#it should be at least more manageable
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pricetagged · 7 days ago
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Idk how to label this. Wifehunter John?
The idea of possessive/obsessive John manipulating a situation and stealing a wife for himself struck me, so just coughing the idea up while I sneak away for a coffee before I actually have to start work in 20 mins 💖 entirely unedited, abrupt ending
Edit: Part Two
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For someone married to his job, he has put quite a bit of thought into what he is looking for in a wife. Namely, that she's already married.
His reasoning is threefold. He can admit to himself, firstly, that it satisfies his need for control. Competency. He's a busy man with a demanding job. Not quite retired yet, no time to build his own from scratch. With this, he gets a wife boxed up and ready-trained. Broken in.
Secondly, the need for control bleeds into his saviour complex. She'll need a shoulder to cry on, someone strong and capable to get her back on her feet. She'll be feeling a little fragile. Needy. Perfect.
And thirdly, it does something wild to his jealous, possessive streak. The idea of taking something precious, of breaking her bond to another man and tying it to him? Delicious. The idea that she used to be someone else's, that he has to imprint himself onto her knowing that in doing so he is erasing the imprint of another man? It has his teeth aching, grinding even as heat rises in his belly. Stirs at him.
The idea swirls lazily in the back of his mind, never quite finding the right time or right partner. He bats at it a few times, lazy cat playing with the notion, seeing how far it can stretch before it snaps. Eyes up pretty things everywhere he goes, glancing down at their left hands just to check, but nothing quite tugs on that string. Until one day it does when he's outfitting the security system at your house.
It's side work. Cash in hand, word of mouth. Something to keep him busy when on mandated leave. Something to keep in mind as his retirement from active duty creeps closer. And your husband is a real piece of work, all blustering braggadocio energy. Young buck, not knowing his place in the herd. Not knowing that he'd be better scratching his antlers off on a tree than going head-to-head with a gristled thing like John.
It's like John's energy, his presence in the house, sends alarm bells ringing in your husband's mind (Be the man. Don't back down. Puff up your chest and strut). And it plays so perfectly into John's hands because your young buck doesn't realise that what he's really doing is fawning. To John. (Look at me, be impressed by me!) He makes his biggest mistake in putting you down in front of him, trying to sidle up to John and create some kind of desperate camaraderie. Ordering you to bring tea to the men at work. Rolling his eyes at your attempts to talk, to ask questions about the work being done. Waving you off so he can stand and watch the proceedings. Like he could supervise. Like he has any clue what he's doing.
Only the promise of the long game keeps John from levelling him with a hard look, from calling him outblike he'd love to.
He hears you both in the in the other room, having swatted the young buck off like a particularly virulent pest. Noisy and bothersome. Not needed - or wanted- in this home. And entirely too stupid to realise that John wasn't being jocular in his dismissal.
You've been scribbling away for the past few days, something occupying your time, keeping you happy and hidden away in the kitchen.
"You're not serious, are you?"
"Well, yes," he hears the slight quaver in your voice before you find your footing. You've got at least a bit of spine. Good. "You said that I should find an occupation. Not just 'laze around the house playing housewife'. This is what I-"
"Oh come on, I didn't mean- You don't think that this is viable, do you?"
"Well... I love gardening. And I'm good at it. And there's no reason that it can't be more accessible for people, especially with the current economic-"
He cuts you off with a scoff. "Dear, just- I don't want you to be disappointed. I think you don't quite understand the time and effort this will take. And you know nothing of marketing, publishing. Why don't you put that away and start on dinner?"
And oh, isn't that delicious. He can taste it now, that idea that has been swirling. It's thick, almost tangible on his tongue. The tension in the house, the bitter lacryma of stifled tears. The slight acidity of words you left unsaid. It has his mouth watering, pupils dilating.
And when he's packing up that evening, tools and materials tucked in to the heavy workman's case, he swings by the kitchen on his way out. Catches the way something is jutting out slightly from the bin, lid slightly askew. When he pulls it out he realises it's some kind of notebook, carefully (lovingly) bound. Pictures pasted, mindmaps and notes and plans scribbled in the margins. Your gardening tips. Kitchen scraps, window boxes, rooftop plots. Urban gardening. It's deeply thoughtful, well researched.
A labour of love, lying in the rubbish.
Sweet, clever little thing. That just won't do.
He leaves your house with a little piece of you tucked away in his toolkit and a nice plan forming. He'll be back, of course, not quite finished with his work. He'd planted a few little links into the system he'd almost installed, projecting not just to the monitor in your home but also in his. Got to keep his eyes on you, keep you safe and cared for in ways that your useless husband can't.
Finding that book was a boon. He'd say it was divinely ordained if he believed in all that. It weighs heavy in his toolbox as he whistles out the door.
Now, how to get you alone and return it to you..
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This idea may have been done before? I'm not sure, sorry! I've seen a lot of possessive John floating around. Tagging @stellewriites because I said I would last time, and you've been so encouraging of my nonsense.
