#this = exposure to my brain worms

[bisexualrapline]

if love ain’t for us 이걸로 만족할게 i don’t need your touch 너의 사랑이면 돼

for @namchyoon ♡ (cr. namuspromised, dwellingsouls)

[swervdcity-arc]

the way you play racial stereotypes has never set well with me. yt people at it again i guess

can everyone point and laugh at this guy please im busy writing my racial stereotypes and being white

[dlnqnt]

:0

[shellxrls]

— r. cameron / reader

warnings: DUBCON — rafe roofies and then rapes reader / unprotected PinV / misogyny / mention of drugs (cocaine & roofies) / mention of virginity / inspiration taken from maddy & nate (euphoria)

synopsis: rafe cameron x fem!reader… sometimes rafe needs to slip a girl a little something at a party to get some, and where’s the shame in that if he knows they want him anyway, they’re just too prudish to admit it.

After you’ve successfully been dosed, he makes you sit on his lap for lack of space on the couch so he can rock you on his knee until you’re tired, delirious, and horny enough to be lifted upstairs, legs dangling against his broad back while you hiccup and giggle next to your upside-down view of his chest.

His nose is numb from the coke and his brain heady, one could argue almost as inebriated as you. But the lines make him oversaturated, not cock-dumb like what he slipped you — eager hands already pawing at his zipper and coming to a fumbled close around the metal just before you’re tossed onto a bed, spread aloof like the crumpled sheets.

“You’re sooo nice to me Rafe.. when all the other guys were sayin’i shoulda gone home,” you end with a belligerent nod of your head, slurring throughout and biting your lip in sexless embarrassment, chewing the skin raw enough to reflect your torn consciousness instead.

Rafe simply smirks, chin protruding outwards while his eyes flit between your thighs peeking through your overridden dress and your tits falling out of the frilly décolletage.

“You a virgin?”

“Mhm” you lie, despite the reeling dizziness occupying your headspace. Besides, nobody likes a whore — especially not rafe, uninterested in ‘stretched out pussy’ as you vaguely recall from his earlier conversation crowded around friends.

He approaches closer now, knocking your trembling knees apart with one of his beefy thighs, bulge forward and creasing in his pants as your dialogue gets him hard already, imposing his physicality in all its glory: “What like— you’ve never even been fingered before?”

You shake your head, tousling curls before staring back up at him, “Only my own.”

To that he chuckles, the noise grating and stunted when he uses it as an excuse to adjust himself in his pants, drawing his chest down further until he’s now hovering above you.

“Uh y’know,” he tongues at his cheek, “I could take care of that for you, practically all spread open an’ready huh?”

Like it wasn’t his plan to get you dumb and stuffed by the end of the night, even if it meant bringing out his inner brute, he was taller, faster, stronger — he could do it if he really wanted, but he made it easy for you instead. Could feel the roofie worming its way into your consciousness, jamming rationality and flooding you with hedonistic desire that would trigger your sex endorphins and make it so that you would want this, that he could brag about it without you opening your bitch mouth the next day and claiming ‘rape’; an ugly word anyways, coming out harsh in a spit, nothing like what rafe was doing to you, especially not with the way you were looking at him.

Your mouth opens, then closes, seemingly flailing on confirmation when really your jaw is getting slack and numb, and so you feel encouraged to nod instead, the movement making your thoughts go all bubbly, refracting Rafe’s glinting eyes at your ‘consent’.

He wastes no time with prep, shoving your dress up so it’s tucked over your tits, basal temperature remaining warm and stuffy despite the exposure to cool air. A good indicator though, means rafe can tell it’s working, and just how long he has before you might start struggling.

When he pulls himself out of his shorts it’s surprising, of course, everything about him is pretty, one would expect a tangible reflection of the cruelty on his features but instead, his dick looks cutesy, if not for the intimidating size.

Spit trickles harshly down his palm when he wraps a hand around himself, tugging quickly and using both his legs to split you around his midriff, leaking and achy despite the inattention you’ve received.

“You want this dick so fuckin’ bad huh,” he laughs at the puddle of arousal leaking out underneath you, considers swiping a finger into it to stick into your mouth but he doubts you’d be able to breathe right now if he interfered with the half catatonic features on your face, and it’s not like he’s out for that type of violence anyways (or at least not right now).

When he pushes himself inside you’re silent, pupils retreating in favour of a squeal — ironically a very Rafe-esque trait — while Rafe bites down into his cheek and rolls his palm over your chest to ease the pressure of the fit.

“Thought the roofie woulda loosened you up a bit..” mumbled out while his stomach clenches, now bracing his entire heavy arm across your abdomen and pinching skin when you involuntarily quiver at the weight, “You can take it c’mon.”

He thrusts hard and uncoordinated, fucking like he knows he’s hot, or at least how many more pills he has left in his stash. Knocking against your insides and entirely focused on the way his dick feels, knowing how easily he could move onto another victim, and just how much he wants to enjoy you in particular before it’s over.

Sweat clings to both your bodies, the slick getting louder when each thrust manages to pound a squelch out of you, spattering against the sheets or catching on Rafe’s balls to stick the both of you together with messy tendrils.

You’re pliant, let him move your legs so your ankles entwine behind his back, heavy hand locking them together and giving you both little breathing room; just enough for him to spill obscenities straight into your emotionless face with hot, sticky breath — he laughs, manically and seemingly at his own joke, before deciding to share it with you, “just don’t go running ‘bout me ‘assaulting’ you right. You wanted this, not my fault my cock’s so good the slut has to go dumb hmm?” mocking you with a teasing lilt and a raised brow.

You pat at his swollen chest, it’s all you can manage to do, urgent to get him off you, give you a little space atleast. He only shoves himself in further, lips puckering to sloppily catch yours, saliva straying down your chin and jaw instead.

Your outright discomfort seems to get him going even more, thrusts increasing in increment despite becoming more careless, tip catching your clit when he slips out and hurries to stuff it back in.

When his face pinches up, brows tensed and nose furrowed, you can tell he’s going to cum, the friction between your bodies almost unbearable with the heat that suddenly envelops him.

A slew of curses are hissed out, casual vulgarity being one of Rafe’s favourite expressions of self, and then he’s pulling out and wrapping a fist around himself to paint your tummy white. Ropes shooting watery on your tummy and painting him a proud picture.

He shakes himself off on you a final time before tucking his wet dick back into his briefs, cleaning himself up entirely unbothered by the dissected mess of you laying drugged and fucked out on the bed.

“My head feels funny.”

“Yeah, that’s cause I fucked it out of whack.” He says it serious but you can imagine his upturned lips at his own sick sense of humour.

“Where are you going?” you sit up groggy, chest tight.

“Uhh, back downstairs, got some more yayo I needa lay off— you can stay here or.. wherever, doesn’t matter.”

He has the decency to shut the door fully when he leaves, yet you’re still alone and forced to lay in the waste of one of Rafe Cameron’s nights out.

[archon-maenad]

yknow I wrote out this whole post explaining why I don't often consume original media of what I post about and how worm isn't an outlier there, in a lot of unnecessary detail, and then realized I was just dancing around the point.

