#ultimately these are just made-up characters | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dearmyloveleys · 1 day ago

Text

RE: the absolute fascination (and adoration) I have with the symbolism of Zhu Yan's and Li Lun's weapons, how it reveals their respective characterisations and the discussion of humanity

There are so many aspects that I love about FoF but I still believe how the show represents LiYan's relationship + worldview through their weapons is one of the best uses of visual storytelling and literary/visual devices I have seen in recent years. (long text ahead!)

A Gift and A Curse

Where did their complications start? The exchange of gifts. Why do we gift another presents? For affection. It's so ironically simple, free of malice and at its basis so, so human. For a demon like Li Lun who claims to not understand humans, he reciprocates the moment of kindness Zhu Yan shows him - the rattle to make him happy, and him giving Zhu Yan the umbrella to shelter him from rain.

There is something so beautifully ironic about two great demons eventually using ordinary, human household objects as their weapons. And items given to each other at that. When they first receive them, both the umbrella and rattle are just simple objects with no meaning attached to it, except for the goodwill of friendship. There is no inherent ill-intention and it is pure. Yet.

Li Lun ultimately only understands reciprocation, and not truly the innate kindness and affection which Zhu Yan demonstrates. Zhu Yan gave Li Lun the rattle to have him understand why he finds humans wonderful: Can any of our demonic powers have the ability to make someone happy just like this rattle does for a child? Li Lun gives Zhu Yan the umbrella because Zhu Yan gave him the rattle and made him happy. Li Lun understands the action, and does not grapple with its underlying intentions. He consistently struggles with this throughout the story, especially when actions do not match up with the speaker's reasonings.

Dissonance in character is an extremely human trait, and the understanding of this is where Zhu Yan and Li Lun’s stories and similarities diverge. Zhu Yan on one hand, understands the complexity of humans and is at terms with it. Li Lun on the other hand, never understands the ability to be complex and paints humanity black. Their gifts are still turned into weapons that will eternally curse them of their once-there closeness, because of each other and their inability to reconcile their ideologies. How they use the umbrella and rattle from here on, represents their differences in their views of humanity.

Double Edged

When watching any fantasy/wuxia/xianxia cdrama, everyone who is written as a fighter usually has an offensive weapon used and made for injuring and killing. But not when it comes to Zhu Yan and Li Lun - they are two individuals who will certainly be masters in weaponry if they wielded a sword or blade. But they don’t.

In the Wilderness, from what we see, none of the demons use weapons. Even Cheng Huang uses an hourglass. Both Li Lun and Zhu Yan do not own any weapons before gifting each other the rattle and umbrella, and these aren’t even supposed to be used as weapons. There is such an underlying innocence to demons that instead of choosing a blade to take as a weapon, they choose these essentially harmless items instead. Though, this innocence ends here. The concept of weapons is a human creation. The concept of making an item specifically just to harm others is an especially human conception. By adopting the identity of weapons onto their gifts, the multifaceted nature of weaponry and thereby humanity seeps into their characters. Weaponry is both ironically and ironically human, and their weapons represent both sides of human nature that Zhu Yan and Li Lun believe in.

A weapon is only causes harm in one's hands if you make command it to. Do you protect or do you do harm with it? I find it so telling and intriguing that Zhu Yan and Li Lun run off in either directions with the purposes of a weapon. Zhuyan has always been fascinated by the human world versus Lilun having apathetic views of the human world, and they reflect this in how they use their weapons.

Zhu Yan uses his umbrella to always shield his team, protect and deflect harm, while the harm he inflicts on others comes from his innate spiritual energy (one word spells). He protects this simple umbrella and preserves its goodness, indirectly making sure to not sully the goodness of humanity. Instead, he chooses to use himself as the offensive weapon. On the other hand, Li Lun turns his rattle into an offensive weapon, changing its tip into a dagger. Before it is destroyed, all his attacks are summoned from strikes against the rattle. He doesn’t care, and humanity is trash, therefore he treats this object of innocence with irreverence and violence.

Though, there still is Li Lun’s favourite question: Is it better to be a demon or human? He chooses human. Which at the very least, is interesting.

Who You Wish To Be

The thematic concern of LiYan's relationship is very much defined by this question they often pose or have been asked by others: Is being a human or a demon better?

On an even deeper level, the juxtaposition between Li Lun's use of the rattle and what he says, being a human is better, is even more encompassing of his character — driven, conflicted obsession. The same way he keeps trying to break Zhuo Yichen and Zhuyan, but manages to maintain somehow civil and emotional conversations with them, his treatment of his rattle but the fact he thinks being human is better, and his one-time statement “maybe the human world is interesting after all” are contradictory. He is never at peace with himself and cannot accept things the way they are. He is very much a child, misguided and believing that things are one-dimensional (all humans are bad, Zhuyan how could you hurt me for them) while things in reality are complex. Even his best intentions, from his line “I, Li Lun, will never run away from things (…)” is innocently one dimensional. He will never be the human he wants to be until he comes to terms with this. And most importantly, it's not even about being human. It's never about titles or names, it's about who he wants to be. Li Lun once again is fixated on surface levels that he doesn't grasp the depth of reality.

"Whether one is a human or demon, it's only a matter of titles. Just be whoever you want to be." - Zhu Yan, Ep 26.

Zhu Yan is the stellar opposite of Li Lun. He doesn’t sully Li Lun’s gift to him and uses it the way Lilun initially gave it to him for: to protect. And his answer to the Demon or Human question as written above is telling of his character, compared to Li Lun's set-in-stone answer. But despite everything, what makes everything so tragic is what started it in the first place: affection. One keeps that affection as a weapon to spread the same to others, while the other keeps and weaponises that affection to regain it all back.

Just like how he uses his rattle to relentlessly pursue revenge, Li Lun is so insistent on what should have been, that he doesn't see what can be, and it curses him. Zhu Yan sees the possibilities of everything, wants to protect the good, and it curses him. Perhaps its this inevitability of their separation and also the sliver of hope that they can reconcile, trapped in their shared respective curses, that troubles them deep down.

Their weapons symbolise both their ideologies, and serve as physical reminders of their intertwined past. Regardless of how they use their weapons, they use a reminder of the other as defense and offense against the world. A diverged path still has met once before. The sharpest blade is still one crafted from the torment of memory.

On Visual Story-Telling

The use of these unusual objects in c-drama land as weapons is such a stroke of genius on the production team and writers' part. It gives so much more flavour and uniqueness to these characters instead of the usual sword or spear. Such small, precise, details with large implications on characterisation.

#fangs of fortune #大梦归离 #the use of these props make my visual design #+ author heart so happy #the team rlly cooked #yes im calling them liyan #i havent checked ao3 for the ship name #liyan is a nice name #the most tragic aspect is that lilun is misguided and blinded #he is more an antagonist than villain #he doesn't want the end of the world #he wants zhuyan back #literally a fucking kid #this is turning into a lilun apologist blog

65 notes · View notes

paraphwrites · 24 hours ago

Text

@carpediemma made a poll post about which characters would be who in an alice in wonderland au and none of the one's winning are the ones i want so i will now be justifying my thesis

alice - niko. above all else, alice must be curious and kind. she is also afraid, a lot, because she's in a wild new world - very similar of how niko is scared and in a new world (both ghost/supernatural, america, and a world without her father)

white rabbit - edwin. polite yet preoccupied, punctual yet anxious, obsessive yet unpredictable, always dressed smart... the similarities go on. and while i think some of their actions might not align entirely, i think there is a case to be made for edwin shewing someone along, insisting it must be done his own way

mad hatter - charles. playful, defiant to social norms, bit of an eccentric dress style! though charles is a bit less over the top, i feel that in the right environment, he could go totally mad. hatter has a lot of fun but there is this hint of despair to him which to me, entirely emulates charles

the dormouse - jenny. tired, confused, and underpaid, next question

the march hare - maxine. unpredictable, bizarre, reckless, excitable. not a huge character so not too much to go from but i see some loose similarities in the erratic nature - it's not that they're evil, it's that they're so invested in existence that they might stab you

please do not think of the implications of shipping the dormouse and the march hair i will not be held responsible for that

tweedledee and tweedledum - litty and kingham. petty?? childish?? looks similar??? guys come ON there is no more iconic duo in dbda! they're not very kind, they're not anti violence, they love attention- am i talking about the tweedles, or litty and kingham? you literally can't tell.

the caterpillar - tragic mick. appears when alice is uncertain and needs help, prompts her to reflect on her own identity. not particularly nice but is very helpful and kind, in his own way. calm, almost cryptic, slow manner of speech.

cheshire cat - the cat king. im not gonna explain this one

ok guys bare with me for the next two. they're kinda controversial. i could see them flipped and i did flip them many times but this is what i decided on

the duchess - esther. the duchess is abusive to her child (monty), but can be overly affectionate, as well. duchess is hella comedic in a dark way, she's got a fucked up relationship with power (duchess is a slave to the Queen, esther is a slave to the Snake), she's absurdly contradictory (like esther and her contradiction of wronging girls using lilith's gift)

the queen of hearts - the night nurse. the queen cannot see a way of life other than executions. i know she SEEMS hella emotional, but legit, i think it's more this desperate desire for feelings and sensations because she is so stuck in a loop of being listened to. the night nurse is similarly stuck in this loop of bureaucracy. neither are happy and neither have any true meaning to their lives. they both also seem to lack a nuance to empathy (nurse thinking ends justify the means so no need to feel guilty about the means, almost viewing finding the boys as a game in order to feel SOMETHING). neither would not survive a day in therapy

the king of hearts - kashi. foil to the queen of hearts, very minor character. gentle, soft spoken, trying his best, exists more in his own universe than anywhere else. the key difference is if they went to therapy, kashi's therapist would end up getting therapied, and king would just break down sobbing

the knave of hearts - monty. while if esther was the queen, maybe this would be more apt, but this is my analysis so i'll do what i want. the knave is a victim of absurd injustice, is somewhat sympathetic but ultimately a perpetuater of this same system. monty does the same thing with esther & her abuse. he is also young and handsome which, we've all seen joshua colley, i don't need to explain

the talking rose - crystal (with/pre-david.) haughty, mean, cruel, flirtatious. she's not a villain but she's definitely not on your side. she's critical, both of your looks, personality, and general vibe. but she's also just one of the many flowers, kind of how crystal was just one of the rich kids, not really doing all that much

in this version, i'd have when the flower's roots are freed be the same energy as the boy's getting rid of david. moment of self-transformation, free from curse. i will probably make a follow up post on how i'd do the plot, but i wanted to throw that bit on david out there.

#yes i KNOW i combined alice in wonderland & looking glass characters fight me #dead boy detectives #alice in wonderland #edwin payne #charles rowland #crystal palace #niko sasaki #the cat king #jenny the butcher

38 notes · View notes

starsneverdiewritings · 2 days ago

Text

Versace On The Floor - A Hwang Hyunjin Fanfic

✪ Genre: Fluff, Smut, Vampire AU ✪ Warnings: Oral Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Reader is Female ✪ Characters: Hwang Hyunjin (Stray Kids), Original Female Character, First-person POV ✪ Word Count: 6.9k

“I thought I was a fool for no one, oh baby, I'm a fool for you” - Supermassive Black Hole, Muse

It starts with a gift. It ends with a secret. Hyunjin reveals himself to you at the annual party at your mansion. What you learn will shock you, in the best way.

A present. That’s all it was. A gift from your secret admirer. Who was this? You had no clue. It could be any of your close friends and while you had a hunch about where the random and, well, expensive gifts were from, you didn’t have any concrete evidence on who was buying you these things.