Anyway I've got like 4 long-form WIPs that I'm working on, so I may never actually write this one but thought I'd share since that image set I just reblogged made me feral 💖
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fuumiku · 6 months ago
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It was Maid Day today yesterday a week ago so I got struck by inspiration to draw the worsties, and it ran away from me into a whole AU where they’re coworkers at a maid cafe. She’s a med student & this is just a part time job, and this is his depression job while he gets his life back together. He needs something he can be workaholic about to forget what it’s like having a personal life and personal issues. He’s actually the accountant, but the new hire janitor (Izutsumi) doesn’t show up for half her shifts and is a sloppy worker, so he gets the extra work of doing her job on top of his because he’s undervalued and overworked. Of course, janitors also have an uniform to keep the aesthetic cohesion as they go about cleaning the place, of course.
Senshi’s the part time cook you only see slivers off, he’s kind and warm when you do see him and have a chat but most shifts he’s in and out the kitchen without a trace. Laios and Falin are regulars because Falin and Marcille are besties & in the same med school, Laios accompanies Falin as she visits her friend at work and gets hooked on the food. Chilchuck has to remind Marcille to work instead of chatting with Falin for an hour, and next thing he knows she’s distracting him from work too. That’s it that’s the AU. Inspired by this idol AU fanart a bit <3
This was not meant to be birthday gift but well…… Happy bday Chil!!!
Read from left to right
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#Dungeon meshi#delicious in dungeon#Chilchuck tims#marcille donato#spoilers#dunmeshi au#Maid cafe au#Marchil#Workwife marchil save me. Kabuholm in the background bc i said so lmao#i think people forget marci n chil are coworker worsties first and foremost. Ppl should capitalize on it more#The orange hair swag that makes him look like a marketable idol more#You can tell idk how to draw maid outfits. I hate those hats sm I will miku miku beam them out of existence#Marcille does change her hairstyle everyday btw#they don’t get back together btw she goes you haven’t talked to me in 4 years and he immediately goes YOU haven’t talked to ME in 4–#i mean ehem i’m sorry haha… while Marcille is like 4 years?! 4 years…#Mei only did it bc Fler has been getting jittery again kept sighing#I wanted to draw Chil with a car key at his belt but it wasn’t meant to be#idk if marchil ever gets together in this one it’s an eternal summer coworker with tension situationship au#romance is when you slowly deteriorate his work ethics so he starts skipping on his worktime to spend it at the front messing around w you#once he’s blessedly in the office and he hears this huge crash and the Marci just goes ‘…… Chiiiiiil?’ cue sigh and having to repair#the coffee machine. So many lil comics i couldn’t indulge myself to draw save me#shoutout to the time as a cashier in training at a convenience store I was left by my coworker who was supposed to wash the greasy chicken#oven but didn’t so I had to clean it for the first time myself while I was alone in the store and was also supposed to man the front#Shoutout to my convenience store’s accountant helping us with cashier duties often when there was less job to do ty ty#Understaffed struggles are so real#People also call Chil a manager because the boss is most often away so he just does everything#There’s no union but maybe one day he’ll get to overthrow the boss idk#The pay IS good at least#Modern au
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vaguely-concerned · 5 days ago
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just had the thought 'in the end the most important thing varric taught rook was how to make a home for, with, and in other people' and then I had to go lie down on the floor and clutch at my head in unceasing agony for a few hours, as you may well imagine. hawke and the kirkwall crew........ in the end you kind of saved the world a bit in the most characteristically indirect and chaotic of ways. not by anything in particular that you did or achieved or accomplished (lmao imagine!), but just by -- having existed, and by the love that was always there, despite it all, in all its imperfections, even when no one was saved by it in the end. you're not here right now and you're not quite haunting the narrative but I hear your voices bickering and arguing and laughing from the other room. (and so, I think, does varric. all the time.)
