always be famous, I love and wish you got revenge, though I really didn't love his character all that much--it's about the principle.

And Beverly you deserve nothing but the worst I'm so happy that one of the last things she saw was Hassan and Ali praying, praying in the way she deemed wasn't right, I'm so happy her last moments were spent desperate and afraid. This is a Beverly hate post.

I'll add on to this post if I have anymore thoughts, no one's going to read this but I just needed it to get out of my brain!!!

[mermaidsirennikita]

I'm only halfway through s2 of vikings: valhalla but I'm so glad they separated harald and freydis because these 2 didn't have any chemistry, anytime they were together on screen it was always boring land to me. And I could say the same for leif and his dead girlfriend from season 1 that they tried to convince me he was super in love with when she was so forgettable I couldn't even remember her name

Lol her name was Liv and I liked her just fine but she definitely didn’t do anything especially exceptional. I think that you could make an argument for her representing like…. Leif feeling like he’s a flop pagan Viking, which he kind of is, but yeah she was not this grand love.

The thing that has always been an issue with this franchise is building love stories over time. Even when they have pairings with a compelling hook and chemistry between the actors, they don't allocate a lot of story time to them, and the actors have to fill in the gaps--which means that when the writers take sudden turns, it's even more jarring. Take Rollo and Gisla, a ship I think was fairly popular, that actually did have a multi-episode "falling in love" arc that most of the show's ships didn't get, with actors that had chemistry. She basically hated him until suddenly she didn't and they fucked like bunnies, and it was fine because a lot of people, myself included, liked them--but then a time jump happened and they had huge issues and it was like "oh, this is sudden".

Now, Michael Hirst (who I think...... is prone to this kind of relationship writing or lack thereof) is not as directly involved in the new show. I think he's largely involved in a capacity wherein he came up with the concept, but it's not really something he guides; at least, that was the case last I checked. But I think you see his fingertips in the relationship writing. When you've got a good hook and chemistry, you can make it work--Leif and Mariam, I found really charming because of chemistry, and because I liked Leif, who seems to be very torn about his place in the world and his relationships with people who have big ambitions and opposing religious stances (Freydis as a pagan and Harald as a Christian), forming this romance with this learned woman who helped him grow. Even if it's like, oh wow, Leif, who is mourning a woman, is now falling in love with a woman who's dying from the outset lol. It's Vikings. Women Big Dying.

And I think this approach also works pretty well with Emma and Canute, who really don't have a lot of screentime together... But the actors have chemistry and their entire bond is really compelling. They're both plotters and schemers and politicians, and he's super into her big brain while having a different approach to governing.

I actuallllly really like the romantic alternative they set up for Harald in season 2, even though there was way less screentime devoted to development than I'd like. I loved where it ended in the season (what a hook) and it made way more sense for him, imo, than Harald and Freydis.

Like, I have no idea why Harald is into Freydis. She really doesn't seem to align with his vision (and at the end of the day, Harald is all self-centered ambition and we love that for him) and she has like... zero respect for his religion. And don't get me wrong, I am not saying "Christians good", but the show's huge "pagans good, Christians bad" thing is.... boring lol. Like, Freydis really hates Christians, Harald is a Christian, and like. She's right in the premiere. They should just stop.

I don't get Freydis as a character at all. The performance doesn't do it for me, to be honest, and she's basically incredibly disconnected from EVERYONE in the main cast. Like, yeah, the England arc is disconnected from the BIG ARC (which is Harald and Leif) but.... There's way less time devoted to it than there is to Freydis, and there are several established mains involved--Emma, Godwin, and to a lesser extent Canute. Whereas Freydis was mostly on her own last season, with characters who really didn't end up carrying over to this one with her, and this season they basically had to make people up to interact with her. And the only one I cared about was Bradley James, who SOLD EVERY DAMN LINE LOL.

And the show did such a NOTICEABLE 180 in s2 (which I definitely enjoyed) versus the end of s1. You end s2 with Leif and Harald split and Harald with Freydis. Suddenly, by the end of the s2 finale, Harald and Freydis are big broken up, and Leif and Harald are back together and have an entire BRO ROAD TRIP the whole season, during which Harald is set up with another woman who I suspect will be pretty important to his ambitions. Yes, Freydis has Harald's baby, but I'm 90% sure that this was largely because the show super wants a kid with Harald and Leif's DNA in it.

Like, clearly Freydis was written to be a Lagertha 2.0, and as much as I hated Lagertha by the end of the original series, she was a very popular character and basically the face of the show for much of its time post-Travis Fimmel. I feeeel like they basically have to have that locked in so that they can promote their "ooh woman roar shield maiden rah rah" bullshit that got them viewers with the first show... But they know Freydis individually didn't play as well for viewers in the first season as Harald and Leif, lol. They know the thing that's most fun about this show is watching This Hot Guy Who Thinks He's Kinda A Big Deal and His Zen Friend Who Somehow Is Going Along With This have zany adventure with wacky hijinks. Like, Leif and Harald will never kiss, because Vikings, but the show is investing more time and development into that relationship than any canonical romantic relationship. Much like... some other... homoerotic relationships... on the original show... pick one of 500.

