#one thing that would make me both very well and very poorly suited for a tiktok career

[louisinart]

i am just so full of THOUGHTS and OPINIONS

[troublesomesnitch]

Meeting Vhagar - Drabble

Aemond x Wife!Reader

Much to your dismay, Prince Aemond insists on bringing your little son to Vhagar. Set sometime during the Dance.

Contents: Just a little practice thing... Dad!Aemond, Targaryen parenting, subtle fluff. Little bit of subtle angst too. No filth this time..

Words: 3000, and very sloppily proof read.

The carriage can only take you so far as to the Iron Gate. 

Beyond its massive doors, the Rosby Road winds North, poorly maintained and full of potholes, as it is the shortest of the main roads, and thus the least important. It is not as busy as others, and the gate is not guarded as well - clearly, as the men who should be protecting it are presently engaged in a game of cards, laid out on top of a large, flat rock.

That is where the driver will wait, but it is not your destination. 

There is another little trail. One that runs in the opposite direction, scarcely used and partially hidden, visible only to those who know it. No horse or wagon can make the journey, and there is no option but to walk - first along a narrow, trodden path, and then further still, down treacherous steps, carved into the very rock the city rests upon. Past the watchtower, and across the Northern beach, to the vast caves of Maegor the Cruel, where Vhagar has made her nest.

You walk alone, just the two of you. The prince in his coat and boots, and yourself in attire much less suited for the occasion. Fine shoes, fine skirts, and with your little son cradled in your arms. 

The gentle rocking of the carriage has lulled him to sleep. Four months old, he is, and a source of such joy that your poor heart can scarcely contain it. From his first high-pitched cry when you brought him into the world - oh, the pains of labour were all but forgotten, as was the threat of the raging war. And when the prince came to see his son, you could hardly even bear to let him hold him. 

He wanted to bring the boy much sooner, but both you and the dowager queen staunchly put your foot down against that. Children should not be brought outside the home until they have at least lived through the first perilous weeks, and possibly even their first fever. And even then, most would argue, they have no business being around ferocious animals. 

“I don’t like it,” you say, for the umpteenth time, taking the hand offered to you by the prince to help you cross a treacherous stretch. “It is mad, bringing an infant to such a beast - ” 

“Vhagar should know him,” he says, steadfast and determined. As he has done whenever you voiced your concern. 

It does nothing at all to calm your nerves. But it is his most compelling argument, and the only reason you have allowed this lunacy in the first place. So the dragon would recognise the boy as his, and as one of her own. So she would know to protect him, if - something should happen. 

You make it halfway across the pebbled beach before the prince pauses. And you do too, lifting your gaze to follow his line of sight; see what he is looking at. 

An enormous, greyish mass, some yards away, that at first you thought was a moss-grown rock, or years of washed up seaweed. But the mass makes a rumbling noise and begins to shift and lift itself, slowly and carefully, as though with much effort. Part of it becomes a leg, another part unfurls into a great wing, and the rock nearest to you becomes a head, with a mouth full of jagged teeth, and two eyes opening slowly. Amber in colour, and with slitted pupils staring straight at you. 

“She can sense me,” the prince declares, with no small amount of pride, lifting his chin and straightening his back. 

You, however, are paralysed, utterly shocked by her vastness. You have never seen Vhagar this close before, and though you knew of her impressive size, it is one thing to see her soaring across the sky, and quite another to be right next to her, unprotected and vulnerable.

It seems to you that the span of her wings could cover half the city, that entire buildings could fit in her mouth. And certainly, she could end all three of you with her fiery breath, or with a single swipe of her claw or her massive tail. One wrong move, even if accidental, even if she did not mean to - you would all be dead. 

“Come,” the prince says, pushing at the small of your back. But you stall, digging in your heels, frozen in place at the sight of her. 

“I’ve changed my mind,” you stammer. “We should go back - it is not safe…”

The prince gives an overbearing, if somewhat irritated sigh. 

“Dragons are loyal beasts,” he reassures. “Vhagar is loyal to me, she obeys me - ”

“She is a beast,” you hiss, hugging your drowsy son closer to your chest. “She cannot be trusted. It is too dangerous - I won’t let you bring him any closer - ”

Prince Aemond does not like to be challenged. He turns around to look at you coolly, his voice low and scornful as he speaks. 

“Is your opinion of me so unfavourable, wife, that you think I would risk harm to my own son?”

“No,” you respond, quietly, but truthfully. Since you were married, your opinion of the prince has only risen, slowly but surely. And it continues to do so, still - though perhaps not right now. “I don’t like it - ”

“Mhm - so you said,” your husband says dryly, all but wrenching the swaddled boy from your arms. 

He does not complain, the boy. Prince Aemond comes to visit often, at least once a day, and sometimes more. He sits with the child, reads to him, lets him fall asleep in his arms - not for very long each time, but it is at least enough for the little boy to recognise his father’s low voice and stern face as something safe and comfortable. As is evident from the way he now settles against the prince’s leather-clad chest, tangling his little fist into a lock of his hair. 

The beast remains still, pensive as her rider approaches, her serpent’s eyes fixed on the thing in his arms, on what he is bringing her. Your most precious treasure, your life’s very purpose, completely at the mercy of the greatest dragon in the world. 

You might have felt more at ease if the soft, sparse hair on his head had been silver like his father’s, but alas, it is not. It is exactly like yours, and only the bright violet of his eyes gives away his true inheritance. 

And that seems like too little a thing for such a large creature to notice. 

Prince Aemond calls out in that strange language of his, with the open vowels and the rolling R’s. It is beautiful, especially in his mouth, and the dragon responds at once, contorting herself to let him touch her wrinkled neck with affection. Which is a strange sight, but what is even stranger is the way she grumbles - as though she likes it. He speaks to her as if she was another person, in long, full sentences that are much too complicated for you to even attempt to understand. There is only one word you can make out, for the sole reason that he says it twice - yoreliatzeh, or yorelatzya, or something akin to that. You haven’t a clue as to what it means. 

Vhagar snorts once, and the prince steps back to give her room to move, to rise up onto her legs and bring her head closer, her nose almost touching his hip. While you stand at a distance, staring at the utterly bizarre scene playing out in front of you. A fearsome, vicious beast, sniffing the child like a dog would. Gently and carefully, only she is so big that each of her cautious breaths is like a small gust of wind, making your husband’s hair billow about his face. When she makes a grunting noise, he carefully unwraps some of the swaddlings, holding the child up to let her see him better, smell him better. 

He is bright, your darling boy, and curious, like all babes and children. His eyes are wide as they take in Vhagar’s scaly form, and he gives a soft squeal of surprise or wonder, kicking his little feet under the blankets. Reaching his arm towards the beast's massive head, her massive teeth -

“Aemond, please - ” you gasp, clutching your hands to your throat. 

The prince turns his head to give you a stern look, one that clearly shows he is running out of patience. And maybe this time it is justified, because your fearful outburst startles the boy, who begins to squirm unhappily in his father’s arms. Fussing and whimpering; a sound that is as painful to you as salt to an open wound. 

“Bring him to me,” you plead, “can’t you see that he is frightened - ” 

“He is frightened because you are frightened,” the prince says, as soft spoken as always, but with a hint of something sharp underneath.

He cradles the boy closer to his chest, bouncing him gently, holding his head and murmuring soothing words. Exactly as you would do, and to the same effect. It calms him down, and his big, round eyes start darting around again, taking in his surroundings. The dragon, the grey sea, the fine silver clasps on his father’s clothes. It does seem that the latter intrigues him the most. 

Vhagar lifts her neck and tilts her head just slightly, seemingly very interested in the child, in this tiny little creature; the way he moves his little limbs, and his soft coos and noises. There is an almost… thoughtful look in her eyes, or at the very least a curious one. 

It makes you wonder about the extent of her perception. Whether she truly knows that this is Aemond’s child, that it came from him, from his body, his flesh. If she can sense it somehow, through the bond they purportedly share, or if she understood it when he spoke to her. 

How intelligent is a dragon? Are they like dogs or horses, able to learn the meaning of certain words, but not the full breadth of language? Or do they think as people, with nuance and emotion, and a mind as vivid as your own. 

You do not know. You suppose no one really does. 

“Come,” the prince calls, reaching his arm towards you, beckoning you closer. However, a single glance at Vhagar, whose mighty gaze is now focused on you, is enough to inspire disobedience in even the most well-behaved wife.

“I would really rather not - ”

“She must know the both of you,” he insists. 

“Is that - necessary?” you squirm, wringing your hands, very much aware that you are not a dragon rider, that you haven’t a drop of Valyrian blood. “Vhagar has no reason to think fondly of me…”

The prince scoffs. 

“Are you not the mother of my child?” he says. “Now, come.” 

You must go to him. He is your lord husband, and he is a prince, and such is the way of things. But you are not at all glad to, and you walk with shaky, reluctant steps, gripping onto his elbow and cowering behind him like a frightened child. 

You close your eyes when the dragon lowers her head once more, bringing it towards you. A sudden, low-pitched growl makes your heart tremble, but the prince speaks a soft command. Lykirī, Vhagar. Lykirī.

It has a calming effect on you too. As does the arm he keeps outstretched in front of you - solely for your comfort, you assume, as it would make no difference whatsoever, should Vhagar decide that she does not like you. But you appreciate the gesture nonetheless.

The air is warm, this close to her, and your skirts move around your legs when she breathes, slowly and deeply, while the prince speaks to her in soft tones. That word again, the one from before, and many others. You know the words for wife, for king, for father, brother, sister, even for dragon, but he says none of those now, so you have no guess as to what he is telling her. Or if she understands. Or what he would call you, if not his wife. 

This woman is my - spouse? lady? lover?

You do have a kind of love for him, and sometimes you think he does for you, too. Sometimes. One can never be sure of anything with the prince, who keeps himself so closely guarded. Even after more than a year of marriage. Even now that you have given him a child. 

The birth went mercifully well, but your recovery was long, and he has only recently begun to come to your bed again. And so far, only a handful of times. The first time, it was so painful for you that the act could not be completed, and the second time, he finished so quickly that it barely even counts. The third was better. Pleasurable for both of you, but still strange after going so long without it - at least for you. It is both likely and possible that the prince satisfied his urges elsewhere while your body was indisposed. You do not know. Nor do you wish to. 

The ground shifts beneath your feet, and the heat around you lessens, as does the heavy smell of burned flesh and brimstone, the very same one that so often clings to your husband’s clothes. When you open your eyes it is to the sight of Vhagar, settled onto her belly, her head laid atop her claws. Calm and docile, and with a deep rumble coming from her chest - one that is probably a sign of contentment, even if it sounds utterly terrifying. 

“Touch her,” the prince commands, giving a gentle push to your back. “You have nothing to fear, touch her.” 

It is quite clear that Vhagar is unruffled by your presence, that she is resting. But with her eyes heavy and half-closed, it makes her look so menacing, so evil - even though you know that evil does not exist inherently in any beast. Only in those who train it. 

You draw in a steadying breath, gathering up your courage, reaching your hand out - only to then think better of it and let it fall. 

“I am afraid to,” you whisper.

The prince sighs. But his hand closes gently around yours, bringing it to rest on the side of her nose, first the tips of your fingers, and then your whole palm. 

It is like nothing else you have ever felt, her scales. You always imagined that a dragon’s skin would feel like leather, but Vhagar’s skin is so much tougher, so much rougher, like running your hand over little rocks. And she is warm - so warm, as though a fire is always burning somewhere in her throat. 

She does not object at all to your touch, even when the prince withdraws his own hand, leaving only yours. Only you and Vhagar. The largest, oldest being in the world. 

To think, the things she has seen. The conquest, the Dornish Wars, the very founding of the realm of the Seven Kingdoms. Dozens of castles have crumbled in her fire, and thousands of people have perished, and she has fought and won hundreds of battles; torn through stone, rock and earth as though it was boiled jelly. 

It is at once terrifying and romantic, like something from a fairytale, or stories of ancient times. A creature of such myth and legend that you almost feel as though you should bow down to her, as one does before a great matriarch.

Vhagar the Conqueror. Queen of all Dragons. 

She closes her eyes when you draw back. 

“He might ride her too, some day,” the prince says quietly. Wistfully. 

“But dragons only have one rider - ” you protest, cutting yourself off when you realise what he meant. What he left unsaid. 

This is war. The realm is at war. Death is everywhere; at the end of a blade, in the point of an arrow. And if not on the field of battle, then in tainted water or plague-ridden camps; empty bellies or festering wounds.

“You shouldn’t say such things,” you mutter, looking down at your feet. Your dirtied shoes. 

The prince does not answer. A heavy mood has settled over the rocky beach, something vast and bleak and empty, only compounded by the surroundings. The colourless sky, the sombre crashing of waves. Even Vhagar gives a doleful sigh, as though she too is weary of what is to come.

She has been the prince’s companion since childhood. He was born to the queen, but Vhagar made him what he is, made him ruthless, made him brutally ambitious. Made him Aemond One-Eye, Aemond the Kinslayer. Prince Regent, Protector of the Realm. She has known him boy and man, as well as any, and better than most. She has known him in life, and she may yet know him in death.

You push that thought away as forcefully as your mind allows. You shouldn’t think such things. 

A coo from your son breaks the tension, and his eyes turn to the sky, where a large heron is flapping its wings. The afternoon is turning to evening, and soon the bell will ring for supper - something warm and comforting, you hope. You are cold, your breasts feel sore, and you have most certainly had enough excitement for one day. For several days, in fact.

“Can we go, please,” you breathe, looking up at your husband with wide, pleading eyes. 

“She is tired,” he says, with a soft glance at Vhagar’s terrifying face, and a gentle touch to her side. “Yes, we should.”

—

You walk slower on the way back. Uphill, with sore feet, and your boy now fast asleep in your arms. Safe and snug where he belongs. 

“My Prince,” you begin, sweet and innocent. “What does… yoreliatzeh mean?”

There is a sly little smile on his face when you look at him, a self-assured look in his remaining eye.

“Jorrāeliarza,” he corrects, with an artful pause before he continues. As though to keep you in suspense. “It means dear. Or… beloved.”

If he sees the sudden blush on your face, he does not let on. 

“Jorālitzeh.”

“No,” he says. “Jor-rāe-liar-za.”

“Jor-rāe-liar-za,” you repeat, trying your very best to mimic the exact movements of his mouth, the way he gently rolls his tongue. “Jorrāeliarza.”