'did you think you mattered, hawke? did you think anything you ever did mattered?' yeah actually, varric says with da2 and keeps saying through the series. you were here. and I loved you. and as it turns out that mattered more than almost anything in the world, no matter how long it lasted or how fucked up it was at the time or what else happens, because varric manages to pass that feeling, that intangible... home, that echo of you all as you were together, that love, hopefully the best parts of it, on to someone else for them to bring with them on their journey, with their family. and maybe the world will be kinder this time. you never know. merrill's line of 'Everything affects everything. We were born, a bunch of things happened, and now we're in a mess with our friends.' varric's greatest fear of becoming his parents. even through the wreck and the ruin of the world, ghosts upon ghosts upon ghosts of love -- malcolm hawke, who we never even see, but his life touched hawke's and hawke's touched varric's and varric's touched rook's and rook is passing it on to the family they're creating. the unbroken legacy of love shines through in ways that are stronger and stranger than any magic. help
#I woke up. I opened my eyes. this insight hit me over the head like the fist of god. what the fuck. what the FUCK#dragon age#dragon age: the veilguard#dragon age: the veilguard spoilers#dragon age spoilers#hawke#varric tethras#dragon age 2#dragon age meta#let me live please I've barely reached consciousness I can't deal with this#the kirkwall gang.#what if they were secretly the most important people who ever existed. just because they existed. and for the love that was there#yeah you know what? that's not the worst legacy in the world is it.#da:tv really is da2 2 in some key ways. to me. one of the most da2 lovers or all time#also extremely da2 and also varric core for varric to adopt a kid (as a full adult) completely alone with hawke possibly dead#and STILL somehow manage to make it a varrichawke lovechild on some level. not romantic not platonic but something even more insane#every day varric is unbearably intimate with hawke through the narrative in ways he simply Cannot be with anyone in real life#(in ways you perhaps Should not be in real life. also. lol)#he keeps moving on no matter what b/c that's what you do. but I think varric's real home isn't even kirkwall or a place at all#it's a time. and that time is da2. or at least the story of da2 that he tells himself.#also also what about them themes around parenthood huh. I think varric in the end at least did not become his parents. thank god#trauma gets passed down. but so do other things and you have choices about what you want to leave behind#for those who come after you.#*tears streaming down my face* guess I have to go make breakfast and pretend everything is normal then. sick and twisted
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chiropteracupola · 7 months ago
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"Are you finished with my portrait yet? Show me!" "Cipacton, I can't draw you if you keep moving!"
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wyvernity · 9 months ago
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sss day my favorite national holiday WOOOOHHHH
bonus
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#pokemon#trainer lyra#rival silver#soulsilvershipping#timeskip tag#bao beis#i had so much more planned. but alas. college.#ANYWAY. sss my everything. ohh. always thinking abt them.#this is very obviously lyra's room! all the pink! massive bed to fit all her pokemon! the champion paycheck gets you that much at least#and plants!!! no. 1 horticulturist in johto#she's living somewhere around the base of mt silver... decently close to the league and her hometown#so i like to imagine her with a huge greenhouse so she can take care of plants even in the harsher climate#meanwhile silver has one of those decrepit malelivingspace flats in viridian. he's making it work.#i can only see sss properly moving in together liiiike in their late 20s#after they get to enjoy young adult independence for a while#but before they permanently settle down they should go on silly adventures again... just once. or twice. or#as much as i like to entertain the thought of them being homebodies i think they'd rather spend their lives travelling haha#since silver never got to fully experience it as a kid on the run#being a wanted man and all#and lyra is itching for the getaway#they deserve to be in nature and responsibility-free and *frothing at the mouth*#BTW i put my whole wyvussy into that wall decor#lisia signed poster... rosa's resemblance as mei(!!!) in the totoro one... bell tower + whirl island pics //#pokemon constellations... and those gen 4 mail templates that no one actually used. probably from dawn. champion penpals :]#i debated doing a lance poster because celebrity idol funny but nah she'd bin that immediately after moving out#oh yeah the drawover was um. inspired by the nonebinary neochamp fit. so happy for my son.#i'm glad i managed to finish the big piece in time otherwise i would've just posted that LOL can you imagine#okey bye happy sss day
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lord-squiggletits · 11 months ago
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On the MegOP fandom trend of saying "Optimus should apologize to Megatron"
(Speaking specifically for IDW1, though it applies to a lot of MegOP especially ones that do continuity soup with heavy reference to IDW1)
I was talking to a friend in DMs and they mentioned a common headcanon/fanfic trope that I also concurred with, and both of us said it's something that bothers us: a common take in the MegOP fandom goes basically along the lines of "If Optimus had just apologized to Megatron, the war would've ended" (or other variants including "if he'd tried harder to understand Megatron/work in collaboration with him").
And firstly, this is incorrect for a number of reasons:
There were attempts at peace negotiations during the war, but they fell through. So Optimus WAS trying to work with Megatron to the point of participating in formal diplomatic meetings.
Optimus tried multiple times on page to convince Megatron to just stop fighting and work with him for peace (Autocracy, Chaos Theory) that Megatron rejected. Given that these on-page examples take place at the start of the war and at the end of the war respectively, it makes sense that Optimus asking Megatron for collaboration is something he was trying/willing to do the entire time. So again, Optimus was always willing AND ATTEMPTING to work with Megatron and find a joint solution
Even before the war when Optimus was still Orion, he was very explicitly inspired by Megatron's writing and names Megatron as one of the people who "opened his eyes" to the wrongs of Cybertronian society. So how is it that people claim "the war went on for too long because Optimus never tried to understand Megatron" when OP literally named Megatron as one of his biggest idols, thus implying that OP does understand Megatron's ideals
But the primary purpose of this post wasn't to defend Optimus, actually. Even though I personally think Optimus did plenty (dare I say, everything) to try to end the war, there are some who may still think otherwise, so instead of arguing about whether Optimus did "enough", or who should apologize to whom, or who "deserves the blame" for starting/continuing the war, I'd actually rather talk about this:
No matter who is most "to blame" for the war, it's my firm belief that neither Megatron nor Optimus would even expect/demand the other to apologize to them at all.