It started when a replacement bottle of your Gucci perfume showed up on your vanity conveniently just as you were about to run out of your original bottle. It’s not like you couldn’t buy another one, but finding it there was so… odd. You had asked all of your friends if they had left a bottle at your place, but each responded that they didn’t wear that scent or brand. Then, it was a pair of earrings you had been eyeing for a few weeks online. Instead of pulling the trigger on the Louis Vuitton website and just ordering them, you had been going back and forth about whether you really needed another pair. After a week of debating, you woke up to them on your bedside table. While it had scared you that someone had been in your room while you were sleeping, you ultimately figured that it had to be one of your male friends. They all came and went as they pleased, the house big enough, and lonely enough, that you welcomed their company. Some days you would wake up and walk down the hallway towards the smell of breakfast being made. On other days, you would find one (or three) of them sprawled out on the couch sleeping off a hangover.

Today’s gift was by far your favorite. You walked into your room from your shower to find a light blue evening gown hanging from the display section of your wardrobe, the black dress you had already laid out returned to its original spot in your closet. The note under it read ‘Wear Me’ in a messy script. You silently cursed the fact that you had, one, never seen any of your male friends’ handwriting, and, two, couldn’t get a lead on who the hell was leaving you these gifts. At any rate, you were never one to let a good dress go to waste. You ran the material between your fingers, inspecting the dress carefully. That’s when you noticed it. There, holding the strap on the right shoulder together was a silver emblem. You stepped closer, your mouth dropping in surprise when you recognized the design.

Who the fuck bought you a Versace dress?

Your mind spiraled. It wasn’t like you didn’t have nice dresses, but this, this was too much. You had to find out who was leaving you these gifts. The party tonight would be an opportunity to grill every male friend you had. You sat down at your vanity and planned out how you were going to get to the bottom of this. The party was a tradition, something you had grown up knowing. The family estate hosted it annually and people from all across the world would come. When you were seven, you met a girl at the party. Her name was Leena and she told you she was from Russia. You spent all night with her, but in the morning she was gone. You remembered crying to your mother about missing your friend and your mother explaining to you that she had to go home. Now that you had grown, you didn’t make new friends at the party despite all of the attendees being your age. When you were about sixteen, you started to notice that anyone over twenty-five stopped coming to the party and there was no one younger than you there. When you asked one of the staff about it, they gave you a small smile and said that everyone else was busy. Not questioning the circumstances anymore, you threw yourself into the party every year since then, getting effectively wasted with your group of male friends while everyone else looked on in disgust. A week after the party when you were seventeen, some of your female friends mentioned that the way you acted was “not lady-like” and that they “had been raised to present themselves correctly”. You couldn’t have given less of a shit and you told them so. Just because it was a fancy party with a bunch of rich men meant you couldn’t enjoy yourself? Fuck that. Since then, your female friendships had turned into seeing each other once a year. A week after the party when you were eighteen, your parents bought a château in the south of France and left you at the estate. You weren’t upset. You were overjoyed to have your friends over all the time and do whatever you wanted; it’s not like you couldn’t afford to do anything you wanted to do anyway. That was two years ago and now, being twenty, you were jittery with excitement about the party.

Last year, there were a few questions from staff about how you wanted the party run, but being left in charge with no guidance or plan, you instructed them to do what they had done the previous year. Some glances of confusion were thrown your way, but you shrugged them off just wanting there to be enough alcohol at the party for you and your friends. This year, however, you had made a plan and sat down with all of the staff members weeks ahead of the party. You had a list of requests and items you wanted for the party to run smoothly. At the end of the meeting, the staff seemed more comfortable and relaxed about how things would go, seemingly used to more outrageous requests than a simple “just reuse what we had last year”. This year would be a party that would be talked about for ages, you just knew it.

Finishing your makeup, a knock came from your door.

“Come in.”

The door slowly opened revealing a staff member, Analise, poking her head into the room.

“They are almost ready for you.”

You smiled at her.

“Thank you, I’ll be right there.”

She nodded and closed the door.

Standing, you made your way back to the wardrobe. Taking the dress off of the hanger, you stepped into it and slid it on. It hugged your hips perfectly. Everything from the sizing to the straps was perfect; the color complimenting your complexion, the fabric silky smooth against your skin, the bunching of material on the side draped perfectly, and a slit cut up your right thigh. Looking into the mirror, you smiled, satisfied with your outfit. You left your room, your silver heels clicking on the marble of the hallway. You made your way to the balcony overlooking the sprawling estate lined with gravel pathways, illuminated statues, and grandiose fountains. Various guests wandered about, but they all came to a halt the moment you appeared. You took a deep breath.

“Thank you for coming, everyone. We hope you have an amazing night. Enjoy!”

The crowd erupted in applause. You smiled, knowing that it didn’t matter what you said because they would clap anyway. You could have told them all to go fuck themselves and they would have cheered, already too stoned or tipsy to process what you were saying. You left the balcony and made your way down to the ballroom. You walked past people mingling, knowing that the calm vibe that was present wouldn’t last. The longer the party went on, the more rowdy everyone got. Due to this, you had instructed staff to keep only the ballroom open to guests; everything else in the house was closed. You walked out of the large double doors through the courtyard to the grounds. The place was packed, people sat in the grass talking and drinking, chased each other between statues, and stood next to the fountains. It wasn’t long before someone would be in one. You approached one of the open bars and ordered a drink.

“Wow, starting off strong this year, are we?”

A voice close to your ear spoke.

You whipped around to find Chan, Changbin, and Hyunjin dressed in matching black suits. Chan, the owner of the voice that had almost given you a heart attack, smiled wide. He held a glass of honey-colored liquid. To his left, Changbin stared down the neck of his beer bottle. Lastly, Hyunjin was looking everywhere but you, hands stuffed in his pockets and eyes towards the night sky. It wasn’t a quiet fact between you and Chan that you had a raging, uncontrollable crush on Hyunjin. The three of them had become your best friends over the past couple of years. Since your parents left, you sought solace and comfort in others, hating being alone in the large house. You and Chan, however, had grown closest, telling each other everything. The three of them were also the usual suspects when it came to getting the party rowdy, Chan acting as the ringleader as he threw back shot after shot.

“I figured if I’m going to catch up to where you are, I’ll have to start on the right foot.”

Chan smiled.

“Well, let’s get going then, yeah?”

You turned toward the bar, collecting your drink from the bartender.

“Let’s.”

You responded as you raised the glass towards him.

About an hour later, you were decently buzzed and not planning on stopping any time soon. As you suspected, people had gotten more comfortable and, therefore, more drunk. You figured in about an hour from now, Chan would be tossing Changbin in a fountain while Hyunjin scoffed. The instance was synonymous with the party at this point, tradition. The four of you had found your way back to one of the open bars, Chan ordering everyone multiple rounds of shots. Then, Hyunjin suggested getting away from the crowds so you found yourself walking next to him on a gravel path, Chan and Changbin stumbling behind the two of you while playfully shoving each other. The night air wrapped around your bare shoulders, causing you to shiver. Hyunjin noticed and paused to take off his suit jacket, revealing a black silk dress shirt tucked into his slacks accentuating his waist.

“What are you…”

“Just take it.”

He pulled the jacket around your shoulders.

“Thanks.”

You continued walking, following the path and beginning to loop back towards the party. For the next few seconds, it was silent aside from the muffled chatter of party guests and the music from the ballroom that filtered out of the doors and reached your ears. Then, a voice to your left, barely above a whisper cut through the night.

“Medusa ‘95. Looks good on you.”

You stopped dead in your tracks, not being able to process what he was talking about. Then you realized it. The dress.

“How did you-”

Hyunjin smirked. Your eyes widened. Your mind sobered as the realization hit you like a truck.

“You!”

Chan and Changbin had caught up with you and began to snicker behind you.

“It was you! Hwang Hyunjin, have you been leaving me all these expensive gifts?”

“Who else did you think it was?”

A slight smirk spread across his face. You raised your arm, and suddenly, Chan was at your side, holding your wrist.

“Now, now, let’s not beat poor, lovesick Hyunjin over here to death.”

Just when you thought the moment couldn’t get any more surprising, the word ‘lovesick’ registered in your brain.

“What- lovesick?”

You looked between the three of them, Chan and Changbin trying to suppress smiles while a violent blush spread from the tips of Hyunjin’s ears down his neck.

“Just forget it, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

He turned towards the house and began to walk away.

“Hyunjin, wait!”

You called after him. You turned to Chan and Changbin.

“Nice guys. Thanks, for that.”

Their faces dropped.

“Wait, we didn’t mean-”

“Save it.”

You turned away from them and chased after Hyunjin. You could see him in front of you, the blonde not slowing his pace. You called after him again.

“Hyunjin, come back! Hyunjin! Hwang Hyunjin stop walking away from me!”

That got his attention. He paused, not turning towards you but not walking further away either. After struggling to walk fast on the gravel in your heels, you came up to him and spun to stand in front of him with your back to the house.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bought you all that stuff. I was just-”

“Hyunjin.”

You cut him off. He fell silent, his eyes once again anywhere but you.

“Don’t apologize, I love the gifts. I’m just curious about how you, one, knew what to get me, and, two, got them into my room.”

His eyes flicked to yours and held them there.

“Magic.”

You scoffed playfully.

“Mmm, okay. Whatever you say, Mr. Magician.”

Hyunjin turned his head, noticing that Chan and Changbin had started walking towards you again even though they were quite a ways away.

“Do you want to go somewhere a bit quieter?”

He asked, his head still turned.

You nodded, your mouth suddenly dry at the thought of being alone with Hyunjin.

“Ye- yeah. Sure, whatever you want.”

He turned back to you, extending his arm for you to hold. Under the fabric of his shirt, his skin was noticeably cool. You chalked it up to the night air and his lack of a jacket. He led you up the gravel path, back to the courtyard, around the fountain in the middle, and out the gate to the back of the house. He was silent as you walked arm-in-arm. Your senses were heightened, something inside of you screaming ‘DANGER!’. You pushed the thought away, knowing Hyunjin would be the last person to put you in danger. The path you took around the side to the back of the house was dimly lit, the only light guiding your way leaking out of the ballroom windows. Hyunjin, however, acted as if he knew the place like the back of his hand. You could see his dark eyes scanning the shadows, seeing things you couldn’t. Suddenly, he paused. You tore your eyes away from his face to the metal gates in front of you.

‘Why did he come here?’

Hyunjin took a deep breath and walked forward. Your arms unlinked, leaving you standing in front of the gates while he pushed one open.

“Coming?”

You blinked and nodded.

Following him in, you pulled his jacket tighter around your shoulders. Moonlight illuminated the graveyard and Hyunjin’s skin shone. You stood at the entrance and watched as he walked deeper into the graveyard, his head hung low and fingertips brushing the top of each headstone he passed. He paused in the middle and turned back towards you. The graveyard was small with high block walls covered in ivy surrounding it, but it looked so different here in the dark. It looked bigger, scarier.

“Hey. Come here.”

Hyunjin spoke, his low tone sending shivers down your back. If anyone else had been with you or you had been closer to the party, you wouldn’t have heard him. Now, though, you walk towards him with your eyes locked on his. Once close enough, he reached out, arms circled your waist and pulled your body flush with his. Your breath caught in your throat and your hands held his shoulders, stabilizing yourself. He looked deep into your eyes, searching for something.

“Never in a million years did I think I’d be here with you.”

You blinked. What the hell?

“What do you mean?”

He scoffed.

“Oh, come on. After playing hard to get for so long? Now I’m the one who can finally have you.”

Your mind spun. What the fuck was he talking about?

He noticed the confused look on your face and pulled back a bit. He didn’t completely detach from where his hands were around your waist, but he put space between the two of you. You suddenly wished he didn’t.

“Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

You shook your head and he sighed.

“Do you even know why we do this every year?”

Another shake ‘no’ elicited another sigh.

“Well, then I guess I have to be the one to tell you. Shit, okay, umm… You know what? We should sit, come on.”