(Sidebar: I like Emma and Canute together a lot, but I also think that Emma and Godwin have a similar deal going on where they don't canonically have a romantic thing happening, but because they are not romantic the show actually devotes more time to their, in this case contentious relationship, so you wanna see them kiss. And Godwin has fabulous chemistry with Emma AND Canute, and Emma and Canute have chemistry, so it's like whenever they're all together I wait for Canute to be like "you guys fight so much, you know how we can resolve this?" before pushing their faces together. Canute seems like the type of guy who'd initiate a threesome that way.)

Anyway, I really enjoyed s2 but that was something I noticed a lot. Freydis basically having an arc you could totally fast-forward through without missing anything related to the main plot (again)... While Leif and Harald have the meat of the story. She's supposed to be as important as them, but I don't think the writers have their hearts in it with her. So she's basically a total cypher. She's the Keeper of the Faith, and it's like? Cool? Harald is like, going to be an actual king and Leif is gonna discover America, but they need a Strong Viking Woman because they can't let Emma be the Strong Woman rep because she's not a viking and also wears dresses a lot, which means she is not actually strong.

Also, everyone who is against Freydis needs to be a super legit bad person because she gets to be Cool and Good, whereas Emma must be Cool and Treacherous. Because she does not fight with a sword (straightforward and masculine), she fights with politics and her brain, which are bad (subversive and feminine). Though I really had fun with Emma's arc this season and I don't think they were like... trying to make us hate her the way they used to try to make us hate Aslaug, it was kinda funny to watch the contrast.

Anyway. Bring on season 3 and for the love of God, continue to lean in to with Leif and Harald shenanigans versus Freydis like. Midsommar singing.

[glasswinggames]

ooohhh!!! i see i see! i had a feeling that it was something to do with magical stones! ive been around the isekai manga/manhwa/manhua scene to pick up on some common tropes for those (clearly. not the same as this game but like. u know theres been the whole. what i am saying is that i recongnize the magic stone as a power source thing from multiple fantasy settings, this game has NONE of those isekai story vibes minus everyone being soooo hot amen) but i also find it hilarious that helios is the one who basically launched idols into being more readily accessible, cold duke is the reason you can watch your babygirl trip on stage on that note, I am SO curious about Noah- he seems like the most overtly sweet out of all the interests so far and I am so damn curious about his actual religious views- the world believes the saints to be chosen by the gods right? does Noah believe that the Saint has been chosen by the Gods? or is there another reason Noah has such faith in the temple and/or the saint? (if u cant answer this without spoilers that is) im also just curious about any religious facts of tidbits you could give me! i love exploring religion in fantasy settings

I'm so sorry for the delay in answering this!! Things got super hectic over the holidays and I ended up using social media very little! 😅🙏

I'm also a huge fan of the isekai manhwa scene (I've literally just finished reading the latest chapter for Villains are Destined to die) which honestly thinking of it, has probably inspired certain elements of the world! I definitely do try to make it different though as much as I can and create something new! But yeah I love the idea of magic stones as a power source it's just neat! /insert the meme here

It's also so funny that Helios, the man who swears by only classical and serious music (who is also secretly a theatre kid at heart) essentially propelled the idol scene 😂 it's his secret internal grumble.

There is only so much I can say about Noah but I'll do my best to answer as much as I can! His route is one of the two locked routes, and religion, or at least the God's play a huge part!

For his actual religious views, he does believe in the God's, and believes that you, the MC, has been brought over by the God too. Though he believes and has incredibly strong faith, he doesn't enforce or follow the doctrine as closely as others do though, so he's not very strict and is happy to help you with whatever you need and want to do, even if it bends the rules, because he can relate to your situation in a lot of ways!

Some religious facts!!

> The church is split into sectors, each following a different God, There are three main sectors, each for the three Supreme Rank Gods: Caitel (The God of Materia), Yuliana (The Goddess of Anti-Materia - my physics nerd is showing with her haha) and Tenebra (The God of creation). Noah is under the God Caitel, but he believes in all the God's. There are smaller sectors for the High Rank God's and for medium and lesser God's these are worshipped on a personal level.

> It's not just people who are brought over! Occasionally, different items come over from other worlds, which church scholars can spend decades trying to figure out how they work! The otherworldly travellers can help answer a lot of those questions 😂

> The church used to be equal to the throne, however, due to Helios work developing health care, the increased mercenaries who can be hired for protection, and a sudden appearance of new religions, they have lost power with the people which they desperately want to gain back. Some sectors believe the MC can do this for them, other sectors believe the MC will simply make it worse.

A long answer! But hope this all makes sense!! ☺️🙏 💕

[youreacroftlara]

Chapter 4 of The Devil's In The Details is now live! Here’s a short preview snippet:

“Miguel?!”

“B-Beatrice?!” He gasps, clutching his shoulder in pain.

The Brit’s face is covered in bruises, his cheek swelling as if it’s been punched multiple times. There’s an open cut on Miguel’s lip that’s still bleeding.

He looks terrible…and shit, Beatrice has only added to his injuries with her Aikido jab.

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry,” Beatrice apologies, feeling guilty at the way that Miguel winces when he stands to his feet. “I thought you were an intruder.”

“No, I’m not an intruder,” Miguel chuckles, shrugging her off. “Just a concerned friend,” he adds, pointing to the disarray around them.