“Better,” he nods, and then you round a corner, just in time to see the guards hastily hide their cards away, and the driver shuffling back towards the carriage, eagerly shoving his winnings into a pocket. 

Jorrāeliarza. Jorrāeliarza. Jorrāeliarza. 

Dear. Beloved. 

You like that very much.  

Please feel free to come into my asks or DMs with critique of my fics! Constructive is preferred, but not required.

Tags. @arcielee, @targaryen-madness, @aemondsbabygirl, @qyburnsghost, @blackswxnn

I am a mess with the tagging, I'm so sorry if I forgot or wrongly tagged anyone. Let me know, I will fix it.

[karlachismylife]

i told myself i'll take a break in my failing attempts to write a couple things on Karlach x Soap in english and go back to writing a couple other things in my first language for the upcoming fandom combat deadline

so here's a thing i wrote instead and it's neither of those :D

Very much inspired by my precious friend that is obsessed with some datesim I know nothing about and talks my ear off about her sexy chinese dudes while I make her listen to me simping for my dead scottish ADHD meow meow. We don't know shit about each other's fandoms but we're so excited for each other... Also excuse me if this idea has already been done (I swear I thought of it on my own, but I will tag anyone who's done this before if you send me a link) + my English writing still sucks.

I also encourage you to check out these smaus, they're brilliant and I somewhat looked at them when wrote Kyle's text messages and this wonderful thing about Ghost and Animal Crossing that also inspired me to look into these silly military men and mobile/video games.

Task force 141 and their reaction to their S/O playing dating simulator games

CW: gn!civilian!reader (if I slipped into one or the other gender somewhere, please tell me & I'll correct), mostly fluff with a bit of spice, pet names, mild cursing, unserious jealousy and banter, long-distance (Gaz), describing nudes and mild sexting (Gaz), soft Ghost, mentioned spanking (Price), mild dom!Price, alluded reader recieveing fingerng and oral (Soap)

Word count: ~5k

Kyle "Gaz" Garrick

That silly app you downloaded because its (very compelling) ads were repeatedly shoved in your face became surprisingly convenient when Gaz got deployed and wasn't within reach for weeks. A slightly clay-looking guy on your screen didn't hold up in comparison to the smoothest bastard sergeant with the tightest grip on your heart, but a cute feature with app notifications stylized as loving text messages from the virtual boyfriend somehow helped cope with the radio silence from Kyle. You knew he would be fine, how could he not? You gave him a very proper goodbye kiss (and goodbye sex that was a bit more improper) for luck, and he was too damn good at his job to fail. You weren't going insane from worry, at least not more than usually.

But the loneliness, the fucking loneliness was a little bit more bearable when you still got your "good morning beautiful xx" and "thinking about you before bed" even though the font was wacky and some phrases were clearly poorly google translated. To unlock these little snippets you opened the app every day, usually tapping mindlessly on all the required interactions before going to sleep and eyeing some of the ingame wardrobe options that wouldn't work too bad on your man. In fact, you even took a screenshot of a nice suit - if tailored right, Kyle would look in it sharper than the tactical knife he knew so well. You just needed an opportunity to show it to him.

And the opportunity barged in with a sudden surge of texts right when you were already getting ready for some shut-eye.

Three weeks of muffled unease wiped out and replaced with that never-tiring giddy feeling bubbling inside as soon as you saw Kyle's name pop up on top of your screen.

"hi baby"

"finally can text, miss you terribly 😘"

"what are you up to angel?"

You could feel your own cheeks strain with the stupid smile plastered on your face. No doubt, Kyle texted you at the first opportunity - he was there, he was okay and he missed you. All sleepiness in your body withered away, leaving you energized at eleven pm, squirming in your bed as you rolled over to start vigorously typing back. You never knew how much time you both have to chat, unstable signal or simply never-ending duty could interrupt you at any given moment, so you had to get your fill of premium class Garrick right there and then - no matter how drowsy it would make you the next morning.

Eventually you sent him the screenshot you took without second thoughts:

"btw thought you'd look good in smth like this baby, what do you think?"

Instead of a normal reply on the topic, though, you recieved an immediate jab followed by short pause:

"the fuck is that baby? 🤣"

"wait i think i know"

"replacing me with a vr boyfriend already? jesus fuck angel i haven't been away even for a month"

"i'm wounded, truly. he doesn't even look that good and can't spell correctly. what a downgrade 😔"

If only you could communicate the muscle-straining eyeroll you had through text. Chuckling and snorting, you immediately came to defence of your pixel prince charming, simply for the sake of it.

"how dare you. he's not a mere replacement, this is true love, garrick 💕🥰❤️✨"

"look at the top, we're already level 29 intimacy"

"gonna get him to send me nudes soon, they unlock at lvl 30"

Gaz could probably hear your bratty giggles on the other side of the globe, sheets rustling as you wiggled in your bed, absolutely proud of your impeccably fine-tuned wit and properly excited for the upcoming smartass comeback, since Kyle would rather die than let you have a win. But you've already calmed down with your cheeks mildly flushed, and the messages were still left on read.

Weird. It wasn't the first time your chatting ended abruptly, but usually Kyle had time at least to tell you he had to go - maybe even exchange little "ily"s. Did the signal cut off? But it was good enough for him to download a picture even, surely he'd notice if it started lagging and tell you. Did something bad happen? An emergency? An ambush?

A slight frown etched in your face as you started unwillingly thinking of the worst. Then - in a moment - that little green circle signaling Gaz was online came back. And still no answer.

Did he... get actually upset? Over a fucking datesim app?

It was hard to believe. Impossible, even. Kyle was never prone to jealosy fits, smug bastard definitely knew how secure you two were. But maybe... maybe it was the fact that you were seeking comfort he couldn't provide? Being told you needed a whole ass app simply to tell you goodnight while he was god knows where, unable to hold you and cuddle you to sleep - that could sting.

Shit, you shouldn't have started this. Gaz wouldn't outright admit he felt even the slightest bit insecure over an unblinking 3D monstrosity with a sexy Korean voice. He'd think it was stupid - and he would be right, frankly, but in this case this wasn't completely unreasonable.

Already anxious, you put your thumbs back on the phone to type out a careful question, but before you could even think of a right way to formulate it the chat chirped and loaded in a bunch of attachments.

Absolutely scandalous. Hastly unndone uniform, sweaty shirt pulled up and - you knew it even if it was outside the frame - clutched in his teeth, bared in a self-assured smirk, belt unbuckled and hanging from the loops of pants pulled down just a bit; just enough for his hand to slip inside and gather into a delicious grasp around the bulge you knew was straining against his boxers. Fucking tease, pulling the elastic band with his thumb to let you see just the base of his cock - you had to swipe several mouth-watering closeups on his chest, v-line beautifully adorned with dark hair and that bloody hand you already ached to feel on your thigh, before you finally got your reward. Hard just from the thought of you, tip glistening with the pre-cum he definitely smeared all over specifically for that picture.

"wanted to ask if your pixel bf can beat these"

"but i think your silence already says enough 😏"

You groaned, belly warm with the familiar longing. What an angel of a man, finding time to somehow snap packs of perfect nudes in the middle of wherever he was. Already turning over to slide your hand down your body, you sent a very sulking "hate you garrick. first made me worried and now horny, shameless bastard" and got an obligatory "sure you do. i'll fuck that attitude outta you as soon as i get back angel".

Somehow all the need in a virtual replacement vanished after this chat. Not only did Kyle text you more regularly - sensing a competition maybe, huh? - but you also got yourself enough material to be comforted before sleep. Sure, you'd rather have your man there in person, but no perfect-looking anime prince could offer a view better than Kyle's flexed arms or a cheeky sneak peek of his plump ass and a smooth back arch snapped over his shoulder.

No wonder you two threw yourselves at each other when Gaz finally showed up home, tired and a little roghed up, but very much alive and pent up for you. Once you were done relieving some of that frustration and cuddled up after a nice, hot shower, though, Kyle nipped your earlobe teasingly.

"No such level to unlock this experience, huh, angel? Something your app boytoy can't provide."

He caught your arm before you could elbow him playfully and grasped you tighter aroung your waist, using his free hand to get his phone and hold it in front of your face.

"Besides, I think he likes me more."

"How the fuck did you get to level sixty, Garrick?!"

Simon "Ghost" Riley

"Twilight was peaking how many years ago? And they still have this stupid choice everywhere."

Simon, the unmoving domestic shadow spread in a comfortable sitting position on your couch for the daily quiet together time, turned his head lazily and gently squeezed your thigh, careful not to disturb your legs thrown over his lap as he leaned a bit closer with a mildly interested "Hm?"

"It's this dating game. They're making me choose between a vampire and a werewolf. Can't think of another conflict for the last decade, really? Why not elves versus orcs? They never make stories about sexy orcs. But there's a market for it! Why stick to the same broken record all the time? Or, I don't know, invent beef between fairies and mermaids!" You huffed in exasperation, waving your phone in a vague gesture meant to express your disdain for the lack of creativity in the supernatural romance visual novels department. Ghost's usual intense stare boring into your face could mean anything - from him silently judging you for lacking respect for the culturally impactful vampries-werewolves feud to a wordless question whether you were in the sexy orc enjoyers market.

But when he finally spoke, scarred lips slightly curled upwards in a hint of an amused smile and eyebrows raised, he asked what seemed to catch his attention much more than what fantasy creature you would like to bang.

"A dating game?" His smirk became more prominent, eyes narrowing as an indicator of him looking for a way to quip in the most unbearable way possible. "What's all that about, love?"

The fact that he didn't know wasn't that surprising, you'd be much more astonished if Ghost did know what a dating simulator game was, but the need to explain still caught you off guard, forcing you to pause with the expressive phone gesturing and actually try and describe the phenomenon.

"Well, it's a mobile game, where you, like... have to play through a story with the main thing being befriending and romancing characters. It's mostly reading a story, really, but you get dialogue options to unlock special scenes with your chosen romantic interest or you can give them gifts..." A stolen glance at Simon told you that he was surprsingly paying attention. "But there's often a plot too. The one I started recently is about, well, vampires and werewolves... a Twilight ripoff, basically, but the player gets to be Bella." You paused, gauging his reaction, but other than his calloused fingers kneading the meat of your thigh Ghost didn't even move, leaving you to look at him with suspicion mixed with amusement. "Want me to show you?.."

Finally, his hand stopped its methodical massaging, only to pat your thigh approvingly and help you sit up, cozily snuggled up to the man whose hoodie you shamelessly stole just to wear around him. Wrapping his muscular arm around you, Ghost leaned his head against yours and prepared for the highly educational lecture on the world full of opportunities to get turned down because of having too low approval with the character.

You showed him the exact story that got you so riled up, explained the quite primitive mechanics behind gaining attraction points with the characters and rehashed the entire plot up to the point where you were stuck now - the one where it was obvious the game wanted you to pick a side. Simon listened carefully, gruff chuckles at some of your grumbling and a lot of very insightful commentary on each and every character ("that one's got Johnny's fucking mighty schnotz" and " 'course he's a fucking twat, look at his bloody necktie, a hemp one would be an improvement on 'im"), inculding your own avatar that you spent considerable time making to look like you wanted.

"That supposed to be you, love?" He didn't even try to mask the snarky tone, and you definitely prepared to be offended. You put so much thought into the character looks! So what if they didn't match your real ones fully? It's the game limitations, not your fault. "Hmph. Maybe good enough for these two muppets to fight over. But I reckon I like my version better. Comes with high-quality visuals."

His arm tightened around your shoulders, pulling you up for a short and sweet kiss, rough thumb stroking your jawline tenderly and pressing up under your chin when Ghost pulled away with a crooked smirk, shattered with scars into an artful mosaic.

"Trying to get your approval higher, sir?" You teased, eyes darting between his smiling - what a view, honestly - eyes and ready to be kissed again lips. His response was predictable. "It's working, innit, love? Think there's enough for a special bonus scene yet?"

Despite you clearly pretending to think and count his imaginary attraction points, Simon already started pulling you up into his lap, holding you securely and running his fingers along the curve of your back. "Might need a little more convincing, gamer. You didn't even bring a special gift to this date." Ghost's half-lidded eyes sparkled with hidden competitevness and his chest rumbled with a deep chuckle as he reached out to take your phone out of your hand softly.

"Gave you the hoodie. It counts." Ignoring your not very convincing protests ("It's mine already, of course it doesn't count!"), he tapped something on your screen and then put the phone away, wrapping his arms back around your form and slowly leaning into a tangled cuddlepile in an almost lying position. All your squirming successfully restrained with a bearhug, you huffed and placed your chin on Ghost's chest, looking up at him. He was there, with you, but deep in his gaze you noticed a certain swrling cloud of thoughts. Reading Simon's eyes was a must with him, he knew you could and didn't ever hide them from you.

"What are you thinking about?" You carefully inquired, running your hands over his shoulders and squeezing gently, a habit helping both of you to ease some tension. Simon blinked, tilting his head slightly, and let out a small sigh, seeking the right words. "You're not playing that game because I'm not doing enough, are you, lovie? 'Cos if you are, I'd rather you tell me what's wrong."

Always straight to the point. At least, when he finally decides to speak up. The big, scary dog worried about a silly mobile game as his competition? Cute. But the seriousness in his eyes called for a proper answer, not a teasing joke or a simple "aww, don't worry".

"You're doing more than enough, Simon, and you know it. It's a game, just living out my fantasies as the main character. But I can delete it if it makes you uncomfortable, it's no big deal, you know?" The tiniest bit of tension you felt underneath your fingertips disappeared, leaving Ghost sinking even further into the couch with you properly wrapped in his protective embrace.

"Nah, gorgeous, you keep playin' whatever shite you wanna be playin'. Just promise to keep me updated on the bloke so I can upstage him in every way." His voice got muffled since he buried his face in your chest, eyes closed peacefully and pure bliss written in all the relaxed features. Cradling his head, you hummed in agreement, but then perked up again.

"Wait, what bloke? You picked one of them for me?" - "Mhm." - "Oh come on, Simon, what happened to the freedom of choice!" You could feel his smile get more prominent despite being hidden in the softness of your chest covered with the thick hoodie material. "Which one did you choose? The vampire 'cause he's wearing all black?"

"Nuh-uh. The other one. The mutt."

You giggled at his choice of words and let out a quiet "oi" when Simon pinched you for disturbing his calm enjoyment of a "bonus scene" with the chosen romance option, that being you.

"Why? You're a Wolf Man fan or something?"

