#seriously though Maine is like mountain people brain

[batwynn]

Remembering that time when I was five and didn’t even know filters existed—never mind knowing how to stop talking—and I was out with my grandmother (divorced from my grandfather) having a lovely day in a lovely little Maine town in the 90s.

The thing about Maine in the 90s was certain things like smoking weed was illegal across the country and generally frowned upon, but Mainers simply Did Not Care and more than happily grew and smoked pot anyway. The other thing about Maine is most of those Lovely Little Towns are constantly full of out of state tourists coming to buy kitch and eat lobster. These tourists tended to be from states that generally did not have the same attitude about pot as Mainers did. It was still considered a Very Bad Thing To Do.

So when my five year old self saw an older gentleman smoking a classic tobacco pipe amongst a crowd of tourists I remarked, on the top of my lungs, that my grandfather had a pipe too! Not that kind of pipe, though!

There was literally a beat of shocked silence before my grandmother laughed a little too loudly and said something about it being a different color or some nonsense. Of course no one, like, ratted out my five-year-old self and my grandfather out to the police for that. But there were definitely some shocked button-upped folks in that lovely little town that day.

Anyway, that was the one and only time I was a snitch.

[bloopitynoot]

Reading SVSSS: Bonus Chapter 26

For those who don't know, I am reading SVSSS for the first time and sharing my thoughts!

If you have not read it, there will be spoilers! Consider this a warning.

Also- if you want to follow along, I am aiming to post updates daily. You can find all the posts in the tag bloopitynoot reads SVSSS. You can also check out the intro post for context on my read.

This chapter took me two days to go through! It's SO LONG (120 pages). I wanted to post yesterday but I got 60 pages in and started fading. Winter is here and the sun keeps disappearing too quickly, your boy is feeling the SAD.

The tea photo is from today and not yesterday- I tried out a new one it's almond amaranth and rooibos.

let's get into this monster of a chapter!

Fuck yeah, we have an airplane POV! Though this chapter is BEEFY. I think I'm going to read half today and half tomorrow before posting it (present me: and I did! ^-^).

I love that we are getting all of these forum comments. This is so fun! One of my favourite brands of fics are fics that include elements of social media/forum/blog style au's and this is a vibe! pp140-147

This guy is not wrong "Even though this famous Lord Cucumber spewed criticism constantly and without end in 'Great Master' Airplane's comment section, his subscription payments and demands for updates never waned. Because of this 'Great Master Airplane had come to suspect that this person was a masochist". p148 I mean yeah lol

OMG what an awful way to die! Alone in your house, let's be real - likely in his underwear- via electrocution induced by his sad instant ramen noodle dinner. p149

and the fact that he transmigrated so young. He was there for a while before the plot plotted with SY. 17 years old! p150. I do wonder if there is a wiggly time thing. Like years in the transmigrated novel equal like hours in the world he came from or something. They died close together I think? anyways- any theories on this are welcome!

Same though- Airplane is so real for this. The way in which I would just want to spill all of the foreknowledge and secrets to people I held in my brain as the creator of this universe p153

The SASS [Tip Complete. We wish you the best of luck]. p155

Are you kidding! This man didn't even write the plot that led for his main spy character to becoming a spy...dang man. the potholes are real bad. p156

Okay but this would seriously be me af. I am such a wimp- and that is totally okay! In the face of most definitely death, I would submit myself to being the Little Bitch Boy and pledge myself, my body, my undying love, to my new demon overlord and master. Good for baby him ahaha. p158

"As Shang Qinghua overflowed with snot and tears, clinging on for dear life, begging to pledge fealty to Mobei-Jun - wholly without warning, the demon collapsed." p160 Again, same. I'm feeling seen with Airplane here XD Screaming, crying, throwing up.

Man. I really see how these two end up together (I'm assuming they do?). He had a solid chance to murder the guy and he just couldn't because the character is just his ideal man. p162

"This character had been created entirely to the author's own tastes" p163 MHMMM. Yeah he was.

ehehehe and here we have the only one bed trope at the inn he got to nurse his ideal man back to health. p165

This guy is so shameless. Straight up just watching Mobei-Jun strip while he sits there and snacks. p169

It is so unhinged that this man just has a string tied to his neck pp170-171

that congee- YARF "clear as water" sounds so unappealing p174

"When in doubt- just cry" - Airplane definitely p176

The security on this mountain is so shit. Demons just popping in all the time under the radar. Mobei-jun literally lived there for three days no one even knew XD p183

awww, Airplane tried to warn Liu Qingge about the upcoming Qi deviation. That was nice of him. p190

Yes! Thank you! The scene I have been waiting for; in which the other characters are all like "wtf is up with shen qingqiu? He really is 100% different overnight, but also, no one say anything to him because we like this him better" p192

Fair though, I too would think that SQQ was possessed p194

The way in which airplane is SHAKEN by the actions of SQQ right now is so funny. Him frozen expression, this is NOT the character I wrote what the fuck is happening. p206

Someone commented on an earlier chapter post I had about the theory that the system is the manifestation of airplane's actual wants for the story and like- I stand with this theory. It really checks out with this POV the man keep's fantasizing of a queer man story and like he sure does get it. p207

LOOOOL oh no. the fact that the man who created these characters - VERY different than this experience. Has to listen to Binghe "If you hold unique feelings for a certain person, how can you make them understand you intentions?" p208.

Not airplane giving LBH love advice just so cucumber bro can literally Get Fucked. pp212-213

AND THEN HIS ADVICE BACKFIRES WITH MOBEI-JUN LOL"So, if you want to be liked by a man, the best method is to act pathetic?" p214. Like he set this up for himself

Wait. Airplane had the option to return home! And he just didnt??? p217

Airplane really is weak for these villainous men. The way in which he describes Linguang-Jun is so simpy. p228

The drama. Airplane doing the MOST to save Mobei-jun. This man could have avoided all of this and just gone home. What a horrible torture! :( p235

Get it airplane! You yell at him ahaha p237-238

I AM SCREAMING. Airplane: I'm your daddy! p239 AND THEN him just leaving in a panic because he really thinks he's going to get murdered after that outburst LOL

I love SQQ sitting in domesticity with his man giving airplane love advice pp244-245

Awww, Mobei-Jun came back for his boyfriend! He's going to make him hand pulled noodles :'3 p255 I honestly think that Mobei-jun actually needed to be bossed around this entire time

BYE. LOL SGH deciding to continue writing in this world by basically writing slash fanfiction about LBH/SQQ + the other peak lords/famous cultivators LOL p256. Good for him ahaha.

We did it!

This chapter was such a ride ahaha. it was fun to see the POV for airplane but also him and the progression of his weird AF relationship with Mobei-jun. I honestly kind of love these two. They were such a mess in the beginning but it ended so soft :'3

[foxgonyoom]

If whoever is behind the Jade Emperor's death is trying to cause the world to spiral into chaos, I think Nezha is the next one on their list, and here's why:

(My theory located below, condensed into occasionally colored bullet points, and with pictures! So you don't get bored :>) 

So 

Let’s take a look at these pictures:

Here, in this picture, we get to see all of Heaven’s generals gathered to stop Azure’s rebellion in its tracks.

Now look at this second picture. In it, Nezha and Red Son are the only discernible figures standing out from the crowd of Celestial Soldiers. Which to me, points to one thing:

Nezha is the only (or at least most prominent) general left in Heaven. Meaning before the Jade Emperor’s death, he and the Jade Emperor were just about the only ones running the show. Why are they the only ones left? Well there are a few reasons, but they basically all boil down to:

Most of the really important Celestials left

Allow me to provide my evidence by listing several examples we've witnessed in-show via the following bullet points:

Erlang was nowhere to be found during Azure’s second rebellion, implying that he isn’t present in the Celestial Realm (I heard somewhere that he lives in a mountain in the Mortal Realm and doesn't interfere with Celestial Realm business unless asked by the JE himself, though I'm not sure if that's true or not. Regardless, he doesn't seem to be present in Heaven nonetheless).

Iron Fan left the Celestial Realm to be with DBK

Similarly, Kui Mulang sacrificed his position in the Celestial Realm for love as well

Azure Lion, Peng, and Yellow-Tusk are all former Celestials who decided to rebel against the Jade Emperor, getting them kicked out of Heaven

Considering how many instances of Celestials abandoning their duties in the Celestial Realm (or just being kicked out in the Brotherhood's case) we’ve seen in the show, it’s not too far-fetched to imagine that many other unmentioned Celestials also followed suit, until the Celestial Realm became absurdly understaffed.

I think the Jade Emperor and Nezha being basically the only brain cells in charge could also explain a few things as well:

The Celestial Realm’s overall absence from mortal affairs

If the only people in charge were the JE and Nezha (who was also busy guarding an incredibly important world-destroying artifact, the map to the Samadhi Fire), it would make sense why the Celestial Realm wasn’t getting very involved with the Mortal Realm. They were too busy keeping the realm up and running to interfere with mortals.

Nezha’s personality shift from his mischievous, caution-to-the-wind, “LET-ME-AT-’IM!!!” attitude in the book to his responsible, frustrated, “Don’t-poke-a-fucking-fork-in-the-socket” personality in the show

If Nezha had to take on more and more responsibility in the Celestial Realm (what with having to help keep it running and guarding the map of the Samadhi Fire), his personality would likely shift as a result, turning into the personality presented in the show today. 

(That’s also another parallel between him and MK, that is being forced to take on a larger role in the world by forces outside of their control, when they’d really rather not).

Nezha wanting to fight Azure to the death

While the main reason for Nezha’s stubbornness seems to be that Azure becoming the new Jade Emperor was a big no-no, it could also be that deep down he knew if the Jade Emperor fell, and Azure couldn’t handle the JE’s power, then the responsibility of keeping the realm together would fall to him. A responsibility he wasn’t ready for. 

I’m not as certain about this, however, and it could easily just be a personality thing + Nezha knowing the possible consequences of if Azure failed to keep control of the Emperor’s power.

Why there were only two magic dog statues guarding the Jade Emperor's throne room in Revenge of the Spider Queen (and really just the Celestial Realm's lackluster security overall. Seriously even Jin & Yin robbed the place with seemingly little to no trouble)

If Nezha and JE were basically the only ones in charge, it could explain the poor security in the Celestial Realm. It's not that they're bad at security or anything, don't get me wrong, they're just spread too thin, and have a lot of other things to focus on besides making sure people don't rob them.

My friend suggested this as a possible consequence of a low staffed Celestial Realm when I told them about this theory, and I agree with their idea.

Now here’s the fun part: What Nezha disappearing could cause, because oh boy would it cause a lot! Here’s some possible consequences of Nezha getting poofed:

Celestial Realm on fire

With their basically last leader gone, the Celestial Realm would likely erupt into chaos, which could in and of itself lead to half of the things on this list.

Meeting Erlang

If Nezha disappeared, then the Celestial Realm might end up calling up old generals to help ease the chaos, such as Erlang Shen and Princess Iron Fan. Heck, this might happen even without Nezha disappearing into thin air, considering how much work he’d be swamped with.

Red Son getting some screen time

This might seem a bit arbitrary, but it builds off my last point, because if Iron Fan gets called up to do damage control on the Celestial Realm as a result of Nezha going missing, Red Son would probably take a more active role in the plot.

We’ve seen how he’s basically been recognized as a part of the Monkie Crew now, and we also know that he cares about Nezha, so it's not hard to imagine he'd want to help track down where the missing prince vanished to. Thus, this might be an opportunity for Red Son fans to get their win.

The overarching plot (as well as episodic plots) of season 5

With a Celestial Realm in chaos because nobody’s around to manage it, some demons, animals and artifacts which were being guarded in the Celestial Realm might get loose, requiring our heroes to get them under control before they can cause too much carnage.

This could offer a chance to at least semi-return to our original monster-of-the-week format, albeit with each episode being a bit more connected this time, and there still being an overarching plot (AKA, Operation: Where the Fuck is Nezha).

(And if you're wondering why I also mentioned Celestial animals, in the book, the Goldfish Demon was originally Guan Yin's pet goldfish, who had escaped it's pond and started causing havoc, and the Rhino King originally was a bull(?) that belonged to Lao Tzu, so animals escaping and causing havoc is all too possible)

Obligatory “The gamemaster would gain hold of the Big J’s power”

Probably the first reason that sprang to y’alls minds when I said Nezha was next on the chopping block, but I’ve saved it for last so that you read to the end (hehe I'm so mischievous). Yes, if Nezha gets kidnapped, then the one pulling all the strings behind this would effectively have the JE’s power in their possession. 

This is, of course, assuming Nezha doesn’t manage to sneakily teleport it to someone before he gets captured, although it’s possible that wouldn’t keep the JE’s power from our dear gamemaster for very long.

Now, for my final statement, I’d like to turn your eyes to the last scene of the Monkie Crew and the Monkey King in the S4 special.

Here, Monkey King says that whatever our dear gamemaster has planned, the Monkie Crew can handle it. Together. It then cuts to a shot consisting of the entire Monkie Crew, before shifting to the final segment of the episode.

But

Look at this scene.

Look at who’s missing.

In this scene, we can see the entirety of the Monkie Crew. We can see the original 5 members, we can see Monkey King, we can see Macaque, even Red Son is effectively a part of the gang now. Everyone is here.

Everyone except Nezha.

Nezha is not yet recognized as a part of the Monkie Crew.