You felt so lost. What did he have to tell you? Why did he think you needed to sit down? You had always thought of the party as just a time to fuck around with your friends. Now, you were wondering what the real reason was. He led you to a bench against one of the walls and gestured for you to sit down. He stayed standing, beginning to pace in front of you. After a few minutes of him wringing his hands and pacing back and forth, you got fed up.

“Hyunjin, will you just spit it out already?”

He paused in front of you and exhaled.

“Okay. Uh, okay. So, you know we have this party every year, right?”

You nodded.

“Great. Your family has been notorious for having daughters, so about three hundred years ago the first party was advertised as ‘bring your sons to marry our daughter and be welcomed into our rich family’. Some people heard that and ran with it. Poor people came from all over in search of riches while another group of people came looking for protection. The first daughter chose a duke after a couple of years of having the annual party. When she took over the estate, she decided to just keep the parties going. She was hoping other people would be able to find love at one of the parties like she had. The people who had come to the first party looking for protection kept coming back. After years of being outsiders in society, these parties helped integrate them back. Anyways, ever since your parents brought you to that first party, these people have been trying to get you to fall in love with them. Think about it, how many people have come up to you at these pastries trying to make a move on you?”

You thought about it. There had been a lot of people, guys specifically, who had come up and tried to charm you. You, however, were so wasted at every party recently that you couldn’t recall any of their faces or what they had said. All you could remember was being irritated that someone was in between you and the next round of shots.

“I guess guys have come up to me, but I never really paid attention.”

Hyunjin nodded.

“That’s what I thought.”

“How do you know all of this?”

You knew the story of the parties, having been told by your mother growing up, but how did he? Hyunjin blew out a breath, seemingly debating if he should answer the question honestly.

“I was at the first party.”

You laughed.

“So, we’ve known each other since I was seven and only recently became friends?”

Hyunjin shook his head.

You stopped laughing.

“No, I mean I was at the first party.”

You refused to process what he said.

“Hyunjin, that was three hundred years ago. How…”

He sat down next to you, taking your hand in his.

“I think it’s important that you understand where I’m from. When I’m from.”

You were suddenly very aware of how close he was and how plush his lips looked. Everything about him made your brain fuzzy, pulling you in. He pulled back, a frown forming on your face.

“Baby, focus.”

You blinked, trying to clear your mind enough to listen to what he was saying.

“I was born six hundred years ago. I age ten years every three hundred. Do you understand?”

You refused to believe him. There was no way. All of the years you had spent infatuated with stories like this never prepared you for it to be true.

“So you’re… not human?”

He smiled and dropped his head. His shoulders shook with silent laughter. He raised his head again and looked you squarely in the eyes.

“No, no I’m not. There’s a term for what I am, but I don’t know if you’ll like it.”

“Well, I’m very obviously accepting of the fact that you’re not human and I don’t feel like you’re going to eat or attack me, so give it to me. What are you?”

His eyes sparkled with something you couldn’t place your finger on.

“I’m a vampire.”

You knew it. Your brain had concluded it some time ago when he had begun talking. It had all added up, the heightened senses, knowing his way around the property, refusing to take as many shots as you. Still, the confession made your blood run cold and your breathing stop. His voice cut through your brain's initial panic.

“Does that scare you?”

“No. If you wanted to do something to me, you would have already. We’re alone in a graveyard for fuck’s sake.”

He smiled.

“Good answer. That’s going to make this a lot easier for me.”

Before you could ask what he meant, he leaned in and touched his lips to yours. You smiled into the kiss, happy to have confirmation that his lips were as soft as they looked. His hand came up to cradle your face and you leaned in, resting a hand on his thigh. You scoffed internally at the fact that he thought his confession would scare you. If anything, it made you more attracted to him. There was an underlying sense of danger that heightened your senses and made kissing him feel like touching a live wire. Goosebumps ran from the top of your scalp down your arms and legs, making you shiver. Hyunjin pulled back.

“We should get you out of the cold.”

You smiled as an idea popped into your head.

“I know where we can go. Follow me.”

You stood, pulling him up from the bench and leading him back to the courtyard. You walked through it to the ballroom, weaving between guests until you made it to the back of the room. A staff member moved to stop you from entering the doors that led into the foyer but allowed you and Hyunjin to pass once she saw who was in front of her. As the door closed behind you, the party muffled into the background and the click of your heels on the marble floor rang in your ears. You stopped under the chandelier that hung in the entryway. A slower song from the ballroom filtered in from the cracks in the door. You instantly recognized it.

“Underneath the chandelier, we're dancin' all alone…”

How fitting. You spun to face Hyunjin who was walking closer to you, humming the lyrics. His hands circled your waist, mimicking earlier, as you looped your arms behind his neck. You pressed your bodies together and began to sway from side to side as you followed Hyunjin’s lead. You laid your head on his shoulder, looking up at him. You admired the way the lighting made his skin look golden and brought out the light brown stripes in his eyes. He looked down at you with, what had to be, the same expression you had on your face. He spun the two of you around, making it feel like you had your own personal ballroom. He leaned down, prompting you to lift your head off of his shoulder and meet his lips again. Your kiss intensified as your lips parted and his tongue made its way into your mouth. Your hands tangled in his blonde hair and you bit his lip, something you had been wanting to do ever since you had first laid eyes on him, and pulled a small, barely audible moan from him. He broke the kiss, leaving you wanting more. He touched his forehead to yours, breathing heavily.

“What…”

“Shhh, follow me.”

He let go of your waist and let you lead him out of the entryway and up the stairs. You knew what he wanted. You wanted the same thing. You had been wanting it ever since you saw him for the first time at the party when you were sixteen. Now, you weren’t going to let anything get in your way. You led him to your bedroom and closed the door. You turned to face him and found him sitting on the edge of your bed, leaning back on his elbows with his legs slightly spread. You walked towards him, slipping his jacket off of your shoulders and letting it hit the ground softly. You stood between his legs, looking down at him.

“Why did you get me all those gifts, Hyuni?”

He drew in a shaky breath at the nickname. You took note.

“I- I wanted to see you wearing something that I knew came from me.”

You began to lower yourself to your knees in front of him. His eyes stayed locked on yours the entire time.

“I wanted to see something that labeled you as mine.”

Now, you were kneeling in front of him, your head resting on his thigh. You looked up at him, eyelids low and seductive.

“Tell me how long you’ve wanted me.”

You pressed a light kiss to his inner thigh, causing his eyes to roll back in his head.

“Four years. Chan- fuck.”

You moved up, leaving a trail of hot kisses through the fabric.

“Chan dragged me to the party four years ago. I didn’t want to go… Then I saw you and kept coming back. Even when there wasn’t a party going on.” You had moved to the other thigh, kissing down it. You remembered him showing up in your life after the party. You never questioned it, but you always knew Chan had something to do with it. Hyunjin’s hand moved from the bed to the side of your face and pulled you up towards him. He kissed you with a need you had never felt before, pulling you to your feet and leading you backward. Your back hit the door as his hands traveled up and down your body, one stopped on the bare skin of your thigh, exposed by the slit in the dress. His hand moved under it and hiked your leg up to his hip. You wrapped it around and pulled him close, your bodies flush with one another’s. Your hands stayed planted in his hair. His mouth left yours and moved down your neck. His confession in the graveyard came back to you and made your breathing come in rapid pants. He pulled away and looked down at you.

“Are you scared?”

He asked you the same question from earlier. You shook your head. You weren’t scared, if anything you were turned on. He moved back to your neck, his teeth scraping over a vein, teasing you. You swallowed and drew in a breath.

“Hyuni…”

“Mmm?”

He hummed against your skin.

You laughed nervously.

“You’re not gonna…right?”

His lips traveled upwards until they were next to your ear.

“I won’t bite you, baby. That is, unless you ask.”

You smiled. One thing was for sure, you wouldn’t be a news headline.

He resumed kissing your neck, teeth and all causing you to shiver. He moved down to your shoulder, stopping at the strap of your dress.

“Fuck, you look so good in this dress. I knew you would.”

You brought his lips back to yours, the fire inside of you both reigniting and burning together. He places both hands under your thighs, effectively lifting you and carrying you over to the vanity. You gasped, the possibility of him being extremely strong completely slipping your mind. He always moved so elegantly that you never would have assumed that under that silk shirt were firm muscles that could carry you across the room. He placed you down and you silently thanked your past self for putting your makeup away earlier that day. Hyunjin’s lips were next to your ear and you could feel his breath when he spoke.

“I need you. Can I have you?”

You had never replied faster, an enthusiastic ‘yes!’ leaving your lips. Hyunjin pulled back and smiled at you. Oh yeah, whatever the hell he wanted to do to you he could. You didn’t know if that was your years-long crush speaking or his intoxicating energy that came with the territory. Whichever it was, you wanted every part of it. His hand traveled out from under your thigh, across the top of it, and up your leg until it dipped under where the fabric met at the top. His lips had made it back to yours and you could feel his fingers getting closer and closer until they were pulling your underwear to the side and running over your clit. You let out a gasp into the kiss, his tongue in your mouth furthering the sensation. Your body was hot all over and you knew it would only intensify when he was inside of you later. You shook in anticipation and his finger swept over your clit again before he pushed one into you. You moaned, dipping your head back and his free hand came up to grip your chin.

“Eyes on me baby girl. I want to watch you react.”

Fucking freak. You liked it, though. His fingers continued to move until he could slide another in, stretching you out and leaving your mouth open while your chest heaved. His fingers inside of you curled, hitting just right over and over again while you called out for him.

“Hyun- Hyunjin. Oh, fuck. Oh my go- Shit.”

The entire time he whispered encouraging praises to you.

“That’s it. Good girl.”

“Just like that.”

“That’s my baby.”

“Does that feel good? Yeah? Tell me how good it feels.”

His eyes studied your face as you fell apart, your eyes closing, your head dipping back between your shoulders. His fingers continued, moving at an even pace that felt like it would break you into a million pieces from the inside out. After a few minutes, he sped up every so slightly, causing you to lurch forward and rest your head against his shoulder, your hands clutching at the back of his shirt. You could feel yourself on the edge, he brought you closer and closer with every curl of his fingers… until he stopped. Your eyes popped open, the feeling of defeat sinking in. You pulled back from him as his finger slipped out of you. He pulled back and smiled. He fucking smiled. If you weren’t so tired, you would have smacked him.

“Hyuni, why’d you stop?”

Your eyes were lidded with exhaustion and your voice came out in a whine.

Hyunjin laughed lightly at you.

“Trust me, baby.”

You held the top of his shirt where the top two buttons were undone. Whore. You pulled him closer.

“I need you.”

That did it. Hyunjin’s eyes sparked and caught fire. His hands moved swiftly from your thighs to your waist, picked you up from the vanity, and spun you around so that your back was to him and you were facing the bed. One of his hands moved to the small of your back and traced the hidden zipper up, finding the tab and pulling it down. The strap on your shoulder slid off, as did the rest of the dress and your underwear (thanks to his quick fingers), leaving you exposed in front of him.

“Sit on the bed, darling.”

He purred softly behind you. You followed his command and sat down, facing him where he stood with his back against the vanity. He began rolling up the sleeves of his black silk dress shirt, exposing his forearms. You watched the tendons flex as his fingers pulled at the material. Your eyes shifted to the mirror behind him, watching the back muscles under his shirt expand and contract. The entire time his head was low and his eyes were burning a hole into you. He walked towards you, stepping carefully over the dress on the floor. Stopping in front of the bed, he leaned down, placing his hands on your thighs. He hooked them under you and pushed you up the bed. He lowered himself between your legs and began running his fingertips up your legs. The sensation made your back arch, yearning for him to be inside of you again in any capacity.

“Hyuni, please.”

He groaned.

“Say that again.”

“Hyuni?”

He dropped his head onto your shoulder and moaned. You ran a hand into his blonde locks and pulled him up to meet your eyes.