"'f course I am, love. He's British."

Captain John Price

When you saw the notification that the game you got sucked into with the active help of your friends got a "sound update", you knew what that meant - they finally added English voiceover lines for every single hunk of a man you had in your virtual harem, and you couldn't wait to hear what voices they gave your favourites. Given the nature of the game, you decided to put your earbuds on and started listening through the whole voicelines library, busying your hands with mundane tasks like folding laundry. John was sitting in the kitchen, fully immersed into his reading - potentially work-related. Or at least enthralling enough for him to miss your flushed cheeks or periodical giggling.

But no matter how important his reading was, what he couldn't miss was the sultry male voice coming out of your phone with a whispered "Wouldn't you love that, bunny?". Of course the parinig connection between your phone and the wireless earbuds had to get interrupted exactly when you were pouring yourself a cuppa and couldn't even drop the kettle in order to shush the suggestive purring of your digital fave.

You could feel Price staring at you. You could practically hear his bushy eyebrows slowly rising as he patiently waited for you to say something first. You were fully contemplating brewing yourself some poison instead of tea to avoid getting confronted by your man who just heard someone call you bunny on the phone.

So when you didn't start first, John, more amused than anything - he knew you too well to read through all your tiny microreactions and conclude that this wasn't hardcore evidence of an affair, but something much more suitable for future teasing (were you listening to porn or something? a naughty audiobook? oh so many golden opportunities to make you squirm under the steel gaze of the captain) - asked very nonchalantly: "What was that, darling?"

"What?" There was no point in pretending you didn't know what he's talking about, but you still tried. If anything, it allowed you to stall while you very hesitantly turned around and saw John and his smile, not even a hint of sterness in the round plumpness of bearded cheeks and little crow's feet in the corners of his eyes. "What was what, honey? You want some tea too?"

A futile attempt at deflecting and bribery rolled into one. You were lucky you were not his subordinate. You were unlucky the voice of some other man, dripping with mirth, came back into your ear once the next voiceline loaded in and the connection with your earbuds got restored. This was equal to admitting your crimes in front of the judges, but you slowly took your phone out of your pocket and hit pause.

"Does the tea come with an explnation who's the bloke whispering in your pretty ears, bunny? 'Cos if so, I'll take a cuppa, thank you very much."

He was beaming. Leaned back in his chair, knees wide apart and burly arms folded on his chest, Price wanted to have a wee little pause in his serious reading, and watching you squirm was the best distraction and brain-reloading he could ever get.

"I-it's not like that, I promise." Was that a bead of sweat running down your nape? John grunted, cocking an eyebrow and pushing his chin into his chest to stare at you from an angle that best conveyed that "I am not convinced, love" look. "It's just a little game, John, promise. Not a real man, just a made-up character."

Those piercing eyes narrowed even more, silently measuring you up for potentially bullshitting him, and then a heavy hand patted the broad thigh. An order, not an invitation (an order you could always disobey, though...)

"Show me."

Forgetting the option to disobey with little consequences, you hung your head down and dragged yourself and your fresh cuppa over to John, settling in his lap. The tea didn't even make it to the table, he snatched it from your fingers, careful enough not to spill, and sipped loudly, patting your side condescendingly. Any more stalling could result in various stages of burning buttocks, so you complied with the demand without Price repeating himself and opened the app, disconnecting your earbuds in the process.

He clearly wanted to hear that embarassing shit.

Your explanations of what a datesim was seemed to amuse John greatly - knowing his love for farming games, you made sure to mention all the best ones mixing the two genres, clearly trying to sweeten the deal.

"So wha', sum muppet in your phone callin' you bunny and you like 't? Maybe I should start too, huh?" You had to close your eyes to stop the internal screaming, and John's gruff chuckle hit your burning ear with a gentle puff. "But these, erm..." - "Companions." - "Riiight, these companions, they ain't whispering something... naughtier, are they?"

There was a hint of seriousness in his question, so you opened your eyes again and turned to look at him. His face was still smiling calmly, but the expectation was that of an honest and direct answer.

"Well, they do have more explicit scenarios and voicelines..." - "They talkin' dirty to you, eh? Guess I should step up my game." He flexed his jaw and leaned even closer, brushing his slightly chapped lips over the tender shell of your ear, soft beard tickling you and leaving you helpless. "Can't have my sweetheart wooed by sum app game fockers, can I? C'mere you little bunny, Imma show you sumthin' to hop on."

He stood up suddenly, lifting you with a soft grunt and dragging you away from the forgotten phone and empty cup. No amount of "John!" squeaked out could save you from that bear of a man groping your ass before throwing you onto bed and climbing on top. His weight squeezed the air out of your lungs as he roamed his big palmes all over your sweet body, even more enthusiastic about the impromptu break in his work.

"Ugh, fine, Johnathan Price, I won't be listening to the spicy dialogues! Just let me finish my-" Absolutely futile, your plea to get back to housework you had planned got cut short by a deep kiss, John's tongue sliding in your mouth as the most efficient (okay, maybe, second most) gag he could use on you. Your hands, previously pressed against his furry chest in an attempt to push him off, relaxed and buried themselves in his thick hair, ruffliing it and tugging him closer by the strands. A low grunt let you know what you already knew and felt much lower - John fully approved both that and your promise to keep away from the horny digital harem.

"Why even bother with 'em bloody games when you can 'ave the real thing, huh?"

John "Soap" MacTavish

"Whit are ye smiling at there, bonnie?"

Before you could even process the question and come up with any answer (excuse) about the silliest giddy smile that a cutscene in your chosen romance route got out of you, your massive - the only way to not be thrown off by Johny "Can't Sleep Still" MacTavish - bed creaked underneath the impressive weight of a fine Scottish specimen. Like a curious pup, Soap squeezed his head through the loop of your arm, earning himself a choking cuddle in the process, and stared into your screen.

"No, Johnny, piss off! It's personal!" You scrambled to turn your phone away from him and held it to your chest, a traitorous warmth in your cheeks threatening to give away what kind of personal it was. Of course, Soap caught on immediately, playful glint in his eyes as he simply yanked the phone out of your grip and turned over onto his back, shamelessly using you as a pillow while he unlocked your screen (why the fuck were you two so trusting and shared passwords!) and looked at the animated cutscene.

And why did it have to be the first spicy one you finally unlocked?

"What's tha'? Didnae peg ye fur a hentai type, bonnie." Soap watched the looped animation for a few more seconds while you wrestled against his heavy fucking carcass helplessly. With a single tap he closed the cutscene and let out an amused hum when met with the continuation of your unlocked chapter. "Och, so ye're reading smut too? Naughty."

You squirmed visciously, fighting for your dignity as he started reading aloud through the desciption of what didn't make the cutscene. The experience was downright horrible, humiliating and arousing at the same time as Johnny's thick brogue and mocking tone killed every ounce of spice in the steamy scene and somehow added new ones. Along with his stuttering. This lad... you even tried to grab his arm and chew on the meaty muscle in hopes of distracting him, but he didn't even flinch, simply pulling his limb out of your grasp and putting it behind his head comfortably. Outraging.

"Slender aristocratic fingers squeezing supple..." he smacked his lips so loudly that you groaned, "...flesh nae hard enough tae leave marks, but enough tae el... elicit pleasure, his breath hot in yer ear, whispering... Hauld yer horses- how come is yer name 'ere, bonnie? Who's writing this fur ye?" You nearly bounced off the bed when Soap suddenly sat up straight, relieving you from his (quite welcome, to be fair) burden, and frowned at your phone, scrolling through the erotc piece as if he could figure out who was the author just from reading it carefully enough. The pout he turned to you with was nothing short of absolutely heartbreaking. "Who's tha' "Laird Sebastian" prick writing a' kinds of nasty shite he wants tae dae tae ma' leannan? Am ah nae enough fur ye, bonnie? Dae ye wanntae leave me fur some posh bastard wi' a stick so far up his arse tha' it pokes outta his yapper?"

It was so obvious that Soap was just taking the piss, but his bottomless puppy eyes with the longest lashes fluttering as if on the verge of tears were working their dark magic, crashing your train of thought like a whole gang of outlaws from the Wild West and coercing you into making an apologetic expression and reaching your arms pleadingly for a hug. "Aw, come on, Johnny, it's just a-"

"Ah dinnae think tis a good idea, love. Ah dinnae have slender aristocratic fingers, wha' if a'm awful lot o' a commoner tae yer tastes..." Soap tilted his chin up, a perfect depiction of dignity suffering horrible offence, and turned away defiently, immediately peeking back at you from the corner of his twinkling blue eye. You knew those little smiling creases too well to miss them forming despite him holding a pout quite successfully, so you scoffed, still slightly flushed from being caught red-handed, and rolled your eyes, snuggling up to Johnny from behind and starting to kiss behind his ear.

"I'm so, so sorry, love of my life. No posh bastards come nowhere near you, you're my favourite commoner. Fuck Lord Sebastian-" You realized you chose the wrong wording when Soap couldn't hold back a snort. "Aye, well, seems lik' ye were planning on doing exactly tha-" - "Oh shut the fuck up, MacTavish!"

Shut the fuck up he did, turning back to face you abruptly and tackling you into the sheets, lavishing kisses with his searing hot lips all over your face. A real mutt pouncing the handler he has no respect and all the love for. There was no choice left for you other than wrap all your limbs around Soap and writhe underneath him, nearly missing that very inconspicuous way he reached his arm out and dropped your phone on the nightstand before cradling your head for much deeper, sloppier kisses.

"Gonna show tha' laird sod how tae fuck mah bonnie real good, aye? Mak' ye come wi' thae fingers right 'ere, nae aristocrat bullshit." Lapping up your neck with his wet tongue, Soap planted a greedy kiss right underneath your jaw and sucked at the soft skin until it showed a little pinkish hue. The bastard was set on making you sing for him, big rough palms grabbing handfuls of your flesh, squeezing and massaging while Johnny kept decending down your body with clear determination. "C'mon, leannan, let me hear ye. Say yer ol' Johnny's better than tha' bawbag Sebastian."

Sliding your hands over his broad shoulders, you held his nape before tugging on his slightly outgrown mohawk, your own head falling backwards in an exhausted yet adoring sigh.

"You know it's just a game, right, loverboy? A dating simulator, not a real thing? Oi, watch it!" A sharp gasp escaped your lips as Soap chomped on your side and immediately nuzzled into your stomach to blow raspberries into the soft plush, catching you once you started squirming and giggling. No intention of letting you catch your breath until he heard what he wanted. "Fine! Fine, Johnny, you are so, so much better than Lord Sebastian."

Satisfied, he loosened his grasp on you and lifted his head, grinning like he's just won you over from somene actually threatening in terms of romance. Hooked his fingers into your housewear bottoms, slowly tugged them down and started trailing hot-mouthed kisses down from your solar plexus, sky blue eyes glazing over with the never-satiated hunger for your taste on his greedy tongue.

You held your breath. A joke was itching inside your mouth, begging to be let out, dancing on the tip of your tongue...

"You're lucky I didn't choose Duke Aaron's route. That's some serious competion."

"Och, away 'n bile yer heid, bonnie!"

Thank you for reading! I appreciate all interactions, likes, reblogs, comments and requests (send in anything for now! I can filter them myself, but I am open to smut, including rare kinks and some dark themes. Keep in mind though that I am limited by my skill & overall prefer sugary fluff. I will write for any of the task force 141 and baldur's gate characters, including parings, poly, x reader and x OC), I will write drabbles, headcanons and whatever else formats you can think of.

Also any corrections are welcome as long as you're not being mean! Thank you <3

[blindmagdalena]

Christmas Traditions

1k gen fic featuring our favorite dysfunctional father & son. some themes of grief and slight codependency. inspired by the exchange in the comments of this ask.

Homelander tells Ryan that Santa's not real. It goes poorly.

“Hey, dad!” Ryan calls from the living room.

“Yeah, bud?” Homelander calls back, meticulously unraveling a nightmarish tangle of Christmas lights. If he’d had things his way, the decorating would have been done for them when the two of them returned to the penthouse.

Instead, Ryan had been insistent that they decorate together.

It’s tradition, he said. Homelander didn’t have the heart to refute him.

“You don’t have a chimney,” the boy declares from the doorway, standing with a stocking clutched in both hands. “I don’t have anywhere to hang my stocking.”

“Oh, uhhhh…” Homelander looks over his shoulder, eying the stocking warily. One of Ryan’s holdovers from his former home. Former prison, more like. “Go ahead and hang it on Atlas. What’s one stocking against the weight of the world?”

Ryan doesn’t seem to appreciate the joke. His expression is still pinched in concern.

Homelander frowns, setting the lights down. “What’s wrong, bud?”

“How’s Santa going to get in if you don’t have a chimney?” He asks very seriously, lightly twisting the stocking between his hands.

“Oh,” Homelander barks softly, breaking into a smile as he looks back to his task. “Aren’t you a little old for that?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, the whole Santa thing?” When he looks back to his son, it still isn’t clicking. His brows furrow. “He’s not real, Ryan.”

Ryan grimaces like he’s been struck at, lifting his stocking to chest height like some sort of festive barrier. “Yes he is. Mom said so.”

Homelander blows a raspberry. Great, it’s going to be one of those conversations. “Yeah, well, your mom said a lot of things that weren’t true, didn’t she?” He stands from the table and makes his way over to the boy now scowling at him with hurt and confusion. “But hey, look at it this way: you don’t need Santa anymore. You’ve got me!” He says, arms splayed in invitation. “I don’t even need reindeer to fly! And neither do you, for that matter.”

Ryan doesn’t move. He’s still clutching that stocking to his chest. It looks handmade, the large R initial sloppily sewn in place. As much as he’d like to sneer at it, there’s a nagging jealousy in the back of his mind because the imperfections are how he knows it was made with love.

“Hey,” Homelander coaxes again, reaching out to give his shoulders a little squeeze. “C’mon, pal. Am I wrong?”

Still, Ryan doesn’t move. He doesn’t meet his father’s eye. Homelander can feel the mounting upset in the slight tremble of his shoulders, though.

“C’mon, little man,” he says, giving the gentlest shake. “Talk to me.”

“I killed Santa,” Ryan croaks out. 

Homelander recoils in equal parts surprise and confusion. “What?”

“It’s my fault,” he says, clutching the stocking tightly to his chest, choking on each word as tears spill down his cheeks. “It’s my fault mom’s gone, and now Santa’s gone too. They’re gone and I killed them.”