He’s still all on his own up in the Celestial Realm, trying to hold everything together. The only thing holding everything together.

The gamemaster knows the Monkie Crew can handle their schemes.

So they��re not going for the Monkie Crew.

They’re going for Nezha.

[quaranmine]

I have never been to a national forest before, but in October, I'm going to Ouachita National Forest... alone. I'm excited, but also, bc IDL has eaten my entire brain, I am nervous. I used to be an experienced hiker/camper, but it has been a very long time since I've done any of it.

OOOH, FUN! Just make sure someone else knows where you are and when you're supposed to check in. I have a lot of childhood memories of my parents taking me to that part of Arkansas, especially the crystal mines and rock shops. We have sooooo many rocks we got from that area. We used to go a lot for quick camping trips with our trailer on 3 day weekends. Also, I viewed the Solar Eclipse from Ouachita National Forest in April (with clear skies, unlike Texas.)

I hope you'll go by way of the Talimena Parkway, where the OK part of the National Forest is. It's a beautiful road and you should have some fall colors. I went at Thanksgiving last year but most of the leaves had already fallen. Right after you cross into Arkansas, at Queen Wilhelmena State Park, there's also nice fire lookout by the road called Rich Mountain lookout. Zero hike, drive right up, and it's right next to the main road. It's not even a detour and looks nearly identical to what I pictured Grian having. I actually took notes on it when I was there (stuff like how many steps etc) even though I was already very far into the story at that point.

But seriously yeah, I totally understand being nervous. I also haven't hiked or camped alone before and would be skeptical of it. I have been camping and hiking a lot, but always with much more experienced family members. It’s not really my intentions with IDL to scare people away from hiking (which I failed at per some reviews lol), just to impress the importance of preparation and planning. Of course at some point, you can't plan yourself out of everything. I say it myself in the fic. You can do everything right and still have something happen. But...that applies in every aspect of life. The only things we can do on our end is be careful and mitigate the risk. In this case, that just means you need to make good decisions about bringing enougj water, staying on trail, and making sure other people know where you are and when you're supposed to be back <3

I'm confident you'll have a great time, and send me pictures!

[oriley42]

Tl;dr: here's the chart I made, react at your own time if you'd like<3, sorry for the bible below.

Hello again legend, I present to you my magnum opus relationship chart, updated to where I reached when I started it which was about early-mid s7 (I now finished) and therefore does not feature Park or Addams.

You can probably tell which parts might be inspired by your fics (the og ducklings polycule, House and Wilson married, Cuddy and frankly any woman, 13 and Amber etc), which parts are rooted in canon (Cuddy and House, Taub and Rachel, 13 and Foreman etc) and which parts are fully just me going ham (some friendships and ships with people who never met in canon, some of them sharing homes oops).

I would absolutely love to read a live reaction from you on stuff you agree and disagree with and what makes no sense to you because I honestly think your brain is huge as far as dynamics go. Feel free to add anything you can see I blatantly missed, I for sure didn't include everything here.

I know most of your fics don't venture outside of the earlier seasons regarding characters and dynamics but I've been having brainrot about the whole lot of them, I have loads of headcanons regarding the chart:

- It took Foreman a long time to give up his house but because he literally cannot do casual relationships and is hardcore married to 3 people and dating 13 he just sleeps wherever

- Kutner and Masters have a crazy bonding arc that ends with them sharing a house and they balance each other out

- Stacy and Cameron used to fuck over shared weird ass relationship with House

Anyway seriously ama I can explain everything even why Lin Manuel Miranda's character made it to the magnum opus I'm being so fr

No pressure at all to respond unless this brings you equal brainrot, at your leisure boss

Wahoo! This is so cool! I’ve only seen charts like these occasionally, and never gotten a chance to really dive in. I love how this visualizes the complex network of relationships and their nuances, and crystallizes a particular snapshot of them. And I’m so flattered that my stories could play a role in how you imagine these relationships! I do tend to favor the early seasons, so this is a good chance to think about the later fellows as well, who I also love <3 (Will attempt to put my response under a read-more...if I can figure out how these work...)

Starting with Foreman: I love how he’s his own big nexus! The show has such intense main character syndrome with House, but I totally agree with how you’ve framed Foreman and Thirteen as other key spokes in the bonkers wheel of toxic polycule-ism that is PPTH. Foreman wants to be a responsible homeowner but he’s got marriages all over town! And really he’s married to his job! How’s a guy supposed to manage a mortgage situation like that? 😅 Foreman and Kutner (I almost just misspelled his name as Kuntner, which, honestly…serve) didn’t really get to do much together in canon, and I love to imagine them getting to have a relationship of their own, not just in the context of PPTH. Would they chill and play video games, and it would be a chance for Foreman to just be a person, instead of A Doctor? Would he get to enjoy Kutner’s laid back nature, but because they keep things casual, he doesn’t have to deal with the stuff that would absolutely drive his ordered mind crazy—you know he wouldn’t stand for a fridge that’s empty except for a jar of mustard and one (1) liter of Mountain Dew. Also I can’t believe I forgot about that plot point that Taub roomed with Foreman, oh my god. Yes. And Foreman and Rachel Taub secret pals? Delish!

Thirteen has pulled every young, gorgeous, eligible person in her orbit, as she should. Sampled all the flavors, as it were. Except C&C—I agree, she doesn’t vibe with the blonde twins, especially as a set, though I think there could be something interesting in the whole ‘Thirteen is House’s metaphorical daughter’ vibe that Cameron would just go apeshit over. ‘Oh, it’s House, but he’s a hot, impressionable young girl who’s also dying?!’ ß catnip for that messed up gal! (Sidebar: I am fighting for my life every time I try to make Cameron sapphic because that actress simply reads as unbearably het to me. It took everything I had to write explicit Cuddy/Cameron. I’m so sorry to all the lesbian!Cam truthers out there, you’re stronger than I! Especially considering Jennifer went on to be half of such a powerhouse WLW ship on OUAT…I don’t know why, but the only kind of queer for her that really works in my head is aro-ace. That girl just wants to save lives, she doesn’t have time for any other nonsense!) On that note, love the idea that Cameron/Stacy had a thing. Go girls, the best way to get over House is to get under someone else (who also wants to fuck him!) Cuddy/Amber is galaxy brain, god, let these powerful yet deeply insecure and structurally maligned women try to step on each other, fail, and fuck nasty about it 😭 I’m also glad you fit sweet little Masters in, I’ve only written her as a cameo because s7 is so…Like That…but she’s delightful and deserves the (intimate) attentions of beautiful and terrifying women such as Thirteen and Amber. And Kutner & Masters friendship, what a delight that would be! I think they would both bring eldest sibling energy to it that would turn out to complement one another, as Kutner shows her the ropes of having fun and learning when to bend the rules, and she can help him buckle down and connect with the times when the rules are actually important to follow. Kutner was always the youngin’, so he didn’t get to mentor anybody, and he should have gotten that chance!!

I think Cuddy and Wilson have a Something…that cannot be defined. Is it sexual, platonic, friendly, familial? Are they besties, are they both just good at being social, are they bonded primarily over their UST for House, would they have been the world’s most perfect Lavender Marriage??? (Which raises the point of kids, yikes! That would need to be a whole other chart, of kids had, imagined, and desired…) Similarly, canon implies that Wilson and Stacy are good friends and have been for quite a while (though we don’t get to see it enough!) and I always wonder how that went for James ‘Trips Over Friendship Into Marriage’ Wilson. Was his friendship like Stacy like his relationship with Cuddy? Are they surface level friends who really bonded over House—or over the kinds of things that draw them to someone like House, e.g. the dark unspoken desires they both paper over in their pursuit of appearing “normal”? Maybe it’s like what Bonnie said, if she’d slept with Wilson right away, she could have gotten over him…maybe Wilson slept with Cuddy and/or Stacy and they were like ‘that was fine, but what if we just did brunch once a month and gossiped instead.’

I agree that Cuddy should have gotten to keep Lucas, like a pet. He was delightful! House Lite, a little scamp, but one who could be kind and relied upon when it was important. And totally agree that House should get to keep Alvie, that musical theater freak helped him keep it together in one of the worst times of his life! Those episodes of s6 are a fever dream that I wouldn’t trade for the world. House needs his emotional support boy best friend (there’s that one post that says without Wilson, House flees to the nearest manlet…so real.) It’s so natural, then, for the two manlets to bond. Lucas and Alvie have killer karaoke sessions together that are as humiliating to witness as they are incredible to experience.

Thank you for sharing this inspiring chart (and for referring to me like I’m a mafia don, it makes me feel so butch and famous) 😎🥰 Please do reblog or reply if any of this stream of consciousness sparks clarifications/questions/additions!

[cedar-sunshine]

Star Excerpt

I've been going back and forth on posting this for a while, but here it is! Feat: Tristan being depressed, Ori being a little off-putting. This is the VERY beginning of star, the opening words. Comment if you want me to post more anytime/if you liked it!

TWs- internalized transphobia (not incredibly overt), discussion of SI, discussion of death, discussion and minor representation of visual hallucinations.

I wrote this when I was dealing with REALLY severe depression and it hasn't been seriously edited since, so I can't vouch for it being great. Hope you enjoy it!

Tristan

It's getting cold faster than usual this year.

It feels like just yesterday that the first couple of leaves fell from the maples, but now I'm walking over ground that cracks and snaps with frost, and my breath hangs in the air like fog.

With hope, the coming winter will pass just as quickly as fall has been, collapsing in on itself in what remains of my mind. Realistically, I'll probably die before that can happen. The main question now is whether I'll die from the sickness, starvation, hypothermia, murder, or the other option. Guessing which one is going to finally take me out is the only thing left in my life that I could call entertaining, in a twisted, fucked up way. There's also a chance I eat the wrong plant and die from poisoning, but I'd argue that that falls under the last option, especially as I've practically memorized the plants in the northwest. It's been my only pastime for the past year and a half, if you don't count vivid fantasies of my own impending death.

You're never really aware of all the interesting ways one can die until you are, aren't you?

As it is, I've decided that my most likely fate will be turning back on my trail, finding the people who I've been running from with less and less conviction for the past eight months, and letting myself be ripped to pieces in whatever horrifying fashion they desire. It wouldn't be much worse than what's going on in my head already, I'd guess. And they'd be right in whatever gruesome thing they have planned for me. It's not like I haven't been asking for this since I ran.

I'm not exactly sure where I'm going, other than a vague idea of 'east'. If I even have the direction right. For all I know, I've been going in circles for months. I can see the mountains in the distance, though, so I can't be too far off. I know the silhouette of the rockies.

My half-formed plan when I first fled was to get to the rockies and find refuge in a cave, gathering food like a bear in the fall, and then count on my pursuers not being able to survive in the mountains. I'm not sure why I had thought that a half-dead, psychotic fifteen year old with identity confusion would survive out there any better than they would, but it's the only plan I have, and without a plan, I don't really have much to do other than sit down and die.

Honestly, that option has been sounding pretty nice lately.

Still, I'm nothing if not a creature of inertia. Every step, every breath, every heartbeat, only exists because I've lost the energy to do anything other than stay the same. What is in motion stays in motion, even as the friction of my brain tears at me to just stop.

I'm not sure why I don't.

The sun is bleeding up from the horizon, lighting the clouds near it a pinkish golden color, bringing color to a gray sky. The mountains are saturated with dark, vivid blue shadows and patches of gleaming white snow that hurts to look at.

The light burns my eyes, and I refocus my gaze on the ground in front of me where brown and orange leaves are encased in frost, crunching under my footsteps. With the frost, I'll be leaving pretty clear footsteps until the sun fully rises, but I can't bring myself to care. A brutal, ritualistic death, no matter how gory and painful, seems no worse than the other option.

I try to avoid thinking about the future. Whenever I do, the pull to just stop gets almost overwhelming, and the panic that causes makes everything around it worse. The stability of my mind is nothing but a coin flip, and when it's landed on heads, I try to do all I can to avoid flipping it again.

Still, the future isn't the most avoidable thing.

As I watch my worn-out shoes leave a trail in the frost and leaves, my thoughts can't help but drift towards one of my many taboo subjects.

What happens next is perhaps the scariest question I can pose to myself, mostly because I don't actually know the answer.

I can feel my pulse lift and the fog of my mind start to thicken and creep towards the lucidity I've held for almost a week now, if you ignore the flashes of blood and corpses that don't exist hanging from trees in the edges of my vision. My hands clench and unclench, fingers racing along my palms, ruined nails scratching at my rough skin.

It's not proper for a girl to have such un-ladylike hands.

It's not proper for a girl to cut her hair and hide in the woods on her own, either, is it?

Perhaps the question of what's proper for a girl isn't the most important thing right now.

I take a deep breath, trying to calm my burning mind. This part of the forest doesn't have as much undergrowth as usual- notably, it's missing the rampant salal and huckleberries that I've been seeing around here, along with the old growth trees and logs that scaffold the way for smaller plants. I'd guess that it was clear-cut before the disaster, and is maybe five years out from it.