“Take your clothes off.”

He moved so fast that you still felt his weight on top of you as he stood, undid the buttons of his shirt, and stepped out of his black slacks and briefs. He didn’t crawl on top of you when he made his way back towards you. Instead, he lowered himself to his knees, prompting you to push yourself onto your elbows, watching him. His torso rested on the bed, his hands gripped your thighs and spread them apart as he lowered his lips to your clit. You dropped against the mattress with a moan, his lips finally doing what you had wanted all along. As his tongue circled, his fingers found themselves inside of you again causing you to twitch and grind against his face. He made no effort to stop you, groaning in response every time your hips bucked and strings of curses and moans left your lips. You pleaded his name over and over again, begging him to bring you to the edge again. He moaned against you, the sound pushing you closer and closer. His whines for you were music, the lightest noise you could imagine mixed with the most guttural urge to please that you had ever heard. Sex with a vampire had never been on your real-life-possibilities radar, but here you were, and fuck if it wasn’t the best head you’d ever received in your life. Your orgasm ripped through you, feeling like it would split your skin and break your bones in one moment while transporting you to a fuzzy cloud of bliss the next. Hyunjin kissed your inner thighs, making you shiver with each sensation. He brought himself up and hovered over you, his eyes low and dark. Oh, he wasn’t done. You registered what he wanted and held his shoulders, pausing him from going any further just yet. You studied his face, his lips red and covered in you and his blonde hair creeping down his neck, messy from your fingers pulling at it. His arms bulged from holding himself up, his muscles taught and firm. His broad chest expanded and contracted as he breathed above you. Further down, his abs were ridgid and golden in the low lighting of your bedroom. He looked like he stepped out of a fucking Victorian oil painting. Maybe he did. You didn’t focus on logistics for too long, your need for him overtaking your senses.

“Love.”

His voice snapped your eyes back to his.

You tucked a strand of hair behind his ear.

“Hyuni.”

He closed his eyes and exhaled.

“Need you, baby.”

His head dropped, placing his forehead against yours.

“How much?”

His head raised. His eyebrows cinched together. You ran your fingers through his hair again.

“Show me, Hyuni. Show me how much you need me.”

In a flash, he was off of you again, standing, and flipping you over onto your stomach. One of his arms snaked around your torsos, the other around your chest. He pulled you up onto your knees, his arms caged around you firm, but gentle. Your back pressed against his chest and you held on to his arms. In a singular roll of his hips, he was inside of you, his lips next to your ear while he whispered praises to you. Your head dropped back against his chest and your hands gripped his thighs behind you. Even standing while you were elevated on the bed, he was still taller than you. His hips pushed up again, making you cry out. If he had not been holding you against him, you would have fallen face-first into the mattress. He rolled his hips into you over and over, feeling the friction inside of you made your heart and breathing accelerate. His head lowered in tandem with his arm around your torso. While his mouth left wet-hot kisses below your ear and down your neck, his fingers lightly brushed over your clit. The slightest pressure caused your moans to mix with his. In reality, his arm could have stayed around your waist. The feeling of him inside of you was enough to have your muscles tensing and cause you to clench around him. He detached from where he was leaving hickeys against your neck and raised his head. To the right was the vanity he had you on earlier. The reflection in the mirror caught his eye and he turned his head to watch himself fuck in and out of you. You looked like the fucking picture of beauty, your skin shining golden with a sheen of sweat, your body draped back over his, your eyes closed in bliss, your head tilted back against him exposing your neck, and your lips parted spilling sinful noises drove him crazy. You called out to him, pulling his focus back to you in front of him.

“Fuck, Hyunjin, oh fuck.”

He smiled above you and moved his hand on your clit faster. Almost instantly, your body tensed, coaxing him to finish with you. Your moans mixed and your body fell backwards against his. He stayed grounded, holding you up until he could move you to lie down on the mattress. Once he did, he crawled next to you, opening his arms to you. You shuffled into them. His skin was cool which was a welcome contrast to how warm you were. You both laid there for some time until he broke the silence.

“I expected you to be scared.”

You angled your head, which was on his chest, up to look at him.

“What?”

“When I told you. I expected you to run away or something. Most people do.”

You propped yourself up with one arm and raised your other hand to run your fingers through his hair.

“Hyuni, I will never be scared of you.”

He smiled.

“I have a question, though.”

“I figured you would have a few. Ask away.”

“When the fuck were you born?”

He laughed, his smile so wide his eyes turned to crescents and his teeth glinted in the soft lighting. You smacked his chest lightly.

“What? It’s a perfectly reasonable question!”

His laughter died down, but his smile stayed.

“No, it is. I just thought it would be more along the lines of ‘how many people have you killed’ or something like that.”

You rolled your eyes.

“I don’t know if I want that information.”

“Good, I wasn’t planning on telling you anyway. To answer your question, it was sometime in the 1400’s. I wasn’t bit or anything, I was just born like this. I don’t know the exact year, but it was around that time. I’ve tried to figure it out, but even after all these years math still confuses the fuck out of me. I should ask Changbin, I’m sure he could figure it out.”

You had laid back down on his chest by now and watched as he spoke. He was staring at the ceiling as if he was talking to himself.

“Remember how I said at the first party that people who were outcasted by society came to it to hopefully work their way back in?”

You nodded.

“Well, they did. There are quite a few people here like me, but you’d never know.”

“Anyone I know?”

He looked at you.

“Yeah, actually. A couple of people you know very well.”

You thought for a second. The only people you knew that well were Changbin and Chan, but there was no way they could be vampires. Or could they? Hyunjin could sense the wheels in your head turning, his smile getting a bit wider.

“No way.”

He nodded.

“Yes, way.”

“This whole time the three of you have been fucking vampires and you didn’t tell me? What the fuck?”

He barked out a laugh and pulled you closer.

“It’s hard to tell people. Especially people we like. We don’t want to lose anyone.”

“I’m still mad you didn’t tell me sooner. You’ve seen my copies of Twilight. What made you think I would run away in terror?”

“Fiction and real life are two different things, babe.”

Hynjin planted a kiss on your forehead. Outside, you could hear the party still going strong. You looked at the clock on your bedside table. 11:59. You sat up.

“C’mon.”

Hyunjin watched as you pulled a blanket off the bed and around your shoulders. You made your way to the window and flicked the lights off. Hyunjin stood and joined you, as you opened the blanket for him to wrap his body in next to you. Outside of the window, the sky began to light up in every color of the rainbow. The fireworks illuminated the estate and you could hear the cheers of the partygoers below. Hyunjin wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you towards him, and placed a kiss on your forehead again. He looked down at you, your eyes locking as his skin flashed different colors from the light of the fireworks.

“I don’t tell people this because they’re usually not around long enough for me to tell them, but I have to tell you.”

“Okay.”

“I love you.”

“Can I tell you something, too?”

“Yeah.”

“I love you too, Hyuni.”

Hiiiiii, I loved writing Hyunjin!!! If anyone has any requests, please let me know!! You can find me @starsneverdie (https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsneverdie) on AO3 and @starsneverdie_ (https://x.com/starsneverdie_) on Twitter. I promise I'm super cool and funny and sexy consider interacting with me over there!! As always, likes and reblogs are always appreciated!

#fiction #writing #kpop #smut #fluff #stray kids #hyunjin #stray kids hard thoughts #stray kids smut #stray kids imagines #stray kids x reader

45 notes · View notes

anim-ttrpgs · 3 days ago

Text

More rambling On the subject of TTRPGs as a disrespected artform.

There’s a bunch of reasons for this disrespect being present that I could get into but I’m going to focus on the most relevant one to this topic: TTRPGs are helpless.

To explain what I mean I’m going to make a comparison to video games, or at least action-adventure type video games. Those have a lot of similarity to “trad” and “neo-trad” TTRPGs, which are nominally the most popular style of TTRPG (even though it seems like half the player base would rather be playing something else but again another tangent). Both of these are usually about protagonists using abilities to avoid or defeat adversaries and avoid traps and progress through a series of hazardous areas.

Video games are not helpless. They can assert themselves on the player. When you lose in a video game and you’re like “Aw no way, I didn’t want that to happen!” The video game can say “No, Mario fell in the pit, Master Chief got blown up by a grenade, Pac-man got caught by a ghost, you lose. According to the rules of the game, you have to try again from a checkpoint.” And you have to do it. The game forces you to start over.

In a TTRPG, if your guy gets killed and you object to that, the TTRPG can at most offer a weak textual protest as you or the game master flips the die over to a more favorable number.

Of course plenty of video games have cheat codes, hacks, mods, etc. that can remove that power from the video game to force you to follow the rules of the game, but not everyone has the knowledge or skills to use those, whereas everyone can flip a die over or just lie about the number. Plus, doing this is looked upon less favorably in the culture of video games than in the culture of ttrpgs. I mean, it’s in the name. “Cheat” codes. You’re cheating.

If somebody brags about how they beat Elden Ring with no deaths but then you mention that you hacked the game to give your character infinite HP, people will go “hey wait a minute,” but if you brag about how your character was so badass when they defeated a hundred cultists at once in D&D5e, because the DM kept saying the cultists missed every time the rules say they should’ve hit and you kept saying your character hits every time the rules say their attack should miss, nobody bats an eye. It’s even more accepted and expected that a DMPC will materialize out of thin air to kill everything every time the party picks a fight they can’t win.

Ultimately, a lot of the urge to cheat like this I think comes from the fact that people are introduced to neo-trad TTRPGs like D&D5e through critical role and also its playerbase’s general fixation on pre-planned plots and heavily scripted scenes that rely on characters never dying(which was not invented by critical role but was heavily bolstered by them). The only way that these goals can be achieved is by cheating, since D&D5e really doesn’t support that kind of thing, so they get into a habit of cheating. They get into the mindset that the rules don’t matter and can only get in the way of their intended gameplay. Which is of course because their intended gameplay is not something D&D5e was made for.

Then gradually they trickle into other games besides D&D5e, and assume that those games’ rules don’t matter either, completely deflecting and disregarding the experience that the designer intended players to have with their art. Or worse, they become TTRPG designers themselves, and write their own rules based on the assumption that the rules don’t matter which not only results in shitty gameplay experiences for people who are trying to follow these thoughtlessly-written rules, but also further reinforces the infectious idea that TTRPG rules don’t matter. But dude. TTRPGs aren’t anything *but* rules. The rules text is the whole game. Saying the rules don’t matter is like saying the paint on the canvas doesn’t matter! Yes! It matters because those colors of paint in those places placed there intentionally by the artists are what makes it a painting and make up the whole experience of experiencing the painting!

So we have a huge demographic in the TTRPG fanbase that thinks that the very artform itself is, at best, valueless and at worst actively bad!

Reading comprehension check!

Things I did not say in this post:

“We need to expel any particular demographic and never let them play.” (But maybe if they don’t like our artform, they should try to find one more suited to their needs instead of twisting another artform into something else.)

“You’re never allowed to adjust or homebrew a rule to fit the intentional gameplay experience you’re going for.” (But if you find yourself doing this all the time, either before you have even played the game normally, or constantly on the fly in most or all sessions, maybe you need to find a different game altogether.)

Exerpt from Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. (with art by @theblackwarden )

152 notes · View notes

dollgxtz · 16 hours ago

Note

i hope this isn’t rude but is mc meant to be a little… slow? i get that she might have initially made really stupid decisions because she was way too stressed to think clearly but as time passes it’s becoming evident that the only way to get any sort of power is to have her wits about her. but it seems like she’s far, far behind sylus in terms of intelligence. for example the switch up when she decides to play along yan!sylus’s desires is way too abrupt to not be suspicious so ofc he’s going to realise she’s trying to trick him. i know that she is playing at a disadvantage but i can think of a few ways she could manage to at least push back a little bit but she just doesn’t take the opportunity? and idk if her being stressed explains it away cause it’s just as likely that she has all her mental faculties about her because that’s key to surviving and escaping the situation she’s in. tbh her being so easily got by sylus makes it less satisfying when he gets his way. cause her resistance is more often than not paper thin.