Beatrice chews nervously on her lip and nods. “That makes two of us then,” she tells him. “Do you know where Ava and Mary are?”

“No…I was hoping they’d still be here,” he says grimacing in pain.

Beatrice isn’t sure of what to make of that. Is he lying or telling the truth? It’s hard to tell because she knows that Ava was last seen with him. 

“What happened?” she asks him, pointing to his injuries. “Hans said you took Ava to the hospital for stitches…I didn’t expect to see you with any.”

Miguel sits down on the bed. “You pack a good punch you know?” he says, ignoring her question. “Could use someone like you in the Samaritans.”

Beatrice looks at her fellow Brit confused. “The what?”

“The Samaritans, we’re a response to the people who did all this,” he tells her, waving his hand to gesture at the dishevelled room. 

“Um, I’m good thank you,” she rejects his offer politely, “But what I would like you to tell me, is what happened to Ava. Is she hurt too?”

Michael sighs and drops his head momentarily. He gives it a shake before he looks back up and motions for Beatrice to sit on the cot bed.

“Ava didn’t need stitches, it was just a cover,” Miguel says. “She was helping me interrogate a captured FBC spy.”

Beatrice furrows her brow. “Pardon?”

Michael looks at her funny. “You know, the FBC? First Born Children?”

Beatrice shakes her head, looking at the man like he’s just grown two heads. “I have no idea what you’re referring to,” she tells him. 

“Come on, don’t tell me that you haven’t seen those flyer-wielding zealots hanging around town. They’re usually outside the bar preaching at people to accept Adriel as their lord and saviour.”

Oh. 

So this does have something to do with that bloody wannabe angel after all. 

Beatrice feels her frustration grow — Miguel is clearly obsessed with this so-called prophet, and now he’s dragged Ava into his mess.

“The angel supporters?” She asks, just to clarify. “But they’re harmless, aren’t they?”

“The ones outside the bar might be yes,” Miguel says, “But the ones that did this?” He motions to his battered face. “Definitely not.”

Beatrice pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. “I don’t understand what this all has to do with Ava?”

“I told you, Ava was helping me… she has been helping me with the fight against the FBC for a few days now. I took her with me to interrogate one of Adriel’s spies, but a fight broke out and it all went to shit.”

“Why, what happened?”

“The FBC spy somehow broke free and attacked…it was like he had super strength all of a sudden. We tried to fight him together, Mary, Ava and I, but he was a man possessed. To cut a long story short, I got knocked out and when I came to, Ava and Mary were gone.”

Beatrice's mind races, trying to process the surreal turn of events. Her initial fear and anger transform into a blend of confusion and concern for Ava and Mary.

"So, let me get this straight," Beatrice begins, still struggling to grasp the gravity of the situation. "Last night Ava went to secretly fight some religious extremist group with you?"

“Yes.”

“And now she’s a target for the FBC…is that why she left town ?”

Michael gives her a pained look, one that suggests he’s toying with the idea of revealing more information to her. 

“I can’t tell you everything — I’m still not sure if my theory is one hundred per cent correct. But, I can tell you that Ava and Mary weren’t in Switzerland for the reasons you think. With the way they fought…normal people can’t roundhouse kick a man twice their size into submission like Ava did. They must have secrets of their own.”

Read the full chapter here!

[selehelion]

Wheeeeee, just sharing my entire journal in a way that I stay as safe as possible online, so I change things like specific high schools and stoof and pol’s names to avoid doxxing, but hopefully be helpful to others, enjoyyyy as I dig back into my life and uncover past pain and air it out to the entirety of the world!!!

Scene 1: me getting so triggered by a fictional character in a book that I try to bring her to therapy… (Penny from Emergency Contact by Mary HK Choi!!!)

Me: Dude I'm bringing you to therapy...

Penny: uhhh, o...Kay?

Me: dude... I'm already a page into your book and I already see so many problems with your outlook on life.

Penny: first off, I don't think that's how you approach people. You don't go around acting "therapist" all of a sudden-

Me: and you don't hang out with people calling your mom a slut

Penny: well what was I supposed to do?

Me: honestly, I get it, someone drives you nuts. I don't really have like the ability to be vulnerable, so I just let things slide...

Penny: why do you need to let things slide?

Me: well... *deep breath* I don't really know, it's almost like instinct, really...

Penny: so it's a habit, then?

Me: I guess you could say so...

Penny: and then it's like-

Me: actually, is it alright if I say a part?

Penny: honestly, go ahead, I'm all ears...

Me: so, I read your book review, and like, I don't know your ethnicity, but I want to ask, but I feel like if I ask I might get really judged...

Penny: and you call *me* the one who shouldn't go around hanging out with "slut-calling weirdos?" At least I'm the one who hangs out with others. You never even gave it a shot.

Me: well, I guess you're right.

Penny: so I guess it's my turn to be therapist, then!!

Me: honestly, I don't really like this power dynamic. I feel kind of like I'm not an equal with you

Penny: hey, that's alright. You take your time, okay?

Me: aaaaand there we go... you need to take your time too...

Penny: ...

Me: ...

*we just stare at each other in silence*

Me: sooooo... I specifically picked your book because I was trying to find someone to relate to with academic anxiety.