I wonder if the forest knows that it's safe now, that the power tools are dead and the constant consumerist demand has died with most of the world's population. I wonder if its trauma will live on in its occupants, teaching its deer to flee at any movement and its flowers to hide in the deepest, thickest tangles of plants. I wonder if it knows that the world has changed. Maybe it can feel that the human feet that used to trample it have lessened, and maybe it feeds on the corpses and can taste their disease and fear. Perhaps it remains unaware, always living in fear of the next hunting season or the return of the lumber companies and hikers who tear up the native plants and bring with them grasses and Himalayan blackberries. Perhaps it can see me walking through its trees and it wonders what a child so clearly unfit for this life is doing. Perhaps it waits for me to give up and die, so it can welcome me to its soil and bring me home. Perhaps it sees me as only another of the ones that have torn it from its roots and killed its children and brothers, and it only feels distrust and hatred. Perhaps it still wishes I would give up and die, but only so my threatening existence ends.

Perhaps it's just wood and leaves, and I've truly lost what's left of my mind.

I wonder what it thinks of me, if it looks beyond my humanness and sees that the blood running through my veins is the same as what pulses in its children, a cousin of the golden sap that bleeds from its bark. I wonder who it sees.

A girl with rough hands and a shattered mind, maybe. Or a boy who's met death and come back, rather unwillingly. Maybe it only sees a scared child running blindly, or an animal that sacrificed its humanity to keep its straining, breaking heart beating in its chest. Maybe something else entirely, something that's fading away from the inside out and barely even still going.

I wonder who I would see, if I was brave enough to look.

Orion

I go over the bear trap one last time, making sure that it's not being blocked by anything. It's on its last legs, rusty and creaky. It's not a pretty beast, but it does the job, even if the job might give me tetanus one day. I don't really have another option right now, so I choose to remain positive. I have it set on a rough game trail, with the jaws and trigger covered in vines and leaves. I've got a camp set up in a small cave by a cliff less than a mile from the trap, so I can check it every evening, along with the rope ones that I have on other trails. With luck, I'll get something in a couple days, hopefully big enough to last me through the winter. I dream of the day when I get a moose in my traps.

Once I get a catch, I can dry the meat for the winter, and then next spring I'll keep going east and get over the mountains. The east of the mountains is more habitable than the west, so I'll keep looking for a town of survivors there.

I know that there are people out there, and I know that those people have probably grouped up and started rebuilding societies. It'll take a bit to convince them that I'm not sick, and that I'm not there to steal their resources, but I know I can do it. People like me. I like to think that I've held on to most of my charm through what I can only really describe as the apocalypse. Maybe I'll start a family, if I meet someone there who's sweet and pretty, someone who thinks I am too. Maybe we can find a stray dog and live a small, nice life. I just need to take it step by step, and the next step is finding food.

I've always wished that I knew a bit more about plants, especially since the sickness hit and I've been doing this all on my own. I know the basics- thimbleberries, chanterelles, cedar- but not much more than that. I think it'd be helpful to be one of those people who can dig food from the ground during winter. I'm dealing, though. Perhaps a diet consisting mainly of meat isn't the healthiest thing, but I'd say that I'm actually doing pretty well, given the whole apocalypse situation.

The cliff that I've made my temporary home in is only maybe ten or fifteen feet tall, on the base of a relatively steep hill. The cave's entrance is much shorter than me, but if I crouch, I can get in and into the more sizable inner part, where I still can't really stand up. I have coils of rope shoved into a corner, and I toss my beat-up backpack on top of them before sitting on my equally used sleeping bag. It's developed rips and holes that make it not much more useful than a warm blanket, but a warm blanket is still something.

I've adopted a crepuscular lifestyle more recently, altering my waking time to match that of the wildlife. I set my traps early in the morning and check them long after the sun sets. It took me a bit, but I get around five hours of sleep every time I try, amounting to maybe ten every day. I spend the rest of my time either maintaining my body or fantasizing about the town I'll find in eastern Washington. It's not the most exciting life, but it's nice to have some routine in a world like this.

I don't feel very tired yet, so I pull over my backpack and dump its contents on the base of the cave, searching through them. My two extra knives are tied together with a worn out length of twine, along with my flint in its' case, and my bunched-up, too-large raincoat unfolds on the ground, along with a medley of other things, but it only takes me a few moments to find what I was looking for.

When I was a kid, I got three journals for one of my birthdays. I wrote through one of them before the virus hit, and the second one was finished frantically in the first few months. Those two will be burnt to ashes when I have the time, kindling soaked with things that aren't worth remembering. The one I've been using for the past year or so is about halfway through, with my ideas and feelings journaled about once a week. Most of it is plans, maps, paths over the mountains, dotted with records of where I set traps. I'm no artist, but I've sketched out ideas of what a surviving society might look like. Abstract maps are my strength.

I flip to a new page and pull my pencil out of the inner pocket on my backpack, and begin writing.

When I wake in the evening, my head rests uncomfortably on my open journal, with a messy, half finished list of the steps I'll need to take to get over the rockies. My spine aches from being curled up like a dead shrimp for hours, and when I stretch it cracks more than I think should be healthy. It's colder than it was in the morning, but I push myself to get up and shove my stuff back into my bag.

The sky is gray outside, and the air is that sort of sharp cold that hurts a bit to breathe. Every inhale reminds me that winter is soon, and that I'll be over the rockies by this time next year. Maybe I'll even have found my survivors by then, and I'll have my little life set up. I'm sure any little budding village would be happy to have a young member with trapping knowledge, someone who can contribute and still has his whole life ahead of him.

The trail I've set my traps on takes about two hours to fully complete, and a bit more with my care to avoid my own traps. I've made that mistake once, and I never plan to make it again.

The bear trap is surprisingly well hidden for a metal jaw in the leaves- its rust blends in with the leaves scattered over it, and if I wasn't aware of its existence and studying every step I take, there's a good chance I'd lose a leg to it. I feel a twinge of apology for whatever poor thing gets caught in my trap, but we all need to eat. Anyways, it's probably no more violent than any of the other ways a thing could die out here.

I return to my little cave as the first couple of raindrops start hitting the leaves, and I curl up in my sleeping bag to stay warm as I watch the rain fall.

It's hypnotizing, in a way. The quiet roar is the loudest thing in the woods, and it drowns out any other sound. Within half an hour, the rain has turned from a gentle patter to a downpour, turning the world gray outside of the cave. The cave has a helpful slant that keeps the water from running down to where I'm sitting, but the cold still ends up saturating my skin, soaking through me just as quickly as the rain would.

I lie down and turn away from the cave entrance. There's no better time to sleep than during a rainstorm.

☆☆☆

That's chapter one of star! Thanks for reading (:

[sumakha]

another NEW OC (but not really i made this guy 3 years ago) ALERT!!! everyone please welcome surissesh. or dont because he sucks (read below the cut to find out why!)

surissesh is the royal advisor for king iunekitann of annoshik, and part of the story i mentioned here. currently hes... kind of a one-note character, just some megalomaniac who wants power for power's sake and double-crosses everyone he works with in order to ascend to the throne. i will probably add more Meat to him character-wise later on though, since he is the main villain.

however he is not the only new character here as you can see. on the left scene in the second pic we have keyopha, the leader of iuraph. she recruited surissesh to assassinate king iunekitann, then manipulate his son kontekitann into giving control of gnemmia to iuraph. gnemmia has a lot of fertile land and a mountain range with a LOT of magic crystals growing inside it, so the three major powers of sumakha (annoshik, iuraph, and janggok) all want control over it. she gave surissesh the magic weapon he's brandishing in the first pic in order to kill the king and threaten the rest of the royal family/staff into compliance, while also having one of her own men follow surissesh to make sure that if he used the weapon for his own gain, he would be killed on the spot. unfortunately for her, surissesh isn't an idiot, and by the time he Does start using the weapon for himself, keyopha's men are already dealt with.

gnemmia is a highly sought-after territory... with people already living there, who don't like being occupied. the rebel group (whose individual members don't have names yet bc these are even OLDER ocs that i rebooted so they need to be reworked) were mostly dedicated to taking out annoshiki outposts in gnemmia one-by-one until they started working with surisessh. their plan was to have surisessh help them get into the palace to assassinate the king, then kill him immediately and occupy the palace themselves as part of freeing gnemmia. right when their assassin (the ketvidae in the pic) has finished killing the king, he turns his blade on surissesh, but surissesh reveals keyopha's weapon and completely blasts his head off. while the rebels did plan for surissesh fighting back, they hadn't planned for him having a weapon of this caliber, leaving them scrambling for a new strategy.

while surissesh could have likely risen to power just through intimidation, he justifies his uprising by claiming to be an agent of kennemikannosh, the patron deity of annoshik. i will probably make a different lore post about kennemikannosh in the future, but for now, all you need to know is that it looks like this ⬇️ and that annoshik is a divine monarchy, so surissesh's claim of being a prophet is taken seriously.

OKAY that's all the lore i really want to write out today. after finals (or as a break from studying for them LOL) i will finally do a bullet point outline of this story so its not all in my brain. and i'll see if i can actually figure out a name for it. also shoutout to my flight rising dragon ghirahim (and also the original ghirahim from loz skyward sword) he was a big inspiration for surissesh's design :-)

[randomkposts]

Usually I post something UD around Canadian Elections, which sometimes is around Canadian Thanksgiving. It being October again had me think of it.

I have written down varied notes in places for a possible Josh Time Loop fic. These are some of the ones I had in google docs.

Putting them here in hopes that reading them again might spark something down the line. Or maybe it will inspire someone else to write it.

Personally, I think the hardest people to write a time loop fic for, are Mike, Sam, and Josh. Josh for being a plot setter, Mike for being the most in the loop and active, and Sam for being mostly out of the monster clueline until the end, which is why she needed the obvious hints of the grave and diary to connext it to Hannah. Which could be intresting, except she has the most plot armor. So its hard to find a good place to loop... Although Josh messing up and ODing her has possiblities, it is also very bad for their relationship.

I have written a mike TT, which was short, and seen a good one by someone else. Actually, I mention a UD TT fics in my Emily TT for every chapter she dies in but the first.

I'll post links at the bottom. In the meantime, on to Josh!

---

Josh on a time loop, and other UD theory stuff

saw a theory, that makes sense to me. The theory was that players couldn't save Josh, not directly because of karma from the prank or anything, but because he killed animals on the mountain. The pigs that he used in the prank. Most instances of Characters messing with nature on the mountain lead to nature retaliating. Jessica accidentally hits and kills a bird in a snowball fight, and almost has to dodge icicles not long after. Matt is loud and angry around a herd of moose, and can get kicked off a cliff. There are some exceptions, such as Chris shooting the squirrel and sam getting attacked, but overall it seems to follow that pattern. Josh killed several pigs to get the ingredients for his prank, and nature retaliated.

The prank can be reworked to avoid killing any pigs, just take out faking his death, And leaving a pigs head for Matt and Emily to find. The bit with the guns could still work. Sam's bath takes somewhere between 2-3 hours, If I have my math right. I'd also probably swap victims, and send Emily and Matt to the cabin (Emily is the likeliest one to call the police), Have Jess and Mike be the main targets of the prank (Jess is now a believer of ghosts, for story), and lock Chris and Ashley in a room escape room style (sure they may get claustrophobia, but thats way less traumatic then cannon). Nothing happened to Matt and Emily (they were faster then Mike and Jess), but thats what part two is for, I guess. Don't know what it would be though.

Matt surviving could make things more wild, as a Matt who didn't encounter wendigo's before meeting Jess, can warn her about the Psycho. Who he heard about, but never saw. So picture Matt and Jess escaping the mines together, and concluding everything happened because of the psycho. They describe Wendigo's to the police, because they never saw the psycho in person, and everyone who did and all other evidence is gone in the blaze.

In seriousness, I would like to write about Jess post game, but I would probably focus on recovering from the Coma, and the associated brain damage. Because real life, being unconscious that long would give her all sorts of brain damage. The longer the coma, the poorer chance of recovery, so after several hours, she was lucky to wake up at all, let alone be coordinated enough to escape, especially when paired with her physical injuries. So, I want to play that more realistic. I might have Matt and Emily survive, too, so she has a support network, and other people to the the story. Particularly interesting if Matt and Emily are at odds after the radio tower, but keeping their friendship with her.

I like Josh too. I saw a theory, that maybe sense to me for why you could not save him. It has nothing to do with his actions twords other people, and instead has to do with his actions twords nature. Nature punishes the protagonists for acting against it. Such as when Jess accidently kills a bird with a snowball, and almost dies to Icicles. Josh, to get the ingredients for his prank, killed several pigs. The only one who isn't directly impacted by that one is Chris, who killed nature, and Sam got hurt for it. 

I like to think about theories. And I realise I forgot the biggest example of Matt acting agressively around the hoard of moose, and being kicked off a cliff (if the player failed the QTE's). The one possible death that had nothing to do with monster's. I didn't do any of that on my first playthrough, but on chapter select I tried out some stuff, on the way to my, 'everybody dies 'run. Except Wolfie, who I went out of the way to save.

Now, takeing out any animal death from Josh's prank, mostly means avoiding fakeing his death, and not hideing Emily's bag to have them encounter a pigs head. That we see, anyway. The monsters derailed anything else we might have seen of it. So we can still have ghosts, and fake killer, and shoot yourself, or your girl scenario. Except either the gun is unloaded, or Josh is past the point of careing if the blanks kill someone, so someone gets seriously injured as a result. Josh should know that blanks can kill. Now let's swap targets. Give Emily and Matt the key to the cottage after the fight, beacuse Emily is the one canoncially smart enough to call for help, and should be saved for later. Emily and Matt get to the cabin fine, beacuse they are nither looking for the bag, nor pranking eachother, and are unlikley to be kidnapped as Jess was. I think they would stay away from the door. Lock Ashley and in Chris in a room to either work out their feelings or bond over the development of claustrophobia. Their adventures will be like escape room. Sam, will be out of the picture, as her bath took somewhere between 2-3 hours if I am doing my math right. Focus the prank around Jessica and Mike. We will give Jessica some belif in the supernatural for this to work, as Cannon doesn't let us play her enough to say that she doesn't believe. Other nuances would be changed due to different intended victims, an I'm sure there would be more to the prank, but I can't say I would know what else to add, as I am not much one for pranking.