I am literally just not fucking emotionally strong enough to read worm. I am a lil bitch who cannot imagine actually having to follow in detail step-by-step the tragedy of taylor hebert.

but the problem is that I really want to read worm! because being on wormblr instead of just reading fanfic has like. shown me how deficient I am with the actual characters. I can write for hours about earth bet cultural trauma but when it comes to people I'd have so little if I wasn't consuming snippets and learning about smaller canonical moments via posts.

and I want to change that. I want to write actual literary analysis on worm as a story, not just worm as a world. but all my posts of the former can't match up to mine of the latter because I haven't read the source material!

so like. I should read worm on principle. I want to read worm. and I literally don't think I am emotionally sturdy enough to force myself to do it.

maybe I can start by just reading every chapter bonesaw is in or referenced. that way I can learn and write more about my favorite girl in a way that doubles as exposure therapy to the story.

(the fact this sounds viable says so much about all the ways my brain is broken lol)

[son1c]

Hi, I love your blog!! Your art and ideas are so cool!

I know it took Starline hundreds upon hundreds of tries to worm his way into Sonic's mind, but I was wondering how much time did it actually take Starline to make Sonic stop actually fighting him and believe in the fake memories. Weeks? Months? (kinda curious what was Sonic's thought process during the whole thing, but that feels like another can of worms lol)

Also I had an idea how Starline could make Sonic reluctant to leave Snowpoint even more - what if he made Sonic's "friends" have very emotional reactions to the idea of Sonic leaving? Maybe Cherry could be sad because he feels like Sonic is abandoning him, Sonic's "rival" could be pissed because no one else can keep up with them so snowboarding won't be as fun anymore etc. None of them know WHY they're freaking out so much,, it's irrational, but they can't help it. Above anything else, Sonic cares about his friends. If him leaving makes them so upset, then why WOULD he leave? He's happy here, after all :)

-🍑

i was thinking that instead of the typical "the more exposed to this thing you are, the more resistant you get to it", the warp topaz would work in the opposite way. so, "the more exposure you get, the weaker you become". i recall starline saying something about giving surge and kit a weakness to the hypnosis, and while that could mean he literally programmed one in via the cyborg fuckery he did to their bodies, it could also mean... this. so!

that being said, i definitely think there was like, a hill (or mountain, heh) or difficulty irt the whole thing for starline. like, just getting sonic to SIT STILL was hard enough. he literally had to bolt his feet to the floor. sonic's anger alone probably would have protected him from whatever starline was trying to tell him, at least for awhile.

but as time wore on and sonic had to weather hundreds and hundreds of exposures to the hypnosis, it would've gotten harder and harder to completely dismiss it. even when starline left to go do whatever the fuck it is he does, sonic would've been left there with nothing but those words he'd heard repeated over and over and over and over.

and that's the real trick. even before putting him in snowpoint, starline had him completely isolated. and he could think to himself, "none of what he's saying is true," but at the end of the day, it's starline's word against... no one's. cuz sonic is on his own this time.

more sessions. starline's lies repeat endlessly in his brain. he can see that damn topaz even when he closes his eyes.

it's not true. none of it. but...

he does love his friends.

and starline KNEW when he crested over the top of that mountain and the uphill battle finally ended for him, because it was when sonic haltingly repeated what he was telling him for the first time, albeit a little bit off. "i'm hhhappy in snowpoint. i d-don't wanna leave my friends."

so, how long did it take to get to that point? days? weeks? no. 2 months. of constant exposure and drilling and pressure. and sonic STILL refused to crack in exactly the way starline wanted him to. such is the will of the hero...

but yeah, i might extend the timeline a little. 4 months instead of 3, so half could've been with starline, and the other half "happy" in the town. :P

[leathfaic]

Ghost and Soap tattoo headcanons because the brain worms demand it right now!

In my mind at least Ghost has a lot more tattoos than just his sleeve, it's just not common knowledge because until he gets together with Soap no one ever really sees him undressed except maybe for medical staff.

The sleeve was the beginning but he's adding to them whenever leave allows, on his chest and back, on his legs and his other arms and even his hands. Ghost is also the kind of guy that is very stoic while getting tattoos, the pain doesn't really bother him, he's been through so much worse, but he's not the guy who's chatting with the artist either. He just sits through it. Similarly afterwards he's pretty disciplined about the aftercare required. Sun rarely is an issue with the way he dresses and he plans his leave times around the appointments so he can take it easy for a while.

When the inevitable itching starts he just glares at the spot, never actually touching it, but he gets fucking irritated for a few days.

And while he's not the best at taking care of himself in many aspects of his life I can actually see him take good care of his tattoos in the long run, because I imagine him getting them to cover up scars, especially those left by Roba and his men. It's his way of reclaiming his body. The motive itself often isn't as important as the fact that he chose to have it put at that spot. The meaning isn't in the design either it's in the fact that it was his decision to wear it, unlike the scars that were forced upon him.

And then there's Soap, he's only got the one tattoo that we know, at least when he meets Ghost.

Its faded from sunlight exposure and because he never took proper care of it while it healed, even caught himself scratching it once or twice when the itching started. Its always exposed and he rarely thinks of putting sunscreen on, so naturally the tattoo has a hard time and the colour fades quick.

So at some point Ghost asks him if he wants it touched up. He's making an appointment with the artist he trusts anyways and he'd be happy to bring him along. Ghost knows that for Soap his tattoo does have meaning, that he's fucking proud to have made it into the SAS and that he got kinda sad comparing the crisp lines of Ghost's tattoos to his own.

Soap ends up agreeing although he's wary since he can't see it go better than it did last time. But if anything the fact that Ghost is allowing him to come along for this is such a huge sign of trust that he just can't refuse it.

And Ghost's tattoo artist is going to have to recover for a moment because Soap is so fucking chatty compared to Ghost, the pain is kinda exciting to him so he talks more and more and the artist hears more words out of Ghost in response to Johnny than he ever did before. Would wonder if it was the same man if they weren't literally continuing work on a tattoo they had started.

Once they are both done Ghost makes sure Soap takes proper care of the new ink. Threatens to tie him to the bed if he starts scratching at night (something Soap finds entirely too exciting). Shares his care products with him and makes him wrap it up for the first weeks and months. Is always at hand with some sun screen, at least for the arm, even when they are in the middle of nowhere. It's worth the trouble to squeeze some sun screen in his pack when he gets to see Johnny so happy about how good his tattoo looks again.

And once he sees how a properly taken care of piece will look Soap wants more. Ends up accompanying Ghost to the studio whenever he goes.

He's creative, most of what ends up on him is based on his own sketches, always with meaning behind it for him. The next thing he gets is a certain skull based on a specific mask that he wears close to his heart (making Ghost go through emotions he wasn't aware he was capable of having). He also helps Ghost with giving some of his ideas form often redrawing endless variations to make sure Simon doesn't just pick one that seems okay and fitting for its purpose but one he really likes to look at too. Poor man almost loses it when he sees one of his sketches inked on Ghost for the first time and its a good thing they are on leave because he's not gonna let him out of their bed any time soon. Purely to protect the new ink from the sun of course.