Penny: yeah?

Me: and it kind of made me feel a bit better to know that someone was there... but then I started reading and I was like I got all high-and-mighty and like there's some religious trauma there...

Penny: to be honest, I think what might help is just making a list of all your pain, your trauma, and just categorizing it so you can better process it.

Me: honestly, that sounds like a good idea.

Penny: yeah, wanna try it out?

Me: yeah, that seems to work out well...

*me takes out a pen and paper and starts making a rudimentary list of trauma categories*

1. Pre-K to K

2. Private elementary school 1 (1-3 grade)

3. Private elementary school 2 (4-5 grade)

4. Magnet middle school (6-8 grade)

5. Normal high school (9-10)

6. Super bougie high school (11-12)

7. University wheeeeee (13-14)

Me: Sooo I feel like putting it together in this list in terms of my academic life is the perfect irony haha

Penny: yeah, that's hilarious!!

Me: so... I guess I can start off with [high school]

Penny: ok... what is your timeline of pain?

Me: honestly, I don't really have pain per se, I guess I more so have regrets. I guess I can state all the amount of times I felt regret and listing all my regrets...

*starts making deeper list*

1. First day of class

2. Seeing Mary there, and I didn't say anything to her. She looked pathetic, but rather than just say "oh she's pathetic," I wanted to help her and uplift her and make her feel better, but I didn't know what to do, so I just stayed quiet...

3. I did not want to go to a football game with Mike. That idiot is about the most "hello fellow kids how do you do" person ever, and he was safe, for sure, but not someone I wanted to hang out with

4r. I really fucking wish I spent more time with Tessa, let's draft a message to her!!!

4s. Hiii there! So…

Scene 2: the text to Tessa

Tl;dr; I’ve realized that one of my regrets is not spending more time with you.

Larger text time, wheeeee…

So for context, I started doing a personal exercise where I was writing down all my regrets kind of in a way to really process a ton of past emotional baggage that’s been weighing me down recently, and so I divided it up between all the different schools I went to throughout my life (bc really I never had a consistent life outside of school, lol).

And so you probably don’t remember since it’s been a long time back, but I started with high school 9-10th grade pre-fancy high school, and when I got to a point about the football game we went to, I realized my first big regret right there was not following up with you about hanging out.

And really I realize that this is a larger societal problem, but for me personally, I just was so siloed into academics my entire life that I never really had time to… y’know… focus on life

With that in mind, I feel comfortable just like sharing this with you because, even though we’ve seen each other only once in a blue moon, I still really have fond memories of the time we spent together.

I was a bit scared to like even say this to you because I didn’t want you to get the feeling that like I was gonna like confess like lifelong feelings for you, but really it’s just that like I’ve been looking at a lot of philosophical books recently and like kinda just thinking on my own about what life means outside of the standard system of academia and work, and really, it’s all about the people you share it with.

I’m glad to have you in my life, but I realize that I’ve been shooting myself in the ass by not saying hi more often.

And really, it’s felt awkward because like I don’t want to come across as weird, but at the same time, we came up with a sentient tennis ball on the playground, and so I think the Overton window is a bit shattered at this point.

With that in mind, I’m kinda just curious: have I mattered in your life?

Like... have I made a difference in your life? Because honestly, I've kinda been super depressed lately, and like it's nothing new, I'm not trying to wallow in it, but at some point I need to process everything that's gone on.

I would hope you would say, yeah to be honest, you've meant a lot to me, yadda yadda yadda, but like, here's an itemized list of 15 years of things I wish I did or I wish I said but didn't say...

1. I hate that you got into science Olympiad and I didn't. -> because I felt that you were better than me and I couldn't compete -> and also, I was short as fuck, but it wouldn't have been a bad thing if my dad didn't keep on saying, "deep voice sellie," and I knew that I actually could talk about how I felt and externalize my feelings rather than create a whole narrative in my head about why I couldn't do the same things that other people could, because I was "the youngest," because I was "the shortest," because I "cried too much," because I "couldn't sit still," because I had a habit of picking my nose like gabby and my mom made a deal of saying "stay away from him, he's disgusting," even tho he was a pretty chill dude and like he was slightly weird, but he was also very fucking kind and Larry was a fucking jerk to him, and oooh boy, now I'm getting fired up, I fucking wanted to be the one to push Larry off of the slide because at least I could've said, "fuck you you bitch-ass hoe, you're fucking good sometimes, but stop being such a fucking jerk around

And holy fuckign shit, if I knew that the mere mention of Lisa during our convo back in like 10th or 11th grade or smth made you tear up and I didn't limit myself, I would've beat the shit out of her first for you because that's how much I care abt you. We all have our shit, literally I'm writing about it right now, but if I could rewind the clock and go one-by-one, I would in a heartbeat beat her up.

But alas, we were kids then. But really, it's the fucking pressure cooker that IOP and other private schools like that are. They're echo chambers that forced

And also alas, humans are very terrible are finding true causality. Maybe Lisa had a fucking hard time. Maybe you were mean to her. Maybe she was a fucking psycho. But really, who gives a shit? At the end of the day, we only really create suffering for ourselves by tying together false narratives in our mind about the way things should be.