Shit, shit, fuck, damn it, shit. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, back it up, kiddo,” he says, dropping into a kneel. “We’ve been over this, okay? What happened wasn’t–”

“It doesn’t matter!” Ryan interrupts mournfully. “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter if it isn’t, she’s still gone. And Santa’s not real because she’s gone.”

Homelander stares for a long moment, utterly at a loss. “I… I’m sorry.”

The dam breaks and Ryan sobs as he throws his arms around Homelander’s neck, muffling the wet noise of it into the collar of his suit. The sound of it is horrible not just for the sensory of it, but how each ragged breath tolls like a bell of failure. Father’s aren’t supposed to make their sons cry. They’re supposed to protect them. They’re supposed to make everything better.

Homelander lifts Ryan as though he’s much smaller than he is, cradling the crying boy to his chest and rubbing his back in soothing sweeps. “I’m sorry, bud,” he says, whispering it again and again and again. “I’m sorry.”

I’m still getting the hang of this, he nearly says, but he swallows it back. He wants Ryan to think of him the way a father should be seen. As if he knows what the fuck he’s doing. He continues to rub his back, comforting him through a loss that is both alien and painfully familiar to Homelander.

He never had a mother to lose, not really, but isn’t that a loss in and of itself? The pain of grief is a bitterness shared across all types of love. Even for the love you never had the chance to know. Even for the love that was a perversion of what could have been.

His own eyes burn with their shared grief. His son weeps in his arms like a very small child would, and Homelander hears the familiar sobs of his own childhood echoed in those same cries.

“It’s okay,” he says, clearing his throat, the catch of his voice humiliating to his own ears. “It’s okay, son. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here… I’m here.”

Maybe it’s a poor consolation–Ryan will always miss his mother–but it has to account for something, doesn’t it? He already has so much more than Homelander ever did. He understands Ryan better than anyone ever will, and vice-versa. Together, they can weather this storm.

Eventually, Ryan quiets. He could have cried for several more hours if he wanted. His fathers arms will never tire of his weight. He’s stronger than that, though; of course he is. They both are, Homelander tells himself.

“Can we still put out milk and cookies?” Ryan asks after a time, voice still half-muffled against Homelander’s suit.

“Yeah, bud,” he agrees readily, giving his boy a squeeze. He would agree to anything in the world right now. Arson, murder, robbery, a thirty-stack of pancakes, whatever the kid wanted. Homelander’s nerves feel as structurally sound as jell-o in the wake of his son’s tears. “We sure can.”

As Ryan would say, it’s tradition.

[m4gp13]

Can we talk about how badly Rick nerfed Jason when he broke IVLIVS at the end of the book it was introduced in? And by nerfed I don't mean the destruction of it held him back in terms of power in any way, I mean in terms of the narrative and particularly his ability to stand against/alongside Percy.

Percy already had five books of context, backstory and time for the reader to get attached so Jason had to do a lot of heavy lifting to not get completely overshadowed but at every opportunity Rick had to let Jason have something to puff him up, it fell flat. Percy had a cool transforming weapon so Rick gave Jason one but then destroyed it in the first book of the series. It reminds me of Rick giving Jason a flying horse in the form of Tempest so he would have his own Blackjack but then Tempest hardly showed up and didn't have a fraction of the established bond that Percy had with Blackjack (also Tempest definitely should have been a giant eagle especially since it was established that Venti can appear as giant eagles).

The worst part about it is that IVLIVS could have been so cool! First of all, ranged weapons are incredibly underused in Rick's books. Clarisse had her electric spear that was relevant for one book but everyone else just has swords or knives, occasionally bows and arrows. It's especially annoying because in most historical military units, Roman and Greek ones included, swords and knives were mostly kept on person as a last resort. In an ideal fight, they never would have been removed from the sheath. The spears should have been enough and most of the time, they were enough. Jason being a Roman demigod could have made him using a spear much more impactful because it would have emphasised the strict and regimented approach the Romans have towards fighting. It would have contrasted with the way the Greeks fight. Since Rick already had the whole arc of Jason deciding he's as Greek as he is Roman, it would have made the whole thing about IVLIVS being both a spear and a sword may more narratively important. The spear represents his Roman side and the sword represents his Greek side.

Second of all, the functionality of it could have been very well-utilised. It's a coin toss. It's inherently random. It would have been cool to see Jason in a fight where he wanted to use one weapon but the coin gave him the other and we would have seen him improvise on the fly, showcasing his years of military experience and the skills that made him a praetor to adapt an ill-suited weapon for the situation and use it effectively because he knows these weapons very well and knows how to use them even in unfavourable contexts. Or you could have it the other way. He wants weapon A, gets weapon B which is much worse for the fight he's in and does poorly, extra points if it draws attention to the Greek/Roman debate he's having. Maybe he wants to use a spear when he's fighting the ghosts at the start of BOO but gets a sword and because of this, gets stabbed by the ghost guy who emphasises how Roman he is. Jason internalises his failure to be Greek (failure to use his Greek sword and fighting style to protect himself against the Romans) and how it caused him to be in danger of 'dying like a Roman' but does character development stuff and heals his wound with the power of believing in himself and realising he can be both Greek and Roman (*cough cough* because I'm a bi!Jason truther his dual identity could have been a great metaphor and parallel to his sexuality *cough cough*).

Lastly, it would have given him something interesting to help him stand out in a cast full of interesting characters with their own 'flair' to make them memorable. Percy obviously has Riptide, Annabeth had Luke's old knife (which she should have gotten to keep), Piper had Katoptris and later on the Boread's sword (which she should have gotten to use more), Frank was the only significant character with a bow and arrow, Leo had his magic toolbelt and Hazel had her spatha (but should have gotten to use it while on Arion a lot more, it's a cavalry sword). And Jason had a sword. Just a regular ass sword. Even Nico's sword had some intrigue because it was made of Stygian iron and it has its kopis shape (idk if that's canon or fanon because it's shaped like that in virtually all fanart of him but I can't remember it being described like that in the books. I could be misremembering this but I have no idea where that idea came from). Jason's already at a huge disadvantage and loads of readers (particularly when the hoo books were being released) just saw Jason as boring and unnecessary.

[cartridgeconverter]

Don Giovanni characters as fountain pens

I have long postponed making this post as I was afraid it might convince me to spend more money. However, armed with a new sense of fiscal responsibility, I think I am prepared.

I've tried to have a range of prices that roughly correspond to the status of the characters, as well as many different brands. Honestly all of these are just vibes, but I've tried to give my justifications were I can.

Leporello - Sailor Profit Junior in Kohiru ($60 as part of a limited edition set, including other products)

I know I just said that I would try and match the lower-class characters to appropriately-priced pens, but look at it. It has a bunny on it. This is the best pen ever.

Don Giovanni - Visconti Opera Gold in Red ($348)

This is probably the only pen on this list that I would absolutely never buy, no matter how much opera-themed branding it has, because it is a ridiculous price and also looks stupid. But "ridiculous price" and "looks stupid" are both things I associate with Don G, and he would definitely be a Visconti whore -- it's a brand highly associated with luxury.

My other choice for him is also a Visconti model, this time the Divina Matte in Bordeaux. This is an even more ridiculous price, at $796. However, it is less obnoxiously red than the Opera Gold, so it is an alternate. He probably would have both anyway.

Donna Anna - Nahvalur Voyage in Shanghai ($130)

I have this one! She is beauty, she is grace. She is also very poorly designed but I forgive her for that. This pen is super elegant, albeit large, and is made from resin with real diamond flakes in it. I love the color also - black, with streaks of blue that show up under light. It reminds me a bit of Anna's costume in the Kasper Holten production. It's simply a very beautiful pen (with tons of design flaws and constitution issues, grr).

The Commendatore - Parker Jack-Knife with silver filigree ($5 in 1902, which is equivalent to $183 today)

This is a very lovely vintage pen from the Parker company, of which I scoured this ancient website for a picture (https://parkerpens.net/index.shtml). As an aside, this site is great; it's very well-kept and contains a detailed account of Parker models through time, with pictures. This pen, though gaudy, is exactly the type of thing that I think old men who do things like duels in the middle of the night would have. (Please work with me here, I don't exactly have a lot of content to go off of :P)

Don Ottavio - Sailor Pro Gear Slim, Shikiori Amaoto collection in Kirisame ($360)

Honestly, any purple Sailor will fit for Ottavio. They're generally on the smaller side, but the designs have an elegant simplicity to them. Also, purple. It's him! It's just him.

This will probably be the ultimate piece in my collection. It's such a lovely little thing, with a 21k gold nib. Unfortunately, I will not be purchasing it any time soon, due to my responsible spending habits.

Donna Elvira - LAMY Al-Star in Black Purple ($48)

Also another model I own -- I swear by Lamys as a great everyday pen. They're reliable and ergonomic, even if they're not as visually appealing as some other brands. The Al-Star, being made of aluminum, is a bit of an upgrade from their plastic model, the Safari with a slightly higher price. I think it's very fitting for Elvira, as a travelling woman.

Zerlina and Masetto - LAMY Safari in Savannah Green and Terra Red ($19)

The Lamy Safari is my favorite everyday pen to use, full stop. It's the same model as the Al-Star, but made from a lightweight plastic. They have a very practical and minimalist aesthetic, but it works, and it works well. They're super durable and apparently can survive being run over by warehouse equipment. I just think this model really suits these two, or maybe I'm biased since it's my favorite.

In particular, these are the two special edition colors made to celebrate the 40 year anniversary of the model, as they were the original colors to be manufactured. The green (which I own) matches Zerlina's dress in the IvH production, which is why I named it Zerlina to begin with. That seems to have been a good name - although filling the converter for the first time was a dramatic ordeal, it's been a reliable pen no matter how much wear and tear I put it through (the black paint on the clip has completely flaked off by now).

Hope you guys enjoyed this tenuous connection between my nerdy hobbies that was actually just a vessel for my rant about how much I love Lamy Safaris. I had fun putting it together, even if a few of these are out of my price point right now. Maybe I will do inks next, although I have put less thought into that.

Off of this list, I hope to eventually buy both Sailors (Leporello and Ottavio) as well as the other Safari (Masetto), although that's not a priority. I just like thinking about having nice things.

[whoiwanttoday]

Hey guys, here is some Brie Larson who seems to be doing some press for Lessons in Chemistry, a thing I forgot existed. It's a real shame but this is the result of a fractured entertainment landscape. Ted Lasso escaped the intense gravity of Apple TV, in part because everyone with an iphone got a free account for a year at the start of the pandemic, but nothing else seems to, even stuff that is well reviewed. It reminds me of a pair of thought exercises when I was much younger. One was supposed to make you realize what was most important to you job wise, which was would you rather do important work where your achievements are recognized and be poorly compensated, or would you rather do worthless work and have it all burned in front of you at the end of the day but you make a ton of money. Both sounded a lot better than my job at the time so it wasn't a useful exercise. The other is back in the early days of podcasting I heard someone ask if anyone would be willing to be Bill Gates' personal clown for $2 million a year. No one else would hear your jokes or see your act, you'd exist just to be entertainment for Bill Gates and no one else would ever see it. It sounds like a good job potentially until you realize most artists want their work shared. I was thinking about that because Apple TV is sort of that but for Tim Cook. Anyway, it has to be a deeply unsatisfying aspect of the modern streaming landscape, how many people do very good work and work very hard on a thing no one sees? I notice it with movies all the time. When I was a kid stuff would stay in theaters for like 5 months sometimes, it was given room to grow and for people to go see it as buzz built. Now stuff is in and out so quick and maybe people will catch it on streaming but I feel the content machine's needs just chews stuff up. The fact that it's seen as content and not art is a big part of the problem. Anyway, that's a really bummer lead in to the fact that Brie Larson has looked lovely promoting her show. I appreciate the sort of throwback looks, the suit her very well. She looks cute and pretty and I am sure at least one follower of mine will have something to say about her sweater. Today I want to fuck Brie Larson.

[cloudwhisper23]

Say hello to the draft that I was working on but will now be reworking bc it's supposed to fit the prompt "Meet-cute" but cannot bc reasons

(This is a Grumbo fic btw)

Mumbo would never admit to himself that he was addicted to the cookies from the shop down the road. Even after friends constantly teased him about how much he went to the shop specifically to buy chocolate chip cookies from the same shop, he refused to admit it. Even after the owner knew him well and didn’t even have to ask his order or tell him the price for the cookies, Mumbo did not claim to be addicted to the cookies.

But then, the shop closed. Mumbo was suddenly without cookies as the store owner moved away for the sake of family. Mumbo couldn’t be mad about that. He did however, have a problem now.

On more than one occasion, Mumbo tried to bake cookies. Really, he became quite good at it. It was all about taking things in measure, just like the redstone he did for his work. But they just weren’t the same as the cookies from the old shop.

Naturally, when he received his next commission, he was more than a little distracted. He needed to get his mind off the disappointment and need for those cookies, so he accepted the deal without thinking.

Now, looking at what it entailed, Mumbo was more than a little nervous. It was a building project, and he’d need to work closely with a builder. Grian.

Mumbo had heard of the builder before. The man was good, finding ways to make any build even more magnificent by adjusting a few small details on the outside. It should have been an honor to work with him.

But Grian didn’t care for redstone. He broke it deliberately wherever he went, or so people said. All clues pointed to Grian hating redstone even, considering it worthless.

Mumbo fiddled with his pen. Even if Grian didn’t want to work with a redstoner, he was unfortunately stuck with Mumbo. Even if Mumbo dreaded meeting the man, he still had to meet up with Grian in order to organize the space to fit all the requirements for both of them to get paid.

This was going to end poorly.

Grian was running late. He had to meet up with the redstone guy in less than an hour, but he needed to pick up the cookies for the build-swap competition later, so he ran to Scar’s bakery first. The poor man tried to strike up a conversation with Grian, who gritted his teeth as he paid and practically ran out of there.

Just to run into a well-dressed man on the street. Who happened to be carrying a thermos of tea with the lid off.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” Grian said as the man set the thermos on the ground to shed his drenched suit jacket.

“Just a bit of misfortune, mate. I doubt you meant it.” The man sighed. “It is just my luck though.”

“Can I pay you back somehow? Help you out?”

“Nah. I just needed to make a good first impression, but that’s out the window now.”

“Sorry…”

“Nothing can be done about it, I’m afraid.” The man shot him a weary smile.

“Can I offer you a cookie?” Grian asked weakly, hoping to somehow salvage the encounter a little bit.