[tealfling]

You and @faerunsbest blogging back forth about rolan's knot has broke me *in the best way possible* like i thought my rolan brainworms were bad before, now i have like super rolan brainworms. I can't stop thinking about it. What have you guys done to me 😅🙇🏻‍♀️❤️

It won't let me keep the gif i picked in Anonymous, but i need you to know it was Nick from New Girl with the caption "i'm feeling really warm in my uterus"

Heheehee 😈 Yisss, anon!! We love to service the Rolan Empire filling us with Rolan- brain worms [our aftercare is pretty good too ;) ]

I feel like some of my best... whatever it is I do happens in a back & forth with @faerunsbest

We'll come up with the hottest HCs in a random comment section xD

Also, I was not on the knotting bandwagon before my bestie @faerunsbest brought me over to the dark side. Mostly through exposure therapy.

Also: I'm working on a longer fic with my tiefling Sorc Coren, but I've been throwing around the idea to write another spicy one shot. Either their first knotting or maybe their first heat/rut. I did pass 100 followers recently. Maybe we deserve a little treat?

Thoughts @faerunsbest ?

[titanbabyeams]

okay but how insane would I be if I admitted I was curious about the ship dynamic between The Ghoul & Norm?

The only issue I foresee is that, in my head, Norm is the younger brother and cannot possibly be over 22 years old… but boy, does that little worm in my brain bring up the ship every time I write.

Sometimes I just think it’d be so interesting? Norm has gained some backbone by the end of the series and I really think he wouldn’t be afraid to just… say what he thinks to The Ghoul’s face. He’d also have none of that ‘Vault Dweller Goodness’ that The Ghoul has associated with Lucy. There’d be a strange combination of respect and animosity… plus, I think he’d appreciated Norm’s dry humor.

Imagine: Lucy & The Ghoul are traveling together and Norm joins them at some point. Norm is keeping records of all the Wasteland creatures he comes across because he’s genuinely interested in how the surface has affected things and people…

…which leads him to asking rather probing questions to The Ghoul. Does he have genitalia? How long did the process take to become a ghoul? Are they experiencing radiation exposure just by traveling with him or do they have to be in closer proximity? Is he semen irradiated?

Purely scientific, of course, but The Ghoul would turn it right back on him and ask if he wants to experiment to learn these things.

Norm is disturbed, initially, cue crisis…

Who knows who knows.

[so-i-did-this-thing]

I read ACGAS (sort of) when I was about ...10 or 11, I think, and while I had a massive AmE vocabulary, I lacked enough (any) exposure to British English, culture, and geography to get it. Some parts were great, but I didn't understand a lot of it, and after starting and quitting the second book in the series, chalked it up as one of those things that is Not For Me. But I will always remember - probably the only thing I remember - a farmer saying "'E's womitin', sor, womitin' bad." This is my sole takeaway, and I'm fond of it, despite the fact that it plays on repeat in my head every time I'm ill. I just felt the need to share that with someone, after 35-odd years.

You're not alone! The dialect was also a challenge for me as an American child (and Southern, to boot).

The "womiting" line has absolutely wormed itself into my brain all my life, as well! God, lol. I was actually a bit upset when the revival series tweaked the accents a bit and the "w" converted to a "v". 🤣

[frogwithastrawberry]

Danny Phantom headcanons I just thought of!

For starters: Not really a headcanon, but I love it when people write Danny using astronomy related nicknames for his partners. It makes the brain worms happy

-All ghosts have a specific weakness tied to when they died. It is HIGHLY frowned upon to knowingly use this against someone. Like, they can recover from it, but not easily

-this weakness is especially prominent in Halfas

-Out of the three Halfas, Danny is the only one who really has the weakness. Since the weakness is based on Death, he's the only one it really applies to?

-Vlad died slowly over time due to one event of mass exposure to ectoplasm, which I'm saying seeped into an open sore like acne in his face, and then replicated said acne. While the original case healed, the ectoplasm was in his bloodstream, and since he was fully alive it was slowly over time taking over his bloodcells, until eventually one day he, just found himself with enough of it that he was able to use ghost powers, and then the ectoplasm recognized him as a ghost and stopped harming him

-Dani was never really fully alive. She has a slight weakness to electricity as residue from Danny, but it's barely more than how one would normally react to being shocked

-For Danny though, the electric shock from the portal killed him, and the Lichtenberg scars that were formed as a result counted as enough of an open wound the ectoplasm started seeping in. Since the ectoplasm crept into the scar of what killed him though, he has a weakness to electricity

-this does also mean that if someone were to die by a fire, the ectoplasm would go into burn scars. They die by bleeding out though? Well, being stabbed was going to be a weakness anyways. Someone dies by drowning, the ectoplasm takes over the lungs, since they went out of commission, etc.

-TLDR: Ectoplasm works by taking over blood cells. Souls don't have those, so they just become fully ectoplasmic beings, AKA ghosts. Live people have blood cells, and the ectoplasm seeps into whatever open scars may exist until it occupies 50-75% of the bloodstream, making you recognizable as a ghost, and a halfa.

-BONUS FOR IF YOU WANT DC IN HERE!

-the reason Jason has pit madness is because the pit is ectoplasm (as most have agreed on) and since he was a corpse, the ectoplasm wasn't sure where to go. He didn't have any pumping blood for it to take it over, and so it settled in as his nervous system. But then the ACTUAL nervous system and blood vessels started working, and they're doing they're best to push out the mysterious entity, but the ectoplasm is sentient, and therefore trying to stay. (It's losing)

-this does mean that in my headcanon Jason can either become the fourth halfa, or become fully human again, depending on if the ectoplasm keeps fighting, or if he meets Danny who teaches him to control it

-side note: If he were to become fully human again he'd likely have a shorter lifespan since his body would be used to having assistance against things like injuries or poisons and wouldn't be able to learn how to heal fully by itself again fast enough to save him.

[hsonlyangel]

Hi friends💕 I haven’t been on this blog for over 4 years (!!) but in light of recent events, I didn’t know where else to turn.

I can’t emphasize what a key role One Direction played in shaping my teen years. My first exposure to fan fiction was with 1D fics and oh boy did that open up a can of worms. I still have a Pinterest board from 2012 with everything from cute pics of the boys to unhinged (borderline incoherent) imagines. In tenth grade, I bought school supplies with Liam’s face on it because I was a Liam girlie before Harry *gasp*. I saw This Is Us in theaters and the Teenage Dirtbag sequence permanently altered my brain chemistry (seriously, give it a rewatch). When the Best Song Ever music video came out, I tortured my little brother by playing it on loop. I sat in shocked silence in my sociology class as news broke of Zayn leaving the band. My college roommate indulged me as I lost my mind over the release of the carpool karaoke video. I’m approaching 30 now but all of these memories are *so* fresh in my mind.