My intention was to portray her as someone who’s overwhelmed and making impulsive choices due to high levels of stress. She’s in a position where she’s constantly more on edge than not, which might make her seem less calculated or slower to adapt compared to someone like Sylus, who has more control and experience in an environment he’s made.

You aren’t the first person to bring this up. When she first came up with the idea to play along she hadn’t truly realized just how smart Yan!Sylus is. She ultimately just thought he was crazy, and just wanted her to accept her role in his fantasy. But as time has progressed she has been slowly realizing the man she’s up against.

I also very much disagree that she hasn’t taken any opportunities to gain some power back or at least thought about it. To name a few examples:

She pretended to want to read pregnancy books so she could find info on how to “accidentally” miscarry.

She thought about leaving some kind of message in why she wanted to say to Tara but ultimately decided against it as she realized Sylus was way smarter than that.

Faking sadness and tears after her punishment as she realized it would tug at Sylus’s heartstrings. Even weaponizing her pregnancy at that moment to make him feel bad

Everyone in this story is getting some kind of character development in different ways. She’s adapting to her environment and learning what does and doesn’t work with Sylus. Shes not “slow” just because she doesn’t immediately know what to do against a man of Sylus’s intelligence. That doesn’t happen overnight and it takes time. It hasnt even been six months since she’s been with him.

Not every reader may relate to her, and that’s okay! My choice as the author to portay her this way just made sense for my story. I appreciate your feedback as it really shows that you’re invested and paying attention ☺️

#umi answers ♡︎#love and deepspace #love and deepspace sylus

33 notes · View notes

aquaquadrant · 2 days ago

Text

answering this ask for @lunarcrown to give some more insight abt the story side of things!

the way i create hels players typically stems from one or two ‘defining traits’ taken from their counterparts, like very strong personality traits or characteristics. these traits then undergo two routes: amplified or twisted.

amplifying a trait is like taking something more morally ‘good/neutral’ and cranking it up to eleven. for example: instinct has impulse’s good work ethic amplified into absolute hyper-efficiency. this leads him to use and discard people as he sees fit, manipulate and cut corners, and overwork himself and others to dangerous extremes.

twisting a trait is like taking something morally ‘good/neutral’ and putting a darker spin on it. for example, impulse’s friendliness has been twisted to insincerity in instinct, that ‘fake-ness’ of someone who smiles to your face and then stabs you in the back. if his friendliness was amplified instead, it would result in an outgoing overly zealous pinkie-pie type of character who gets way too involved but ultimately means well.

so that’s the difference between amplifying and twisting. ofc, not all defining traits start out as morally good/neutral, because not all overworld players are good.

now, tango’s traits are rage (amplified from bravo’s short temper) and sadism (twisted from bravo’s superiority complex). ofc, as we saw in the fic, bravo became capable of committing atrocities and even displayed some sadistic qualities himself after spending time in hels so there’s definitely nothing set in stone. these are dynamic characters that grow and change over time, for better or for worse. and environment influences that a LOT. we didn’t get to see much of tango pre-hermitcraft in HTP but rest assured, he used to be way more destructive. he attacked atlas on sight the first time they met, and spent his days setting deadly traps for no other reason than wanting to watch strangers die.

timmy’s major trait is his utter helplessness, an amplified extreme of the way jimmy will play more passively or take the role of victim (or the butt of the joke) in certain scenarios. it basically overwhelms any other traits that would manifest in timmy, but ultimately, he didn’t inherit anything that would’ve made him destructive or violent. there just wasn’t anything from jimmy that manifested that way.

that can be true for many players. now this isn’t to say that jimmy is inherently more ‘good’ than any of the other hermits/lifers whose hels were more violent or destructive. the worse an overworld counterpart is, the worse their hels tends to be, but there are always exceptions to this rule. and some counterparts may even be on equal moral footing (as we saw, not all overworld players are good, and can have hels who are better people than them). it all comes down to which traits were transferred to the hels, and whether they were amplified or twisted. it’s… almost like genetics, in a way. there are so many traits that make up a player but a hels really only builds off one or two, and it’s random chance which ones it’ll be.

(random chance in-universe, ofc. irl, i pick the traits that seem the most fun to build a hels out of hehe)

hopefully that explains things a bit better 💃

#hels to pay au #HTP worldbuilding

32 notes · View notes

rei-ismyname · 2 days ago

Text

UNCANNY X-MEN #5 From The Ashes

First of all, I should acknowledge that something I've been calling a missed opportunity has received an attempt on page - the X-Men killing in FotHox, specifically Kurt. It's a single line and doesn't make a lot of sense, trying to have cake and eat it too by nodding to it in issue 5 but not meaningfully engaging with the recent past. Kurt did NOT think he was a killer, ever. That's just a bad faith reading of the text. He was in a war against genocidal fascists, come on.

Cool new form for Calico, though.

Kurt putting his sword/s away doesn't quite cut it. Errol Flynn swashbuckling has been an influence on him since he was a child and he's been big on sword usage almost since the beginning of his publication history. It's his thing, and he badly needs personality in FTA. Also, he didn't kill anyone with a sword in Fall, he teleported them into space. Swords parry and block, they disarm and intimidate. They have use outside of combat. They look cool, and it's something Kurt is very good at. So yeah, the barest attempt was made, but it didn't land for me. There could have been space to set it up and sell it too, perhaps by toning down the Charles Xavier/Sarah flashbacks that were ultimately just a fakeout.

Speaking of things that were given lip service in issue 5 and could have benefited from more attention, Jubilee told us who she is - kinda. A panel or two of origin story that was established in the 90s, but nothing about why she's here or what she wants out of life. How she feels about the loss of Krakoa, where the hell her baby, Shogo, is. It fits in with Uncanny's overarching sense of unfocusedness and her role could have been performed by anyone - not a good look for the end of the flagship book's first arc.

We get the resolution to and defeat of Sarah Gaunt. 'She's crazy, always has been' is so unsatisfying. I can't think of any other description. It's nice that we don't have another sin to lay at Xavier's door, but attempted baby trap is not a frequently used trope for a reason. She acknowledges she was lying, but then blames him for the loss of her son years later in a different country - then transfers that hatred to all mutants? Comicsxf have criticised her characterisation as 'Monstrous Mother' and I agree. What was the point of giving it so much space, to the extent that we spent more time in the past than with most of our putative main characters? She beat the shit out of Logan and Rogue the last two issues, nearly killing them - only for Rogue to draw strength from deus ex dead kid and completely wipe her out. It's lovely that Rogue is able to summon empathy for her, it shows us why she's a hero, but taken as an arc she's rewarded with victory despite making bad decisions. Long time readers know Rogue can lead, but I think Gail Simone is going to have to do the work to convince new readers that she's right for this. It's well and good to have moral authority but leading your team to death isn't.

Harvey X was unexpected but felt unearned. Surprise is fun but internal and narrative consistency is better. I thought it was Charles moving people around, because it was signposted. Harvey X being the puppet master felt almost silly as he revealed previously unseen very powerful abilities. Why would he wait for Rogue and Logan to be nearly dead to act? Maybe that's the only time he can act, because he's dead? Idk, at least he didn't scream how hot Rogue is again. He speaks about a sacrifice he's making but what sacrifice is that? Is his power finite and burns him out, Proteus-style? It's not quite clear, and I guess we'll never see him again.

Precognition. Healing. Telepathy.

Gambit and the Eye of Agamotto was a Chekhov's Gun that mostly worked (and made me feel sah smart for calling it.) Remy prays (?) to it and then blows the possessed cultists away. I'm pretty sure Jubilee could make a bigger boom than that (I know she can) but rule of cool wins the day.

These are/were captured and possessed mutants. I hope we see them again, especially after Fawn's introduction in #1. They're not doing this willingly.

Rogue flies to meet Warden Ellis to give her Sarah back, further muddling Ellis' characterisation. I have no idea what she's about now. Nuance is good in antagonists, but for someone who wants to crush mutants with her government mandate she's awfully cooperative with them. No threats, no riddles, no ultimatum, just meekly accepting two threats? I want to give a fuck about the closest thing we have to an antagonist (for a crossover event right around the corner) but there's nothing there! This was an opportunity for something, anything. Gah! I don't understand this writing.

Rogue's threat is interesting, though I have to wonder what she and Scott are going to disagree about. It's implied Jubilee will get captured, and we know Beast already has been. 2/3 X-Men teams have their motivation to wreck Graymalkin I just struggle to see them coming to blows over it.

Rogue and her elocution lessons feel very out of character and came out of nowhere. If it was setup earlier and tied to insecurity or identity that would work, but being introduced and haphazardly paid off in issue 5 baffles me, frankly. Rogue's southern upbringing is never something she's been ashamed of, her angst has almost always been related to her powers. She's a confident woman. A story where she struggles with that could have legs, but that's not the story that's been told. She certainly doesn't need Gambit or Logan to tell her - I'd expect it to be the other way around.

I'm not sure what to make of the images we get from Harvey X's visions of the future. I'll write about them separately if I find an interesting hook.

So ends the first arc of Uncanny X-Men volume whatever. My main issue is that it doesn't meaningfully engage with what came before it, and it doesn't quite manage to establish its own identity either. What is its mission statement and what kind of book can we expect? I don't know, and I hope Gail Simone does. It's not the end of the world, mind you. Following Krakoa was always going to be tough, and the world was going to feel smaller, less connected. I can't help but wonder what it might have felt like without a lot of Charles Xavier flashbacks amounting to nothing. Maybe we'd know more about Kurt or Jubilee, even the Outliers. Ideally that'll be corrected. I don't do number ratings so I'll just say it was okay, higher if you are a Rogue stan.

39 notes · View notes

zepskies · 3 days ago

Text

@lamentationsofalonelypotato

Aww I'm so happy to hear that, friend!! 🥰🥰

It's not a problem Dean, (the gun is obviously BUT) she is beautiful and you will love her and I will cry at your wedding.

Ehehe it's funny you mention their wedding...

Dean no. No feeling bad for saving your girl and for killing the "sack of shit in human clothes."

Ugh right? Trust, he doesn't regret killing that bastard loll.

Also I didn't notice the Colonel Sanderson thing before and now all I can think about is KFC lol.😂 Which is not to take away from how good this fic is or how well it's written. It's just me lol.

Actually THANK YOU for noticing that because Colonel Sanders was an intentional reference! lmao I saw some meme that called Asmodeus "Bullshit Colonel Sanders" and it made me cackle, so I included that a little bit here. 😂😂

Oh goodness she is already so protective of him and oh my word the wink had me melting lol.

See! It's not taking that long at all for her to start softening up towards him loll. At the very least, she doesn't want to see him killed for her after killing for her.

I also don't think that I mentioned this before, but I really like how you wove in the other characters in the show. Seeing Benny and Cas show up just made me so happy.

Aww thank you!! 🥰🥰 When it comes to AUs, I try my best to fit in canon characters where they make the most sense to me, and try to make them feel "as themselves" as possible.

Oh my word seeing that fight in my head, um... YES PLEASE. And the loyalty?! The love for their friend?! The "Goodbye brother."? It's so good.

Imagining Dean in uniform, even if he's fighting his friends, just does things to me too loll.

Ultimately, Benny and Cas are good men even in this world, and they didn't want to have to bring in him or Mila to the Colonel either. 💜

She's squishing his face! That is so cute, oh my stars. Plus I am cackling at how long it took him to be able to say her name.