The man’s mustache twitched slightly, and Grian had to hide a small smile. He was a very attractive man, even if he thought he was suddenly underdressed. “I suppose I could take a cookie…”

The man chewed slowly, his eyebrows furrowing slightly. “Hm. Where did you get these?”

“…Goodtimes Baked Goods,” Grian replied. He still wasn’t quite sure what to make of the man.

He nodded to himself. “Well, I appreciate the cookie. I must be on my way now. Goodbye, erm…”

“Grian.”

“Gr… Grian?” The man stumbled over his words. “Goodness me! Well, this is certainly awkward.”

Grian blinked. “Awkward?”

“Yes, well, you see, my name is, erm. I’m Mumbo Jumbo.”

Grian stared. This was the guy he was supposed to be collaborating with? Well, there were worse things, he supposed. “So you do redstone.”

“Yeah.” Mumbo Jumbo scratched his neck sheepishly. “And you’re a builder.”

“We’re meant to be meeting up in 20 minutes.”

“Yeah.”

[vickyvicarious]

I love Arthur so much. It was so good to hear his voice at greater length... and today he is doing the two things he does so very well: see through the mask and provide resources.

Art doesn't get a ton of time on the page. And even when he's there, he isn't usually the focus of the scene. So I think a lot of people tend to underestimate just how important his actions are.

Because... look, everyone knows that Mina is the one who 'writes Dracula', so to speak. She collates the information, she's the first to share the information, she makes unique connections with every single member of the team and takes on a lot of the emotional labor for them. She's great at noticing important things and at connecting with people.

But Mina isn't the only one. Arthur and Mina actually share a fair bit in common I think, and Mina would never have been able to do her thing if he didn't act first now.

Like... yes, of course Lucy is a uniting force in this part of the novel. She's the one everyone wants to save, and her relationships with others are pretty central to bringing them all together. And after they fail, Mina is the one who takes up that role in a lot of ways. But Arthur's relationships are pretty central too. It seems apparent from the way they're first introduced that Art is the reason Lucy met the other suitors in the first place, and he seems to be the one who is closest to both the others/has known them longest. Quincey and Arthur especially spend a ton of time together and seem super close. Van Helsing starts to think of him as a son. He and Mina agree to be like siblings for the rest of their lives, and while he has the least direct connection with Jonathan, he still goes on a journey alone with him at the end and makes sure to look after his health. Everyone loves everyone else, and they all have multiple close relationships, but I think Arthur is probably the one who gets the most emphasis on each different one after Mina. (Even as he is more of a side character.) And while he goes through a ton of loss and isn't able to be a support for everyone for a good while, he always seems to want to try, and he does when he can. I think when he isn't completely lost in grief that's his default state. And he seems pretty good at it. Not just the noticing but also getting people to accept his help. He convinces Lucy to meet with Jack despite the awkwardness. He convinces Jonathan to go to sleep despite his intense drive to keep going without pause. That sort of thing.

Most importantly here is how Arthur sees through Lucy's pretence. (And others too, like when Jack and van Helsing try to pretend she isn't as bad as she is, and he figures it out multiple times. Also, it's not exactly the same thing, but he and Jonathan are the only two people to notice Dracula at Carfax, however briefly.) I've talked about this before, but in the proposal scenes he was the only suitor that was meeting Lucy on even terms. They were both emotionally honest, his proposal was unplanned, and both he and Lucy could read one another well. Through various hints it seems to me that Arthur is usually pretty open with Lucy about everything including his worries, while she talks to him about all sorts of things except her own worries. However, even when she isn't honest with him, Arthur is able to see through Lucy's pretense. For someone who always tries to act happy/well and care for other people first, who hides how poorly she is doing and can't easily ask for help, that's huge. It makes them very well suited. And honestly, he expresses himself a lot in this book in a way entirely devoid of ego. He cries, he admits when he doesn't know what to do, he asks for help, he's willing to follow orders, he forgives what seem like slights against him...

And that's part of what makes his ability to provide resources so useful. Because sure, he throws money at problems. And that's super helpful later on. But he doesn't just do that. He also tries to anticipate specific needs when he knows he has the ability (planning to get his horses, bringing his dogs since he'd heard that Dracula could command rats amongst other things), and offers up his resources for others who know better what to do to use (letting Jonathan use his name to deal with the other lawyers, and giving his blood to Lucy is a big one). And that extends to people too. Arthur knows he can't save Lucy here, so he reaches out to Jack. He uses his relationships to do three things here: convince Jack to come, convince Lucy to be open with him, and trick/distract Mrs. Westenra so she won't be alarmed. Later on, he reaches out to Quincey as well. He never hesitates to ask for help when he thinks it's necessary and not only is he always correct to ask but he gets the answer he wants.

Even though he's far from the most visible character, I think he's pretty important. And I'm deeply fond of him.

[thegeminisage]

okay it's star trek update time. saturday we watched voy's "demon" and "one" and last night we did voy's "hope and fear" and ds9's "tears of the prophets."

demon (voy):

this one was so fun. i kept yelling THE GOOP IS ODO and it wasn't ofc but it was fun to imagine

a y class planet...i feel like we only ever see m class...this was very exciting

always exciting when they break out the space suits too

the ship landing is so silly and ridiculous. only slightly less ridiculous than the saucer splitting from tng

for a few minutes there i thought we were gonna have the tom paris/harry kim version of 2.25 resolutions. like because they could only breathe the planet's air. really really really funny

i love that the solution was to just let them clone everybody. imagine after voyager leaves and you can choose any crewman and all the little slimes want tuvok so you just have a bunch of tuvok slimes running around. 10/10

one (voy):

MY GIRL SEVEN....................

this one was soooososososo good

first of all, wtf at chakotay like talking to janeway about her bond with seven...that was gay as hell

i loved also she and the doctor eventually getting tired of each other. their scenes are so funny because they're both really autistic but in different directions

i love also when she gets put through the fire and succeeds...there is nothing she can't do. she really ran that whole ship on her own WHILE HALUCINATING i'm so proud of her

how clever to kind of leave it up in the air whether or not that guy was real, also. i went back and forth on it a few times and finally landed on not real only second before the reveal

her dream about being alone in the snowy tundra...damn. she like hates other people but also hates being alone. what a way to be

hope and fear (voy):

i had to physically pause this one multiple times to collect myself re: janeway/seven

the holodeck game. the argument where they both hit below the belt. the bit in the brig where they reference the first thing that happened in the brig and janeway had to touch seven's little eye thingy in the soft mood lighting wwwwow

i think the ethical dilemma here was a little silly though. like, my guy, you were banking on the ruthless guys who were stronger than the borg and also wanted to eat everyone else for lunch on helping YOU? like everybody say thanks janeway for getting rid of something even worse than the borg! not fuck you janeway for not letting the borg get killed by them

idk. i don't see that she did anything too awful. she sent them back home and saved them from the borg and saved the borg from them and then also got her people thru borg space AND got a gf out of it. leave her alone

i did like all the stuff about intuition vs borg knowledge though...janeway and her intuition remind me of kirk, but janeway and seven both fighting in the brig and then making up in the brig (complete with the touching) is very spones bread and circuses of them.

tears of the prophets (ds9):

man, sorry to say this, but...this script sucked bad. i dont think avery brooks is capable of phoning it in but we probability saw him get pretty close here. that final monologue, which should have ben about dax and was instead about the prophets, was poorly written

and dax's last words being about a baby - come on.

and kira and odo's argument - he is not so stupid he would do this without expecting her to be mad

and the scene between dukat and damar...where was the tension?? crazy dukat great but he's been better

even the thing with quark and bashir moping around in the holodeck because of dax was bad on paper

like, all of these things were saved (well, some of them were saved) by admirable performances from a charming and talented cast, but whew! like, julian looked so sad this became funny. kira and odo kissing to make up was so charming i forgave the premise

but dax's death was a bad death and her final arc being about a FUCKING baby was really sexist. sisko leaving not sure if he is coming back bc of some prophet thing right when bajor needs him most seems ooc. and his monologue to dax not being ABOUT. DAX. was a crime. poor terry farrell.

overall s6 has been great so far aside from a couple of bumps but man did it end on a sour note. i have heard season 7 is divisive so i guess we will see!!

TONIGHT: ds9's "image in the sand" and "shadows and symbols."

[theagenes]

This is a late night rant about 2014 Sebastian Vettel, not my usual type of content at all but I had to get it out of my system. 🎀

I would have not particularly written this but I heard a comment about Sebastian's 2014 season and it bugged me, then I saw something very similar later that day and just thought about doing this.

Then what is it about ? Well initially, what I heard came from a commentator discussing George Russel and Lewis Hamilton's dynamic at Mercedes, and how, in their first moment driving against one another, the younger one tended to force the elder into driving a bit more desperately : to commit mistakes to try and beat their younger teammate. To this, the commentator also put the example of 2014 Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo, which the former had seen as a threat, and as a result, had been pressured into driving poorly in 2014.

The problem I have with this is that it just highlights how little people know, and on the contrary, how much people assume, about Sebastian's 2014 season — which, arguably, is probably one of his most overlooked. It is not so much that he had a poor season that year, more than why — and you will find that it is the combinaison of many factors, most of them I thought people knew very well, but as it turns out, not so much.

Why was it such a terrible season for him then ?

First things first, I'd like to put this into perspective : we view 2014 as an “awful” season for him, if not by sheer, automatic contrast to 2013. It's not easy to have both your best and worst season follow each other in a 2 years' spawn : is it really though— his worst season ? Because it's not. Sebastian finished 5th in the driver championship that year, and stepped on a few podiums — some of them he even shared with his teammate Daniel Ricciardo.

Here he is in Singapore 2014, lifting his trophy at venue which has never failed him. 🥸

Now 5th isn't so bad, especially considering there were more drivers competing in the championship, as well as a fiercer competition. Why does it stick in our minds as such a forgettable season for him then ? Well, as we saw, 2013 was his most dominant form ever, and there is nothing more humiliating than losing a Grand Prix with the “ 1 ” sticker branded onto your every belonging : car, caps, race suit, garage ; right next to your own name.

But once that this a priori is out of the way, you will find that his 2014 season – although nowhere near his last four championship-winning years – was not simply Sebastian making silly mistakes, in the heap of the moment or born out of a rage to prove himself, because he felt threatened by his new teammate.

There are reasons behind 2014, and there are numerous.

An obvious reason, although going slightly in the same direction than what the commentator was saying – without ever reaching the same conclusion though – was that the 2014 season was all about changes for Sebastian : new regulations, new engines, new cars, new teammate : new dynamic. A change to which he adapted pretty poorly, that's undeniable, but which does not warrant for such a drastic drop of performance — when compared to 2013 or 2011, his most dominant years, but even 2012, one of the hardest fought championship he ever won, or 2010 or 2009, two championships to which he teethed and clawed at, for two very different outcomes. What I mean is that you simply do not go from breaking and setting new, unheard-of records (still unbroken, as I write this), winning 13 races out of 19, and only missing out on 2 podium finishes in an entire season, to climbing on the top of a few, scarce podiums the very next year — or at least, not without a justification.

This justification, you will find, comes into a much simpler, intertwined reason than you might think. To put it very simply, I would say “Ferrari” on one side, and “Michael Schumacher” on the other. Don't forget where we stand, and where we are : this is 2014. A few month prior, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian's greatest hero, friend and counsellor, had been drastically injured in a skying accident.

This might seem a bit foreign to us nowadays, and although we all know about his accident, do we always remember the precise date ? December 29 2013, during the winter break and somehow, both at the same time, a moment of joy and celebration for Sebastian, as well as sorrow and grief. How do you celebrate your greatest achievement in the sport of your dream, when a primordial component of this very childhood dream, your hero, fights for his life in a remote hospital ? And it's no well-hidden secret that Michael's accident dealt a terrible blow to Sebastian's mental health — he talked about it himself in interviews saying that the period which followed was one of the toughest of his life. The 2014 season cannot be extracted from its context, and the driver that got into his car this year was a man grieving, constantly ; persistently.

The third reason is very much linked to the second, as Michael Schumacher had a great impact over Sebastian's dream of ever driving shed in red. 2014 is also a turning point in Sebastian's career : both a pivot and a fulcrum, to later become an unsteady keystone. The thing is, the discussions over Sebastian ever joining Red Bull had started as early as 2008, although at this time, he had chosen to commit to Red Bull. The movement from Red Bull to Ferrari did not happen in one day, and it surely did not pop into Sebastian's mind over the spawn of a few month. It must have been there for years, simmering until he finally crossed the threshold and took a step. A move he had to make without any word of advise from the person who had made him want to join Ferrari in the first place.

The 2014 season was not so much his last year with Red Bull, more than a springboard-year before his first season with Ferrari. It was never going to be a year where Sebastian would fight for a championship, not even for wins or podiums : on the contrary, not winning with Red Bull was the only remaining necessity. His contract with Red Bull was set until the 2015-2016 season, and as we've seen in the past, a driver leaving his team is always legally managed by a contract : in order for this to happen, there has to be a clause which can break their pre-existing contract. It was the case with Daniel Ricciardo last year (2022) who was kindly thanked by McLaren in exchange of a good sum of money : that was the mandatory loophole in the contract for it to work. Similarly with Sebastian in 2014, the loophole in his contract was all about championship points. Helmut Marko talked about it after Sebastian's move from one team to the other, saying that this transaction had not came as a backstab at all, simply because it had been done in full knowledge of their team.

What do we think about it, as a whole ? Of course, I have no purpose to cast a shadow on Daniel Ricciardo's very good season in 2014 : his victories were his and he didn't rob anyone of them, nor his podiums. What I am trying to say is that there is no correlation between those two chains of event : in the same way that Sebastian losing did not help Daniel winning, Daniel winning did not make Sebastian lose. I don't think this 2014 season should be summed up as Sebastian feeling pressured by a younger teammate into making mistakes after mistakes — all the more considering his sheer streak of unluckiness and the unavoidable DNF's, engine and car failures he had no role into. Wouldn't it be pretty simplist, to link Daniel's victories to Sebastian, and wouldn't it take a bit from them ? I sincerely think that they are not linked, and that his – arguably weaker, although 5th position in the championship is no small feat if it is regarded as your very worst, considering most drivers never even win a Grand Prix, let alone make it to the top 5 of the WDC – 2014 season was about something else entirely.