Although I don’t listen to them as much as I did a decade ago, when I need a pick me up or dose of teenage nostalgia, I throw on 1D. On Wednesday, I needed some cheering up so I put on some of their music and it helped, as always. The last song I listened to was Love You Goodbye and then I planned to go about my errands as usual. About 15 minutes later, in the middle of a bookstore, I got a text from my mom saying Liam had passed away. It felt like the world stopped. Getting back in the car to drive home, 1D came back on the queue and grief hit me like a Mack truck. Less than an hour before, I had been happily singing along to their music and now Liam’s just…gone? It doesn’t feel real. None of my friends were ever Directioners so I don’t really have an outlet for this grief. Which brings me here.

I’m not on social media much anymore for my mental health, but I knew that Tumblr was one of the only places where I would feel seen and understood in the aftermath of this loss. I was caught off guard by the depths of my grief and I just can’t stop crying. I see deep cuts of the band in their early days and the throwbacks that used to make me laugh now make me weep. The songs that got me through some of the most difficult times in my life will never be experienced the same way. I couldn’t afford 1D tickets while they were touring but a tiny part of me was hoping one day I could see them on a reunion tour in honor of my inner teen. I keep vacillating between denial and devastation and the whole situation is still so surreal.

Even though it’s under heartbreaking circumstances, it’s been so validating and heartwarming to see members of this community coming back and reminiscing, being open about their grief, and supporting one another. It’s hard to describe how deeply this hurts to people outside of the Directioner bubble, but I know y’all get it. I don’t know how to begin processing this but I’m gonna try.

Sending so much love and strength to everyone affected by this. You are not alone❤️

[songoftrillium]

So how would the concept of lifting the Veil fly with the Garous in WtE.

Like I suspect that some wolves in the Eastern Concordat and maybe the Glass walkers has shopped the idea around the tribe since if people knew that Pentex stuffs pollution demons into they products then it won't look good for they quarterly report to say the least...

Of this idea would probably get shot down by leadership Espically the shadow lords since presumably they still take they task of preserving the Veil very seriously. And the glass walkers would probably just try to quash that idea since they position in the Western Concordat is tenuous as is. They don't want some young pups brain worm to make thing worse.

I'd say it's a complicated matter, but not much moreso than prior editions. There are certain circumstances wherein the veil is lifted in particular regions a la the Rend the Veil rite. In cases like that, its more a situation of extreme conflict where public exposure is entirely unavoidable. Though, I don't think that's what you're asking. A short answer I have is that there would likely be a development of Kinfolk Fellowships that are wholly disconnected from Garou Septs, wherein those belonging to the community pattern themselves after the behaviors of other Kinfolk.

The question I'm gonna answer here is "What does Gaian society look like to a Kinfolk?"

I think examining that will make much more apparent what a non-Gaian "lifting of the veil" may resemble. There are, by and large, two kinds of Kinfolk that exist: kenning and callow. A kenning Kinfolk is one that grows up aware of their Gaian heritage and their connection to Gaia and belong to fellowships that espouse their tribal beliefs while (in the western concordat) largely kept at the periphery of Septs and Caerns, interacting with other Garou only for specific occasions (beyond your typical family function.) Callow Kinfolk are those who grow up without any awareness of their connection, and only when they experience their First Change do they become aware of their nature. Depending on locale or upbringing, every tribe has at least a few callow among them.

In cases of kenning however, they have to exist at the periphery of Garou Society, if nothing else for the constant danger many Garou find themselves in. All the same, if a kenning kinfolk undergoes their first change, they already know the Garou Tongue, live up strongly to their auspice, and largely already kinda know where they stand on the affairs of the Gaian Realm (material world.) So, what does lifting the veil look like to an insular Eastern Concordat society?

Lets start with the basics. A Gaian has to live a spiritually clean lifestyle. The things they eat, the manner in which they're prepared, the holidays they participate in, and the manner in which they participate, will reflect their cultural background but will be oriented towards regularly participating in what amount to regular cleansing rituals. Other things would likely be incorporated as well, such as orienting ceremonies and rituals in such a way that function like practical chiminage that draw protective spirits into a space (even if the mortals arent entirely aware of it.) The fact of a human being tainted doesn't mean they are evil, so much as open to possession and corruption by banes. Cleansing a populace makes them immune to possession, so changing society at the community level can make enormous strides towards reducing the number of fomori in the world. I could see parallels to a Halal or Kosher aspect of societies to inspire ideas there. Basically where the rest of the world fails them, they have to make up for it in their own communities. The Codes and Creeds of renown could form the foundation of such non-Gaian fellowships:

Glory Creed

I shall be valorous

I shall be dependable

I shall be generous

I shall protect the weak

Code of Honor

I shall be respectful

I shall be loyal

I shall be just

I shall live by my word

Creed of Wisdom

I shall be calm

I shall be prudent

I shall be merciful

I shall think before I act and listen before I think

Think about what such a society would look like in your own locale. They'd be groups that invest heavily in their communities, espousing ideals of altruism and the betterment of society. Add in a moon-based horoscope and you have the bones of what comes to mind for me. It's important to remember that many basal human emotions feed into the Urge Wyrms that lead the war of Apocalypse. Things like Greed, Apathy, Cruelty, Despair, Hatred, and Alienation, these would be things a Gaian community would likely go to great lengths to root out in their societies. When I think of an Eastern Concordat putting in work to try to integrate humanity in with a 'back to gaia' mindset that's likely where it starts. Many of these things are universal problems everywhere, so I'd see change happening on the human and personal level, in which case the 'knowing werewolves are real' doesn't need to come up. I'd see that as degrees of ways the Eastern Concordat can work to lift the veil that don't put anyone in the front line of danger.

Thank you for asking!

My askbox is open! Feel free to ask me questions about World of Darkness meta, Storytelling, Werewolves in general, or whatever!

[hiskillingjar]

we love only the person we can eat

Relationship: Strade/Reader Rating: Explicit Contains: Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Vaginal Sex, Canon-Typical Violence, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Amputation, Love Confessions Length: 4600+ words:

Summary: “For us, eating and being eaten belong to the terrible secret of love. We love only the person we can eat [...] Eat me up, my love, or else I’m going to eat you up.”

Hélène Cixous (1998) Stigmata: Escaping Texts. pg. 78.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48093946

Loving someone shouldn’t feel like this, you think.

It should make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, it should feel like butterflies fluttering in your tummy, it should feel like safety, security, warmth and worship. It should be a feeling of girlish innocence and infatuation, bunny rabbits and taking the first steps past the gates of Disney World. 

It shouldn’t feel like a virus or a disease that made your insides turn into poisonous mush and bile and spit, and threaten to spill out of you in a puddle of toxic vomit every time you opened your mouth.

It shouldn’t feel like your stomach and your brain were itching with insects and creepy-crawlies, maggots and worms, turning and squirming in your guts and never letting you feel a moment of stillness.

It shouldn’t feel like a life-encompassing obsession that convinced you that he would stop caring about you or even stop existing altogether if you stopped looking at him, stopped talking about him, stopped thinking about him, for even a second.

It shouldn’t feel like this. 

But then again, you’re not sure if you even really felt love before this, before he saw you at the bar and took you for his own. 