On Megatron's side, he would never seek to judge Optimus negatively for the decisions to the point of saying "you wronged me, apologize." Whether it's evil Megatron who doesn't care about atrocities and revels in an opportunity to expose Optimus as a hypocrite, or post-war/Autobot Megatron who knows that his own evil actions are irredeemable, the idea of Megatron judging Optimus and demanding an apology for the war specifically strikes me as out-of-character. Why would Megatron demand or even want an apology from Optimus when Megatron knows fully well that he has his own sins to bear, he prolonged the war for his own selfish/material gain, and that he is responsible for an untold amount of suffering? Demanding an apology would imply that Megatron sees himself as the wronged party and Optimus as the wrongdoer, but by the end of the war, Megatron is too aware of his own part in the war to ever demand such a thing of Optimus. Even if he DID think that Optimus was "equally to blame" for the war (which he doesn't/wouldn't, btw), Megatron's own feelings of guilt would prevent him from trying to seek the petty satisfaction of the moral high ground or making Optimus beg for his forgiveness.
Additionally, Megatron knows Optimus very well as a person: he knows that the position of leadership is full of "loneliness [and] agonizing self-doubt" for Optimus (Chaos Theory) and that "when Optimus hurts others, he hurts himself" (MTMTE). Another reason that Megatron wouldn't demand nor want an apology from Optimus is because Megatron knows Optimus so well that he already knows that being a war leader fills Optimus with immense guilt and suffering. Given that Megatron knows about Optimus' self-doubt and guilt, why would he even need an apology when he already knows how much Optimus regrets the war and desperately wishes/wished for it to end?
Then, as established in the previous paragraphs, Optimus is too full of guilt for his part in the war (both before it started and in being unable to stop it sooner) to demand an apology from Megatron. Again, demanding an apology would put Optimus in an implied position of moral superiority and/or victimhood, but Optimus doesn't see himself as morally superior or as a victim (or rather, he sees himself as being responsible for these bad things happening and internalizes this as a duty to do better/fix wrongdoings). In other words, Megatron and Optimus both share this view of themselves and each other: Their hands are so dirty, and they both feel such guilt over this, and they know each other well enough to know that the other feels this way as well. Because both of them feel blame for the war and are acutely aware of their own flaws/part in suffering, both of them feel far too responsible for the war happening for them to ever blame their archnemesis for "not trying harder" or "being responsible for the war."
Hell, if you even look at the socio-political climate of Cybertron before the war started, neither Megatron nor Optimus were the ones who put this conflict into motion. The corrupt legacy of the Primes, Functionism, class issues-- all of these things existed before Megatron and Optimus did. Even once they started doing things like writing about social issues (M) or fighting against the Senate (OP), both of them were "underlings" in sense that they weren't leaders:
Megatron's writings may have inspired the Decepticon movement, but that movement existed as an independent entity with its own leaders and speakers long before Megatron became the "official" ruler of the Decepticons. He wasn't even the leader of the 'Cons until he took control of the gladiator arena and the nonviolent sections of the Decepticons were (presumably) subsumed into the underground, exploitative battle culture that Megatron created.
Optimus-as-Orion was a police officer to start, but even once he started going against the Senate, he mainly worked in collaboration with others like Senator Shockwave and Zeta (later Zeta Prime), who he either saw as his idols or who were literally superior to him in rank due to government/military structures.
So with this in mind, even from a social level, while Megatron and Optimus may have been "catalysts" of a sort that caused the war to escalate to an outright planetary/galactic level, the scenario is too complex to solely lay the blame for the war at either of their feet. I'm not confident in saying that Megatron/Optimus would explicitly think of this when talking to each other, but what I'm trying to say is that M/OP were just catalysts in a long chain of brewing tension that exploded into a war. Even if one could claim that one of them "started" or "escalated" the war, the social issues that caused the war and the positions of power that allowed them to become leaders in the first place were falling into place before either of them actually BECAME leaders.
In other words, this shared fate of being the final reaction that exploded a societal conflict into outright war... Megatron and Optimus both have that in common. And because of this, I really don't think either of them would even think to ask the other to apologize because they're both in such similar positions, with such similar feelings of guilt and responsibility, that they understand each other's feelings without words. To demand an apology would be akin to taking that shared vulnerability/guilt and stepping on it, attempting to claim that one is right/superior and the other is wrong/inferior, and that the inferior one needs to grovel and take responsibility for the bad things that happened.