I think, that Hannah was in there, somewhat, enough to know her old friends, and have feelings on how she killed them, but it wasn't enough to save them long term. The three people who she felt strongest about, were the ones who lasted the longest. I am unsure what it meant about her feelings on Josh when she crushed his head, as she seems to collect heads (like Beth's) , as a sign that she had some care for them. Emily's head is not collected if she isn't killed by Mike, which may indicate she didn't intend to save it. I don't know if Mike and Sam's stomachs being hit, and a slow death was an indication of care, so much as it was an indication Hannah lost the battle against restraint to not kill them.

I agree he probably would have lived if he weren't worried about Chris. I do think that Hannah's different hunting style was a factor in his death, as Hannah kills differently from the other monsters, as seen by the strangers poor dead wolf in the Sanitoriom. Hannah goes for a direct kill, rather then the miner monsters. I'm not sure if it is beacuse her body is newer and stronger, of if it is beacuse she has an old monsters soul in her. Maybe it's a mix of both.

--

Fanfic time

Mike above

Emily below

[straightfacedstrangeness]

Thoughts during and about DBZ: World’s Strongest because if I didn’t write them down my brain would explode

I always had it in my head that Dead Zone & World’s Strongest were some of the most “original” DBZ movies (since most of them are obvious retellings of specific arcs with slightly different villains) but like, watching them now it’s like, oh,

Dead Zone is the Piccolo Sagas (the son of Kami’s old rival comes back for revenge and is ultimately sealed away in a vessel at the bottom of the sea) with aspects of Pilaf (Garlic Jr’s design and English voice) and Raditz (villain kidnaps Gohan and Piccolo just happens to come to the rescue for his own reasons)

& World’s Strongest does have a lot of original elements, but it’s also clearly based on the Muscle Tower part of the Red Ribbon arc (building full of traps and mechanical and bioengineered villains in the middle of the snow, that one guy was just an uglier version of The Jiggler) plus some not-even-disguised Saibamen and a Pilaf arc callback to Oolong trying to steal someone’s wish…though I do wonder if this movie was an inspiration for the much-later Android/Cell Saga

Also, too lazy to take screencaps but both Sleeping Princess In Devil’s Castle & Dead Zone had sequences that STRONGLY reminded me of the Ralph Bakshi movie Wizards, and apparently both were directed by the same guy (Daisuke Nishio). I’d be curious to know if he was a Wizards fan or if both Wizards and the DB/Z movies were influenced by a different third thing

Since all the movies overtly contradict the canon timeline in different ways, making it unclear which canon events happened or not during the movie AUs, I love the vibe here that Goku and Chi-chi have just been raising Gohan quietly at home while Piccolo’s just some scary dude out in the woods that Gohan is obsessed with XD Like, Gohan daydreaming about ditching his studies to go see Piccolo, the way Chi-chi scolds him for spending time with Piccolo, and Goku clearly being a present father figure (VS canon Piccolo being Gohan’s substitute dad for 1-2 years), has big “that kid is a bad influence >:/ you shouldn’t play with him” energy. Love that Gohan’s first reaction on seeing him too is to run up for a hug :’) and to throw a tantrum when he sees Piccolo and his dad fighting each other

(Sidenote, as a kid watching DBZ there were basically just a couple throwaway lines about Piccolo being an enemy before he starts fighting with them against the main series bad guys, and I’d never read his DB story arcs, so I was always confused by these movies having side characters being scared of Piccolo or Piccolo trying to attack Goku. Like “What??? I thought you guys were friends?????”)

Also love that Oolong saw on the radar that someone was collecting the Dragon Balls and his first instinct wasn’t “oh crap, a bad guy must be doing bad things, I’d better tell my superhero friends,” it was “I’m gonna take a literal child with me to try and steal these things because he’s the only person I know who can punch good but can also be bullied into letting me have the wish” X’D Why is he so scared of “throw the baby at the mountain” Piccolo, they have so much in common, they’re both terrible babysitters. Also WHY is he again thinking about wishing for 1 single pair of ladies’ underwear, dude, there’s a magical place called a department store where you can just BUY one. I mean, thank god on every female character’s behalf that he’s too stupid to think of something more sinister, but dude, seriously XD (Listen, I love him and he’s generally OK around women after the Pilaf Saga, but he def doesn’t view women as people except sometimes when they’re women he knows, and he would def be tempted to make a gross or at least non-feminist wish if he ever thought of one)

Also it’s not like it’s a particularly original outfit—it’s just his Saiyan Saga outfit with sleeves, and THAT is just his end-of-the-Pilaf-Saga outfit with recolored pants—but amusing that the flashback to Oolong stealing the radar shows him in his Buu Saga outfit years before the Buu Saga

Also I LOVE the location designs in these movies maybe specifically cus they’re so not-Toriyama-like. Watching the original and reboot Broly movies back-to-back was so jarring, Toriyama’s Vegeta palace designs felt more “right” but the spooky vibes of the dimly lit twisty palace with big stained glass windows really got me

[weheirsofdurin]

Beloved Glorfindel Part 1 of a 100000000000000000000

@lordofthegoldenflower

We do this RP on Discord, but it's also my main verse so..... here's part 1 out of over 100 pages.

Blue Mountains 

“Lord Fili, there’s a caravan of elves nearing. It looks like they’ve been through battle recently. What would you have of us?” Fili stood on a balcony staring down towards the blurry people below, further away was an even blurrier blob, the caravan the guard spoke of. His eyesight was average for that of a dwarf, perhaps slightly better as some he knew wouldn’t have even been able to make out what he saw of the caravan. 

Above it a golden blob waved in the air, likely a flag of some sort stating who the elves were or where they came from. It seems they somehow knew that his uncle was away, for no elves would dare come this close to their homes knowing who ruled here. His uncle Thorin was known for his hatred of elves, though few knew why anymore, not even him. But elves avoided the dwarves here and if they must communicate then they’d send one of the Men to do so. Uncle may have hated them, never wanting anything to do with them, but he was still kind enough to listen and if he deemed them worthy then he’d send help for them. 

But Thorin was away, business with their cousin Dain of the Iron Hills, which meant he was in charge for now. Being an heir to his uncle meant that it was up to him to turn the elves away, send their people to help if need be, or just ignore them. “Let them come, but nay past the foothills within shooting sight. Assign more guards until we ken what is going on. If they bring enemies we will battle but we seek not their foes. Allow them to set up camp, burn or bury their dead, and aid their injured. Once they are settled then I will see to them.”

The guard bowed and turned away, rushing to do as bade. “Is that wise, Nadad? Irak’adad would never allow them that close.” 

“I am not uncle. I do nay trust them to let them enter, but I will not condemn them to death if their foes are still near.” Fili glanced at his brother who was sitting on the railing around the balcony, he too watched the slowly growing closer caravan. There was the hit of a smirk on his brother’s lips and he knew that Kili teased him and wasn’t serious in his goading. “Careful there, Nadadith, or I may be tempted to push you off.” 

Both glanced directly down rather than out, hundred or so feet below was a jagged area of rock that would surely mean death for any that fell upon it. The last line of defense if their home could not be defended past it. Any enemy would struggle to get to the mouth of their very small mountainous home. Those in the town further down could make it to hidden entrances, but the one enemies would aim for was protected. “Ye would nay dare, mother would throttle ye afore ye could seriously consider it.” 

Both began to laugh then and Fili shook his head before turning away, he saw dwarves riding ponies out to the caravan now and he decided he should clean up and dress for the occasion, best not to let the elves think dwarves were anything less than royalty.

.~::~. 

It had been a few hours since Fili had seen the caravan, he figured it had been long enough to settle in and that he would be good to check on them now. Dual blades attached to the back of his robe, and afew* knives hidden elsewhere, he felt safe enough. Of course his brother and the guards thought otherwise so he allowed them to follow as they wished. “Kili, find others to bother, I will do the talking.”

“Shouldn’t the brains do that?” 

“Aye, but that’s all ye have going for you. I have both at least.” Fili gave his brother a nudge towards a few dark haired elves that were sat around a fire. “Ye should chat the lasses up, learn from them and report back, aye?” Kili grunted then broke off with two of four guards following him. “Ye two, hang back, we do nay want to seem threatening, rather we need to make ‘em think we are being helpful.” The guard slowed to let him walk ahead of them and as he got to an elf who stood, looking less like they were standing, but more teetering. Dried blood coated their hair, turning it a strawberry shade rather than what he assumed was a golden blonde. 

When the elf looked down to him he was awestruck by the elves striking blue eyes. He felt his breath being taken away, never had he seen such blue eyes nor any surrounded by such dark beths that made him feel as if he were about to fall into the depths of Moria. “My lass,” his breath was airy as she had stolen it all from him. Swallowing hard he reached out, “ye still bleed. I gave ye the time to tend to the wounded yet ye tended not to yersel

lordofthegoldenflower

—

Luck had not been cooperating with Glorfindel lately. Word had arrived at Imladris of orc activity in near the Blue Mountains, but as there were no certain details, only tales from travelers. It was enough to send a patrol to investigate, and he had, of course, volunteered to lead the warriors. 

And find the orcs they had. In fact, the stories had vastly underestimated the amount of the enemy in the area, leaving them to fight for their lives when they had been expecting naught more than a quick clean up. None of them escaped the skirmish without injury, and they were left battered and exhausted, not entirely sure where exactly they were though they had to be near the Dwarven territories. Perhaps they could take refuge with them while they patched themselves up. 

Thankfully they were given permission to make camp and he oversaw everyone else get their wounds washed and bandaged, ignoring his own needs for theirs. He was beginning to feel the effects of this choice when dwarves arrived and he tried to hid the dizziness he was beginning to feel, which became easier when he was addressed as a lass. 

Perhaps it was his hair. He offered the dwarf a bit of a smile, noting the soft looking mane of hair that reminded him of a lion, and the kind gentleness in his voice. "There were those who needed tending more than I," he answered simply. "May I offer you the hospitality of our fire? I fear our fare may not be as fine as you will find in your own halls, but our wine is good and food filling. It is the least we can offer in return for the kindness shown to us."

WeHeirsOf Durin

- She offered to tend to him, to see to his needs, brushing off his inquiry about her own faring. “Nay, lass. If I can see ye need tending, then tending ye need. Others have been tended to and now ye offer to tend me yet I was nay the one in battle, I am ney the one bleeding.” He tugged a warm hand away from her to show the fresh blood that coated his palm from having grabbed hers before. 

With a sharp tug he forced her to kneel then a gentle shove caused her to sit, allowing him to stand about as tall as she was now. “Do nay fear, I will nay be peeking at yer fair skin, but checking the wound under yer shredded top.” The leather jerkin was barely holding on and under it a blood soaked shirt hugged her frame. It was easy to tug a knife free and cut the rest of the leather top ‘s final shreds, and then he carefully moved the shirt to reveal pale skin dyed red. “Lass, this is nay a simple wound. Tis shredded and,” his fingers traced the skin feather lightly, “tis chilled to the touch. Ye need to be sewn up.” Tugging a water skin from his hip he pupped the top with his teeth and dribbled it over her shoulder, clearing the wound or as much as he could to be able to see it clearly, even as more blood flowed free. 

“Come, lass, come into the safety of the mountains so a heeler may take care of yer wound. Ye have four guards with yer band, my brother too, and a sentry of them above watching out fer yers. ‘Twill be safe fer them, but nay for long if ye do nay survive yer skirmish.” Tearing his own tunic he wadded it up to press into the wound and he tugged his belt free to use as a way of keeping it pressed firmly to her wound. It was all he’d be able to do for she would stand far too tall for him to put the pressure onto it himself.

lordofthegoldenflower

— It wasn't that Glorfindel didn't know that he was wounded, he just hadn't been paying attention to how bad it was until he saw the blood on the dwarf's hand. Now that his attention was drawn to it, the pain truly made itself known, and made it so he did not resist getting pulled down to the ground with a bit of a grunt. 

His head spun a bit as he listened to the calm yet firm words come from the dwarf, but he was still able to recognize when he pulled a knife and made quick work of what was left of his shirt. He winced at touch to his skin. "This is not the worst I have had, I promise," he admitted as he allowed attention to be paid to his wound and listened to what he was being told. 

He almost hated how logical the argument was. "Are you sure I will be welcome? Lord Thorin is not known for liking elves, even though I am not of the Woodland Realm."

WeHeirsOfDurin

—

“Aye, ye will be welcomed. Nay with open arms, but ye will be welcomed. I am the Lord for the moment as my uncle is… unavailable. While many will nay be pleased with yer presence, none will speak word of it with me there.” of course as soon as they were out of earshot many will speak and loudly. His uncle will be sure to hear of it and he knew he would be in trouble for it.but it was to do thusly or let the beautiful elven lass suffer needlessly further. 