Perhaps that it was less about being beaten by a teammate than saying farewell to a former team in the smoothest way possible ; for once losing sight of the championship to achieve something bigger, to try and reach for a childhood dream.

Pictures are from Motorsport Images (cr: Vettel 2014 Portrait) / Alfred Guillou - Adieu ! / - Lora Mathis - If There's A Way Out I'lI Take It / Edward John Poynter - The corner of the villa / Franz Ludwig Catel - Porch of a Church in a lunar landscape / The Guardian / Witold Pruszkowki - Falling Star / Patrick Gale - Notes from an exhibition, p.36 / Sebastian Vettel for the Daily Telegraph / Dr Helmut Marko for Sky Sports / Johan Christian Dahl - View of Dresden by Moonlight.

[aliennazero]

☆INSANITY WARNING!!!☆

No CSM Tuesday effects finally hit me, so today I will propose theories of why *I think* relationship between Yoshida, Denji, and Asa would have significant impact in the future (in short, they will be a some sort of trio).

Source? I have no source. This post absolutely has no valid basis. Just me and my feelings, my own delulus, my own mess. It's all just in my head. And I decided to do an insane amount of reaching and stretching to the point I and my friends start to question my own sanity.

Let's just say... I have contract with Fanfiction Devil. All these theories below are the waste products of my contract (I sold half of my soul and sanity). So I hope you guys didn't take this as leaks or valid predictions or something. This is purely my own madness (even if it doesn't happen, I still have that Fanfiction Devil contract, I could fix them).

So, what are those "YoshiDenAsa trio will happen" theories? Well, allow me to elaborate further then. Please buckle up your seat and prepare your ibuprofens because this journey will be a long and confusing one.

#1 - Animals and Habitats Representation Theory

Asa's last name, Mitaka (三鷹) literally means Three Hawks. Asa represent bird, the sky. Just like how hawk observes from the sky before attempting a strike, that's what Asa's narratives roles *I think* would be. She's meant to be an observant at first before surprise attack. We've seen that before and I think we will see more of it as I believe she would become stronger as the time goes.

Denji's devil heart represent dog, the land. It's 100% obvious that Pochita is treated as a dog, there's no doubt. And just like that, it also represent Denji's roles in the narratives. The thing is, Denji is not an ordinary dog no more, he's the feral ones. To control and to "tame" him now will be no easy task as his previous owner who successfully "claim" him (Makima) is already dead.

(Hawks could pick up and eat dogs btw, just like how Yoru in the past could defeat Chainsaw Man so many times before her fall. It does fit the narratives when we think about it hard enough)

And lastly... Yoshida, he represent octopus, the sea. Just like how octopus is solitary animal, both of them said to prefer living alone. Octopus is also very smart, and could camouflage to its surrounding. Which suit very well with common Yoshida's character interpretation that's usually interpret him as this very mysterious knowledgeful being.

However the truth is, Yoshida is a human, just like the rest. And octopus is just a part of bigger animal kingdom, just like the dog and the bird. Now we just wait until that little octopus get tired of pretending to be a dog (to Public Safety) and finally break free, like many of "octopus jail break" cases in real life.

In conclusion, I think these three different animals symbolism will be connected to each other somehow in some way. It's too much of a coincidences for it to just be a mere coincidences and not Fujimoto's writing choices IMO.

#2 - Three Horsemen × Three Birds Theory

As you can see in this poorly written image, this theory will try to debunk the connection between Yoshida, Denji, and Asa with their respective Horsemen Devils counterpart.

"Why are you so sure that three birds imagery will be very important?"

"Mi" in "Mitaka" means three. Asa is the new main character, her name have symbolism just like how Denji's name come from Tenshi (Angel). Also we already get introduced to three Horsemen Devils who will deliver major impact in this part.

It's a messy dots right now BUT when you try to connect it, things started to make more sense. So, about their connections to their respective Horsemen Devil counterpart/parallel...

Asa is connected to Yoru (she literally use Asa's body as her vessel), the War Devil. Just like how she has constant war within herself and with society as a teenage girl. War Devil fits Asa so much.

Denji is connected to Makima and Nayuta, the Control Devil. Because he's very persistent to keep fighting for his freedom over people who try to abuse him and control him in his entire life.

Yoshida is connected to AND supposedly opposes Kiga/Fami, the Famine Devil. His last name, Yoshida (吉田) literally means "Lucky Ricefield" (and rice is the most common staple food in Asia). He's really built and made to oppose her. Though he did shows signs of social starvation.

Back to three birds imagery. If we read the same manga, you'll notice how birds is used a lot in part 2 and also used by Makima to keep an eye to her surroundings and her enemies (remember Katana Man Arc).

It's hard for me to come up with paragraphs of explanation so I will just show you this image on how I connected the dots.

++ Bonus delusions: Chapter 99 is titled "Two Birds", probably to reference both Asa and Yoru. But the three birds imagery there still bother me. To the point, I think it's actually for Yoshida. So by "Two Birds", it's maybe means Yoshida and Asa rather than Yoru and Asa (or them three, YoshiAsaYoru because it looks very deliberate to have double meanings (the three birds is not for YoshiAsaYuko sadly🥲)).

In conclusion, three birds symbolism in part two IMO stand for three human (Asa, Denji, Yoshida) and three horsemen (War, Control, Famine). I'm very positive that their 2x3 groupies will have deeper meaning and connection in the future.

#3 - Chapters Title Theory

Now we come to the last theory I have for YoshiDenAsa trio possibilities. I can't put image in this section because I already hit the limit so let's use our imagination a little bit.

This one is kinda fanfic-esque and I did the most of my far stretching here so I recommend you to drink that ibuprofen you brought right now before entering this insanity trip.

First, let's take a look for where Yoshida, Asa, and Denji are in the same chapter:

- Chapter 104 with title "Spoiler"

- Chapter 109 with title "The Easy Way to Stop Bullying"

- Chapter 114 with title "Endless Aquarium"

- Chapter 115 with title "High Schoolers These Days"

- Chapter 117 with title "Penguin and Weapon"

- Chapter 120 with title "Triangle"

- Chapter 121 with title "Theory of Happiness"

- Chapter 132 with title "Protection"

Second, let's take another look to which chapter where their interractions to each other was the main focus:

- Chapter 104 with title "Spoiler"

- Chapter 115 with title "Highschoolers These Days"

- Chapter 120 with title "Triangle"

This is actually a signs for their weird love interest triangle. Trust me. Hear me out. There's something more in these chapters title, I just know it. Based on what? My feelings. Maybe it will be like how chapter 102 ("Save The Cat") was a foreshadowing for chapter 127 ("Save The Asa").

I just could feel it in my soul. These chapters title will be more relevant in the future. TRUST.

That's all for now. Big thanks to my moots @mimsynotpog for encouraging me to write this LOL. Anyway, I'm always open for discussion! Lemme know your thoughts on this one!

Do you guys think Yoshida, Denji, and Asa trio is possible? The answer is obvious big YES from me. We still have time. We're just 30+ chapters in! I won't lose hope yet!

[starleska]

Ok, spill the beans about this Mad Mod blorbo of yours. Gimme the details

aaaaaaaa!!!!!! oh my gosh yes yes yes thank you for the opportunity i would love to gush about him - and hopefully get some other people interested 🙈🙈🙈 prepare for an infodump!!!

this is Mad Mod, real name Neil Richards: a brilliant, stylish villain, and an iconic enemy of the Teen Titans!! now, Mad Mod's been around for a while, first appearing in Teen Titans #7 as a fashion designer-turned-smuggler working on Carnaby Street, and later with a more hipster design in the New 52 DC comics. however, the version you'll see me yelling about most (and i think that most are familiar with) is the Mad Mod from the 2003 animated Teen Titans show (see above) 💖

Mad Mod is very much emblematic of his name: he's a crazy British bad guy whose aesthetic, interests and personality are influenced by 60's Mod culture. he speaks with a pronounced Cockney accent (voiced by Malcolm McDowell, who you may know as Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange), dresses in trim, fashionable, Mod-style suits and other outfits (e.g., military parkas), and is an extreme Anglophile: believing British culture and values (ostensibly Mod culture, but also Britain and/or England as a monolith) are superior to others. his original beef with the Teen Titans is their lack of manners: Mad Mod believes them to be poorly behaved, and in need of 'teaching' and 'correcting' (please make no assumptions about me or my taste from this 🙈).

i think Mad Mod is fascinating for a lot of reasons, with the first being his incredible technological capabilities. you see, Mad Mod is not technically the young man you see in the image above: he's actually well past middle-age, but is capable of constructing high-tech illusions using gadgets, robots and screens (shown to be controlled using his ruby-topped cane, which he is quite proficient with!). in Teen Titans, Mad Mod is first shown projecting this younger version of himself as a hologram in a constructed, confusing labyrinth which mimics a school. behind the scenes, Mad Mod - physically an old man - is using this younger version as an avatar to torment the Teen Titans. however, later on Mad Mod devises a technology which allows him to steal youth from other people. in the episode Revolution, Mad Mod steals Robin's youth, reverting his own physical form to a younger version - confirming that the Mad Mod we see in his debut episode is how he looked when he was younger: the skinny, suited redhead with the pretty smile 😉

a lot of people will remember Mad Mod for one thing: the hypnosis. a big gimmick of Mad Mod's is his use of custom-built hypnoscreens: large screens which play repetitive spirals intended to hypnotise and/or brainwash the observer. his goals expand beyond just trying to hypnotise the Teen Titans into being more well-behaved; he later attempts to brainwash them and the entirety of Jump City into believing the American Revolution never happened, and that he is actually their English king. with regards to his love of Britain and England, Mad Mod is...not particularly well-adjusted, and i'm saying that as a Brit 🙈💖

a lot of people are very taken by the unique design of Mad Mod's episodes - specifically his chase sequences, which contain fun references to popular British culture (like Monty Python and The Beatles). taken to be an avant-garde extension of the giant illusions he builds, Mad Mod's style borrows a good deal from 60's pop art, and uses stark, black-and-white imagery with noticeably different rendering than other characters and backgrounds. it's honestly really cool!!! you may recognise a similar art style used in Across the Spider-Verse with Spider-Punk, AKA Hobie Brown 🔥

everything about Mad Mod is explicitly British (particularly English), but his view of Britishness and correct behaviour is both out-dated and extraordinarily narrow. i theorise this is because he never quite reconciled with growing older and the Mod subculture going out of style...he's obsessed with regaining his youth, and despite being The Most British Thing Since Austin Powers, he continues to live in America and push a very odd, caricatured idea of Britishness onto other people that is unique to his worldview. as Cyborg sums up neatly, "Man, I bet even real British people don't like you!"

but, all of that lore aside - you came to know why Mad Mod is my latest blorbo!!! well...just look at him 🥴 he's capital e 'Evil' with a penchant for tying people up and absolutely no respect for other people's personal space 🥺💖 he also has that attractive combo of being abrasive and degrading, whilst also being soft and elegant. not to mention he's a total goofball;;; there's nothing i love more than a villain who's having a great time, and he is having a blast 🙈

you know this guy is Tumblr Sexyman material too: the suits, the cane-twirling, the crazy powers...who cares that he's actually a grandpa? sexualising old men is a national sport on this website 😂 on a physical level he hits a lot of beats for me...gangly, bespectacled (with tinted lenses!!!!!), ginger and crooked teeth??? man 😳😳😳 it doesn't help that i've already had a handful of f/os who are meant to represent a specific decade/style/etc, one of whom is literally Austin Powers;;; my taste is terrible, but consistent 😂😂 all in all, please visualise little cartoon hearts coming off my icon whenever you see me posting about this freak 🥰🥰🥰 if you're a lover of silly villains too, the DCAU is a great place to look!! shout out to my pal @iriso-page for sending the fateful ask that triggered my fixation in a cascade 🙈 thanks so much for sending this in - hopefully this causes a couple other people to check him out too 😉

[the-forbidden-pookie]

Pleasantries

Tw: SFW, can be read as gender neutral tho written with a fem reader in mind, fluff.

Pairing: Wanderer x Reader

--------------------------------------------------

"There's no need to exchange pleasantries. It's rather pathetic to force a conversation, just to occupy silence."

"Sure buddy," you say with an eye roll "so you've said a million times already."

The two of you have set up a small camp near the outskirts of Sumeru City, taking a rest after a long afternoon of clearing the fatui infested routes. You were sitting across from each other with a small camp fire between you.

"And yet idiots like you keep asking me pointless questions." He replies haughtily.

"It's what friends do dude, you chat together about stuff you like, or... " You smile mischievously. "Would you rather when it's my turn to cook, I make you a pile of extra sweet tricolored dango? Or what if, say, I hand them over to you as a gift in front of Nahida?" He glares. "Something tells me she won't just let you dump them somewhere." You say smugly.

"...I'd like to see you try."

"I'm just saying, that would definitely make you annoyed right? So you like, have to tell me your likes and dislikes." You pull out a notebook and pen from seemingly nowhere and prepare yourself to write; "Go on then don't be shy," you smile cheekily, "tell me everything."

He sighs. "...Fine, just to shut you up." He looks up towards the night sky. "I loathe overly sweet things, even more so if they stick to my teeth. As for favorites... I guess in that regard, the simpler the better."

The wanderer watches as you scribble into your notebook, it's cover turned to him so he can't actually see the contents of the page. "I see, and what drinks do you enjoy?" You continue.

"Something with a rather bitter flavor to it would suit me well. Any sugary drinks are certainly out of the question."

You hum. "Makes sense." You say distractedly, then flip the notebook and show him you had not, in fact, been writing anything he told you. Instead there were poorly drawn stick figures of the both of you holding hands and smiling. "Say, do you think I have a future in the art business?"

"Well, that's just downright awful." He scoffs. "No one would hire you. You lack understanding of basic human anatomy; the arms are too short, the torso too thin, the face is almost beyond salvation, and the hair... I'm not even sure it's supposed to be hair. Do better."

You fall out of your seat cackling, your whole body shaking. "Dang dude you're brutal!" It takes effort for you to subdue your laughs. You stand, but instead of returning to your previous seat you go sit on the log next to him, still giggling to yourself.

"Well, I try. You asked for my opinion, you should expect nothing less than honesty."

" 'K, 'k. So, what about you? Can you draw?" You sit next to him, but angle your body to face his.

"I've never been very good at it, to be honest. The only things I can draw are maps and blueprints. I've even used to have a rather elaborate sketchbook full of those."

"Oh?" You say, grabbing your notebook-now-revealed-sketchbook again, flipping it to a new page. "Were those from your fatui days? When you were planning... Fatui things?"