#squiggposting#idw megop#idk if this'll get me hate or not but it's something i think about a lot#and verbalizing it to that friend in DMs helped me put into words why that common fanon take bothers me#also. hot take but if any 'apologies' are necessary then it's M who should be apologizing to OP#the war may be both of their faults but M is the one who explicitly did/said things just to hurt OP and break his spirit#i'm tired of ppl who don't understand (or at least don't discuss) how hurt OP is and how he deserves recogniztion of his feelings too#megop#then again this fanon take may just be a consequence of continuity soup culture#where ppl don't have to acknowledge specific things that M or OP did bc they can just selectively include or not include details from canon#so like. i guess in their continuity soup continuties their fanon is technically correct#but in terms of the source material which is the one shared experience we all have and the common language we derive fanon from#this fanon is very incorrect. or at least i hope i've managed to argue that it's incorrect#anyways the thesis of megop is that they're equals and opposites who are inextricably tied to each other#fanon that tries to place the blame on one or castigate one of them is missing the point of megop#the point is that they're equal. equally strong and charismatic and amazing. and equally culpable#even if they're not literally equally responsible for idw megop at least they at least both FEEL responsible#and i don't think idw megops are the type to mince words about who's 'more responsible'#they're both depressed old men who hate themselves and regret basically their whole lives. why would they judge each other like that
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bondagebimbo · 16 days ago
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THANK FUCK I finally got my pain meds back today and I’m so fucking happy because my fibro has been kicking my fucking ASS for so long now and I really need it back to not doing that (as much) 😭😭😭
now if only the pharmacy would finally stop dicking around with my fucking mood stabilizer AS WELL (for the third fucking time) so I could not feel Like This™️ that would be great or I’m gonna start hunting all the idiot fucking pharmacists there for sport one by one until they give me my fucking meds again 🙄
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yoosung-ah · 29 days ago
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Can we talk about how talented Jihyun is? Everyone talks about Jumin and Saeran being talented, but this man somehow managed to drive with reckless abandon, keep up with and stalk Zen, all while trying to take pictures with his professional camera? Fast and the Furious who??
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watermotif · 4 months ago
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the way art historians speak and write is so insufferable man
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iniziare · 13 days ago
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/sits on hands with the ferocity of Solas' determination so that I can't put my salt to 'paper'.
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swagging-back-to · 3 months ago
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it should be a cut and dry case if you go to a restaurant and get glutened by them. and by case i mean criminal. not just suing for damages and distress.
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aqueousammonia-art · 3 months ago
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maybe somewhere we’re still in the summer
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icewindandboringhorror · 3 months ago
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sneepy cozy time....
#cats#longing to one day hopefully feel sleepy cozy like this again...#There was a pretty cool week here so I thought we had progressed closer to cool fall weather but... NO#..wrong!! It's like 80F in my room right now and was 98F outside yesterday. We get two more 'cooler' days and then#it starts going up again and will be in the high 90s possibly 100 something later this week#in my mind september should be COOOOOLLLL!!!!! or at least STARTING to get there.. Like mid 80s at the highest.#I am going to explode the world with evil wizard powers aaRGHaaHHHHHHHH#OR at least it should get down really low at night. I think thats the main thing is if it's 95 in the day and only 62 for like 3 hours in#the middle of the night then even leaving a fan in windows all night is not enough to fully cool down the house because its just not#enough cold air or cool for long enough. If it were 98 in the day but 15F outside at night then you could probably bring cool air inside al#night and your house would be at a relatively low starting point for the next days heat.#Like for example - in my apartment on a hot and sunny day. Even with every window#closed and blocked off with thick layers of reflective stuff and also not using the stove or doing anything to generate heat - the apartmen#will still go up on average about 6 - 8 degrees in one day. Peaking around 8 - 10pm night time. If I start off with the house cooled down#to 60F. then the highest it would get is 66 - 68 which is tolerable#.But if the lowest I can cool the apartment all night is still only 75F#then it's going to be 81 - 83F by the end of the day. So really it would be bearable (ISH)#for it to be warm as long as it was colder at night.#Though still the IDEAL is to not have to structure my life around envrionmental management and constantly be checking the#outdoor temperature so I can put the fans in the second that it's colder outside than it is inside and putting elaborate curtain systems#up and down at the exact right times and meal prepping 4 days in advance so I dont have to use the stove for 3 days and blah blah blah#Life in the colder weather months is so effortless and breezy in that sense. I can just have the window open all day and get natural light.#I can cook whatever I want. I can wear what I like. I can move around the house freely without needing to always#carry a fan around with me or douse myself in water.#ANYWAY.... oh if only that were me.... snuggled in a warm blanket ... a comforting wintery image...
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moeblob · 1 year ago
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Alright I told someone I would give propaganda for these two so here we go. As a warning, I didn't play mobile or Re-Mind soooooooo. Yeah there's that. I know they're apparently involved in past stuff but shhh.
So first off, everyone's weapon is super useful! Except theirs. Which I always thought was really funny? Even in Re:CoM Zexion's book was more direct than these two. I really enjoyed them just as the most indirect fighters? And figured they'd be pretty chill and after playing KH2 as a kid I'm like. I think Luxord would be most tolerable to music while vibing. He could play Solitaire or something while Demyx played music and possibly chatted. Therefore, my younger self was like "it's perfect".