"I deserve to be told to not talk in such a high-pitched voice because it teaches discipline."

"I deserve to be laughed at because it was the wrong thing to do."

And I always came up with narratives about why I was wrong and why the other person was right.

"Dad was right to call me out for having a high-pitched voice because I have to be a man."

And the thing is: I always listened to people in authority (or at least I perceived to be in authority), because that's been what I've been trained to do. I am the youngest, so I should always listen to my siblings and parents.

It takes me a few more seconds than others to actually process what is going on (likely ADHD + autism go brrrrr), and therefore, I need to listen to whatever my teachers and friends say, because my teachers are in a position of higher power than me, and even my friends are in a position of higher power than me because they are mentally superior, physically stronger, taller, less childlike, more adultlike, and not fucking weird like me...

Man, that's very fucking relevant to right now. I've always had an inferiority complex, and man, this has shaped my every moment throughout my life...

Even as far back as fucking Ms Tina’s class in pre-K, I have a vivid memory of drawing a red building, and I knew that it was stupid-looking.

Ergo to private school 1...

Never invited to bday parties, and the parties I was invited to were just "exceptions" to the norm. I didn't go out on play dates, I stood standing for 30-40 minutes during after-school recess when I was frozen playing freeze tag, because the other kids were like probably forgetting abt me, and I knew and was fully aware of the fact that they probably forgot about me, but even with that in mind, my intentional decision was to stay there, because I felt like I couldn't move, otherwise I would break the rules and the other kids would be pissed at me, and I would have to deal with the consequences of being ostracized from the group and not have anyone to love me. Because really, I didn't care about friends, I literally just wanted *love*. That's all I wanted, was to just have someone unconditionally love me when I intentionally didn't love or respect myself, because it was conditional love, pure and simple.

It's not that I was scared of punishment, it was because I craved love, and the only way I knew how to get it was to act the way other people wanted me to act, whether they said so or not.

If I didn't say a word or act out, I got a star. If I said a word or acted out, I got dinged and put in time out and didnt get to do recess.

It was *textbook fucking conditioning!!!*

When I didn't act out or say a word, I got a star. When I did say a word or acted out, whether accidental or not, I got punished either way.

Beyond me...

Scene 3: the faults of our education system (and no person is truly to blame and larger reflection, wheeeeee…)

This was the same disciplinary system that existed at magnet middle school 1, with the punch cards. I remember when people were given punch cards for being

These friends I had, were fucking great people!!! Yeah, they had some issues, but fuck it, WE ALL DO!!!

You can't keep on doing the same discipinary actions, it's fucking pathetic. It's not the teachers fault, it's not the kids faults, hell, I don't even blame the fucking admin, it's a result of a system that has just simply stayed outdated.

It's like a person with a broken arm. You don't shame a person for unable to reach at the top of a shelf if they have a broken arm. It’s like the same logic as “why are you hitting yourself, why are you hitting yourself? When you’re hitting someone with your arm. And while everyone is like, "no hate, love others, etc etc," where are the fucking incentives in place to reinforce this positive behavior??? You don’t get true healthy humans by punishing them, you get them by . Education is fundamentally still tied to a system that, tbh, I don’t wanna say “capitalist”, bc really, it’s stupid to say that when you can’t blame a whole issue on one thing, but if we want to solve the problems, we need to flip the entire fucking script. These aren’t “problems “ that need to be solved, that tanks any motivation to actually get shit done. Rather, let’s focus on “reducing human suffering!!!” Ain’t that wacky?

Rather than fixing an internal problem with an external solution and expecting an external problem to be solved with internal solutions, let’s actually solve them the way they were meant to be solved!!! Wowowwwww, the more you learn!!!

How about instead of trying to “fix” kids behavior, stop expecting them to act in any way that’s supposed to be that way!!

And the thing that grinds my gears for me is that, at the end of the day, we're human. "Teachers" are just one part of us. The same "teachers" are also wives, husbands, scientists. Ms Kyle was a fucking horrible teacher, true, but she was also a very talented undergrad scientist, and I’m pretty sure she would’ve done fantastic as a scientist, and teaching was probably just not where she fit!! Meanwhile, Ms Baloney was fucking EXCELLENT as a teacher!!! Yet, I'm pretty sure she was also bummed out when she couldn't teach the material that she wanted to teach and just say exactly what she wanted to to people who were inspired by what she said!!!

And holy fucking hell, "bullying" is a problem when the systems in place incentivize bullying!!!

For example, cyber bullying is rampant because it's easier and faster to say something negative and shut someone down, than defend and say something positive, because then you'll get gaslit into stuff, and all the rampant things and ostracizing that happened to me earlier in life that completely tanked me into an inferiority complex? Yeah, that evokes similar feelings and similar functions on social media, except this time, it's exponentially faster, wheeeee...

Listen, I'm not saying we don't need research on social media, but we can’t expect things to change if we don’t act. You think feminism didn’t start off because of research on the negative effects of women? Hell fucking no, in fact, the research was probably set up to demonstrate that women were probably inferior to men because of smaller physique,!!!

Let’s adapt these external structures to focus on internal work like writing and recreating your narrative, okay? And let’s let the internal work happen naturally and incentivize progress over perfection instead of building an entire fucking generation of socially-deprived perfectionists, okay?