"You could say that. My drawings of my personal projects in particular were highly confidential. I only showed them to my closest confidants."

"I'm surprised you even had confidants, with that nasty temper you had back then." You pick up your pen and go back to your scribbling.

He crosses his arms "You're really testing my patience here."

"What?" You respond teasingly, eyes focused on your work in the sketchbook. "You're the one that likes honesty so much!" You challenge.

"Fair enough. Then I'll be upfront with you: your drawing skills suck. They're terrible. If you think there's talent in that hand of yours, you're lying to yourself."

"Mhm..." You respond distractedly, your sketchbook turned away from him like before.

"Are you even listening to me?" In a flash, he's reaching for the sketchbook to see whatever it is you're-

You slap his hand away, albeit not harshly. "You'll see when I'm done ."

"...Fine. Keep your damn secret. What could that page possibly be for? You still think you can be an artist, don't you?"

You look up at him sharply, and keep eye contact for a long moment, long enough he worries he'd actually managed to offend you, but then you go right back to the sketchbook, ignoring him once more.

"...You really are the most annoying person I've ever met." He grumbles.

That brings a chuckle out of you. "Funny I could say the same about you," you respond easily, then glance up at him with a soft smile "but you know, you're also my favorite person to hangout with.

"...Did you just make a romantic implication?"

"Maybe I did and maybe I didn't." You reply casually, going back to your work.

He raises a brow. "Hmm. Do you happen to have feelings for me by any chance?"

"Is that your attempt to get a confession? Or maybe..." You glance up at him with a smirk, "Fishing for compliments, wanderer?"

His face flushes a soft purple. Pretty you think. "That was absolutely not what I was doing, I was simply... uh..."

You giggle. "Either way," you say, rising from your seat and carefully tearing out the page you'd been working on, then handing it over, revealing a sketched portrait of himself, signed : What if I do like you? -(y/n). You take a step back, awaiting his reaction, feeling uncharacteristically nervous.

"What... He stares at the drawing in awe for a few moments ...How did you manage to capture my likeness this fast? This is almost creepy." He adds the last comment almost out of habit, clearly not meaning it one bit.

"Then I guess I should spend less time with you? That is the only reason I was able to draw you this fast... Maybe we should hangout less, since you find it so unsettling." You say with mock offense.

"No, that's not... Don't leave. And didn't you promise not to, anyways?"

He stands and takes a few steps closer to you and looks at the drawing again. "My hat... the sleeves... that's all correct. Are you, by chance, a professional artist in disguise?"

"Just a hobby," you answer, "though don't think I was born with special talent or anything, it took lots of practice."

"I..." He lightly runs a finger on the lines, careful not to smudge them, not that the material he's made out of can really do that. "It's beautiful. I could never replicate your passion to the craft, even if I spent my entire existence practicing. He looks towards you. "It's an honor to be the subject of your drawing. I'll keep it, as a keepsake."

That's unfair you think, flushing. "I'm glad you like it but..." You point at the signature, your blush deepening. "You're not gonna answer that? It's rude to keep a lady waiting."

"I was expecting you to confess directly if you did have feelings for me, this shy side of yours is quite unusual." He chuckles. "I've always found that directness of yours charming, to be honest. My feelings for you... are complex, but if I know one thing about you, it's that you always manage to surprise me." A smirk spreads across his features."

"...So what's your answer?" You ask carefully.

"I'm a bit surprised myself. I've never felt so... connected to someone. If you like me, even as just a friend, then my feelings for you will only increase. I enjoy spending time with you." He takes a long breath. "And... I think I've started liking you... romantically."

You sigh in relief, and start shifting your weight from leg to leg oh archons that was nerve-racking.

"I thought you liked being straightforward. You've been teasing me this entire time, why be nervous all of a sudden?" He says with a smirk.

You glared at his teasing, though without any real heat behind it, you shove him lightly on the arm "Shut up." You mumble.

He chuckles. "You really are adorable, you know that?"

You mock pout and play along. "I'm not adorable!" You speak in the most cutesy tone you can muster. "I am a beast to be reckoned with," You raise your pitch further, "a monster of nature!"

He bursts out laughing. "You couldn't scare a butterfly."

You halt, cutesy voice already gone and a dangerous glimmer in your eyes, you take one step forward towards him, your eyes not leaving his "Funny, you said I had horrible drawing skills yet look how that turned out." You take another step, and with your mouth now next to his ear you whisper darkly. "Do you want to bet?"

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, his heart started racing as he took a step away from you. "...Maybe I shouldn't have said that."

You burst out laughing. "Oh my gosh your face!" You say, happy tears welling up at the corner of your eyes. "I got you good! Pffffft-"

"...You suck."

You laugh harder, letting yourself slide down to the floor like before. "S-sorry, but hey! You're the one who underestimated me first!" You say gasping for air.

"You nearly gave me the equivalent of a heart attack, you little..." He sighs, his expression serious. "...So I suppose this means you like me too?"

"Your laughs die down, and you start regaining your breath, you raise your hand cheekily, motioning for him to help you up "What do you think?"

"...I think you can help yourself." He crosses his arms and looks away from you.

"Oh come on don't be like that!" You say grinning. "Just help me up and I'll give you your answer."

"...Fine." He walks towards you, grabbing your hand as he asks "So what's the verdict?"

Just as he starts pulling however, you bring him down on the ground next to you, and just before he has a chance to protest, you wrap your arms around his neck bringing your faces so close with just a few inches between you.

"...Woah, easy now. You really do have a flare for the dramatic."

He lets out a sigh in defeat, in another life, the empty cavity of his heart would have been thumping at the contact.

"But doesn't it make everything so interesting?" You say, slowly inching closer, your eyes glancing between his eyes and lips.

The Wanderer can barely manage a response, "...Yes. Yes, I suppose it does."

And then, you close the distance between your lips, his eyelids falling shut.

The moment your mouths meet, a feeling of pure euphoria washes over you. You can't help but close your eyes, sinking deeper into the kiss. He pulls you closer and you gladly let him, wanting to experience every possible sensation you could in this moment, your mouths locked together. Your heart races, pumping blood and joy through your body, making you feel like it would burst at any second.

After a long moment, you pull away slowly, already mourning the loss of contact but needing to catch your breath. "Well that was... Nice." You giggle at your own underwhelming response, fully aware the kiss was much more than nice.

"...Nice?" He repeats, looking down at you, his face a bright purple color as he tries to compose himself. "Is that all you have to say?"

"I'm just teasing, you're an annoyingly good kisser Wanderer." This better not raise his ego further.

He tries to act cool and unfazed, but it's useless. "R-really? Are you sure about that? I mean, it was nice, but... it was... Uh."

"Yes I'm sure." You say firmly, rising, and pulling him up with you. "It was perfect."

His eyes narrow as if he didn't quite believe you.

"Yes. It was." You insist , then, back to your usual teasing you say: "Or do you want more compliments oh great and wise Wanderer?"

He groans, covering his face with his hands. "You're going to milk every moment of this, won't you?!"

"But of course! Can you really call yourself my boyfriend if you weren't subjected to my teasing in your every waking moment?"

"Boyfriend?" He looks back up, his expression slightly confused, then "Right... Yes. That's... Gonna take some getting used to."

You sigh dreamily at his cute expression, then throw your arms around him in a hug and sqweel at his cuteness.

He remains still for a few moments, then starts gently stroking your head.

But at some point, you stop and pull away slightly, you don't let go of him however. "Wait! Would Nahida approve of me?"

You manage to catch him off-guard, not expecting you to break the embrace so quickly. "You want her to give us her blessings? Is that what this is about? I think, all things considered, she'd be more than happy to learn that I found someone who appreciates me as much as you do."

"Still, she's basically your mom!" You say, starting to drag him towards the Sanctuary of Surasthana as he squirmed in your hold. "We should pay her a visit. Oh! Maybe we can grab her a gift at the bazaar first!"

He sighs, then stops resisting, and lets you pull him along, knowing there's not a whole lot he can do to stop you. "You really want to involve her in this?" He sighs again."Very well. Let us go."

[greentrickster]

a_real_nowhere_man: All of this is great. I love the idea that Chloe is smugly manipulating her team into having healthy schedules. Nino probably helps, he might not know what he's helping with but he knows it helps the team so by gosh he's gonna enable the fuck out of it.

greentrickster: ^U^ Thanks! And yeah, if Claw's the medic, Hesperia's the leader, Nino's the heart, and Alya's the data expert, then Chloe's somehow gone and turned herself into the team secretary. She's got everyone's schedules in her planner and also at least halfway memorized for the reoccurring stuff, sometimes better than they themselves do. It's kind of funny, because she's the sort of person who tends to aim for leadership and authority and that sort of thing, but I think this role actually suits her really well - she gets to be up in everyone's business, have a thumb on events and organization, and - probably most importantly for her - it means she's rarely left out of the loop. For a kid whose parents ignore and placate her on a good day and who doesn't actually have much power on her own besides the ability to 'call Daddy,' I think she'd really enjoy that. Pollen helps her figure out good organization techniques (bees are very structured, after all), and is openly approving of Chloe's efforts to keep the team functioning healthily as a whole, excellent bee behaviour.

And yes, Nino absolutely helps her with this. In fact, all of them do. Not even out of faith in Chloe or to support her, but for the simple reason... she's being really helpful. Seriously, she's in the perfect position to just be so incredibly helpful and useful with all this, since she's the only person who both knows everyone's identities and has strong reasons to interact with them in both her civilian and resistance member activities. She's in the same class as Alya, Nino, and Marinette, so it's natural for her to interact with them on a daily basis and plausible for her to decide she wants to start spending time with them, since they know Marinette, Marinette's interning for Gabriel, and Gabriel is Chloe's new boss, with Marinette having already made friends with Nino and Alya and thus being a pre-established friend group for Chloe to join. Likewise, since she's Gabriel's new top model and the face of his brand, it makes sense that he'd want to interact and spend time with her to test new potential looks and get a sense for what she's good at and what needs work, and being at his house (since his main studio is there) means it's natural for her to run into Adrien (and also Marinette) and thus start interacting with both of them as well, especially since Adrien's mentoring her in her new modeling career. She even coordinates with Nathalie, since Nathalie's the one organizing photo shoots and fashion shows. Girl's landed in the perfect position to just coordinate everything with almost no effort and she's taking advantage of it.

And this doesn't just mean in regards to coordinating schedules for resistance meetings. Chloe's whole life has been one big (and sadly ineffective) lesson in how to get and hold peoples' attention... which is a surprisingly useful skill when it comes to creating a distraction to cover another resistance member needing to leave a situation quickly or cover for them for whatever reason. Marinette didn't get enough sleep and forgot her homework? Good thing that (as far as Mari knows) being coworkers means any embarrassment that falls on her would reflect poorly on Chloe, and also that Chloe's bought the line that Marinette's 120% devoted to the Gabriel brand and image 24/7! "Of course she didn't do her homework, Ms. Bustier, we have an enormous show coming up at Gabriel, naturally she has to devote the majority of her time to planning how to make me and M. Agreste look good, it's her job. Are you implying that a literature assignment is more important than an internship that's going to open doors her poor, commoner little heart could only dream of without it? Maybe I should tell Daddy that this school doesn't support students pursuing formal careers-!"

Adrien's going to need a block of time to get through a task Chat promised to do or get in some extra studying? Schedule him to come watch over her for an upcoming photo shoot, have him there until five minutes into the shoot, then claim she's feeling super confident thanks to his brilliant teaching skills, and "Adrikins won't you please let me do the rest on my own so I can show you how well I can do without you here, I want to make you proud! <3" and boom, Adrien's got a free afternoon to get his stuff done.

Gabriel's schedule for the next month is in Alya's hands without the two of them having to do a thing because Chloe just already had it, Nino's able to actually plan the occasional group hang-out session with the whole resistance for moral and team-building exercises to help facilitate better teamwork and mental health, somehow scheduling changes and conflicts are being passed along and communicated more efficiently than ever before, and no one's pegged the changes as being a result of Chloe because she's managed to transition from 'entitled brat' to 'efficient yet overbearing secretary' with a smoothness hitherto unseen by man.

By a few months in she's reflecting that she should have made her vigilante name 'Busy Bee' instead of 'Lady Bee,' and she's going to be so incredibly smug when someone else finally catches on to what she's doing (aka, she's dominating, but for good instead of evil).

[weed-ols]

Reviewing Every UKISS Release: By Unpopular Demand ~ New Generation

Oh the great psychic damage I've inflicted on myself to do this. I was so excited, thinking about how this would let me gush about Bran New Kiss or Inside of Me, but unfortunately, I must start at the dreaded beginning: New Generation.

I will admit that this wasn't as bad as I expected. There was a lot of cringing, a lot of "oh baby what are you doing?" being whispered, but not the total trainwreck I had built up in my head. To be totally honest, I think that these two songs could've been pretty decent with better packaging and fully embracing the campiness, but I digress.

Just for funsies, I've also noted the YouTube and Spotify streams (if applicable) from the day I did the review. Dunno what to make of it yet, but I'm sure it'll be interesting.

(Also I like how I slowly become more and more unhinged as I type this review out.)

New Generation - 1st Mini Album | 2008.09.03

So I was already listening to Kpop around this time, but like most people, paid like zero attention to this because I liked the bigger and more popular and better packaged boy groups at the time. I was also just developing my logical reasoning when this came out, so I don't really remember much about this. No idea what the general feel/reception for this was, and I think the first time I listened to this was probably late 2009 after ManManHaNi, and somehow I remember really liking this at the time.

Obviously, time soured my opinion of this mini album, but now as an adult with a mostly functioning prefrontal cortex, I can say I don't really hate it? I hate the packaging of this mini album, but it's oddly endearing in how poorly it's aged.

Another thing I noticed while going back over this is how hard Soohyun, Kevin, and even Kibum carry in these first two releases. I'm not knocking on the others, and it makes sense since Soohyun had been a trainee the longest under some bigger companies, while Kevin and Kibum had both already debuted. They just seem a lot more polished in all aspects, and a lot more committed to the cheesiness. I'm probably not gonna rank them for later releases, but for this one, I think I'd put them as Kevin > Soohyun >> Kibum >>> Dongho > Eli/Xander.