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ALSO CONSIDERING THEIR NUMBERS! And the line in KH3 during the scene where Demyx is like "yup I got benched", they've probably got a history. However, the number they get originally is supposed to be the order they joined. So with Marluxia and Larxene obviously tied together in the past, all I can think of is these two just being absolute bums wandering around pre-Organization and just hitch hiking their way into a cult. Which is also REALLY funny to me because what if they joined at the same time but Demyx got to be IX and Luxord is X.
Demyx would hold his rank over his head for the dumbest stuff (in my head canons of the past).
Like there's so many things we specifically do not know about these two so basically, until I'm proven absolutely incorrect in game (which might have happened and I just don't know) ! I think they'd be a good match.
And I mean, it's also just (gestures) LOOK AT HOW CUTE THEY ARE. Great designs and I think that's good enough for me!
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serpentface · 5 months ago
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FAMILY TITLES AMONG THE HILL TRIBES
(ft. various linguistic notes and tangents)
In-universe Brakul’s self-given title of ‘Red-Dog’ is Brakul 'ne-Dainh' in his native language (Bict-Urbinnas dialect of the Highland language group) and Brakul 'Chin-Reyla' in Wardi. Ne-Dainh/Chin-Reyla is not something he treats as or considers an actual surname or identity, just a self-styled nickname. He already has a title.
Family names/surnames are not a native practice among the Hill Tribes (though some clans or individual families have adopted this practice), and all traditionally use titles that designate immediate ancestry, clan and tribe. These full titles are officially given when one comes of age and are spoken aloud in ceremony (with the entire direct male and female lines listed by name, with most traditions expecting 12 generations of each being named).
The function is to cement one’s sense of place in the world, and their place in a direct ancestral line, which puts the person under the full watch and guidance of their ancestors. It's also a critical method of recording lineage- the long held practice of each person memorizing at least 24 total direct ancestors allows for very long, largely accurate records of family history to be kept, with some people able to trace their ancestry all the way back to initial settlement of the Highlands (or even beyond).
Brakul’s full title is:
“Brakul virsum Kuligan et Borunil an Briyonis ne-Taig an Bict-Urbinnas”
Which dead literally translates to “Brakul son of Kuligan and Borunil of the Foothills (of) Red-Cattle, of the North (Urbin/Erubin) River Valley” but has a much richer meaning in the original language.
"BRAKUL VIRSUM KULIGAN ET BORUNIL"
The actual meaning here is closer to ‘Brakul, son of Kuligan and his father’s fathers, and Borunil and her mother’s mothers’.
“Virsum” means ‘child (son/daughter) of’ (the gender is contextual), but implies the person’s status as a descendant of a full male and female line of ancestors. A different word is used if you’re just saying ‘I’m so and so’s son”. The title describes him as a son of his father Kuligan and of Kuligan’s male line, and of his mother Borunil and Borunil's female line.
All ancestors (within this particular system of kinship, divided into one direct male line from the father and one direct female line from the mother, and not including husbands from the female line or wives from the male line) are invoked and credited with the word ‘virsum’. Speaking it as part of the personal title is part of the routine and necessary honoring of one’s ancestors, who watch over their descendants from the afterlife and can temporarily return to the land to guide and protect (and sometimes punish, or teach sharp lessons to) the living.
"AN BRIYONIS NE-TAIG"
The actual meaning here would be understood as ‘clan/people of the foothills where cattle are lit red by the setting sun'.
‘Briyonis’ is the word for ‘foothill’, citing his clan’s specific location being the foothills that form the slopes of the north Urbin river valley. He is of a lesser clan within the powerful North Urbin River tribe. His clan benefits from close affiliation to their more powerful ruling clans located directly in the river valley, which grants them access to a greater variety of cultivated foods, but their actual position in the foothills still renders them predominantly reliant on cattle for subsistence. Clan names referencing cattle or horses are very common, given their frequent centrality to life.
The ‘ne-Taig’ literally means ‘red cattle’, but the ‘ne’ color word for red specifically invokes shades of red seen in and cast by a rising/setting sun. This red cast is culturally regarded as a unique beauty and evocative (and part of the name) of the solar god Hraighne. The foothills his clan is physically located on are a vantage point from which the western horizon is not fully obscured by mountains, and they experience very striking sunsets and are directly touched by the light. This is fairly unique to this location, and is invoked in the clan name and identity. ‘Ne-Taig’ here suggests a visual of grazing cattle illuminated red by the sun as it crosses the horizon.
‘Ne-Dainh’ carries the same implication, a dog illuminated red by setting sunlight. The Wardi language does not have a comparable word for a sunlit red and ‘Chin-Reyla’ really does just mean ‘(orangeish) red dog’ (‘reyla’ is specific to orangey-red colors, which is the closest match he could get. There’s no way to impart the meaning of ‘sunlit-red dog’ in Wardi that is non-clunky enough to be appropriate for a name).