Ahaha this was my favorite part to write for this chapter! Dean struggled, bless his heart. 🤣🤣🤣

I absolutely love this! I really love it when writers pick the names of their characters based on the meaning behind it. And the fact that you gave the meaning of her name a backstory of her mom having a dream and the butterfly meaning that Mila "would have a free mind" is just so perfect for her. Because she is stubborn and she does have "a free mind" by being rebellious and strong, by being a strong female character who does not conform to the whims of what other people deem to be appropriate for her. Also it was funny that Dean thought she was like a "lioness."

Aww thank you!! I'm usually pretty conscious of names and the meanings behind them, but especially in this story I got deep into the research of the Lakota people, and I found that names are very important to their culture, now and historically.

When I was looking for a name for her, Kimmímila stood out as being beautiful (with a nice nickname), but perhaps on surface level didn't reflect her true personality. So that's why I worked in that backstory with her mother's dream, vs. who she wanted her daughter to be, and who Mila considers herself to be. And bonus, what Dean observes of her! lol

So I absolutely love all of your observations here, because that's exactly what I intended for her!

This is a really wonderful line, that the war "never really ends." It really fits this story and honestly it really fits the entire early history of the United States when it was acquiring territory and embracing the "manifest destiny" ideals.

Aww thank you so much!! That's what I thought as well, not just for this story, but for the greater context of U.S. history during this time and the push to industrialize the entire country.

Okay, the whole part where she is explaining things about her life and her culture was so sweet. Them opening up with one another is just so soft and a little fluffy and I'm so glad that they got to have those gentle moments with one another. Not to mention this bit where Dean admits how much he likes listening to her, is just so good lol. And I thought it was really on brand for him to be a little upset that she doesn't completely trust him yet, even though that he killed one of his men. But he's got to learn to be patient... and then propose. LOL.

That was so fun for me too! The "getting to know you" aspect. I thought that opening up to one another was needed here, and it gave an opportunity for more historical tidbits!

Ahaha yep, she's a hard nut to crack, but Dean need only be patient. He's won a lot more brownie points with her than he realizes. 😏 "And then propose" -- I'm weeeak!! 🤣

Don't be afraid to admit it Mila, we all know how good he is to look at. And why shouldn't you look at your future husband? 💍

Ha!! Ikr?? Also, you're getting dangerously warm to what's coming in Part 3. ❤️‍🔥

Oh my sweet goodness, the TENSION!! This is so good my friend and I am so excited for what the future of this series holds and am praying that it doesn't end in death!😬💗

The romantic tension is real!! lmaoo

Thank you so, so much, friend!! Part 3 is my favorite part, I think, and I hope you'll be happy with the outcome, even though we've got a fair bit of action and angst ahead...

The Honorable Choice - Part 2

Pairing: Dean Winchester x OFC

Summary: June 1872. Captain Dean Winchester of the U.S. Cavalry is tasked with one job: break a wild mustang. He just didn’t expect the woman who infiltrates his camp, intent on freeing her tribe’s horse.

AN: “Getting to know you, getting to know all about you…” ⬅️ If you’ve seen The King & I, then you’ll probably be singing that line in your head like I do.

Disclaimer: I’ve done extensive research for this one, both on the American Indian Lakota tribe, and on American history during this time in the late 1800s (AKA: the Old West, during the American Indian Wars and the Sioux Wars). Of course, one of my main goals is to avoid inaccuracies, both historical and cultural.

Jacklesverse Bingo24 Prompt: @jacklesversebingo Western AU

Song Inspo: The Spirit Soundtrack

Word Count: 3.1K

Tags/Warnings: Angst, protective Dean, historical tidbits, fluff

🐎 Series Masterlist || Bingo Masterlist

🎙️ Listen to the podfic version here!

Part 2: Death & Sacrifice

Dean falls out of his saddle with a yell, landing hard in the grass. The impact knocks the air out of his chest and the hat off his head, not to mention the pain that rattles down his back.

“Son of a bitch,” he wheezes, while trying to get back up.

The woman jumps down from the mustang’s back and all but leaps on Dean. Straddling his waist and grabbing a fistful of his collar, she lets out a battle cry and raises a small knife at him. It’s probably no more than two inches long.

Dean may be on the ground with a smarting forehead, but he’s still got the upper hand. He grabs her knife-wielding arm and whips out his pistol from his belt. Her eyes widen, and she stills above him. The gun lies between them, aimed for her chest. They’re both breathing hard.

Dean has a problem.

Looking into her eyes, soulful and brown, the slope of her nose and her full lips, parted with shock…

He just can’t do it.

His finger eases off the trigger of his gun, and he lowers it to the ground beside him.

“I told you,” he says. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

Her head tilts as she stares at his gun, then at him. She relaxes somewhat, and she backs off of him, sliding from his lap down to the grass beside him. Her closed fist with the knife comes to rest at her side. She gives him a look of wary bewilderment.

“You are a strange man,” she says.

Dean has to laugh a little, smiling at her afterward.

“I guess so,” he replies.

Her brows furrow. “You killed one of your own…for me?”

He nods, and his smile falls with a weary sigh. The hard part about that is he doesn’t feel much guilt about what he’s done. At the same time, he does, and the conflict churns in his stomach. He knew what kind of man Roman was. He was the kind of soldier that could’ve filled Colonel Sanderson’s shoes one day. A fellow soldier under Dean’s command...

And a sack of shit in human clothes.

Dean leans back on his hands in the grass and slides his legs out long. His stare falls to the earth between his boots. The ground is soft underneath him. Maybe it rained this morning.

“Yeah, that’s gonna make it tough when I go back,” he says. “At best, that’s a court martial. At worst…”

The Lakota woman frowns, her dark brows nearly meeting in the middle as she considers him. He wonders what she sees when she looks at him.

“Tell you what,” Dean said. “Give yourself and your horse a rest tonight. I’ll go back and tell them I lost you in the canyon.”

Her eyes widen further in surprise. He can’t blame her for it. He’s surprising himself every time he opens his mouth.

“Will they kill you?” she asks.

Dean shrugs. “Nah, I’ll be fine.”

She levels him with a firmer look, one that demands the truth.

His nonchalance wanes, and he sighs.

“They might,” he says.

She shakes her head. She seems to deliberate over something, but eventually she comes to a decision. Just when she opens her mouth to speak, a gunshot rings out and hits the ground not far from their feet. A warning.

The sound of hooves thundering on the earth reach them before they look up. Two horses gallop towards them in the distance, their riders wearing blue uniforms.

They both tense up, but Dean is the first one to move. He grabs her arm and helps her stand along with him. They scramble back and lead the horses by their reins further into the trees. They find a denser patch and a raised hill to crouch down and hide behind.

The mustang is too tired to go very far, but Baby is already making anxious sounds, protective of her rider.

“Shhh,” Dean whispers, and runs a soothing hand over her side. He leads her to lay down with her legs tucked underneath her.

The Lakota manages to do the same with the mustang after whispering to him softly in her language. There’s a trust between them, Dean realizes. They have a connection that seems to mirror his own with his horse. He doesn’t know how he didn’t see it before.

“Captain!” Benny calls out.

Dean grimaces, but he stays quiet. He turns to the woman and holds a finger over his lips. She stares back at him in apprehension. He begins to creep slowly around the hill, but she grabs onto his wrist. For a second, she looks just as surprised as him by the reflexive action. Then, she shakes her head at him.

Don’t go out there, her eyes say.

Dean smiles, and he gives her a reassuring wink. He gently removes her hand and gestures at her to stay where she is. He army crawls up the side of the hill. It gives him a vantage point to watch his men, who approach just a few feet down below.

“Captain Winchester!” Cas calls next.

“We don’t want to have to come and get you, Dean. Come on,” Benny says. He does sound reluctant, for his part. His voice grows more somber when he says, “Colonel’s given us orders to bring you and the girl back…dead or alive.”

Dean knows the position he’s put his own men in. He doesn’t blame them for following the Colonel’s orders. He just hopes they can forgive him for what he’s about to do.

He leaps off the edge of the hill with a yell and brings Benny with him to the ground. He sweeps Cas’s legs out from underneath him, then tosses a punch that lands on the corner of Benny’s chin. He kicks Benny’s gun away, and wrestles Cas until his pistol falls from his hand. The three men scrap and trade blows, until Dean is the only one left standing. His men are groaning on the dusty ground, slowly picking themselves up.

Dean’s heaving for breath as well as he leans back against the side of the hill. Despite that momentary victory, he knows what they all know: that this fight isn’t going to end until either they’re dead, or he’s dead.

“Where’s the girl, Dean?” Benny says. He implores him to see sense. “We take her back with us, we can smooth all this over with the Colonel. All of it, even Roman.”

Dean lets out a deep breath, but he shakes his head.

“Can’t do that, Benny,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

There’s a question circling in his friend’s eyes, but after a beat, Benny seems to know the answer to it. He picks up his gun from the ground. Just like Dean once did, the Lieutenant now has a choice to make.

He shares a heavy look with Cas. The two of them nod, before they focus back on Dean.

Benny’s hand falls, and he stows his gun.

“You died today,” Benny says. “We found your body somewhere in the canyon. Your horse too.”

Dean nods, with something of a smile. He supposes faking his death is the only option now. He rips the badge off his uniform jacket and tosses it to Benny.

“There’s your proof,” he says.

Dean shares a grim nod of respect with Cas while Benny examines the torn patch denoting a captain’s rank.

“Take care of each other,” Dean says.

Benny’s head raises, and he meets Dean with a somber gaze.

“Goodbye, brother.”

Dean doesn’t return to her until the men are out of sight through the trees. She’s still hiding along with the resting horses, waiting for him. That alone surprises him. It would bring a small smile to his face, if the weight of that goodbye didn’t feel so heavy on his shoulders.

He reaches out a hand for her. It takes her a moment to consider it, but she accepts his offer.

He helps her to her feet, after which, she quickly pulls her hand back. She’s wary of his touch, her face guarded when she looks up at him. Dean supposes he can’t blame her, even if it does strike a nerve. After what he just did for her…

His face becomes stoic, and he turns away to grab his hat from the dusty ground. “We should probably head out.”

She nods and calls to her horse to encourage him to his feet. Despite himself, Dean can't help but be curious. How did this girl manage to tame that wild beast?

“Does he have a name?” he asks.

“Mato,” she replies.

“Mato,” Dean echoes. “Does that mean something? You know, in your language.”

She eyes him wryly, brushing her hand over Mato’s hide.

“It means angry, like a bear,” she says.

Dean snorts. “Yeah, good name.”

He remembers his bruised side (and ego) from when the mustang threw him off his back.

Dean watches her with another realization as she gracefully mounts the horse. Baby has gotten up to her feet as well, already nudging the back of his arm with her snout. He rubs her nose in affection.

Then he turns to climb up onto her back, settling his feet into the stirrups and loosely grabbing the reins. He follows his companion’s lead farther into the forest, but he guides his horse to fall into step beside hers.

“Will you tell me your name now?” he asks. “Think we’ve been through enough together at this point, don’t you think?”

She considers it with a tilt of her head. She looks over at him with a small smile.

“Kimmímila,” she says. The syllables roll off her tongue effortlessly.

Dean raises his brows. “Kim…Kimmeela.”

She shakes her head at him, her lips pursing.

“Kimmímila.”

Lord help him, but he tries his best. His brows furrow.

“Kim…mila,” he attempts. She guides Mato closer and grabs Dean by his cheeks with one hand.

“Kimmí.”

“Kimmí,” he repeats with his cheeks squished. His face is starting to warm up, and not altogether in embarrassment.

“Mila,” she says with a nod.

“Mila,” Dean says. “Kimmímila.”

He’s treated to her smile, warm and true. She releases him, her gaze flitting over his face. Then she keeps riding. Dean grins to himself.

“Think I’m gonna call you Mila,” he says. Make it easier on myself.

She even laughs, a honeyed sound. “Yes, my father does too.”

“What does it mean? Your name.”