While I don't have my personal rankings of them from that time (based solely off of how much I liked them, irrespective of ability, commitment, etc), I think based off of how I viewed them in 2009, it would be probably Dongho > Kibum > Xander/Kevin > Soohyun/Eli. Yeah, I was a delusional kid who had a crush on Dongho since he was closest in age to me, Kibum and Kevin were both flower boys and good dancers, while Xander was a fellow Canto speaker with an accent I could understand, plus he was funny. Soohyun and Eli were really victims of poor styling at the time, but who wasn't?

Now onto the actual songs -

Intro (Pump Pump) | YouTube Music 10k | Spotify 3.4k

I actually kinda really like this?

Catchy, more mature than Not Young, but also not inappropriately so, and it's got a cute cheeky and fun vibe?

If they turned this into the title track, maybe they would've had a fighting chance in the bloodbath that was 2008 boy group debuts

Not Kevin and Soohyun actually being able to show off their singing here more than in the actual album songs

There's like a random gunshot(?) sound and I don't really understand it

The Kibum-Kevin-Soohyun verse is kinda interesting, and by interesting, I mean it feels like they did Kibum dirty by drawing that comparison, but like also there's no other way to structure it since he is their next best vocalist

Common UKISS intro W I don't think I've ever disliked any of their intros 7.75/10

Not Young (Audio) | YouTube Music 367k | Spotify 132k

The opening quite literally gives me psychic damage, while also making me coo like an affectionate auntie watching her stupid nephews do dumb shit

Kevin's voice unsurprisingly suits this very well, that honey-like voice was made for this kind of cheese, and boy is he hard carrying

Soohyun, bless his heart, is kind of both actively ruining and saving this song

Like he's hard carrying too, and that "You gonna be my lady, yoohoo~" actually goes so hard, but his voice just sounds...way too mature for this

Which makes me wonder if this was a directional problem, or if he just wasn't able to do it at this time because he nails this concept 7 years later for Action (spoiler I guess)

Really love that first prechorus, I don't know what it is, but that Kibum-Soohyun-Kevin buildup really works well

Lyrically, I think the YT comments actually sum it up for me - "We're the new kids on this block" vs. "Stop treating us like kids" - which is it make up your minds

Also shoutout for being their first and only noona-chasing song they really never revisited this concept ever again

Really funny that Dongho is the only one at the right age to make this concept work (and maybe Eli and Kevin too, possibly Kibum if we're being generous) but he gets like 3 lines

I also found a super old live radio version of this song from their promotional period, and yes it's in the crunchiest potato quality imaginable, but it was insightful

Soohyun and Kevin sound great as always, Kibum's voice actually felt much stronger than in the actual song or in music shows, and the rap line was there

Hard carried by Soohyun and Kevin, Kibum did his job, Dongho was there, and RIP to Eli and Xander for that awful last verse (80% not their fault)

6.5/10, needs more commitment to being cheesy and to not the title track

Not Young (MV) | Fan upload 703k

You know, I feel a lot of my bad feelings for the song come from the MV

Like the psychic damage this video inflicts should be studied

Love the fact there's no official MV uploaded so there's only a crunchy fan upload to watch

I actually don't know if this is the same upload I watched back in the day, but the date doesn't seem to line up?

Anyway, crunchy potato quality is completely on brand, YouTube is telling me it's 480p but this feels like 240p at best

The stupid Windows Movie Maker transitions are taking me out

So like we all know NH is a broke ass bitch, so I wanna know if this is actually like a member's house, a staff member's house, or if they just rented it

Dongho's mom's hair is like peak Asian Mom hair like I knew so many women with that exact hairstyle, and not the skin-toned lipstick everyone wore back then

Kevin's hair and outfit are peak 'flower-boy-wannabe-bad-boy' like we all thought that hair was soooo hot, and you were either drowning in your own clothes or cutting off your circulation with no middle ground, and this was a cross-cultural phenomenon

Honestly, I feel like you could just go to a local school and see a bunch of boys dressed like this

Xander's Ronald McDonald hair I'm so sorry you had to go through that

The High School Musical-esque dance scenes have me in tears like those basketball jerseys are so goofy and Kevin's legs are lost in the fabric

Flower boy haircuts from this time are like basically the precursor to Karen cuts *cue Abby Lee Miller voice "she's got a really cool and trendy haircut it's like long in the front and short in the back"

Also his eyebrows from this time are tragic, those were dark dark times

This was also a peak fashion look for us girls back then, and you know what, it's still kinda cute

This was so serious for them I'm crying

I still don't quite understand this part

RANDOM PRE-DEBUT KISEOP CAMEO!!!!! I don't remember if he was on set because he was covering for his friend, or if his friend invited him to be an extra, but I just love that he's technically been there from the start

Is he supposed to be the antagonist of the MV? Like I get the plot is they're trying to impress their noona and whatever but like is he supposed to be her boyfriend or something, and they're gonna beat his ass in basketball to win her over???

If that's the plot, they need to get Kevin off their team that boy cannot run

No comment on Dongho's hair that's just tragic

But this whole scene takes me out like this is peak comedy

Why is Kevin perched on the bench like that, why are Dongho and Soohyun sitting on the floor and why is Soohyun grinning like a maniac, is Eli okay???

You may not like it, but this is peak male performance

This frame is a work of art

So so serious for them, I can taste the cheese

This is honestly so confusing I don't get it, but I guess I'm not galaxy-brained enough. Like did they not have enough footage or something? Is there a scene change quota they had to meet or what?

I love that every single part of this MV can be carbon dated, and not one bit aged well, and I just think that's so iconic

So I've come up with two different ratings for this MV

12/10 if you take this completely unseriously like this is so funny, so poorly aged, so cringe, it's amazing. Even while cringing, I still had fun

3.5/10 if you take this seriously, like wtf was NH thinking (spoiler, they were not)? Like even when I first watched this as a kid (and within their target age demographic!!! I, a young elementary school girl who was entrenched in East Asian media and came from a similar cultural background!!!!) it was pretty cringe. I'm giving it pity points because Soohyun was so committed to this and the funny Kiseop cameo.

Honestly, I feel like you could just go to a local school and see a bunch of boys dressed like thispoorly aged, so cringe, it's amazing. Even while cringing, I still had fun

3.5/10 if you take this seriously, like wtf was NH thinking (spoiler, they were not)? Like even when I first watched this as a kid (and within their target age demographic!!! I, a young elementary school girl who was entrenched in East Asian media and came from a similar cultural background!!!!) it was pretty cringe. I'm giving it pity points because Soohyun was so committed to this and the funny Kiseop cameo.

Not Young (Stages) | Highest viewed 191k Music Core

Again, I never watched these when they first came out, and I also don't think I watched any of these very much prior to doing this

Not gonna talk about their actual debut stage because that's like 8 pixels total

Also not doing all of their stages, just Music Core because it's actually in really good quality

Look at those fits that was peak fashion in 2008

Dongho's silly little cardigan and bowtie, Kevin's goofy polka dot sweater vest, Soohyun with the plaid vest and random sweatband, Kibum with a random tie, Eli wearing a hoodie I swear every boy had it's a real time capsule

Yeah, I'm grabbing screencaps on mute I'm not subjecting myself to this psychic damage

The multiple bracelets is so real that was such look back then

I remember I used to collect those cheap rubber bracelets to try to recreate that look

This is such an unserious part of the choreo but I will admit it's very cute in a stupid way

Also, all I can think of is the other members talking about how they think his hands are freakish and alien-like, and I think that's just foul of them, but also not undeserved considering how snarky Kevin was in those early days

Oh Soohyun, I'm so sorry they did you dirty like this

Like it's incredible how he de-ages himself a few years later when he gets decent hair and styling

And he was so committed to this like he's literally beaming while everyone else is just smiling

He also winked right before this Soohyun is the cutest I swear

Eli's comically large chain

The dance is cute, but also insanely cringy because they're kind of taking it too seriously and not as full-on campy cheese

Like I said before, Soohyun, Kevin, and Kibum really stand out here as being much more polished and cleaner in their dancing, are clearly committed to the character, and have a good eye for the camera

Dongho is also a standout because wow I forgot he had that je ne sais quoi stage presence

There's a lot of moments where the dancing doesn't quite sync up, and I think it's fairly obvious that they're still very new as a group

They have backup dancers, though not in this particular stage, but I think they had them for their actual debut stage and Music Bank

So I lied, let's check out the Music Bank stage

This actually is from before the Music Core stage (MuCore is listed as 2008.09.27, while the MuBank is supposedly from 2008.09.12)

I didn;t mention this before, but I'm fairly certain the MuCore stage is lipsynced, but the MuBank stage is definitely live

Terrible quality pic, but these were some other peak 2008 fits

I knew so many guys who had Kevin's hoodie

And not Soohyun's trash bag jacket

Soohyun and Kevin are already very good and stable at singing live and making it seem easy, while Kibum definitely struggles a bit

Honestly, I wonder if NH invested in more singing lessons for him, if Kibum could've ended up where Kiseop is now - a solid subvocalist who can also hold his own and step up to being a vocalist

I just watched this dude pull his shirt up over his head for this and no, I don't understand this part of the choreo

I don't really know much about rapping and don't have many particular thoughts on it, but Xander and Eli can be heard clearly, so that's a good thing, right?

Honestly, just ranking both of these stages as 4.5/10

MuCore stage was in better camera quality, sharper and more coordinated group dancing, but probably lipsynced and no funny backup dancers

MuBank is like 360p max and kind of a mess, but I always love hearing Soohyun and Kevin singing live, and there are funny backup dancers

Give It To Me (Audio) | YouTube Music 43k | Spotify 7.9k

I honestly had zero recollection of this song at all

So if Not Young is borderline age inappropriate for being too immature, Give It To Me swings wildly in the opposite direction and teeters into being too mature

Xander, Soohyun, and arguably Kibum are old enough for this song, while Dongho is way too young, and Eli and Kevin are either barely old enough or still young (my personal opinion, based off of some of the lyrics, but the stage of this song is actually fine)

Honestly should've been the title track, they 100% would have had a fighting chance at debut and be remembered as either 'cool new rookie group' or 'wildly inappropriate rookie group', but both are better than 'cringe rookie group'

This is like a proto-Quintessential UKISS™ song - dance beat, Soohyun doing adlibs like rent's due, Eli dropping horrifically funny one liners, and the singing dominating the rapping in all aspects

Now if only this song was a "baby I love you even though you cheated on me pls come back" song

Hard carried by Soohyun and Kevin, who are both surprisingly singing lower than what they usually do, and also do not have a shouting match at any of the song (!!!)

Does that count as early installment weirdness?

Special shoutout to Kibum who actually sounds really good for his two lines. Dunno if his voice just suits this kind of song, or if this is just a more comfortable range for him, but he sounds much better here

Another special shoutout to Dongho for having no lines, you're doing amazing sweatie <3

"And u're so tight" Eli why did you say it like that

"My boo" #1

"Shorty/shawty/whatever tf they say" #1

Does this count as a UKISS Sex Song? Feels gross typing that out, but like looking at the lyrics, I think it does?

UKISS Sex Song #1

6.75/10, knocked off points for being age inappropriate, Eli's rancid one liner (which did make me laugh), and the terrible lyrics in the rapping

Give It To Me (Stage) | Fan upload 15k

I had no idea they did a stage for this

Also, why is this actually better than Not Young?

Love the black/white/gold scheme going on

Also, these are peak Bad Boy circa 2008 looks I would've gone crazy for these guys back then

The trashbag bootcut pants, the random embellishments, the fingerless gloves, Xander rocking the shirt tied around the waist, whatever the heck Eli's accessories are, and the tragic and dramatic 2008 hair? I would've honestly lost my shit

Wait oh my god those aren't bootcut pants those are skinny pants with leg warmers oh my goddddd iconic

So are these the same gloves from Tick Tack? Also Eli wtf is that on your neck???

It's hard to tell if this is sung live or not, but what I do know is Soohyun is making his singing expressions, so I think it's live, with slightly off audio? It's hard to tell honestly, maybe the mics were bad?

Why was this not their actual debut? This is literally what was considered so 2008 cool, the outfits were peak bad boy fashion, and the choreo is very much a product of its time (not derogatory)

Also got a good chuckle with Soohyun being the centre for the dance break while flanked by Kevin and Kibum, it's what he deserves

7.75/10 much better than Not Young in terms of dancing and coordination (makes sense, this is dated 2008.11.06), the outfits are 2008 stylish, and they all seem so much more comfortable with this?

That concludes this review of New Generation. You know, there were a lot of emotions going through this, a lot of "why does NH not think?" and "oh my god sweetie, I'm so sorry they did this to you", and "what were we all smoking back in 2008 to consider this cool?", but I think I had fun while doing this.

I have most of the notes for Bring It Back2 Old School written out, so now it's just a matter of editing and collecting screenshots, which honestly pains me to think about. If New Generation was a dark time in UKISS history, Bring It Back2 Old School is purgatory.

So fun bonus fun fact, if you've made it to the end:

I don't know how many people know this since I also found this out not too long ago while digging around, but XING, the old group that Kevin and Kibum were a part of was an absolute disaster in like every possible way. I got some of this info in English, and the rest in a bad KR-EN translation (so possibly inaccurate), but apparently the XING CEO was actually a former SM CEO who worked there around 2000-2003ish before getting ousted by the board of directors, and was responsible in part for the famous slave contracts.

So out of spite, said CEO took a bunch of SM-affiliated trainees (from my understanding, they were sort of on a shortlist to get into SM) and founded his own company to compete with SM with these new trainees and his new boy group. XING was an absolute disaster for only being around for 4 years with 5 different lineups and 18 total members having been involved. Kevin and Kibum were part of the original lineup, but Kibum bailed after a few months with the excuse of 'focusing on his education', while Kevin stayed long enough to go from maknae to leader, before dipping after the third lineup (also, according to the article I read, he was the CEO's favourite because he thought he had star potential lol). A bunch of the guys who left sued the company around 2008-2009, and got their contracts terminated.

It's hard to understand what the contracts said exactly because of the shitty translation, but it was something like exclusive 10 year contract that will be extended if a member takes personal breaks, goes to school, enlists in military, and/or goes on health leave and profits would only be paid out in fixed amounts after selling 500k (or 250k I can't remember but it was some crazy amount) units (unclear if this means total albums, or just for one release).

Apparently in 2010ish, the CEO was talking about having a 'XING family reunion concert' and asked all the guys about it and got left on read, so then he finally let the name die and moved on to terrorizing more boys (no for real, he allegedly threw a bottle of alcohol at one of the XING guys when he told him about wanting to leave).