So maybe, this was exactly how love was supposed to feel.

“Ah…there you are. You’re waking up.”

It wasn’t often that you let yourself be underneath him, let yourself be taken so willingly, bare skin against skin. It wasn’t often that you allowed such a deliberate invasion of your space or exposure of your innermost vulnerabilities. 

Not like you had much of a choice.

That night, you felt sluggish and slow and heavy, like you had a ton of weight strapped around your neck that kept your hazy eyes locked towards the ceiling, your neck pinned down to the bed. The pain you traditionally associated with being awake and living was replaced by an overwhelming numbness, so much so that it made your body feel cold and still, like a living corpse.

You assumed that your sluggishness was probably due to the drugs in your system. Strade was always pretty sloppy when it came to chemicals.

Not that you could blame him, though. He was more of a hands-on kind of guy, after all.

"Hey, buddy," He said with a slight tilt of his head, a playful lilt to his voice as he peered down, a slow smile spreading on his face as he considered you with a hungry twinkle in his golden eyes. "You doing okay? You were out of it for a while."

"Ngh," You attempted to speak, to make some kind of vocalisation (in either agreement or disagreement, you weren’t quite sure), but your tongue felt as heavy as your head did, loose and lousy behind your teeth, inside your skull.

He chuckled affectionately as he knelt up on the bed, the mattress dipping low underneath his weight (he had packed it on in the last couple of years since things had slowed down on his end of running the streams), pushing a hand through your hair. He wasn't gripping it just yet, he wasn't hurting you (a surprise in its own right), as he gently urged your head forward, your neck straight, and your eyes to meet his.

"Ah, I think I gave you too much sedative." He mused thoughtfully, raising his other hand to gently caress your cheek, his thumb tracing over your parted lips where a thin stream of drool was running down your chin, down your neck. "Whoops. My bad, I guess." He then said with a laugh. “You know me. I’m lousy with anything stronger than chloroform.”

In a moment of uncharacteristic gentleness (maybe he was in an especially good mood tonight), Strade started to kiss your cheek, down your neck, across your collarbone, practically doting on you and making your slack body tremble and shiver.

"I mean, I didn't have to sedate you," He then said with a casual shrug, giving your cheek (a smear of wet still clinging to your skin from his kiss) a few light taps, as if he was trying to wake you up from a deep slumber, wake you from your sluggish fatigue. "That was just me being nice, really. So I think a thank you is well deserved…”

He then brought his face closer to yours for a moment, raising a single brow with a silent question. A quiet reminder of just how dangerous he was capable of being, if he wanted to be.

“Don’t you?” He then said, his voice low.

“Mm,” You hummed, giving your head a little shake as you tried to kick yourself out of your sluggish daze and be as lively as he wanted you to be (and you were getting so tired of being lively). “T…thank you…”

“You’re welcome.”

His smile lines were deeper than they once were, and the corners of his eyes wrinkled and softened handsomely as he smiled, in a way they didn’t when you first met.

He was aging gracefully, he didn’t even have a single grey hair yet, and he had given you the privilege of aging alongside him. You could only guess the number of people who hadn’t been given such a privilege.

“Why did you sedate me?” You then asked, though your words were more of a mumble than anything else, your tongue still heavy behind your teeth.

"Oh, I wanted to do something special.” He replied, his voice a touch softer than usual as his smile softened too. “It’s our big day, after all.” He traced a thick finger along the curve of your jaw, down your neck, tracing the line that he had previously kissed. “I mean, it's kind of like an anniversary, don't you think, fräulein ? Seven years is an awfully long time for two people to be together. We ought to celebrate it."

Together.

He said the word so easily. 

He implied a togetherness, a quasi-relationship that wasn’t built off a sadomasochistic need for fear and pain that was so terrifying and obscure and truly sublime in the most Gothic sense of the word, with such conviction that you were almost certain that he was joking, that he was teasing you.

And you were so easy to tease. You and your wide-eyed hopes, your romantic dreams, your tragically romantic books that depicted darkness and lightness in tandem, your cheesy romcoms that he bought for you and made fun of.

Together.

Were you?

He took a quiet moment to consider you further, his fingertips brushing tenderly over every scar that marred your shoulders, your chest, your barely exposed sternum, every cut, scrape or bruise, with such care and compassion despite him being the cause of the majority of them. 

“I think we’re worth celebrating,” He brought his face close to yours, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of your mouth as his big hands mapped the span of your body as if he was trying to devote it to his memory, like he was afraid of possibly losing it. “ You’re worth celebrating.”

Really, when he spoke like that and touched you with a gentleness he never showed to anyone else ( because you’re special, you’re special, you’re special, that’s why he kept you, that’s why you were still alive ) , it's no wonder that you were keening up against him (the best you could), chasing his mouth with your own, wanting to be so close to him that your bodies merged together.

Loving someone shouldn’t feel like this, you think.

But you don’t want any other kind of love anymore.

Finally, he brought his mouth to yours in a deep kiss, one strong hand cupping your cheek, his grubby nails digging into the soft flesh as the other reached down and dug into your hip, groping and squeezing. When you gasped against his lips, he took the opportunity to press his tongue into your mouth, suffocating and all-consuming, and your eyes rolled back into your skull as you let yourself be so thoroughly invaded. 

If it were possible for him to consume you, wholly, you would have let him, you think.

You knew that impulse came from something fucked up and Freudian, a wanting to be consumed by a man you should have hated but loved so deeply and intimately that it made you want to throw up, but that didn’t stop you from yearning for it. 

You yearned for Strade to devour you with his sharp cannibal teeth , to tear flesh and muscle, to rupture skin and fat, and be devoured himself, in the truest sense of the word, in the unity of shared skin, bones, body, and blood. 

But, because he couldn’t devour you (not in the literal, all-consumptive sense, at least), you, instead, pulled away from the kiss, raised your head, and bit his collar-bone to fill that violent yearning that haunted every dream and waking nightmare, marring his skin with rough indentations and pinpricks of blood welling at the surface of his tan skin.

Strade didn't mind. 

“Ngh, scheiße !” He sucked in a pained hiss through his teeth, though that didn’t stop a dangerous grin from coming to his face as you dug your teeth in even deeper. “Ah…ahhh, little devil, this is how you want to play, ja?”

If anything, the pain made him all the more excited as he growled out his arousal and pressed himself even closer to you with another firm and invasive kiss, his cock hard through his slacks and rubbing against the soft mound of your cunt through your shorts, open and weeping and already begging to be stuffed to the very brim with his cock.

Gasping your own arousal against the deep kiss, your thighs parted with an unspoken invitation as you reached up (with shaking hands, the sedative hadn’t worn off just yet) to yank his shirt open, popped buttons shooting aside, and push it down his shoulders and his arms.

Despite the weight gain, and his general lack of strenuous activity as he had gotten older, Strade’s arms were still strong and well-defined (the strength gained from years of lugging around dead bodies didn’t go away that quickly, it seemed). You allowed yourself an ever-indulgent moment to stroke up and down them, feeling the warmth of his tan skin, the slick of the sweat clinging to him, and reveling that he was alive, he was real, you could touch him.