“In your language?” she says, in a tone that teases him back. She becomes thoughtful as she searches for the word. “It means…butterfly.”

“Really?” Dean remarks. She doesn’t strike him as a butterfly.

More like a lioness, he thinks, only somewhat holding back his grin.

She gives him some side-eye, despite her amusement.

“You think it does not suit me,” she observes.

“Well, I didn't say that—”

“I don’t think so either,” she admits. “There are many things that don’t suit me.”

Dean chuckles. He can imagine that.

“But my mother had a dream before I was born,” Mila says. “She saw beautiful wings, and said I would have a free mind. When I grew, and wanted to spend my days with horses more than cooking and sewing things, she didn’t call me free. She called me stubborn.” Her face begins to fall. “Maybe too stubborn.”

Dean offers her a rueful, sympathetic look. “Yeah, I get it. My brother always said I was damn hardheaded,” he says. “…Maybe we’ve got more in common than we thought, huh?”

Mila’s smile returns, however slightly.

“You have a brother?” she asks.

“Oh, yeah. He’s a lawyer, so he’s more needed back home,” Dean replies.

Damn. He really does miss his bookish little brother.

He explains to her about his family, his brother and mother who still live in Lawrence, and how he joined the army, in part to honor his father.

“What happened to him?” she asks.

“He died…in some cornfield near Sharpsburg, Maryland, fighting the Confederacy,” he replies, heaving a breath.

"Con...federacy?" she questions.

"The South," Dean explains. "See, most of our southern states thought they should be their own country, letting slaves plow their fields and mind their kids. I may have lived on a farm, but my father always paid his workers. He fought for the Union."

"So you fought among yourselves, over land that did not belong to you," Mila points out.

Dean falls silent. After a little while, he concedes her point with an incline of his head.

"Fair enough," he says, glancing over at her. “I think my dad thought the fighting would end with the war, but, uh...it never really ends, does it?”

Her expression of curiosity fades, turning more solemn.

“No,” she agrees. “…I am sorry for your father.”

Dean's a little surprised to hear that from her, but he nods his thanks. They continue to talk as the sun begins to set in the west. When it dips behind the canyon, they stop to make camp for the night, and he helps her catch a rabbit to roast on the fire they build together.

That night over the meal, she slowly opens up to him. He learns that she’s an only child, though she has a sibling-like bond with her older cousin, Šóta. She spends most of her days planting or harvesting their crops, depending on the season, as well as sewing, painting, helping the elders of her tribe with tasks, and helping her mother and aunt cook.

When the rabbit is gone, she unbinds her long, thick hair and untangles it while she speaks. She explains that the Lakota are just one of many tribes. There are six other bands of Sioux who live in this region. Along with the Dakota and the Nakota, they are the “Seven Council Fires” who have made the Great Plains their home for generations.

She tells him about the way her tribe lives, caring for one another, giving the land back as much as they take, and letting it rest. The men hunt and protect the village from the outside, but the women protect the inside, their way of life.

Most of all, Mila tells him, she loves caring for the horses. She goes out and rides whenever she can duck out of her mother’s watchful eye.

Dean enjoys listening to her stories. He likes what he learns about her, but also, he just likes the sound of her voice, smooth and steady, almost calming. He thinks she might like the sound of his too, the way she’s smiled at him, laughed with him, glanced at him when she thinks he’s not looking.

She still picks a spot as far away from him as she can to sleep though. She keeps the fire pit in between them. He even catches sight of her knife, hidden in the hand she tucks underneath her cheek. Evidently, she doesn’t fully trust him just yet.

It annoys him at first, considering how many times he’s saved her already. How much he’s sacrificed just to get them this far…

Until he remembers how they met. He remembers the disdain and anger in her brown eyes, then the mistrust, and the fear hidden underneath. He thinks of every experience she’s likely had so far with the U.S. Military, and anyone else who looks like him.

Dean settles down on the ground and stares up at the innumerable stars in a raven sky. He’s exhausted, but his thoughts don’t let him rest for a while.

At the very least, the way she looks at him now is softer than that first day.

In the morning, Mila watches the strange man wake.

He blinks and rubs his bleary eyes, yawning, groaning at the sun’s brightness like a child. She hides her smile by bowing her head over the apple she’s cutting with her knife. The orchards span wide across the forest, and soon he’ll find two yellow-red apples beside his head.

His brows raise at them, then he looks up at Mila sitting with her legs crossed behind the small fire pit. The wood there is just ash and blackened remains now, but it still carries the smell of burning.

“Morning,” he greets.

She nods back at him and pretends not to watch when he sits up with a groan, stretching and bending his arms high behind his head. He removed his uniform jacket to sleep. It allows her to see every dip of male muscle that his plain white shirt clings to, even in the long sleeves.

Her gaze furtively runs over the broad shoulders, the tapered waist, then back up to his half-bearded face, defined by a strong jaw and dark brows. The sun catches on his brown hair and teases the ends of it golden.

She would never admit it, but he’s not unpleasant to look at.

Last night, she declined his offer to travel with her until she reaches her tribe safely, but he was insistent. Again, strange.

So here she is, with him. Here they are.

Dean turns to see the horses grazing nearby. Mato no longer has the saddle and bridle his men put on him. He looks rested and at ease. He even whinnies at Baby, tossing his head a little. She answers him and flicks her tail. They continue eating together.

Dean smiles, then grabs an apple. He raises it to her in thanks before he takes a large bite. Its juices run down the corner of his mouth, and he wipes at it with the back of his hand. Mila can’t help but be drawn to the sight.

She tears her eyes away when he looks over at her.

“We have a long way to go. Three days, if the weather is good,” she says, continuing to carve pieces of her apple to eat. “We will know we are close when we reach the river.”

Dean nods in understanding. With a grunt, he gets to his feet and takes another bite out of his breakfast. She doesn’t expect the way he approaches her with a hand outstretched. She looks up at it, then at his expectant face.

“Come on. Let’s hit the road then,” he says.

Mila considers his offer for another moment. He seems to be making this a habit. Amused, she wonders if this is just kindness, or if the women of his people aren’t allowed to stand without a man’s help.

She pockets her knife, swipes her braided hair over her shoulder, and slips her hand into his, allowing him to help her to her feet. When she gets there, he’s closer than he should be.

A breath gets trapped in her throat as she once again looks between his warm hand closed over her smaller one, and his face. In the small space between them, there is a different kind of tension than before. Mila can’t tell what the man is thinking when he looks at her like that, but she doesn’t like it.

And at the same time, she does.

She takes back her hand, and she goes to the horses. She firmly ignores how her heart gallops, even as she rubs at her chest like it’s an ache that can be soothed.

She doesn’t hear Dean’s unsteady breath, nor does she see the way his green eyes follow her.

AN: *rubs hands together* Well, here they are! It's all starting to come together. What did you think of Dean's decision?

Coming up next, we have the final part: some action, some fluff, and some potentially perilous situations for Mila and Dean...

Next Time:

“Yeah, about that…I’m thinking your tribe doesn’t take very well to outsiders,” he says. “White men in particular.”

Mila presses her lips together. He can tell she’s been thinking the same thing, but she turns to him with a determined set to her features.

“I will protect you,” she says.

Dean frowns. He doesn’t like the sound of that. On one hand, it warms him that she seems to really mean it. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to know what it’ll take for her to protect him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks.

She turns her face away and doesn’t seem to want to answer at first.

“Mila…”

“The Chief is my uncle,” she says at last. “He will listen to me.”

Dean blinks. Well, that changes things…maybe.

COMING 11/17! (New chapters every Sunday.)

Or read Part 3 on Patreon now!

Series Masterlist

Jacklesverse Bingo Masterlist

Dean Winchester Series List

Dean Winchester Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Series Tag List + Dean W. (Part 1):

@hobby27 @kazsrm67 @letheatheodore @agothwithheavysetmakeup @jacklesbrainworms

@foxyjwls007 @wincastifer @iamsapphine @roseblue373 @this-is-me19

@emily-winchester @spnexploration @deans-spinster-witch @deans-baby-momma @iprobablyshipit91

@sanscas @sleepyqueerenergy @wayward-lost-and-never-found @kaleldobrev @spnwoman

@thewritersaddictions @just-levyy @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @pieandmonsters @globetrotter28

@adoringanakin @theonlymaninthesky @teehxk @midnightmadwoman @brianochka

@chevroletdean @agalliasi @venicesem @chriszgirl92 @lyarr24

@ladysparkles78 @solariklees @deansbbyx @candy-coated-misery0731 @curlycarley

@sarahgracej @bagpussjocken @deanfreakingwinchester @chernayawidow @mimaria420

@fics-pics-andotherthings-i-like @waywardxwords @waynes-multiverse @twinkleinadiamondsky @ajjustice

@ades106 @my-stories-vault @cevansbaby-dove @kayleighwinchester @rizlowwritessortof

@tmb510 @skyesthebomb @syrma-sensei @harleycao @king-of-milf-lovers

@pizzagirlxnsfwx @justsom3onesworld @beskarfilms @lunaticgurly @artemys-ackles

@malindacath @mrsjenniferwinchester @jc-winchester @charmed-asylum @fromcaintodean

@violetlilysunshine @traiitorjoe @tsofo26 @k-slla @jackles010378

@deanbrainrotwritings @urfav-tz @alwaystiredandconfused @torchbearerkyle @mrlonelycat

#reader appreciation #lovely mutuals #lovely review! 😍😍#thank you so much!!#THC feedback

96 notes · View notes

dreamwreaver · 2 days ago

Note

I was curious about the playbill and checked out a few pages people posted about it and... Wow. They had barely made any efforts to make Vaggie actually interesting. Yet again. Like, her bio is just about her job and her duty to Charlie and... That's pretty much it. No hobbies, no interests, not even a favorite food. It might as well be blank because the bio didn't give me anything I didn't already know about her. Charlie had also referred Vaggie as her girlfriend, making it twice now that she calls her that (once in the show and another in the playbill) which is just what Vaggie is reduced to and it's not even obvious to like most of the viewers. Even as much as the bio likes to say she's proud of her job, where's her direct involvement of it? The poster Charlie and Alastor made didn't even include her at all and it's so goddamn sad she's a third wheel at her own workplace when it comes to those two. The playbill just confirmed my suspicions that she's mostly left out in handling the hotel. She's in a higher position than Alastor and that man is shown doing more than what his job description entails and he's also out doodling with her girlfriend. And in those doodles, Alastor and Charlie had more chemistry than Vaggie and Charlie ever did in the entire course of their relationship in the show and that's depressing.

Not sure if this is my rambley or not but you're preaching to the choir either way Nonnie. While I don't think she would do this legit because the entire internet would cancel her for it (again) it would be the absolute funniest thing if Viv planned to make Charlastor endgame and part of how they set out to narratively accomplish their destined fate was to make the current relationship kind of lackluster by comparison.

I mean, we do know in an attempt to showcase Charlie's bisexuality she was going to have crushes on men AND women before ultimately ending up with a woman. And given the rampant biphobia not just in Hazbin but fandom overall she could want to establish a queer ship that does pass for straight. I'll say this once and I'll say it a million times. Charlastor invalidates neither Charlie's bisexuality, nor Alastor's asexuality. And given how much chemistry the two already have, it's kind of... irritating? I guess, how little Charlie and Vaggie's relationship seems to matter to the narrative. Especially when it feels like Charlie and Alastor's does, more so than the "they're the main main characters of course their dynamic is important" element.

Of slightly more importance to me, however, is the fact that the playbill confirms Lucifer is STILL hung up on Lilith. He misses his wife, and I am just petty enough to take major satisfaction from it

#charlastor #radiobelle #hazbin hotel #charlie morningstar #alastor #dream replies

22 notes · View notes

arilevenatz · 2 days ago

Text

GUYS DON'T FORGET TO MAKE EDITS WITH "ICE ON MY TEETH" AUDIO.