I mean, the initial purpose of this post wasn’t even to tell a fucking message, it was to be a raw-af journal entry!!! It just so happens that , hey, I wanna at least do something with my baggage that’s simple and easy, so let’s just adapt the entire thing for my first tumblr post, ain’t that wacky???

Anywho, if any gremlin sees this, have a great day, I don’t expect anyone to read this, and really, idc, I just wanna start making some momentum on getting my feelings out to the world and creating a platform for help, and this post has served its purpose. tyty!!!

P.S. Also, if anyone does see this, while my emotional circuitry would be happy to see positive comments, it’s more beneficial in the long run for me to get feedback, critique me, and say what I got wrong or was intolerant or whatever was shitt. For example, I’m pretty sure the “oh people need to stand up and shittt~~” bit is probably outdated upon second glance, but I’m leaving it in because I’d rather get feedback on it and say what I want in its rawest form without neutering what I say. And besides, I’m not emotionally attached to this anyway because I’VE FUCKING EMOTIONALLY PROCESSED THIS BITCH, LETSGOGOOOOOOO!!!

Anywho, till next time!!!

Toodles,

Sellie

[lord-squiggletits]

One of the thing I love about IDW Op is that he's technically an atheist war pope. It's interesting that he didn't believe in religious aspect himself but was willing to use it for the power. Made his character more complex to me. Do you have opinion on this topic?

I have a lot of mixed feelings about it tbh. On one hand, I think being an atheist/agnostic fits IDW Optimus' character well (I've tried to imagine him as religious and just...can't), but on the other hand, I kind of have a problem with the way most media depicts religious people, and it's a bit disappointing that the Matrix has canonically been associated with multiple miracles (reviving OP and Hot Rod from death, creating new sparks, even Primus/Rung being able to make them) but Optimus still calls the Matrix 'nothing but a bauble' at some point like. Really bro? So there is a part of me that is disappointed at the Matrix being treated as a Plot Device rather than a proper, respectable religious thing. On the other hand, that's just not what the story is about, and I can't call a story/character bad because it didn't go in the exact direction I wanted.

TLDR: I think Optimus being agnostic/atheist makes sense for him, but I really dislike the way it was handled in the story because it feels more like it was used as a plot inciting device than some sort of journey of Optimus trying to discover his purpose. Also, the way he interacts with other religious characters had a lot of wasted potential, so I just feel like it wasn't written in a very interesting way? Basically, the writing is such a mixed bag of interesting concepts with mediocre/bad execution that I can barely focus on the in-universe implications and mostly just get mad at Barber's writing.

My feelings are also complicated by the fact that I don't like Barber's writing at all (it's like 90% dislike and 10% like) because of how bad he is about prioritizing plot over character emotions and stuff. Earlier on in phase 2 it seemed as if Optimus was genuinely curious about his religious role as a Prime and asked the Camiens for guidance on who he should be as Prime (Windblade, Aileron, the Mistress of Flame). In Death of Optimus Prime, OP literally wished he was dead when he woke up. He made a very big deal about how he's Orion now, not Optimus. In Dark Cybertron he had a whole crisis about whether he's Orion or Optimus. Basically, he was set up to have a huge identity crisis (especially since the war is over and leadership of Cybertron fell to Starscream), but any amount of introspection was quickly derailed into PLOT PLOT PLOT OPTIMUS ANNEXES EARTH AND FIGHTS GALVATRON. The story just devolved into bullshit plot on Earth that was just action, action, plot, things happening, with pretty much no room for the characters to stop and breathe and talk and have relationships with each other. I barely felt any emotional investment for most of exRID.

I think the only scenes we got with Optimus actually getting to reflect on this new role of his was 1. when he first met Aileron and asked her and 2. when he's telling Aileron he doesn't believe and then Pyra Magna comes in and gets mad at him.

Speaking of Pyra Magna, the story writing also annoyed me because from the moment she was introduced, Pyra Magna was SUPER self-righteous about how she should be the Prime instead of Optimus and she said that she would try to make Optimus into a better Prime. But then guess what happens? Her and Optimus barely talk and Pyra Magna is basically just there to form Superion and punch people :/ And then later on when Onyx Prime is introduced, all the sudden Pyra Magna goes from having strong opinions about what a True Prime should be and believing she's destined to be the true Prime........ to talking about how she's never trusted Primes and she left the Mistress of Flame for trusting a Prime too quickly??? I know Pyra Magna isn't Optimus, but the reason I'm bringing her up is because she seemed truly religious and opinionated, she SAID she was going to "teach" Optimus things, she seemed like she was set up to be a rival to Optimus, but instead they barely have interactions and the ones they do have early in the series end up being retconned later by Barber's shitty writing that puts plot over consistent character development so. :/ I really expected Pyra Magna and Optimus to have some meaningful interactions, some mix between a rivalry and a mentor/student situation, but instead all she does is shit on him like half the case of exRID/OP and it just made me mad.

(There was also Slide who went from worshipping Optimus to saying that his leadership style is "literally fascism" and monologuing about how Optimus is a conqueror while fighting Unicron and Trypticon is being killed in the background. She's so fucking annoying and comically stupid that I genuinely thought she was going to betray them or do something evil just because she was so unhinged.)