“So needy,” He teased with another grin, his words whispered against your parted, kiss-bitten lips as your shaking fingers traced over his tattoo, stripe-stripe-arrow (you’d never even asked what it meant). “You’re so desperate for me, fräulein. You never change.”

As he spoke, he reached down to unbuckle his belt and unzip his khakis, idly squeezing and groping his cock through his underwear, a damp spot of pre-cum soaking the thin fabric. Your mouth watered for him (literally, from the way you were still drooling down your chin).

“You don’t want me to change,” You replied, letting your lips trail down his chin and to his jaw, pressing a quick kiss to his scar before kissing down his neck, relishing in the low rumble of pleasure he let out as you did so. He really did like it when you paid attention to him. “Not really.”

“ Ja, that’s true.” He hummed, his free hand reaching down to your left thigh, spanning over the soft flesh and kneading it idly as he continued to grope his cock. “I picked you up exactly how I wanted you to stay forever. Hungry,” He sighed with pleasure, digging a canine into his bottom lip as you teased the bites on his collar bone with your tongue. “Needy, and so eager to please. Ha!” He barked out a gruff laugh, giving your thigh a slap and making your entire body flinch (despite the still-flowing sedative in your blood). “Let’s see if we can keep you like this for seven more years, hm?~”

At the very idea (and kind of promise) that he would be keeping you for at least another seven years, you dig your teeth into him again and again ( and again and again and again) , decorating his soft chest with bloody declarations of ownership (as close as you were going to get to ownership, anyway) and possessive love.

It was clear that that was enough to encourage Strade to take a scarred hip in each hand and effortlessly slide his hard cock inside of you, your loose shorts pushed aside and clinging to your puffy labia, groaning at the ease, the warmth, and the hot, tight heat of your cunt.

A flicker of discomfort came to your face as Strade started to fuck you, but it subsided as quickly as it came as he gradually built up a steady rhythm of shallow thrusts, barely giving you enough stimulation for pleasure (you liked to be teased in that way) and demonstrating only an interest in pleasing himself.

It’s a good pace, you thought as you reached down to circle your erect clit, standing tall and proud, with one hand, making yourself gasp and whimper, and one that Strade had to learn in the seven years since your initial capture. 

He’d been a lousy lay at the beginning, seeking only a warm hole to sink his dick into when he was in the mood (whether it was a consenting hole or not), but since then, since coming to know each other and learning about each other’s bodies (in a way that was wholly consenting, albeit not at all safe or sane), he’d gotten much better.

Biting your lip as pleasure slowly started to build in your core, you took Strade's sweaty face in your free hand, staring up at him intently as he continued to relentlessly fuck you.

His face was uncharacteristically flushed and his eyes, the colour and sticky depth of honey, were hazy, half-lidded and incredibly hungry. His lips were kiss-bitten and parted to let out short breaths of exertion as he kept moving and gradually picking up the pace like a brutal machine, slamming his full hips against yours, his belly straining against the still-clinging buttons of his shirt. 

“ Ich möchte dich verschlingen, ” He panted out, a bead of sweat trickling down his cheek and dripping down on your chest as he fucked you, before he brought his face closer to yours, his teeth bared. “ Meine fleisch, meine liebe~”

His mouth watered to tear you apart with his teeth, because he was only half man, not so much, and the rest fiend .

But he couldn’t do that, not yet, not truly, so he pressed a hungry kiss to your mouth instead, biting your lips and pressing your tongues together in a grotesquely erotic merge of fluids and flesh.

Strade's pounding cock brushed against a tight bundle of nerves deep inside of you, making your entire body, suddenly alive and brimming with energy and burning, aching fire, flinch and tremble. You were instantly compelled to throw your arms around his neck and sink your nails into his back, marring his skin even more with bloody lines and crescent moons dug into his flesh.

“Ah-hah!” Your once hazy eyes shot wide open and bloodshot as a prickling, electric shot of pain shot through your entire body and made your spine arch and bend. “F-Fuck-!”

The sedative had worn off, well and truly, and suddenly, the intense pain of your amputated leg ( your amputated leg, he FUCKING CUT YOUR LEG OFF HEFUCKINGMAIMEDYOUFUCKINGMONSTER) is the only thing you can feel. The deep gash on the bottom of what used to be your knee throbbed and burned, your very bone aching and burning in the meat of your thigh, and you had to dig your teeth into Strade's shoulder to stop yourself from screaming out in pain.

“Oh, there it is. That’s it,” He panted into your ear with a filthy grin, running his tongue over your ear and digging his teeth into your lobe, the same as you did. “Feel it, meine liebe . Feel the pain and remember what I did to you .”

You whimpered helplessly against his shoulder, clutching onto him and wrapping your leg around his full waist, trying desperately hard to ignore the consistent throbbing.

"Do you remember how it tasted?" He then growled into your ear again with a cruel smile, pushing himself as deep as he could inside you, spearing you on his cock and watching intently (his golden eyes wider than you had ever seen them) as you writhed and squirmed beneath him. A pinned-down butterfly with a needle through its middle, an animal skin waiting to be filled, a rabbit thrashing for freedom beneath the jaws of a wolf, foolish enough to consent to their capture. "Remember how you begged to taste yourself on my tongue, meine liebe ? What a sick, little freak you are." 

"Nnoooo-" You whined helplessly as you tipped your head back with a desperate groan, your hips pushed back against his cock as he wrapped a hand around the stump of your leg and pulled you closer to him. "No, no, noooo..."

"Yesss~" He drawled with a mean chuckle, his honey-coloured eyes half-lidded as he used his grip on your thigh to pull you down onto him, as if you were a toy, a doll in his lap. "And you loved it, didn't you? You loved that I cared about you enough about you to eat you, to devour you and hold you inside myself forever...ah, fräulein, what a poor creature you are."

"S-Strade," You gasped, whining out a broken gasp of pain and pleasure, his thick cock filling every inch of you and making you shake and tremble with desperate, yearning want, despite the excruciating pain that was now shooting from your scalp to the very tip of your toes. "Please, please, I can't-"

"It's too much, isn't it?" He cooed softly, as the hand not on your thigh reached up to idly grope your chest, rolling the piercing through your nipple between this thumb and pointer finger, listening to each of your whimpers and whines. "All too much for a sweet, little thing like you to handle.”

All you could do was try to jerk your head away and look somewhere else, the ceiling, the wall, the fucking carpet for all you cared right now-

“Hah, you know, I would have thought you'd built up a bit of an endurance to it after seven years!" He laughed again and pinched your nipple cruelly, tugging at the hoop with a teasing grin when you let out a shrill shriek of pain at the motion. "You always have a way of staying soooo interesting, meine liebe . That's why I like you so much~"

He then dipped his head to indulgently run his tongue over your chest, nipping at the hoop through your nipple and giving it a mean little tug as he continued to relentlessly fuck you.

"That's why I love you."

And for whatever reason, just hearing those words, everything around you fell into place.