"AN BICT-URBINNAS"
‘an Bict-Urbinnas’ is fairly simple, Bict means ‘north’, and 'Urbin' is the name of the specific river that stems from a northern and eastern tributary. This river has a very ancient name (or a derivative of one) that predates settlement by the Hill Tribes, and its exact meaning is lost.
The root -(n)nas designates a river valley, but has strong implications of being an esteemed and bountiful place, rather than solely a literal geographical descriptor (as the river valleys are centers of power and trade in the highlands). It may be a loanword from the Wardi language family, as its usage is VERY similar in form and function to the Wardi -(n)nos, which also suggests a place of esteem and bounty (more specifically having connotations of a kingdom).
’An’ literally means ‘of’, but in the specific sense of describing the place and identity of a collection of people. ‘an Bict Urbinnas’ would be understood in speech as ‘of the north Urbin River Valley (people)’. The clans historically settled in and around the valley of the North Urbin River form the totality of the Bict-Urbinnas tribe.
The ‘Urbin’ word predates the contemporary Wardi name ‘Erubin’ for the river, the latter of which invokes the semi-mythological founding figure Erub, who himself was of a Wardi tribe located downriver to the south of the Highlands. The real historically extant ‘Erub’ was most likely named Urub after the river, with his cited name shifting over the centuries in folklore, and the Wardi name for the river shifting with it.
‘Erubin’ as a corruption of ‘Urbin’ functions very well in Wardi language due to ‘-bi/bin’ denoting something as a ‘gift’, usually in a more metaphorical sense. ‘Erubin’ is understood as meaning ‘(The river that is) Erub’s gift’, and the Erubin/Urbin river is a key tributary to the much larger Black river, one of the key rivers that feeds the region's wetter and more fertile west. This 'gift' meaning also occurs in the name of the southeastern Imperial Wardi city-state Erubinnos, which is understood as meaning ’((The kingdom that is) Erub’s gift’. He is considered to have conquered and taken the land (from the core city's actual founders, the Wogan people) and established a kingdom there in the early days of warring Wardi tribal monarchies.
#Just dropping this randomly because it's a pretty complete lore dump in my notes app#Family names are a big fucking deal in the Wardi cultural sphere and not having one is associated with being a bastard or otherwise#displaced or unwanted. If pressed Brakul either fully lies and says 'ne-Dainh' (which will just come off as 'oh it's some foreign name')#Or lists his actual title (not a family name but equally important). Sometimes listing all 24 generations if he's particularly annoyed.#It's only strictly necessary to memorize 12 ancestors in each line but it's considered good practice to be able#to cite associated non-direct ancestor husbands/wives/siblings/etc. That's where the tattoos as a mnemonic device comes in#It's easy to memorize 24 ancestors but very difficult to memorize 24 ancestors and at least some of their family members#And remembering and honoring the dead by name is of great importance- both puts you under the protection of more#ancestors (including non-direct ones) and ensures the dead's status in the afterlife is secure (it's believed that fully forgotten#dead leave the celestial fields and can no longer directly intercede with the living- though with some additional nuances to what#constitutes being fully forgotten)#Venerating and remembering the dead is a huge focus of cultural practice and additional methods are used to safeguard#ancestors (and other honored dead without descendants) whose names have been forgotten. There's one yearly holiday focused entirely on#the nameless dead where they are invoked and honored via little straw dolls that are burnt in bonfires high in the mountains so the#smoke is sent up to the Fields. It takes weeks of preparation and tens (maybe hundreds idk I'm bad with scale) of thousands of#dolls will be made each year across the Highlands for this purpose. Honoring them with effigy even without name is usually#considered enough to safeguard their afterlife for at least another year.#Also yeah kinship systems among the Hill Tribes (and very similarly among the Finns) follow a male line/female line system#Only father's father's fathers (...) and mother's mother's mothers (...) are considered direct ancestors (though all four grandparents#are sometimes honored as ancestors even if only two are considered DIRECT ancestral kin- this tradition varies)#Inheritance systems are somewhat matrilineal given that a wife is considered the owner and arbiter of property and a husband is#its protector and active manager. If a man and woman from different clans (or tribes) marry any children will be considered to be of#the clan/tribe of whichever spouse does NOT relocate in marriage.#Whether the husband moves in with the wife or the wife moves in with the husband is dependent on an arbitration process#and the husband (and his family) being able to provide a bride price (which is somewhat of a payment for the land/property#the wife's mother will be passing down to the new husband's management should he move in- and displays his ability to care#for and provide valued assets. A man who can provide a bride price tends to receive greater respect)#This is most commonly going to be livestock (and almost ubiquitously includes a single cattle to be butchered for the wedding feast)#But can include other valuables or assets like land or grain/seeds or etc. There is no intra-Highlands monetary system and the internal#economy is built on trade. So Imperial Wardi currency is mostly useless but is sometimes given in marriages between clans with strong
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mangofresca · 4 months ago
Text
luminary
He isn’t sure where it comes from, but it’s an urge that rises suddenly, all-consumingly, with no hunger or warning to prelude it, like a countdown placed upon his life only seen as it hits zero—a flash of red, and suddenly every second ticking by is another second too late, another moment lost.