But if you want my actual in-universe opinion on atheist pope Optimus, I do think it's an interesting concept. It shows off Optimus' sense of duty where even though HE doesn't believe, he thinks that what other people think of him his more important. He sees that being a religious figure can help him do what he thinks is right, so he willingly plays that role as a means to a greater end. He's already a "patriot and hero" to the Autobots thanks to his military feats; he's used to being venerated (sometimes to unhealthy degrees) and knows how powerful his influence can be whenever he makes political decisions. I think that he basically saw the Camiens' worship of him as just a new form of the admiration he was already used to receiving. He's spent his whole life commanding armies so simply adopted the colonists into his ranks as well.

(Also, side note, it's so fucking hypocritical for Pyra Magna to call Optimus a piece of shit for "using belief, but not believing" only for her herself to admit a few volumes later that she's never trusted Primes. Why do you wanna be one so badly then if you think Primes are so awful? If it's because you think you could do a better job than past Primes, that literally makes you the same as Optimus, who is also trying to redeem the title of Prime, so you have no right to be punching Optimus in the face lmao. But I also genuinely can't tell if that hypocrisy is supposed to be deliberate or if Barber just did what he usually did and ignored character emotion/motivation/self-reflection in favor of shoving some backstory in for Pyra Magna that tied her to Onyx Prime.)

At least Optimus tried to discourage the blind worship and used the Camiens to do things he had already spent his whole life doing (fighting genocidal colonizers aka Decepticons and protecting organic lives) so I don't really see it as out of line for Optimus. It shows how IDW OP can be a politician as well as a military leader. I think it shows how Optimus can be clever and take advantage of his reputation to achieve his political goals (protecting Earth) and it makes him a more realistic character. Sometimes things that are good aren't done through noble means. Sometimes people do good things by being not very nice.

Also, for what it's worth, I think IDW OP is less manipulative than someone like Starscream, who constantly flaunted his "Chosen One" status while admitting he didn't believe in it (or wavering in his belief) and doing things like creating secret police and trying to kidnap sparklings. Like damn at least Optimus risked his life in the same battles he asked his followers to fight in, he ruined his reputation for the sake of protecting Earth from the Decepticons. Even if the guy is an atheist pope at least he puts his own ass on the line for things he believes in for the sake of protecting people who pretty much hate him lmao. That's why I'm more inclined to view Optimus sympathetically; he's living a lie for political means, but his politics are literally "protect humans and Earth from the bullshit war and destruction Cybertronians forced onto their planet", and the burden of leadership is making him depressed and passively suicidal, and eventually he literally sacrificed himself by jumping into a black hole to save millions/billions of people so like. Let the guy fucking rest lmao.

[atangledfate]

There were many thoughts rolling around in Wave's head. This entire event was so sudden and yet also had her endorphins firing in rapid succession. Being whisked away to another world, getting to hold the hand of a being so far beyond her, and now on a date with such an interesting person. She didn't know if she could ever fully fathom who or what Sohna was and in fact her brain might melt if she tried. Such powers were thought to be a thing of legend, yet here she was sitting down to enjoy a meal with one such being. Perhaps it was her alien blood that allowed her to stay so calm, or maybe just the logic in her brain.

She watched with mild curiosity as the table appeared from thin air, and so she could check off reality warping powers. Maybe it was the power that made her so attractive, or perhaps her mysteriousness. But she couldn't help to find her beautiful and majestic despite how different they were. She pulled the seat up and sat down with a soft chuckle---should she tell her she found the size difference attractive? perhaps not... it might come off a little strange. Then again she was sure Sohna had probably seen stranger in her endless existence.

" Thanks! though the height doesn't bother me! i've always been a bit of a sucker for tall girls! "

She chuckled softly

" The change in color is amazing! do you go to such lengths for all your dates? I'm not use to being pampered... usually i'm the one doing the pampering..."

" Eh please don't take offense to it, that's just part of his personality. Jet's obsessed with ya know himself... and winning, and being fast. I mean he's totally crushing on his rival... but he's to full of himself to admit it... he's like little brother... i love him but some days i just wanna smack the shit out of him..."

She glanced up at Sohna as she spoke of storm, she knew that was way more complicated. Storm was probably more aware of what she was then Jet, and was just afraid of saying the wrong thing.

" as for Storm... He was just afraid he'd upset you. He's really superstitious, and religious. So i think he put the pieces together... despite being a bit dull he can be pretty insightful about some things. Then he was trying to figure out how to be respectful and proper... So i hope you weren't to offended. "

She didn't much pay attention to the mummering. She was so use to people staring because of how famous she was. That the whole muttering and talking just didn't register for her. That and she didn't give a shit what anyone thought! So why would she even bat an eye at that lot.

" Though... it does make me wonder--- why would you want to date a Mortal? You hear about this happening alot in legends and myths. But i never quite got why... though i'm super flattered all the same. I am just trying to find the logic in it... "

Sohna single eye would close as she began to chuckle at Wave's statement that it was a clever way to hold her hand. "I didn't even consider that was the intent behind to, so how very true. This only confirms my choice in asking you to a date." The cosmic entity's focus went to the restaurant. "This should work then." She would wave her hand under the long sleeve, the color changing from pink to a dark shade of purple, though also some gold and black colored accents so it just wasn't a blob of purple. "Ah, much better. Not sure why I ever mind it a single color."