“Lean upon me, my lass, so that ye do not falter while walking.” He waved to his guards who came closer and he spoke briskly in dwarvish with them. They were to guard the gamp while he took the mistress to the whalers as the elves obviously couldn’t tend to their own. The words were spoken quickly and the cant sounded almost like rocks grinding against each other. His accent odd compared to those that had grown up in the mountains, having been born learning a mixture of two languages in a different region than many of his own. 

The two guards hesitantly beat their chest plate before wandering off to find a good place to stand guard. “Come now, fore we must hurry or I fear I will have to drag he there. As tall of a maiden as ye are, I will be dragging yer feet, head, and arms upon the path if it must be.” He meant it as a joke, as a way to perhaps hear a laugh from her, but there was also a hint of truth and urgency. He would drag her if he had to, and that might happen sooner rather than later he feared.

“The healers will stitch ye up, good as new,” Fili spoke as he led her along the way, hoping to make it before she passed out. “Then ye may bathe an clean up as ye wish, and after ye are welcome to eat what we have though I am nay sure we have many of yer leafy greens here. I will have a dwarrow find ye a Men’s lass’s dress though it may nay be as glamorous as ye are used to. I would offer mine own clothes but my tunics may nay be long enough to serve as a dress for ye not would any of my pants fit ye. All too short and too wide round the hips ya see.” He babbled on, hoping that just talking incessantly would keep her awake and aware enough to not pass out.

lordofthegoldenflower

—

"Ah, well gossip will happen no matter what people you are near," Glorfindel said reasonably as he managed to make his way back to his feet since it was clear he was going to be asked to move. "Ah, if Lord Thorin is your uncle, that must make you Lord Fili?" 

He blinked slowly as he heard the dwarf speak to his men, probably passing along instructions, and looked to his own elves who had worry clear in their eyes. He could see now just how wrong he was to stay quiet about the severity of his wound. He switched to Sindarin, speaking to his second to reassure him. All would be well, he would go with the dwarves and return after he had made nice with the lords of the land. 

"I do have a change of clothing in my pack, if you can wait but a moment," Glorfindel said with a bit of a chuckle. He looked up to see one of his warriors already bringing his pack to offer Fili to carry as he saw Glorfindel would be unable to do so himself. It wasn't overly large as someone had removed the bedroll already, but his sword was strapped to the outside. 

"Fear not, my lord Dwarf, I may stagger a bit, but I don't believe you shall see me swoon yet," he promised as he leaned some of his weight on his solid companion. "I will lead where you follow. I trust you will look after me."

WeHeirsOfDurin

— He was not a fan of the gossip, and the thought of his people speaking ill of this lass rubbed him wrong. It was like petting a cat up instead of down. As he was handed the pack he tugged it on, barely noting it was almost the size of himself. Many never considered the size of things compared to the smaller fold of middle earth. "Aye, my uncle is Lord Thorin and as such I am Fili, my brother - Kili - is wandering about yer camp, wooing yer lasses. Ye may have to worry about a few new barins soon but nay harm will come to any herein, I promise." 

As they walked and the elf staggered he did chuckle. "Aye? Ye will nay be swooning yet? Do nay worry, it will be I that makes ye swoon and nay blood loss." He looked up at her and from beneith bushy brows he made eye contact, smirking at her and then winking. "Yer beauty will nay make me swoon, so do nay even attempt." 

Of course her mixing her words up did worry him greatly and he picked up the pace. He was the one leading and she was the one following. "My lady, this is the healer's room. They will tend to you promptly." He said it to the elven lady but the healers who had opened the door at his knocking knew it was for them. They wouldn't dare dally least of all when the heair was blantantly threatening them.

lordofthegoldenflower

—

"I believe your brother may have an easier time putting my warriors to bed than he does actually bedding them, but he is welcome to try," Glorfindel said with a chuckle. It was taking more of his attention to just put one foot in front of each other than he would care to admit. 

"You are a very fair dwarf," he praised, smiling at the look he was given. It was clear the dwarf lord was flirting with him, and he certainly did not mind. "I doubt I could make anyone swoon at this point. I am not looking myself right now. I promise I do usually look far more put together than this."

"Thank you for bringing me to the healers," he thanked softly before surrendering himself to their care. It was a familiar feeling to be sat down and be given a draught for the pain before having his would cleaned, stitched, and bandaged. He just let it happen without the energy to resist it, though he did find himself hoping that Fili would be the one he would see after the tending was complete

WeHeirsOfDurin

—

Fili bade the elf farewell, promising that upon the morrow he would return as it was late and he assumed she would need rest after. If she was finished early enough he may stop in before retiring for the night but do not expect him.

Of course that was before deserven sentries blew horns and there was rush of movement outside of the healing rooms. Which were locked down by the healers. 

There was mostly silence in the rooms. Nothing from outside of the mountain would be heard this deep in. And only upon a guard or someone coming would the healers open. It was the way of things as too many dwarves would try to join a battle with open wounds if they were in the healing rooms. The healers had assumed the same of elves as this was their first. As soon as a patterened knock came they opened the door and a few bloodied but mostly intact drawer grumbled upon entering. The black blood was not theirs so it was mostly finding the fresh red blood and where it came from that they had to deal with. Fili leaned against the door, grim look on his face, as he looked over the mildly wounded.

[emiko-rp]

Unlocked (Closed RP with moonsmultimusings)

It was raining. It had been raining all day, and it was going to keep raining well into tomorrow. 

Droplets streaked across the large windows of the school, made ripples in the courtyard’s fountain, and splashed against the weathered cobblestones. It was kind of beautiful. The colors of autumn foliage dimly lit by the sun hiding in a gloomy sky. 

Second year Ouran Academy student Emiko Kobayashi was not thrilled.

It was not that she hated rain, per se, but she definitely did not consider herself to be a fan. “Kazuo’s insane,” she mumbled to herself from under the safety of her umbrella. Kazuo, Emiko’s older brother, had once mentioned to her that this was his favorite weather; doom and gloom and all. She could not disagree more as the heel of her shoe skimmed across another puddle. It was cold, and inconvenient, and who wants to be just a little bit damp all day anyway?

Regardless of her distaste, she continued her trek across campus, back to one of the main buildings. Her last class of the day was located on the opposite side of the school’s large campus, far from the library she was headed to. While she couldn’t wait out the storm entirely, she could hide away for a little bit as she built her courage to make her way home in it.

Emiko was ready to tuck herself away in the back of the warm library with a book she had been dying to finish, maybe even get a head start on the mountain of homework that had been assigned. She crossed the courtyard, entered the school, and made her way through the nearly empty, maze-like hallways inside. There never were many people willing to lag behind after school let out on Fridays. Throughout the week there were often students milling about, catching up with friends, meeting up for group projects, heading to club meetings together. There were only ever a few on Fridays, though. While Emiko enjoyed the typical hustle and bustle of the school hallways, hearing her peers laugh and chatter with their friends, she also did not mind the quiet.

When Emiko made it to the end of the hallway, she made her way up the stairs and turned left, closed umbrella dripping on the floor as she went. Now at the library’s entrance, she pushed the large, heavy wooden door open. Only, it did not budge. A loud clank rang out across the echo-y hallway as the latch of the lock hit the frame. She tried again. Clank.

“What the…” Emiko said under her breath. As she took a step back, a white sheet of paper taped to the door caught her attention. It was a sign. How had she missed it before?

Attention Ouran Academy faculty, staff, and students,

The library will be closed today for maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Emiko stared at the paper blankly for a moment. What was she supposed to do now? She sure as well wasn’t going back outside just yet. Maybe there was somewhere else that was open? She racked her brain to come up with something. At 4pm on a Friday, most classrooms would be locked for the weekend. But surely there had to be something.

She hummed to herself as she turned away from the doors and weighed her options. She looked to her right, the direction she had came from. Emiko didn’t see much on her way up here, just a few admin offices that would most definitely be locked as well. She scrunched up her face and looked left. If she called correctly, there were a few rooms at the end of the hall that were often used by clubs. Maybe there was something open down there?

Emiko cautiously started walking in that direction, trying a few doors as she went.

She tried a classroom door. Clank.

Another. Clank.

Then another. Clank. 

Emiko groaned in frustration. Were there seriously no open rooms? Had everyone already gone home? She debated calling it quits and just calling her brother to come pick her up as she reached the last few rooms on the floor. 

She came to another door. It looked the same as the one to the library and every other door in the building, and it was certainly just as heavy. She twisted the handle and pushed, bracing for the infuriating clank, but it never came. Relief washed over her as she pushed the door all the way open. 

“Thank god,” Emiko huffed. “Are we just locking every door to spite me now, or wha—Oh.”

She stopped in her tracks, standing in the door way as she was confronted by a boy sitting alone at a table to the right of her on the other side of the room. He looked to be alone now, but there were signs that he had company not long before she had arrived. A few teacups were left on the opposite end of the table looking freshly washed, and some papers strewn about.

Emiko peaked her head back out the room, trying to find a sign saying the room at been reserved or something. There was nothing. She turned her attention back to the boy to apologize.

“Um, I’m sorry,” she said, getting ready to leave and close the door behind her. Her cheeks tinted pink with embarrassment over having barged in on a stranger. “I didn’t think there would be anyone in here. Should’ve knocked first. I’ll leave you be.”

@moonsmultimusings

[cinnamonest]

Y’all are too nice to me I swear… here I am being horny and nasty on main and I’m getting encouraged, damn. But for real  ( ´ ω ` ) thank you so much!!

I’m gaining more confidence to post more smutty stuff and the kind of dark shit I like, so I might go back and make more nasty Childe content later on too… After Albedo, I got Razor and Zhongli coming up, and a few ones I just worked on for fun. But yeah, just in case it wasn’t clear for anyone who followed me, I’m going to be writing almost entirely dark content and some really nasty stuff, so just be aware of that, and don’t consume my writing if that’s something that may be harmful to you.

Albedo is so pretty… and such good dark content material… He treats you like a science experiment but has the audacity to make it hot smh

I haven’t seen a whole lot of him outside the cutscenes, so potentially ooc (as if yandere content isn’t already ooc, lmao)

Albedo - Yandere Profile

tw: general yandere content, obsessive behavior, stalking

tw (below cut): smut, noncon (seriously, you’ve been warned)

What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave?

Very much aware. In the beginning, it frustrates him. He’s never been particularly attached to anyone, outside of his former instructor. He’s always enjoyed being out on his own, spending extended amounts of time by himself – the desire to be around someone is a foreign feeling for him. He immediately notices how bizarre the emotion is for him, how it changes his behaviors. His self awareness combined with perceptiveness makes him able to acutely recognize not only how unusual this emotion is for him, but also how the extent of his feelings, the types of desires they ignite in him, is unusual even for “normal” people who aren’t social recluses.

He’s frustrated by his own actions, feels embarrassed at how attached he is to you, how easily you make him flustered and trip over his words. As he is a very aware yandere, he’s definitely afraid of rejection to some degree. He has no idea how to navigate feelings and interactions with other people, he’s never really had the desire to form a particularly strong bond with anyone before. As such, he’ll come across as very awkward, and he will interact with you less than most yanderes – he knows he’s just going to embarrass himself if he talks to you, right? He’ll just mess up and say something strange, so instead, he opts to watch you from the shadows, go to places where you are, but keep a distance from you, just being able to watch you makes him feel fluttery and overwhelmed. 

He will definitely be one to collect things from you. He collects plenty of things for the sake of science, this is no different. Or so he tries to tell himself, but he can’t delude himself even if he tries. He knows its weird, he knows its wrong, but the overwhelming urge to have things of yours is too great to resist. He’ll start off with more innocent things, but it will gradually progress to not-so-innocent… items of yours.

It may not be obvious, but he’s actually a fairly sensitive person, at least regarding you. He places a lot of value in what you think of him, and wants to ensure you’ll respond positively to him. He views it like a science – there should be some formula by which he can put in the correct actions, and produce a specific result. Unfortunately, unlike real science, there’s not much room for trial and error – he feels he only has once chance.

How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so?

It will take some time, as he’s got to get over his own nerves first. He’s torn between the fear of you hating him for such a thing, it would be the end of the world for him, but also the desire to pull you away from the world, to keep you hidden from others, to have you all to himself, to be the only person that gets to look at you. If you start showing positive signs, reacting positively to his gifts, expressing interest in conversation with him and going out of your way to see him, he’ll start to get more confident, think that he can afford to do something that might sour your opinion of him, hoping it will merely be temporary.

He’ll probably start to do so several times and back out. He’ll set out at night, make it all the way to your room and stand over your sleeping form, and he’ll start to worry, wonder if someone saw him, see holes in his plans, he gets too nervous and bolts. He’ll persuade you into being alone with him, and although its the chance he’s looking for, again, he’ll get nervous, worry about being caught, run through all the what-ifs, and miss the chance. Honestly, when he does finally take you, it will probably be not planned, but in the heat of the moment, a rash decision from desperation. Something like you coming to visit him to tell him you’re leaving the area, came to say goodbye, and he’ll panic, ultimately grabbing you by the arm as you try to leave and dragging you back inside, silently, but forcefully.

How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape?

Moderately difficult. Your best bet is to take advantage of his tendency to be absent minded when he’s absorbed in his work. He gets very lost in his thoughts, to a point where he’ll completely zone out and be oblivious to the world around him. On the downside, this means you won’t have much time to cover distance, he’ll be close behind the moment he realizes you’re gone.