THE SONG GOT A GOOD RHYTHM AND MAKE EDITS OF NOT ONLY ATEEZ BUT ALSO OTHER IDOLS, CARS, OR JUST ANYTHING, WE CAN MAKE THE AUDIO VIRAL IN TIKTOK. WHICH WILL ULTIMATELY HELP THE SONG GET VERYYYY POPULAR. ALL THE EDITORS OF TUMBLR PLEASE DO THAT.

IF WE MANAGE TO MAKE THE AUDIO VIRAL AND POPULAR IT'LL OBVIOUSLY PICK UP FROM THERE. MOST HIT SONGS ARE MADE HIT VIA TIKTOK.

THE SONG IS VERY UNIQUE AND DIFFERENT THIS TIME. PLEASE MAKE EDITS OF LITERALLY ANYTHING YOU FIND ATTRACTIVE WITH THIS AUDIO BE IT ANIME CHARACTERS, OTHER IDOLS, CARS, BIKES, MANHWA CHARACTERS, FICTIONAL CHARACTERS LITERALLY ANYTHING

16 notes · View notes

strqyr · 9 months ago

Note

here to say thank you for understanding the characters the way as they should be, so many misinterpret them horribly and take them at their face value or will straight up make up a headcanon and then trick themselves into thinking thats what the character is(yang being the biggest one that gets mischaracterized so much and so badly). you actually go through each characters heads while considering canon material and fune tooth combing each and every scene and piece of information for them

i try my best lol. i'm sure i get stuff 'wrong' (i.e. not necessarily what the writers themselves were going for) every now and then, such is life when we all come from different backgrounds and have different life experiences that mold us, but nothing is more fun than putting myself in specific character's shoes and really digging in to see what makes them tick, how their backstories inform their actions, both past and present, and so on and so on.

i think a common stumbling block—besides headcanons taking priority, which frankly is a package deal with fandom in general—is the though that if you like a character, they must be good, and if you dislike a character, they must be bad, which leads to all their actions being painted in same light, nuance be damned. people want nuanced and flawed characters as long as it suits them; the moment it doesn't, all that gets thrown out the window while still claiming that nuance is everything—just don't point out that the character they like might actually be *GASP* flawed, or that character they dislike might actually not be Pure Evil™, and everything is fine.

(people relating to characters probably also plays a part here; any pointed flaw towards a character they like is seen as an attack against them, etc.)

yang to me is a fascinating case, because, well. people often point towards jaune as the character most often bastardized by fandom, and i completely get that, but what i've also found is that these jaune fans often just. stay on their lane, doing their own thing, which is very easy to ignore if you so please. with yang, though, i've seen people getting upset at other fans for taking an official description of yang into account when portraying her in artwork or fics and straight up claiming that the very obvious canon trait of yang's is either a) never really been a thing (it has very much been a thing since day 1), or b) a made-up fanon thing, and it's like

if you don't like it, take it up with rooster teeth??? why get mad at other fans for characterizing yang as she is in canon??? makes no sense lmao

anyway, not that i need them to stop; the most appreciation i've gained towards characters has been solely because i've seen takes about them that immediately, without ever having thought about these characters that deeply before, make me go "that's bullshit" and then dig through canon to make myself understand why my instinct was that strong—and often finding new things that i had never considered before. it's a win-win situation for me skdgkjhkfh

#thanks for the kind words!! ♥#anon #ask.strqyr #most importantly i'm just here to have fun #ultimately these are just made-up characters #they're not real #they can be or do whatever any writer wants them to be or do #like it is that deep... but also it isn't #if that makes sense?

21 notes · View notes

fuzoshi · 17 hours ago

Text

Look, I'm not going to pretend like the class analysis of this show was perfect. I think that element tailed off about halfway through when it segued into being a more serial story from the earlier case of the week episodes, but I'm sorry, most of these points are just factually incorrect or an incredibly ungenerous reading of the show's intent.

We got confirmation that Grandpa was a great guy who built a giant real estate empire purely through grit and hard work and never did anything wrong in his life

We did not get this at all, the show repeatedly says that Grandpa is going to hell, and that the family curse (which was obviously greed) got to him too

Any harm that came to people and communities because of the company was indeed the result of Home’s uniquely evil aunt and uncle who acted without his or his grandpa’s knowledge

They acted without Home’s knowledge because Home was a minor or not in the country for most of it, but I felt it was very clear that even if Grandpa did not himself switch the contracts, he definitely knew about it and didn’t stop it.

The plot culminated in a poor character once again sacrificing himself to save the rich kid

This might just be a semantic issue but Peach didn’t go to the small house to sacrifice himself to save Home, he went there with the intention of rescuing Home, it’s not implied at all that he thinks he’s going to die.

As expected, Peach gave up his dream job to stay for Home even though there was no logical reason they couldn’t do their project in Chiang Mai (he has never been able to hear the ghosts so that attempt to say it was because of dialects was extra sloppy)

I mean he says he doesn’t want to move again, and they have friends in Bangkok so it makes sense he might want to stay - he didn’t apply to the job in Chiang Mai as a specific dream he applied because he was just applying to tons of restaurant jobs and they were the ones who replied. (and like, they could do their project in Chiang Mai, but if their project is "open a restaurant together" then why do they have to?) His dream, as stated several times, is to open a chef’s table restaurant, which is what he does. (and the thing about ghosts speaking in dialect was so obviously something he made up to continue his tsundere act, not sloppy writing)

Instead of actually training properly as a chef again like Peach wanted, he had a chefs table he has in no way earned handed to him by his rich friend, ultimately ending the show with a message that capitalism is benevolent and is what made their happy ending possible

“Training properly as a chef” wasn’t what he was going to be doing in Chiang Mai either, he was going to be working as one, which is what he wanted, and what he is still doing. And like, inexperienced chefs open restaurants all the time (this isn’t even the first gmmtv show this year to have it) People with lots of money invest in restaurants because they like the chef’s vision all the time. And we’ve seen that Home is actively using his money to try and redress specific harms his family has caused (paying Rak’s mother, giving the magician the house, getting Kan’s community their rights back) The show was never going to be about tearing the entire system down.

Speaking of, the only happy ending Kan and Suradech got was the honor of continuing to be Home’s employees. That Home did not even do anything for Kan’s community after everything she suffered is definitely one of the biggest WTFs in this show.

I mean he literally did. He exposed the falsified contract and the terms of the original contract were being honoured. And also, Kan and Suradech both have jobs?? Which they are free to continue with or leave as they personally see fit?? These two points are exact opposites btw, you can’t complain that Peach gets a cushy dream job handed to him thanks to capitalism and then also complain that Kan and Suradech don’t, and also that Home should have done MORE benevolent capitalism.

And on that note--Home got a huge inheritance and appears to have used zero of it to address the harm his family did

The show ends like three days after he nearly gets murdered, give him like, a week off from repeated major head traumas before you go attacking him; it’s also pretty clear from everything he does in the show and the choices he makes about the various ghosts in the first half that he does care about addressing the harm his family did. We also don’t see him use the inheritance HIMSELF for anything other than providing for other people - he doesn’t even buy new clothes over the course of the show, which takes place over at least a couple of months.

A quick summary of how the class disparity themes in Peaceful Property ultimately landed in the finale:

We got confirmation that Grandpa was a great guy who built a giant real estate empire purely through grit and hard work and never did anything wrong in his life

Any harm that came to people and communities because of the company was indeed the result of Home’s uniquely evil aunt and uncle who acted without his or his grandpa’s knowledge

The plot culminated in a poor character once again sacrificing himself to save the rich kid

And on that note--Home got a huge inheritance and appears to have used zero of it to address the harm his family did

The only thing I have to say about it at this point is:

#sorry guys #watching simm got me back in my hidden agenda headspace #like i don't think this show was perfect but none of these things are why not #peaceful property #gmmtv #taynew #tay tawan #newwiee

49 notes · View notes

kismetconstellations · 16 days ago

Text

@sockdooe, This is the full original image:

According to the Tumblr post I originally snagged it from, it's an early piece of promotional artwork, meant to depict Keith as the series's central character. Shiro is shoved into the background, presumably to illustrate that he was intended to fulfill a Doomed Mentor role.

#Correspondence.#sockdooe #Takashi Shirogane #Shiro #You're nothingness but shining and everywhere at once.#Allura #Hunk Garrett #Keith Kogane #Pidge Holt #Katie Holt #Lance McClain #Voltron: Legendary Defender #It IS a really nice piece with a ton of personality but I hate a lot of what it represents.#Specifically how Allura is just sort of thrown in there like an awkward Token Female when she's one of the most important people in the #entire series.#And of course the sidelining and eventual nerfing of Shiro because the writers simply HAD to get him out of the way to achieve their #desired team line-up.#Until they were delivered the ultimate reality check in the form of an order from the higher-ups that they couldn't permanently kill a #popular character who also happens to be a gay man #leaving them scrambling like the clowns they were to figure out how to reintegrate him into the story.#Then the voice actor for *their* 'Chosen One' had scheduling conflicts that made him unavailable to them for a significant chunk of time.#Call me petty but I call that karma.#If they hadn't been dead set on killing Shiro they could have avoided the entire ridiculous clone plot because he still would have been #a member of the team and easily able to step back into his previous role of Black Paladin had Steven Yeun's outside job commitments #unavoidably necessitated Keith being M.I.A. for a period.#But I expect too much of showrunners who couldn't handle having a disabled main lead and exploited his sexuality for internet brownie #points despite having every intention of killing him and keeping him dead.

41 notes · View notes

alongtidesoflight · 12 days ago

Text

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

#datv #datv spoilers #dragon age: the veilguard #oh wow i hit a limit typing this #anyway to tie this up a bit: the good and bad to the environmental design being that well-known architecture like minrathous and dwarven #ruins look fire and remind me a lot of the previous games #but newly added locations are very... generic... very bland #i was very excited for rivain. i thought we'd get to see ships. not a bunch of ruins and a fighting pit and that's it #and why did i say to ignore a certain guy's review? bro because he was complaining about taash being ace and that taking up their screentim #and them being too up in your face about their identity. he did all this while she/her'ing them constantly #but my man they're trans. nb. not ace.#y'all need to be careful about bad reviews. they're coming from people who are upset about gender identity being handled as a topic in this #game. meanwhile they have no clue what they're even talking about. i don't think matty knows the difference between ace and trans #and neither do the hundreds of people who are one star rating this game currently #i liked this game. it's not top tier. it's not something i'll sink hours and hours and hours of my life into #it has tonal issues and it's moving away from what made dragon age stand out for me #but i do think that it's a genuinely fun play and people who are very invested in dragon age will squeeze joy out of it wherever they can #i had a hard time warming up to the new characters (taash and lucanis being the exception because they have an older bioware air about them #but solas's and varric's story (and don't get me wrong that's what veilguard is about) is GOOD. that is how bioware used to be.#and i wish they'd given us that energy all over the game. that direness. that grit. serious and mature writing.#that consistency is lacking #and whether you're gonna enjoy this game or not is entirely dependant on what you came here for and how well the game delivers on it #i think their weakest points are ironically the thing they advertised the most: the new companions and their writing #you won't find nuanced and good enemies here (i already reblogged something about this. you can go scroll around a bit and catch up on that #really the only thing that had me super invested and emotional was the main quest.#so make of that what you will. ultimately i was more frustrated with the game than i got enjoyment out of it. i was close to just put it #aside for now... until i went to minrathous to end ghila'nain's and elgar'nan's ritual. that all blew me away. still on a high off of it.#anyway yeah that review got cut short by the character limit maybe i'll add more to it tomorrow but rn... i am heading to bed #thanks for coming to my ted talk. also i'm sorry. zevran REALLY isn't in this.#dragon age

30 notes · View notes