You stopped shrieking, and crying and twisting away from him. Even the pain stopped, in the traditional sense, replaced with a burning ricocheting through your trembling body as you stared up at him, like you were staring at an angel, a twisted kind of God, and not the fucking Devil himself.

“Because I do,” He continued, meeting your eyes with his own as he looked down at you. “I do love you. Very much.”

“I love you too,” You gasped out, feeling a cold sweat clinging to your forehead as you reached up to cling onto him, digging your nails into his shoulders like you were scared of being pulled away from him, scared of losing him. “I love you, I love you, I love you-!”

You were tethered, you thought, as you dipped your head and tongued one of the bites you had left behind on Strade's shoulder, like a dog tongued an enemy's lacerated throat, as Strade fucked you deeper, earning more scratches and cuts down his back, not even a modicum of the pain he inflicted on you so easily, so readily.

“This is all for you,” He then murmured softly, his voice low and even gentle sounding as he brought his face closer to yours again, every hard edge of his features softened by the  low light of the setting sun, to the degree that he almost looked as harmless and charming as he did on the very first night you met. 

“So be sure to savour it.” 

You kissed him again, desperately hard like you were a man starving, and in your frenzied haste, you bit down too hard, somehow managing to rupture the thin skin of Strade’s bottom lip, a rivulet of blood suddenly streaming down his chest and staining his mouth, his lips, his teeth.

It was a perfect taste, you thought, as you thrust your own tongue into his mouth, wrapping yourself entirely in him as he pushed his cock even deeper inside of you.

You didn’t like sex before this, not really, at least not in the traditional sense because you had always liked what you and Strade had done together (no matter how grotesque, repulsive of wrong), but you like how inseparable your bodies have become through this erotic unification. 

Is it your own thigh that you’re touching, or is it Strade's? Is it Strade's blood that’s spilling across your tongue or your own? Is Strade's cock inside of you or has it always been there, a part of you?

In the light of the setting sun, sealed away from the eyes of anything normative or traditional, the lines between you and Strade began to blur and were replaced by a mass of writhing, sweaty flesh, and you liked that. 

You preferred being rendered monstrous through your own actions to being deemed monstrous by those who cannot see them.

Because you were a monster, in the truest sense, and he had seen the monster in you and loved you, not despite it but because of it.

Strade kissed you again, fiercely, thrusting so deep inside of you, inside of your pulsing cunt, that you could practically feel it in your lungs (you wondered, for maybe a moment too long, what that would actually feel like, Strade thrusting his cock into your vivisected chest), pressing your chests together, smearing the blood that was still dripping down his chin against your pale skin and tethering your bodies even more.

After a few more short, erratic thrusts, you could feel your core tighten and throb around Strade’s still-thrusting cock, and your entire body trembled and shook from pain, pleasure, and sheer exertion. 

Like a mean form of payback, Strade suddenly bit down on your lower lip (with his sharp cannibal teeth), and a burst of blood coated both your probing, writhing tongues and trickled down your chins, painting your bodies even more so in brutal pleasure. 

With Strade's hands on your hips, grubby, bitten fingernails digging into the soft flesh, your pale skin, he pushed himself even deeper with one final thrust and ejaculated deep inside of you, pushing you, himself, over the line of orgasm and into a world of white-hot, mind melting ecstasy.

Maybe it’s poetic that you came together so often. Romantic. 

The one rendition of romance you had, barring the cannibalism.

You were the first to pull away, nearly collapsing back against the bed and letting out a deep exhale as you run your tongue over your wounded lip, hissing at the sensitivity of it.

What was another wound, though? It paled in comparison to the still burning, throbbing pain of your amputated knee. 

Strade took a moment to indulge in a rare vulnerability, not even trying to detangle himself from you and opting instead to cage you down against the bed underneath his weight, resting his head on your chest and his slowly softening cock, still weeping, pressed to your right thigh. 

He reached up to idly stroke over the lacerations that ran down the center of your sternum, a poor man’s attempt at vivisection when he was feeling particularly ambitious, and you ached for him to push his fingers past those scars and penetrate you even deeper.

You ached for him to devour even more of you, for him to reach into your chest, to pull out bones, flesh, and organs and tear into you, engulfing you completely and carrying you with him always, no matter what he did to you.

That way, you would always win//

"I left your prosthetic downstairs," He murmured softly after a long moment of comfortable silence, before he sat up on the edge of the bed and pressed a quick kiss to your temple, nestling his face against your soft hair (longer than it had been when you first met). "How is it feeling? Still painful?"

"Y-Yeah…it hurts," You said with a soft hiss as he ran his fingers over your gash, your body trembling a little at the pain but trying hard not to flinch or cringe away. You could endure it. "Can I have another dose?" 

"Hm?" He hummed a non-verbal question, his voice an ever-playful lilt as a teasing smile spread on his face. "You want another dose of sedative, is that it?"

"Please," You pleaded softly, keening into his touch, your cheek pressed into his palm. “For our special day?”

"Mm, I'll think about it," He chuckled, pressing a kiss to your other cheek as he idly pushed his fingers into your hair, petting you like a dog, a cat, or an animal in his bed. "I'll go get your prosthetic for now.” He fished in his pocket for a moment and took out his phone, checking the time with a swipe of his finger. “I think Ren should be finishing up on the stream by now, so we can have a late dinner together to celebrate. Okay?"

You couldn’t think of a reason to try and argue against him.

"Okay." You nodded and smiled the best you could, despite the pain, leaning up to chase after a kiss as he stood to his feet, buckling his belt and buttoning up the (remaining) buttons of his shirt.

He gave the kiss to you readily, reaching forward and cupping your face gently with his free hand, his thumb tracing over your chin, and your bottom lip as he pulled you into a soft, close kiss.  

Just as he gave his love to you readily now.

“ Meine liebe, ” He whispered softly against your lips between kisses, his eyes deeply fond as he stroked his thumb up and down your cheek. “You’re mine, sweet thing. Mine to kiss and to fuck and to devour, and to love, however I want . Remember that.”

“I’m yours,” You whispered in a reply, pressing your own kiss to his smiling lips. “Always.”

Strade didn’t say another thing. He didn’t need to when he smiled so proudly and kissed your cheek, running his fingers through your hair for an indulgent moment of softness before he stood to his feet and left you in the bedroom, idly shouting for Ren as he paced down the stairs.

You fell back against the bed with an exhausted huff, your body a mess and your lip, your neck, your shoulders, and your leg throbbing in pain.

Loving someone shouldn’t feel like this, you thought, as you looked down where your leg used to be, the dark gash marring the tattooed skin of your right thigh, a cruel reminder of his ownership over you.

But he was right. It was the perfect kind of romance for the two of you to share.

A perfect romance and a perfect meal.

Loving someone shouldn’t feel like this.

But you didn’t want any other kind of love anymore.

Not ever again.