The route he’ll probably take is actually one where you won’t need to be too restrained, because you’ll be taking… a little research trip. Out to the most freezing, desolate areas of the mountains. He’s convinced the knights he needs to stay there for his research, but in reality, he’s internally panicking, as he tries to figure out how to make this work – after all, you two can’t stay here forever. You’d be foolish to run out of the little cabin he’s bought, out into the perilous freezing cold and jagged, high slopes. At first, he thinks there’s no way you’d try it, so he’s content letting you have free reign to walk around as you please. If he has to leave for whatever reason, he’ll probably lock you into a single room, but he won’t chain you up, as again, he's really trying to avoid making you hate him.

If you prove to be determined to leave, he’ll be hurt, but mostly concerned for you. He’s actually not one to get too mad over an escape attempt – he’ll blame himself, or theorize it’s just a natural response your brain triggered. Against his first choice, he’ll end up having to get more strict with your restraints. If you get too whiny, though… you might trigger one of his more frustrated moments.

“I didn’t want to have to do this… I’m sorry. I can’t risk anything bad happening to you. Tell me if it’s too tight… I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t blame you. I know you’re probably panicking over all this, but you’ll get adjusted to it, I promise. Just… just give it some time… it’s not so bad, living with me, I promise.”

“Don’t be like that. You’re only tied up because you tried to leave. You should understand why you have to be kept like this… If you don’t want to be restrained, you shouldn’t have run out, trying to get yourself killed.”

How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate?

For all his academic intelligence, he’s not highly skilled with people and socialization. He’s not too good at being able to tell when he’s being lied to, and he definitely won’t pick up on subtle manipulation. It’ll be pretty easy to wrap him around your finger, he’ll do what he can to make you happy.

Once he finds out you’ve lied to him, though, he’ll get pretty upset. He likely won’t trust you again, and will require proof of anything you say, or set out to find out if you’re telling him the truth or not.

How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied?

He’ll try to accommodate you, giving you things you ask for, but he has limits. He’s too paranoid to let you have any contact with the outside world. You do have him wrapped around your finger to an extent, though. Whatever he’s doing at the moment, he’ll drop it in a heartbeat if you want to spend time with him in any way, even if its just you asking for food or to take a walk. He’ll be willing to take you for very short trips outside, no further than a few yards from the lodging, if only because he knows sunlight is vital to your health.

What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use?

The basics will be there – don’t try to leave, don’t be difficult with him, try to cooperate, be obedient. However, he’s also particularly overprotective of anything that can hurt you – even yourself. Under no circumstances can you handle anything that can hurt you – that means no cooking, no knives, no lifting anything heavy, no going outside without him. If you’re determined to cook something, he’ll have to stand right behind you, and watch while you do it. If you get so much as a little cut or burn, he’ll take over, insisting you go sit down after he tends to your “wounds.”

At the very beginning, he’ll be hesitant to punish you too much, as part of his plan to get you to like him. However, he can be a little easily frustrated, and your safety and well-being comes first, even if it means he has to make you upset. He will have to restrain you, take away what little privileges you had. If you try to bolt while you’re outside, no more going outside. If you try something foolish like attacking him with a knife when he gives you cooking privileges, you will lose said privileges. Really, the worst part of it all is the humiliation, being treated like a dumb, incapable baby that can’t do anything for yourself. He insists on doing everything for you, even down to bathing you and dressing you, even feeding you if you can’t convince him to take restraints off your hands. He’ll talk down to you in that way, too, talking to you as if you were a child.

How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way?

It’s a situation he’s not prepared to handle, and he’s unsure of what to do. It strikes fear in him that you might have someone else interested, so he has to get rid of them as quickly as possible. He’s not opposed to killing, if it comes down to that, but initially, he’ll try to work behind the scenes – expose something that will ruin their reputation, get them accused of a crime. This would also be one of the possible aforementioned situations that might cause him to kidnap you a bit earlier than he normally would, as well. If he can’t get rid of them easily, he’ll just take you away from them.

He will absolutely try to make you hate them, try to ruin your image of them, and he’s rather good at falsifying evidence for his claims of their behavior. With his alchemic skills, that sort of thing is easily possible.

How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like?

He gets more frustrated than anything, when you’re being difficult. This is mostly just him sighing quite a bit, speaking a bit harshly, even pouting and sulking a bit if you’ve offended him. But true anger in him is not pretty, and almost never happens. It’s a buildup, a slow rise that has a boiling point. If he reaches that point, he can definitely get mad enough to hurt you, it’s actually kind of terrifying in how sharp of a contrast it is to how he normally is. It’s a side of him that’s very difficult to draw out. He’s not one to yell or shout, no, his anger is a suffocating silence, he slams down whatever he’s holding as he stomps over to you, grabbing you by the arms hard enough to bruise, and dragging you by the hair to whatever he has planned.

With mild frustration outbursts, he will feel justified, but if it reaches that intense anger, he’ll usually give at least a little apology, tell you he didn’t mean to go that far. He hates to think of you fearing him, but ultimately, if that’s what’s necessary to keep you safe, then he can live with it.

Do they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them?

It’s an odd mix. On one hand, he sees you as utterly fascinating, the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on, more than any landscape or art he’s seen or made, an invaluable treasure to be kept on a high pedestal. Simultaneously, however, he will treat you like a child, thinks you can’t do anything for yourself. It’s a bizarre duality, but one he is consistent on. You’re precious, so very precious, and he’s undeserving of you, but at the same time, you need him to be safe and sound.

How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you?

Of the genshin boys, he’s one of the most determined. He’s not good with people, and he doesn’t really have anyone particularly close to him left anymore. He tends to keep people at a distance. You sort of fill an space inside him that he never knew was empty, a void he wasn’t aware he had until it was consumed by thoughts of you. He doesn’t need anyone or anything else, so long as he has you with him, but he really, really wants it to be true that you love him. He doesn’t need you to even love him as much as he loves you – he doesn’t even know if that’s possible – but he just wants to know that, even if only in the slightest, his feelings are returned. He’s so distant from everyone else, but you wormed your way into his heart, even if you didn’t intend to, with your smiles and softness and kindness towards him. For the first time, he feels weak around someone, but in a way, it’s a good feeling. He wants to be able to be vulnerable, be weak, and not have anything to fear by doing so.

He’s lucid, though, so he doesn’t expect you to love him immediately. As he’s not good with words or displays of affection, he’ll get you all sorts of gifts. Rare items that you wonder how the hell he obtained them, beautifully crafted little trinkets from all his searching and time traveling, more clothes than you could ever wear. You’ll start to feel a little guilty, it’s so much, and you’re certain he doesn’t have that much money. He’ll blow it off, say it’s no big deal, but if you insist, he’ll have to start finding new ways to convey his affection. In captivity, he won’t stop trying, but he’ll understand why you might be angry. In that case, he will utilize what he’s learned from research in books he’s read. He knows that eventually, with him being the only one you have, the only company, the only one to talk to, the only source of touch, you’ll eventually have to cave. You’ll become attached to him, bond with him, whether you like it or not. He knows how powerful the affect of touch can be, and will make sure to hold you in his arms, keep you on his lap, make you crave the only source of human touch you can get. Dependency, he thinks, is the gateway to you loving him.

Bonus: Is there anything that makes them unique, in comparison to other yanderes?

Drawings. So many of them. Much like his drawings he uses in notes, he’s found he tends to start scribbling a familiar face when his mind drifts off. He’s memorized every little detail of your face, every curve on your body. If you’re ever snooping around, you’ll eventually uncover a book of sketches he has solely dedicated to drawings of you. Drawings of you laughing, smiling, sleeping, drawings that you’re certain were of real events you were at, that you didn’t remember him being at. Every bit in perfect detail. If you confront him about it, he’ll be horrifically embarrassed, insisting they’re no good, or, if you’re upset, trying to reassure you it was all from his mind and totally not him lurking in the shadows as he watches you.

Also, if you want to make him happy, get him on one of his spiels about his work, his interests, anything that he can catch onto and go on and on about. He’ll catch himself rambling and apologize for being “annoying,” but if you reassure him, and express interest, that will make him feel particularly appreciated. It would be a primary way to get on his good side and manipulate him, or lull him into false security to make your escape, if that’s what you’re looking to do. But be warned, it will only work once, and he’ll be far too hurt to let himself indulge in sharing these things with you again.

General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality?

Publicly, definitely highly reserved. He’s easily flustered, and thinks of sex in a very scientific way, for the purpose of procreation. For fun? He knows it’s enjoyable, but can’t separate it from his very analytic, scientific way of viewing things. It’s a formula, you touch this here and pull that there, and the result is supposed to be orgasmic bliss. He just isn’t very familiar with pleasure – he doesn’t drag out masturbation, even, as that would be a waste of time. He gets it over with quickly, taking short breaks during his work. He is a fairly high drive, though, and gets the urge fairly frequently, about once or twice a day.

He’ll be hornier with your presence, having to leave more frequently to get off to the little things you do, quickly getting himself off while recalling the mental image of you holding a pen in your mouth, the little moan when you stretch, the way your clothes fit to your frame.

Prior to abduction, he’s not particularly touchy at all, in fact, he’s very jumpy if you touch him. Once he’s gotten you alone with him for the foreseeable future, isolated, dependent, he’ll gain more confidence, be willing to give into his cravings to touch you, hold you, eventually progressing to groping you, moving his hands up and down your body, under your clothes, slowly peeling them off.

He’s initially a bit ashamed of his urges towards you, feels guilty every time he gets off to you, but will likewise gain more confidence once you're his.

A guy can only fight off the urge for so long before he cracks, before he can’t continue to care about the consequences. For him, that point is when he knows he finally has you all to himself – his worries fade, and while the guilt is still there, it’s far outweighed by desire.

How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness?

He does care, but as stated previously, it’s hard to fight the urge for so long. It will be torture, but for the first few days, he wants you to “adjust” to your new “home,” and not add to your panic. After that, though, he’ll try to assess your reactions. If you’re extremely resistant, he’ll give you more “adjustment” time. He can’t really hold off forever, though, and eventually, maybe a few weeks in, comes to the conclusion that if he just does what he wants, so long as he’s gentle and reminds you he loves you, it will help you get past the mental barrier in your mind. He’s convinced there’s simply a psychological issue, and that sometimes, people need a push. It’s like having a friend who can’t swim – sometimes, you just have to throw them into the water, help them get over that mental hurdle, and they’ll be grateful in the end. That’s what he tells himself to justify it, anyway. He has enough… anatomical prerequisite knowledge to know what’s good and what’s bad, and will take your body’s positive reactions as a sign of what you really want. Is definitely the kind to use that against you, holding up his fingers to your face after you cum on them, as if to prove a point.

“See? I told you, you just have to let go and give in to what you want… if you didn’t, my fingers wouldn’t be dripping like this, now would they?”

What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill?

He wants to experiment on you. This manifests as him being something of a service top without really intending to be, even if you’re not exactly happy about it. He likes to watch your reactions, watch the way your body moves, test the pleasure you get from different things, discover what it is that you like, even if you weren’t aware of it. In particular, he’s fascinated by the fact that girls have so many types of orgasms. He’ll want to try them all, watch and see which ones are more intense than others, which ones make you convulse, makes your toes curl, your eyes roll back. Which erogenous zones make your breath hitch, make you twitch and whimper. Probably the type to be determined that he can make you cum just from something like sucking on your nipples, and he won’t stop until he achieves it. He’ll also want to try everything. At least anything that he thinks has some potential to appeal to him, mentally. He’s a busy man and hasn’t really taken the time to explore his own sexuality, and has virtually zero experience.

Edging, overstimulation, forced orgasms

Experimentation also means testing limits and thresholds. He’ll bring you up to the edge, learn to watch for the slightest of signs that you’re close, listen to your breath, watch your face, wait until you’re just so close and then draw back, stopping just short of letting you catch that high. Then he’ll let you drift back down, and bring you back up again. No amount of begging will make him show you any mercy, you’ll only cum when he’s decided he’s observed enough. He wants to push the limit, see just how close to the edge of orgasm you can get without spilling over, just how much it takes to drive you insane. He’ll also want to see how far you can go after it as well. Orgasm won’t be the end of his ministrations, no, he wants to see how much stimulation you can take. You won’t be able to get away from his tongue, he’ll grab you by the hips and slam you back down, continuing to lap at you even if you’re so sensitive it’s painful. Watching you cum will just make him rut into you harder, bruising and abusing your insides to a point that they’re so sore you can feel it long after it’s over. At first, he might feel a little guilty, and may very well after it’s over, but in the heat of the moment, he can’t fight the insatiable urge to listen to you squeal, feel you convulse, watch the tears from overwhelming pleasure run down your face.

He’ll make it his personal mission to see how many orgasms the female body is capable of within a given amount of time - per day, per hour, how quickly you can have them in succession. For scientific purposes, of course. Anatomy and human biology isn’t really his main field of focus, but he likes to expand his research horizons.

“Just one more… cum one more time for me, then we’ll be done. Come on… I know you can, just one more.”

How do they feel about pregnancy or babies? Do they want them?

He’s actually good with children, usually. He has a calming effect on kids. He isn’t sure how he feels, though. To some degree, he fears his capabilities to parent, thinks he would be too cold to be a good father. But he also likes the idea of a protege, an heir to his title, one he can teach everything he knows. If he does end up having one, this fucking nerd man will read every book on pregnancy, birthing, and parenting that he can get his hands on.