Lovino is smiling so brightly that the simmering heat of Agrigento’s summer seems more akin to the frigid winds of winter. He’s laughing—not a snort, not the contrite brush aside or sardonic smirk he gets when he thinks he’s being clever—head thrown back and shoulders shaking with mirth.
Alfred forgets how to speak, how to think or move or breathe, forgets everything except how to stare—gawk, his brain helpfully supplies, very obviously—regarding Lovino as if he was the one to paint the stars across the sky, to sprinkle indigo and amethyst across the midnight horizon, to use hardened hands to cradle the sun and bring lighted warmth to the world. As if he was something beautiful, ethereal, untouchable.
Except, he’s not; he’s not untouchable in the way Alfred previously perceived him to be, distanced by water and antiquity and a complex Lovino tends to wear like his own form of bastardized battle armor. He is there, right there, laughing, and Alfred wants to reach out a hand and–
And.
He’s touching Lovino’s face before he’s even thought the action through, before he’s even realized he’s done it, cupping his hand around the swell of a cheek and feeling the heat of it still flushed with laughter and wondrously-worn glee. He feels the expression under his palm calm as that smile fades, replaced instead with slowly-dawning confusion, soft in its perplexity, and he traces his thumb across the dip of Lovino’s under-eye, if only to savor the way those dark eyelashes flutter.
“Alfred?” Lovino asks, painfully sincere, with a tone that melds between a question and vague, befuddled acknowledgement. His eyes are wide. He does not move away.
“Would it be cool if I kissed you right now?” It’s a reply in the technical sense, an answer to a question that had seemingly been hanging in the air for longer than he realized. His own voice is startlingly soft considering the pressing urgency he feels tugging at his gut, his hands, his tongue, like if he can’t have this nownownow he’ll die, starved, stripped of life before he’d even realized he was bleeding.
Lovino gapes at him, blinking slowly. The cheek beneath Alfred’s palm burns warm, and he almost expected Lovino to blush, to feel skin stain itself scarlet beneath the pads of his fingers. He wonders if he should ask why it doesn’t.
There’s a moment where hazel eyes flick from his down to his lips before rising again, and Lovino makes a noise in the back of his throat like a hum, a huh, like he’s realized something about himself and the world and the universe. Like the knowledge of whatever it is has only just settled, and now he must contend with life now that he has it.
He blinks at Alfred again. “Yeah.”
He says it like it’s easy, like it’s always been easy, like permission would have always been granted had Alfred ever had the wherewithal to ask. Alfred files that away for later, wondering, not for the first time, if he missed something in the tones of Lovino’s voice, if something else existed in the recesses of cutting words and huffed musings and trite insults that were never really all that insulting to begin with. But that’s for another time, or maybe never, because Alfred never really cared to indulge in worries and preclusions, and Lovino is too good to be wasted on half-baked ruminations when the now was so much better.
Lovino says it like it’s easy, and when Alfred ducks his head down and leans in, it certainly feels easy, easier than maybe he expected. It feels like old nights spent tucked beneath the dim lights of New York speakeasies, of hushed conversations held in the stacks of his library, like something big and bright and cosmic had settled off somewhere far away, a revelation exploding in the periphery of his universe, vast and grand in its own private corner.
Lovino’s hand settles boldly on his shoulder, fingers brushing the hairline at the back of his neck, and Alfred can feel every inch of it burn through his clothes. Lovino tastes like vintage wine and the cigarette he had been smoking not ten minutes ago, and even though Alfred hates the smell, he thinks he can learn to like the taste if it’s been tempered by sweet reds and the natural soft of Lovino’s tongue brushing past his lips. Alfred feels Lovino’s cheek move beneath his palm, and he doesn’t quite get why until he realizes that Lovino is smiling, pulling away enough that they look like two kids grinning into each other’s mouths, lost and dumb and found.
“Been wanting to do that for a while?” Lovino sounds smug, but his eyes are bright, sparkly, pretty, his hand fisting the back of Alfred’s shirt.
For a moment, Alfred thinks, if you count eighty seconds ago a while, sure, but that doesn’t seem right, isn’t right, and Alfred can feel certain pieces of their histories click into place—not any sort of life-altering change, but instead something soft, the clink of a plate placed in front of him on the nights when he wouldn’t bother with sleep, the fresh scent of pasta and garlic bread the only thing to bring him back into his own body, the reminder that he existed within the scope of four walls, the person as well as the land.
Lovino is so close, close enough for Alfred to feel the tickle of his bangs against his forehead, and suddenly every word and every gaze and every laugh pulled from scowling lips all align and glimmer like radiant galaxies, all with Lovino at the center.
“Nah,” he says, grinning at the eye roll. “Just thought of it now.” But that doesn’t stop him from doing it again.
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