Sohna then waves her hand again, a table appearing right in front of them with two chairs across from each other. "The seat shall adjust itself based on the height of the one sitting in it. I'm aware that I'm much taller than most mortals even in my smaller state." Compared to the cosmic entity Wave was like a large plushie to her, yet didn't want to be rude by openly saying something like that.

Sohna would then use her magic to pull out both chairs before sitting in on. "So, Jet certainly seemed to take great offense to my statements. I suppose I can be a bit blunt at times. Oh, I almost forgot to return the airship back to normal." Granted the cosmic entity didn't change it much besides raise its height, though best fix it before she forgets. She'd snap her fingers, and the airship would return to normal.

"Then Storm simply seemed too nervous to talk to me. I made this form in an attempt to not come off as unapproachable, though I have noticed it gets mixed results from time to time." Sohna supposed it didn't help when she'd admit that she was a cosmic entity of immense power. By this point all the other people in the restaurant have taken notice to Sohna and Wave with the whispers and murmuring coming from most tables.

[erosofthepen]

i dont have any specific requests but just. Kili. thoughts on Kili.

i have so many thoughts on kili you came to the right person

things i hc abt kili:

-he has a journal he writes in religiously. its all poetry and random thoughts and pressed flowers or other flora he's found that catches his eye. he doodles pretty things in it as well, from crystal caves to the fire of the forge.

-mans is a hopeless romantic. all he wants is an epic beautiful story-for-the-ages whirlwind romance that is fueled by passion and love. and whilst his romances might not always work out the way his 200k fanfic he wrote in his teens did, he never gives them up and relishes each experience. Even bad romances fuel his poetry writing at least. And with his One, when he finally meets them, he does all the simp-worthy romantic shit, from picking bouquets to opening doors.

-drawing from the poetry, kili is incredibly intelligent, at least literature-wise. dont get me wrong, mans is a dumbass and a himbo, but he could talk for hours on end on how the structure of a syllable scheme can make or break a poem. he's very well versed in symbolism and dwarven mythology and lore, and, next to ori, is the best person able to understand and find the deeper meaning in different works, and discuss them thoroughly.

-kili honestly isn't the best in the forges. he does alright, but his skill is comparable to an average human blacksmith. his real talent in metalworking comes to the details. like carving dozens of intricate lines into a single ring, or carving a whole battle scene on the inside of a bracelet. it's a skill he is very proud of, even if he can't even forge a good knife.

-mama's boy. i feel like thorin kind overlooked kili a lot growing up, his focus was on fili, being the heir and all, so kili didn't have a super strong adult male figure in his life. he had his mom, which is arguably better for him. like he'd spend all day helping dis in her shop or at her trade, and just chilling with his amad.

-he knows how to cook. like dis probs taught him, needed at least one son capable of creating edible food (she gave up with fili, who took after thorin in this way), and by god kili learned fast. he knows what he's doing in the kitchen. he is this whole video.

-i also think kili would be the type of dwarf to collect shineys. like crystals and fun rocks and bits of jewelry. he has corvid like tendencies and has pouches and boxes full of his collections.

-mans is deeply insecure. this hc is pretty popular, but like with no beard and being the dwarf version of a tall lanky string bean, he has body image issues. he doesn't have a lot of problems with confidence, like fake it till you make it vibes, but when it comes down to him and his One, he needs validation. he needs to know that he is the prettiest boy. just needs reminding and loving.

-coming from the insecure place, i believe later in life kili has a huge glow up. to quote my dear friend @cutie-cutter, "he's a late bloomer, but by god he blooms". like maybe in his 90s all of a sudden he fills out a lot, some nice body fat over all that muscle, and then starts growing a really nice beard. like it ain't super long but its thick and lush and ideal for braiding. he is the prettiest boy.

-kili is also the ultimate wingman. like when he's younger he doesn't have the looks but he has the game with his words alone. with fili its the opposite, fili's like mr. knightly in the sense of "if i loved you less i might be able to talk about it more", he ain't good with all the cute romantic shit. but kili helps him by writing poems and teaching him lines at the small price of taking his dessert for a week.

-(kinda nsfw?) while young and still escorting merchants with fili, i feel like kili def. got himself some fun nights at brothels. like he'd be more than willing to spend all his earnings in one night for some... special treatment. I also hc that kili didn't really get with women a lot when a younger adult, mostly men, bcs mans has daddy issues like you wont believe. the bisexual also probs thinks his chances with women are low anyways, since women in dwarven culture can be picky and usually go for ones with looks, or at least a full beard.

-(nsfwish) also going back to his journal, he also has a hell of a lot of erotic poetry in there. he'll spend stanzas describing sensations and the aesthetics of a particularly steamy night, and if someone catches his eye he could go on and on about them. absolutely no one is allowed to see his journal besides him (thorin found it once and just sighed in disappointment and wishing he had bleach before closing it and never bringing it up), and it is kept out of sight at all times. it would be very interesting for his One to find it though, and all the different scenarios that could play out...

that's all for now, thank you for this ask!! love talking about this bisexual whore of a man.