Also, he’ll absolutely be one to track your cycles, even better than you can. He’s researched enough to know exactly when you’re most or least likely to get pregnant, and you can’t help but notice how much more he seems to cum in you when you’re at your most fertile. Nor can he deny how satisfying it is to watch his cum slowly drip out of you, watching you twitch with aftershock and slowly drift off in exhaustion.

What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use?

Unfortunately for you, since overstimulation and edging are already normal and everyday for you, he’ll have to amp it up a bit if he’s trying to make you regret something. He might get rougher, abusing more pleasure spots on your body, keeping his hands, mouth, and cock occupied all at once with driving you over the edge until it’s painful. But if you’re exceptionally misbehaved, you might not ever get a release to his edging, instead left to suffer from being so close, tied up so you can’t finish yourself off.

In moments when he’s really, truly angry, the peak of it, and that blends with arousal, he’ll really, really throatfuck you. Grabbing the back of your head and shoving his cock down as deep as he can, holding you there as you gag and choke, feeling your throat convulse around him, desperately trying to pull back for air. The movements are harsh and brutal, pulling harshly on your hair, moving at a pace so fast you barely have a second to breathe. Thankfully, when it gets like that, he won’t last long, emptying out into your throat, holding your jaw shut and demanding you swallow. If any spills off on your chin, he’ll gather it up on his fingers, hold it to your face, and command you to open your mouth, suck it off, and swallow again. That’s at the peak of his anger, though, and you’ll have to substantially piss him off to reach that point. He’ll apologize later, holding you close, but his guilt doesn’t change the fact that it’s one of the most intense orgasms that he’ll have, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t sometimes think of doing it again, even without provocation. He’s restrained enough not to, but the thought is there… and deep down, he’ll entertain the idea.

What body parts of their darling do they like the most?

The curves of your body, no matter how defined or faint they are, no matter the general shape of your body, to him it’s the most beautiful thing. He’ll definitely want to draw you, even if you’re not too keen on posing. He’ll run his hands up and down your body, squeezing every little bit of flesh he can, moving his palms over every little curve, every inch of your skin.

[warmday]

kiera your most recent gifset changed my goddamn life if you have the time/inclination would you be willing to give us a bit of insight on your process for that one? what was going through your brain et cetera? thank u love u you're so talented mwah <3

of course & thank u love u 🌼🌼🌼

okay um. i'll structure this a lil bit with like, a small breakdown for scene choice/idea per character n stuff cause thats planning n then the layout/actual gifs. (whoa this got long sorry for the ramble — if u just want layout type stuff go to ‘design’ in bold lol)

so 'planning' was that i was actually just sorta thinking abt like, reputations in mdzs, n specifically abt wwx n nhs n how different it is for both of them lol, which led to me wanting to create a set about it. i sorta thought like. the line i put in the desc of ‘my reputation precedes me’ with a focus on the ‘precedes’ thing -> leads to having the ‘reputation’ image overtake/block out the ‘true’ image (this is not meta. i am not saying that the behind part is a real self and the front is a fake. there is nuance i’m just talking for the sake of like, creating a starker contrast for the gifs i sort of focused on what i thought separated those facets of these characters) i didn’t actually plan on having everyone but nhs smiling but i knew nhs’ would look different to the rest, its just the behind scenes sorta came up as i made each gif lmao.

the main thing i kept in mind for later when picking scenes/getting frames tho was that the scenes needed to be like, ‘shoulders up’ stuff to make the effect work

so for wwx and wen ning i think that their reputations are more feared, and end up sort of covering how much theyre actually like. human. people. etc. etc. etc.

— for wwx i chose a nightless city confrontation scene for the top and the behind scene is actually from. um cant check rn p sure it was ep 24? the end of that when hes at lotus pier (great scene! yanli smiles so much top tier!) bc like. he loves him family he loves lotus pier guys but ‘yiling laozu’ is said to have ‘betrayed’ them so i felt like the contrast was appropriate.

— for wen ning, as the ‘ghost general’ he’s treated a lot like an object/thing (’wen ning is not a thing’ line or however it went) rather than a person, which is why i went for the scene on dafan mountain bc hes not really himself at that point + highlighted his feared reputation (everyone immediately went terror mode at the sight of him like. wwx is like wait theres smth wrong with him but no one else can notice that bc this is just what they expect of the ‘ghost general’ ya know), so for the behind scene i wanted smth of him smiling bc i like it i think that helps highlight like, no hes a person bro, and specifically i went with the one from ep 50 where hes talking to wwx and gonna leave on his own bc i also thought that was appropriate given how the ‘ghost general’ is always linked to wwx. once again, i was going for the strongest contrast i could find (that also worked like, gif wise).

so gonna skip to lwj and jiang cheng now (dont worry i love nhs). in contrast to yiling laozu n ghost general being ‘feared’ reputations, i think hanguang jun and sandu shengshou are respected reputations: this is why when i posted it i put wen ning and wwx together and lwj and jiang cheng together. obvi like, you’ve got a bunch of ‘thin line between fear and respect’ stuff going on there, but like, in terms of how theyre perceived by others in the story, well i dont remember anyone saying that hanguang jun kidnaps children or kills without mercy lmao. but their ‘respected’ reputations both seem very. untouchable.

— so for lwj. well i actually had some trouble (if u checked the art channel in jerver. well you’ll see my issues). he doesnt emote properly!!! or rather, every scene i thought of for the ‘hanguang jun’ moment he was emoting too much!!!. okay seriously though i knew that i wanted smth happier/more emotional/smiling/etc. for his behind/’lan wangji’ scene bc of how ‘unemotional’/stoic/etc. he’s considered to be, i wasn’t sure exactly what one to go for at first but i went with the ep 50 wwx/sizhui one just bc he’s clearly his most ‘lwj’ around them (lxc lovers dont worry him too but u know what i mean!!!) + its just a nice smile guys :3. i ended up choosing the ep 2 one bc it was the most ‘stoic’ type one i could find that also fit the layout requirements lmao.

— for jiang cheng i knew right away i wanted his behind scene to be the lotus pier flashback/dream bc like. well it makes me cry but also bc i thought it contrasted well with his intimidating sect leader rep. which then just left finding a rep scene where he a) didn’t look like he was actually about to breakdown crying lol and b) fit the layout requirements. so ep 2 again (thank u for my life ep 2)

so now we’re at nhs. i knew right away his was going to contrast all the others bc of how his rep works the other way around from everyone elses — while obvi everyone else (well, not wen ning ig) do work to cultivate their reputations (esp jc imo) its really not used the same way that nhs’ is. the headshaker isn’t really feared and its hard to really say ‘respected’ at least in the same way hanguang jun/sandu shengshou are. so right off the bat it was gonna go the other way. so choosing scenes i also knew i wanted to use that uh.. ep 48 i believe? scene for the behind cause its like. everything he’s been working towards in a moment, its all revealed in that look. and for the ‘headshaker’ scene i needed smth where he’s putting on his act quite visibly + again fits the layout and i really liked the way he hides behind the fan in the one i went with, esp because it sorta created three layers to the gif instead of just two like everyone else. when i made the nhs one i’d already made the wwx and wen ning ones and i’d realised that they faced the left while my nhs one was facing right and i was like ‘hell yes! lets go with this!’ bc i really wanted to make it as visually distinct from the others as possible (hence the third dif: everyone else has a colour, but nhs’ gif is white so it’s a lot starker)

whew okay so:

design

so i made up the base gif, i.e. blended the scenes (as i mentioned — everyone but nhs is overlayed to the left) n just added my base colouring on so the main thing was just getting it to a specific colour and then adding the text + lil border things. so the first one i made was the wwx so i’ll just go thru that:

[id: screenshot of two images of wei wuxian, overlayed: there is no a noticable blue tint to the background scene and to the edge of the top scene. the top left behind his head is white. /end id]

so first just combining the two (already sharpened) scenes — using layer mask on a group to make the overlay for the top scene — i tended to mess around with positioning to hid the bg scene enough but not too much yadda yadda yadda

[id: the same image as before, but the colours are now more vibrant, and there is more red tones in the scene — the blues are still visible. /end id]

then added colouring

[id: the same image as before, but the blue lines around the second image have dimmed significantly, and the other blue tones are now closer to a purple shade. /end id]

then i used selective colour to decolour those blues — i wanted to make the line as invisible as possible.

[id: same image as before, but all the blue/purple shades are now dull red. /end id]

then i paint over a new layer with a colour picked red and set the layer to hue — i painted specifically on the clothing, the right side of the top image, and over the blue line.

[id: the same image as before, but the edges are all black /end id]

then i just painted over again with black to fill in all the edges (set that layer to multiply).

— i basically did this for all of them, just with the respective colour (again, made nhs gif white to create contrast).

so for text:

i then made the first name, in this case ‘wei wuxian’ — i messed around with font for a bit but i knew i wanted smth cursive/script like/etc for the front/title one so i wanted to keep it simple + in caps behind.

[id: same image as before but with small caps sans serif font text reading ‘wei wuxian’. /end id]

so first i just typed it (in lemon milk bold font, small caps) and then converted that text to a smart object.

then i used the marquee tool to highlight the bottom half of that text object —> then, while still highlighted i selected the move tool and moved the bottom half of the text down 15px. then deselect and recentre the whole text layer so it looks like this:

[id: same image as before but the text has been split horizontally. /end id]

then i right click the text object and hit ‘select pixels’ and made a gradient map layer and made it [colour] and black

[id: same image as before, but the text is now coloured red and black. /end id]

— so i choose to split the text like this to a) make more room for the title text, b) symbolise how the title is overtaking the name in the same way the reputation scene is cutting off the behind scene. and i choose to make this part colourful while the title stuff was black/white to further emphasise that bc then it feels more like part of the background rather than text ur supposed to read ya know?

anyway then just write in the title (sudestada regula font)

[id: same image, now with ‘yiling laozu’ written in cursive font. /end id]

then i duplicated the text, put that layer behind it, made it white n moved it off centre so i got this:

[id: same image, but the ‘yiling laozu’ text now stands out with a white border. /end id]

i wanted to do this because it once again reiterated the duplicated theme (obviously it also makes the text actually stand out more, but i did consider just changing the text colour instead but choose this because of the theme stuff).

so it felt mostly finished but i wanted to add smth else so i made little corners with the shape tool and then did the same thing i did to the text (select, make a gradient map) to do this:

[id: same image, but with small lines in an equal L shape in each corner. /end id]

the reason i wanted these was once again to match the theme: they look like frame edges, and its a little bit to the left theme wise but i really like mdzs has a lot to do with ‘framing’ — by which i mean, how a person is viewed by others (e.g. their reputation) and how thats impacting their treatment, the perceived morality of their actions, etc. etc. so i just wanted to tie it all together with smth like that.

and yeah thats basically it lol <3

[mussthemoose]

Omori Sibling Swap AU

I had this brain worm in my head for too long so now I’m writing it out here. Basic premise is that Sunny and Kel swap as siblings, with Sunny staying with his parents and Mari swapping over to Hero’s. Under the cut because it might get a bit long and also because it’s likely going to have a few uh...things in it.

tw: child neglect, child abuse (being safe for this one)

Mari and Kel

I’m going to have to be honest right out of the gate here, these two definitely get the better end of the deal in this

It doesn’t matter if it was going to be Kel or Sunny, Mari absolutely loved the idea of having a little sibling

She spends time with him, adores being around her little ball of energy and excitement that just wants to go go go

And she’s more than happy to go with him! She often leads, but never has trouble with getting Kel to run off charging forward on his own, letting him take the chance to explore the world. “It’s your own little oyster” as Mari would love to say

Kel grows up with a sister who understands that he sees the world in his own way, interacts with it a bit differently than most people would think, and who spends the time to try to understand that

She teaches him how to interact with people and solve his problems working with his mindset, different than his parents who seem to be almost patronizing when they try to teach him the ‘right’ way to do it

Mari doesn’t ever tell him he’s doing it wrong, she only ever works with him on how to interact with the world without accidentally stepping on its toes in his excitement

Kel grows up an excitable and rambunctious kid as always, and while he might not be completely there for the book smarts, he is stupidly good at emotional intelligence, even more so than in the base game

Because he’s had someone help him learn how to interact and process his own emotions, how to recognize and respond to others own emotional states, he’s much more able to read someone and then go “oh, I should probably act like X because they’re not feeling too well.”

He’s a much happier healthier kid too, because Mari is his role model, and with having a household that still has expectations, but isn’t as strict on her to meet them? Her perfectionism doesn’t develop as hard over the years, and she’s always had a stronger personality, enough to be able to stand firm in doing what she wants to, not just meeting her parents expectations

She does still meet them often because she’s just Like That to a degree, but it’s important to Kel because it lets him know that when he tries to follow in her footsteps, it’s not because Mari is the better sibling and he needs to follow her example, even if he refuses to believe she’s not the better sibling because she’s just so amazing and loving in his eyes

It’s because Mari shows that if she excels because it’s who she is and it’s what she wants to do, than it’s also fine to be bad at some stuff but good at other stuff if that’s what Kel wants to do!