[notsodaily-mother]

what is your history with the mother series

well my First exposure to the mother series was ssbb (as was many peoples, lol), but only to the extent of like "man who's this sad kid?? also this music (porky's theme) slaps"

i first actually Played the games in 2020!! (mother 3 first, then mother 1, then earthbound. weird order, i know lol) really enjoyed them, got a bit into the fandom, did some fanart that is now OLD and CRUSTY because i was 16, then kinda fell out of interest. very briefly came back in 2021 before losing interest again

and then earlier this year i had the mother 3 OST stuck in my head so i replayed it and Christ the brainrot hit HARD. and because i've grown as an artist (and i'm not As shy as i used to be) i felt comfortable enough to post fanart semiregularly and actually interact with other fans!! so i made the pkmoth sideblog!!

as for This blog, i thought it would be cool and fun to do either an askblog or a daily(ish) art blog. i couldn't decide on what type of askblog i'd wanna make, and i was inspired by the various daily masked man blogs but didn't wanna limit myself to just one character lol. so, mother-series-in-general it was!! and "not so daily" instead of daily as a bit of a cushion for if i miss a day or burn out :)

the rest is history! i have brain worms :D

[hjemne]

Ilsa, I’ve seen you posting a lot of Trigun and well I’m intrigued by it, to say the least. But just for giggles, would you try to convince me why should I watch it? 😆🤚🏻

AHHHHH!

I didn't think Trigun was going to worm its way into my brain so much but here we are. There is so much to love about it and I adore so many of the characters for a billion different ways. The character type of someone who is made into a killing machine and then is slowly convinced to accept love and forgiveness is my favourite and is all over trigun. So many characters see themselves as monstrous but choose to do what they see as right for the sake of / with the help of their friends. There are moments of silliness and of tragedy, all with an incredibly interesting setting which slowly gets revealed.

Because of the recent release of Trigun Stampede, the community is really active rn (esp on Tumblr!) and it's really cool to see so many incredible fanarts, comics, fanfics and discussions being made. It's very fun to be part of a very active fandom, but also one that is 25 years old and has fanworks that are older than I am.

I really love it, and I would recommend it, but unfortunately I also have some caveats which I gotta mention.

What you gotta know before getting into Trigun is that there are 4 different canon versions and each one has its problems. I wish I could recommend X version as the definitive and best, but that just doesn't exist which is very annoying.

1) Trigun Maximum: the manga

Good: incredible nuances to characters like Wolfwood, Knives, Livio/Razlo. Vashwood subtext is off the charts and their dynamic is incredibly fascinating and central. This is the most detailed and complex story of Trigun and has lots of themes, characters and plot points that don't exist in other versions. Has elements of sexism and sexual violence, but (imo) to show how shitty the world is, rather than to revel in the misogyny. The tone is tragic, with equal mix of hope and pain.

Bad: the female characters of Meryl and Milly get massively sidelined in comparison to their depictions elsewhere. It's a very long manga and has (imo) pacing issues that limit the impact of emotional moments. The art style is beautiful, but notoriously difficult to follow, especially in the many long fight scenes (particularly bad in volume 5). There's lots of disagreement about 'correct' translations and it can be hard to tell which character is doing/saying/thinking what at points which can make it confusing and frustrating to read at times.

Overall: 7/10, I would recommend but maybe not as your first bit of exposure to Trugun

2) 1998 anime Trigun

Good: the silliest of Triguns with some great voice acting. The friendships between Vash, Milly, Meryl and Wolfwood are very sweet and engaging (although it would have been nice to see more of the four of them together). It's a fun overview of the Trigun story and has a very entertaining mix of comedy and serious emotional moments. Lots of hijinks and lots of fights. Milly and Meryl are core characters and get time to shine (it is impossible not to love Milly). This is personal preference but the animation style is kinda goofy in the way it changes styles to exaggerate characters' feelings which I love. The first 12 ISH episodes are very Saturday morning cartoon vibes without being too inane and childish.

Bad: because it only had the first couple of volumes of the manga to adapt from, the mid-season tone shift and later fights feel rushed, a little confusing and ultimately lead to a less satisfying conclusion than in trimax. The misogyny is noticeable, especially in the first couple of episodes, though is limited to a couple of comments in some episodes and doesn't (I think) make it unwatchable. The antagonists are rushed through and it's hard to work out who the 'main' villain is. Tone change is quite abrupt. Wolfwood is a less developed character with a less intense (back)story, Livio/Razlo doesn't exist at all etc

Overall: 7/10, this is what I'd recommend you start with. It has pacing issues and uncomfortable sexist comments, but I think they're outweighed by the strengths of the main casts relationships and the pure entertainment value of it. Not the most satisfying ending, but they were constrained so :/

3) Badlands Rumble (film)

Good: animation is SO crisp. Wolfwood is at maximum chest exposure and actually his character is pretty interesting here. Milly and Meryl are back, but in limited roles. Some interesting world building and Vash and Wolfwood go thru their divorce arc TM which is dumb and funny and angsty.

Bad: Wolfwood is far too pale. The first half an hour is made almost unwatchable by the decision to make sexism and sexual harrassement a way to pad out the runtime. Vash is such a creep it just makes for uncomfortable watching.

4/10 don't watch if you're not already invested, and honestly do yourself a favour by watching the opening scene, then skipping to the 30 min ish mark and watch knowing that Vash has some very tough dried meat in his front coat pocket.

4) Trigun Stampede anime

Good: really cool 3D animation and music. Has Wolfwood's manga backstory and some manga characters like Livio and Crimsonnail, but with very different characterisations. I really liked the episode looking at the childhood of two orphans and how their love for each other was manipulated against them both. Much bigger focus on Knives than the original and more elaboration of his motivations and plans. Zazie is SO much better here than in the original anime. No uncomfortable sexism yay!

Bad: I... don't like tristamp very much. The characters are watered down from their manga versions and Knives is just kinda evil because he was en evil child, rather than the much more nuanced version in trimax. Milly doesn't exist (yet) and they added in a new character Roberto whose role in the story is (or at least was to me) obvious if you know the basics of the hero's journey structure. Everyone has been twinkified and Wolfwood doesn't even have his tits out smh. Vash just comes across as having less agency and his motivations feel weak. I really just dont like a lot of the character decision here BUT to be fair, that's because I'm comparing them to the manga. But also, a main plot point is someone taking over his brother's body so that his sisters can get pregnant and it definitely still feels weird in context. The focus on the two brothers makes other dynamics a little weaker, and has led to a lot of incest-y fandom things which is ehh.

5.5/10 there are some things it does very well and it's very popular for a reason but I personally think the characterisations are disappointing. It's trying to strike a weird balance between being its own, new thing and also nostalgia for original elements, leading to some questionable pacing and plot choices. It doesn't even have Midvalley the Hornfreak.

I would love to be able to talk about Trigun with you and be passionate about the elements of it I love, but also I don't want to recommend it without giving you a fair picture of the parts I'm more critical about. I genuinely love the world building and characters, which are expressed best in the less accessible form of the manga but are also found in the animes. What I'd recommend is watching the original anime first, but also you might need to give it the benefit of the doubt for the first couple episodes which is where the dodgy 90s sexism is most obvious. I'd be super interested in hearing your thoughts and reactions to it if you did watch it, and also please bear in mind that my complaints about tristamp are personal and there are many who love that version so don't take my negativity as fact.