And unlike Hero, Mari doesn’t try to play as the neutral party/the diplomat in the household when her parents talk down at Kel she steps in and puts her foot down, lets him know that he doesn’t need to be just like her, that he’s perfect in his own way

Kel’s never happier than when she says he’s perfect the way he is. Mari loves when things are perfect, perfection is something she strives for, he knows how much it means to her

So every time Mari says he’s perfect, he feels like he’s doing something right

Talking about how they will interact with the friend group as a whole is likely for another post, but know that by their powers combined these two are fucking nightmares of pranksters. There is no escape, only japes.

Hero and Sunny

Hero and Sunny...do not get the better end of the deal, but to be more specific Sunny does not

Hero does not actually have much problem with the household. High expectations and standards put on his shoulders would be an issue...if he wasn’t Hero

It’s not to say those expectations aren’t an issue, that he doesn’t feel the pressure nipping at his heals, but Hero is someone who is good at everything he does without much effort, and excels when he puts his mind into it

The only thing he doesn’t excel completely at is sports, but when he seems to be able to handle any instrument handed to him, be top of his class, and even at a young age have his charisma start to shine through? His parents don’t really hold it against him outside of light teasing

One of the jokes his father would say when Sunny was born is that he might finally be able to play some sports with

Hero can still play sports, he can play catch, he can do most things as long as he doesn’t do them for long and overexert himself, he’s just not perfect at it. (He doesn’t know why this upsets him so much)

Sunny is not someone to play sports with, and in fact he doesn’t seem to be one to do a lot of things unless he’s told to, and even then it can be...tricky, to know exactly what he wants to do

It’s not too bad for awhile, there’s high expectations still but he’s still a little kid for awhile

They have Hero, and the parents at least know that two golden star children is maybe a bit too much to expect, that Sunny will learn how to catch up eventually, especially with Hero as a role model and being there to guide him

And this, this is the first time Hero feels like he’s really failing at something important

He’s not Mari, he loves his little brother and every time he can get a smile out of him it means the world to him, he would do anything to help out Sunny

But he’s not Mari, he realizes this when the two eventually meet and he sees how she acts around Kel, realizes how much better she is at just understanding people. Sees that she seems to figure out Sunny better in a few weeks than the entire lifetime that he’s had

It’s not that he’s completely bad at it or doesn’t understand at all, but Hero has learnt a lot of his charisma tied to how to please other people, how to be what they want him to be because that’s what’s expected of him

In the main universe Kel didn’t need his help to be himself, to interact with the world, their relationship dynamic was different where Hero was the role model that tried to help Kel ‘be better’

Sunny follows Hero like a little duckling, trying his best to mimic when he can, but that’s most of what it ends up being, mimicry

Hero doesn’t know how to understand Sunny in the way he wants to, the way Sunny needs him to, and it hurts

He helps as much as he can, with homework that he translates in a way Sunny seems to get so that he doesn’t do bad not good enough, but not bad, just enough to be disappointing compared to Hero, not a disappointment...yet

Sunny does not grow up with someone who understands him like Mari understood him, he has someone who loves him dearly and would do anything to get him to come out of his cage, who has helped him open up more than he would have on his own

But it’s not the same

Sunny grows up with the axe of disappointment hanging over his head even more than before. Kel’s parents would at least say that he should be more like Hero. After a point Sunny’s parents just...stop.

It’s not that he’s even less of a disappointment, but almost like he’s not worth the energy and time to say so anymore. If you never met Sunny or had seen the pictures in the house you might not even know they had a son besides Hero, and Sunny can’t help but feel that they might like it better that way

Sunny doesn’t mind, really! It’s not like they’re actually hurting him or starving him or any manner of things. His dad tolerates him and his Mom really does love him, he just knows that Hero is the only one they really want and that if he suddenly vanished one day than it really wouldn’t be that much of an issue because they’d still have Hero. A story only needs one Hero to carry on, he knows that he’s just the side character

Hero is a mixture of ignorant and...afraid. Not of his parents, they love him too much for him to ever be seriously concerned and they actually do listen to him (a part of him calls him a coward because of that, what kind of Hero has the power to save someone but then doesn’t?)

But he’s worried of ever losing that respected position of favored child, respected child, the perfect prodigy. This is just the way things are in his world. He does his best to guide Sunny through it and hope that his love is enough for him even though he knows it isn’t, it’s nowhere near what he needs, what he deserves

He’s known this ever since the day when Sunny came over to his bed because he had another nightmare, but his presence didn’t save his little brother from restless sleep after. That’s when he knew he failed, because even if Sunny didn’t say it, he realized that Hero couldn’t...or wouldn’t, protect him him from the things that scared him

Hero is thankful for meeting Mari, for meeting everyone in the friend group, because Sunny finally has people who can understand him better, and teach Hero how to help out Sunny the way he’s always hoped he could

It’s not perfect, there’s still a mountain or problems but...Sunny followed him around now these days like a little duckling because he really did just believe that Hero was someone he wanted to follow

...And not just because he was afraid that if he didn’t have Hero, there wouldn’t be anyone left who’d really love him

[cerastes]

I keep remembering that one bit in chapter 5 where Hoshiguma kept a whole floor of a building from collapsing on her and Ch'en while still having time to flirt and was wondering, how would she fair against Skadi? Like yeah the orca is a freak force of nature, but Hoshi is one of the beefiest Defender defense wise and has like a 20% chance to just ignore a hit, so she could probably last a while? Though whatever building they spar in would probably need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

See, that’s exactly what makes the Abyss Hunters so scary. Let me elaborate with Hoshiguma, since she’s actually the perfect point of reference due to information found in her Files that we can correlate to Skadi and Specter both:

As you mentioned, Hoshiguma is both durable and strong enough to straight up hold up an entire floor while still having enough in her to flirt and quip with Ch’en, like some sort of lesbian Atlas, which is no small feat considering she had been fighting for a while before as well. This is what Hoshiguma’s Files say about her parameters:

As a note, the nomenclature of these ranks goes:

Flawed - The lowest.

Normal/Standard - Average (for Operator work, so still high above civilian grade)

Excellent - High.

Outstanding - The highest with certain exceptions.

Hoshiguma’s main talent, as we can see, is her Physiological Endurance, more so than her Physical Strength, hence her role as a Defender: Her main specialty is mitigating damage and protecting others. Even so, her Physical Strength and her Combat Skill are both Excellent, and we saw what Excellent means when it comes to strength, with Hoshiguma’s feat up there. I personally interpret her 25% chance to just outright not take damage from attacks as a combination of her Endurance, her Tactical Planning, and her Combat Skill: She’s not just tough as nails, she’s also a dexterous fighter that can intelligently mitigate damage not just by tanking it, but also by deflecting it, reducing the impact by parrying a move correctly, throwing off the attack from its intended point of contact, etc, she’s not a brute, she’s got brains to go with the brawn. Keep this in mind because this is going to be important.

With all this in mind, I know you asked about Skadi, but before Skadi, I want to show you a Files page that looks very similar to Hoshiguma’s, for comparison:

Looks very similar, no? That’s Specter’s parameters.

One quick thing to note is that Specter, while being equally durable and skilled in combat to Hoshiguma, is actually physically stronger than her, but Specter’s brain damage has greatly compromised her Tactical Planning, hence her modus operandi of “I’ll turn my brain off” when fighting. What matters here, however, is that if with a strength rank of Excellent and an endurance rank of Outstanding, Hoshiguma held a collapsing floor, with both ranks at Outstanding, Specter theoretically could, hell, outright throw the floor at you after catching it or something without much difficulty.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, because Skadi’s parameters...

...Show her Physical Strength as outright unquantifiable, even stronger than Specter’s Outstanding. There’s a reason why they call her the Walking Catastrophe, and please remember exactly how dreaded the word “Catastrophe” is in the setting of Arknights.

She ‘only’ has Excellent Physiological Endurance, and a matching Excellent Combat Skill, but her Physical Strength is actually so absurd and out of bounds that the Medic Team and Human Resources took one good look at what she could do and they said “nope” and just outright left the field blank, because it goes far, far beyond Outstanding. To recap: Skadi literally sends people flying with each swing she misses. Grani herself mentioned that Skadi lightly, gently tapping her sword against Grani’s spear cracked her bone and almost broke her arm. Skadi causes cave-ins and creates holes in mountain caves when she hits the walls in that event.

It’s a bit out of anyone’s league to take on Skadi directly, lorewise. And she still has Excellent Combat Skill and uncompromised Tactical Planning, meaning she’s also got brains to go with the impossible brawn.

So, basically, with all that laid out, let’s go back to your question: “how would she fair against Skadi?”

I think context is important: Could Hoshiguma spar with Skadi? I think Hoshiguma is one of the few people at all that can spar with Skadi. A mix of being very strong, immensely durable and an intelligent fighter would let Hoshiguma have some legendary sparring matches with Skadi that would leave all the provisional and reserve teams slack-jawed. 

Could Hoshiguma beat Skadi in a hypothetical real fight, one on one? No, I doubt it. We’ve not yet seen Skadi fight seriously, and she still was sending people Team Rocket flying. Skadi is just not someone, something, you fight one on one. Swinging for real against such a mighty opponent, Skadi will eventually smash through. The only glimpse we have of Skadi actually getting serious is:

So, yeah.

Could Hoshiguma take a tactical victory from Skadi by stalling her in a hypothetical operation? Yes, I believe so. I doubt Hoshiguma has what it takes to actually close a fight with Skadi, to actually kill, disarm, or overpower her, but if they were in opposite sides, Hoshiguma is likely one of the few people in Terra that, if she focuses on defending, can actually stall Skadi out in close quarters combat, letting the rest of her team complete whatever objective they have to accomplish, or arrive to reinforce Hoshiguma to take on Skadi in a more appropriate manner, such as with Arts or ranged weaponry. This would be especially plausible given that Skadi’s weakness is her poor teamwork and tendency to just do whatever she wants instead of following orders.

It’s when you consider how strong someone like Hoshiguma is and then realize that the Abyssal Hunters we know thus far somehow go beyond that that you start thinking: Damn, just WHAT kind of nonsense monsters were the Abyss Hunters fighting down there in the depths? It’s supposedly gigantic, eldritch deep sea horrors, from what we’ve heard Skadi mention, which completely justifies just how physically strong an Abyss Hunter has to be in order to simply survive and stand a chance. It also contextualizes their weaponry: Both Skadi and Specter’s weapons and fighting styles are noted to be “effective against giant opponents more so than human-sized enemies”.

[problemswithbooks]

Is Dabi a good character and easy to relate to in your opinion? Do you also feel sympathy for him after his reveal?

I'd say his concept is good, but the execution was highly lacking and it makes him hard to relate to (at least for me).

To be honest I sympathized with him far more before we had the reveal and got his backstory. I will admit that Endeavor's redemption arc also played a role--not so much as I think that Enji did nothing wrong, but that when I saw him being set up for that kind of arc, I knew that a lot of the really over the top theories about Touya's death weren't going to be true (like Enji purposely burning him or forcing him to train until he died).

Yes, Touya was neglected and Enji did not help him in any meaningful way. Yet, at the same time it didn't come across as purposely malicious. His intent doesn't matter of course, but it comes across as very different from what happened to Shoto, who, although Enji trained, it was clear he was also taking his frustrations out on. It's a lot easier to understand how Enji could convince himself that cutting Touya off from the Hero world would help him, even if that includes not spending time with him and putting all the work on Rei. Meanwhile, his treatment of Shoto was no where near being simply training. It's clear he full on beat a four-year-old, which would take mountains of denial to blind yourself to the truth.

Hori also hasn't done Touya many favors by refusing to show him having any positive interactions with his family outside of Enji. He gets mad and snaps at Natsuo when he says he's tired, he tells Fuyumi that a girl could never understand him when she shows concern for his burns, when his siblings ask him to play he's clearly not having fun and instead glaring over at the training building, jealous of Shoto.

It's not that I don't get where his frustrations come from, but I really wish Hori had shown a mix of interactions. Maybe he snaps at Fuyumi, but doesn't at Natsuo. Maybe when he's playing with them he's happy, but then he hears noise form the training room and is pulled back into his negative emotions.

But to me the biggest thing that sapped all my sympathy for him was the reveal of what happened to him after he burned on the mountain. AfO/Ujiko being involved made sense even if I think it's a waste having them be involved in another main villain's backstory. But what really turned it from boring but believable to "I can't take this seriously” was Touya going back to his house. It was a string of convinces, and plot holes. Also, having Touya wake up and be desperate to see his family, but then 20 min later saying 'fuck 'em!' because his dad was still an asshole, continued to undermine the idea that Touya gives a shit about anyone but Enji.

And sure, on a fundamental level I feel bad for him. He didn't deserve what happened to him. His father and mother to a lesser extent failed him. But at the same time I don't feel that sympathy in my core--it's more that I logically get that what happened was bad. It’s kind of like when a story piles one bad thing after another on a character in rapid succession in a clear attempt to force the audience to feel sad for them, but it just feels forced. My brain is like, yes that is unfair and sad, but my heart just doesn’t feel anything. 

To me Dabi is a wasted opportunity. He really could have been great--if you want any evidence of that just go read the many character analysis’s of him by the fans who love him. The way the describe him and view him, is the way I think he should have been written. My issue is that all that good stuff is either tiny nuggets hidden under a bunch of other stuff or even missing entirely. For a lot of people the shadow of what he could have ben and what little is there is enough and they love him to death. For me personally though, that’s not enough.