#And sad at the same time because poor hunter

[elleniemae]

Still drowning in the artiest of blocks but hey, at least I can doodle.

MAN I hate Belos but THIS right here is FREAKING PEAK character design, I’ve always really really loved possessed!Hunter’s look. Drawing him is always SO FREAKING FUN

[taz-writes]

object memories

A fic I wrote as part of my D&D druid’s backstory that I’m in the mood to share. Do you ever write something for the sole purpose of splashing around in your own prose like a dog in a kiddie pool?

TLDR: POV character Hush and her father were held prisoner by a cult for 10 years in solitary confinement, before being ritually sacrificed. Unbeknownst to the cult, Hush wasn’t quite dead and woke up later in the mass grave mortally wounded but alive. As a druid, Hush can shapeshift into animals if she’s seen and studied them before. This fic is about how she 'discovered’ her first four wildshapes in the aftermath of her ordeal, while learning to survive alone in the wilderness and fend off the hunger that threatened to consume her.

~4,600 words; CWs: gore, animal death, take ‘em seriously I’m not kidding around. I feel like there’s also something going on here with the hunger stuff, but I truly don’t know what the fuck to even call that CW. If somebody knows, let me know lol.

The rat was the first. 

She doesn’t know exactly when she reached the tipping point, but she grew intimately acquainted with the ways of the rats over the years. She spent an eternity in that dungeon, curled in the corner among her clinking chains, feeling them scurry over her in her sleep. Grew acquainted with how they move, how they think, grew used to fighting them away from what little she had to eat, bartering with them for the space, for help to stay clean, teaching them to bring her things. She watched them for generations, while they nested in the dirty little pallet that she slept on,  until they were closer friends than she’d ever had among humans. 

She knew them, inside and out, long before she knew how to change into anything. When she awoke in the aftermath and the wildshapes came, the rat was like a second skin. She slipped into the shape like a shield, slick with blood, and slithered out with the last of her breath. 

The world outside was big. 

She couldn’t heal. The first word she spoke when she took her given shape again was a rattling, empty gasp that sent sticky gore oozing through the feeble scabs over the gash in her neck. It didn’t matter how desperately she grasped for the language, how well she knew the incantation, how crisp and adamant the gestures were that should have saved her. There was no magic without sound. And her angelic heritage did little to help when whatever the source of her limited innate healing, it simply didn’t respond. 

She spent the first week or so in the glade on the edge of the forest where she collapsed after running out of time as the rat. The summer heat broiled her skin, even through the shield of the canopy, leaving her parched and aching and crisp like a dead leaf. In the haze of exhaustion, she began to treat her wounds. 

The sacrificial shift they’d dressed her in shredded easily. She wound long strips of it carefully around her waist and chest, stomach churning at the horrid sight of the injuries, and tied the rest as tightly as she could across her ragged neck before the pressure made her choke. Every motion left her dizzy and sick. She might have laid there on and off for hours or days or a month, languishing in the softest patch of moss she managed to find and dragging herself back and forth from the clear little stream that burbled a few yards away. As many moments as she could, she hid behind the rat again. The rat wasn’t bleeding. The rat was safe. The rat could forage, devouring whatever it could find, just enough to sustain her. 

She learned the rabbits next. 

Timid creatures, cautious and quick, they watched her with their wide beaded-bright eyes and darted to safety at the sound of her rattling breaths. While she waited to recover her strength between wildshapes, she watched them back, tracking the little families back and forth among the wild grasses. They were solitary, but not alone—never truly alone. 

There was a nest not far from her resting place. She stumbled across the babies on her way to the stream. Their tiny forms huddled together in a depression in the grass and she looked one in the eyes and its little ears trembled, it tucked itself deeper in the shadows, bracing, and a sudden knife twisted in the center left of her stomach. 

It took too long to realize it wasn’t the wound this time. 

Her sunburnt skin ached desperately, throbbing to the rhythm of a heart that wasn’t hers. She fumbled past to the edge of the water and dipped her face below the surface, where the chill could bring her to her senses, but the soft curves of the current brushed their way along her cheeks like the perfect ghosts of her father’s hands. 

Her lungs burned before she came back up for air. 

The next time she changed, the new shape was a rescue. She was a stranger but she smelled like the glade, and the other rabbits allowed her there. In the shadowed night they huddled together, warmed by each other’s skin, and her tiny rabbit’s heart began to calm as it hadn’t before in a very long time. 

She couldn’t remain forever. She was keenly aware, the longer she lingered, that she was far too close to the cult. Any member could stumble across her here, out on a forage or traveling to the compound, and she wouldn’t get another chance at freedom. She couldn’t risk it. When her stomach sealed enough that the insides of her abdomen didn’t spill to the outside after any major movement, she staggered to her feet like a newborn fawn and began the journey. 

She stuck to the woods. Waterdeep was a death trap, anyone could be cult-aligned, anyone could see her and they thought she was dead but she couldn’t know who might know her face. The roads were too much of a risk, populated as they were. Stealth was her only option. The angels guided her when she slept, teaching her how to find north and south in the stars, how to know clean water from stagnant, how to name the leaves and berries around her and tell which ones were safe. She treated her aches with willow bark and bandaged herself with buffers of soft clean leaves. She passed the days in the shelter of her animal forms or huddled in the shade, thinking of anything but the black spots that swarmed intermittent in her vision and the weakness in her limbs. She stayed alive. It was a near thing. 

When the berry season faded, and the leaves began to turn, the hunger snarled in her like a wild beast. 

She stumbled to the nearest town under cover of night, shielding her body with her arms, following the smell of something delicious she couldn’t name that made her gut twist with starving, nauseous desperation. It was too open, the streets too broad, but every building’s door loomed and narrowed and filled her mouth with the suffocating taste of molding earth until her heart pattered the way it did in the rabbit’s body and the outlines of the structures blurred and blackened before her eyes. A too-cold breeze swirled through the streets and she shuddered from head to toe. 

There was a man ahead in dark robes that swirled and her heart moved like rabbit’s feet fleeing in her ribcage. She forced herself to the alley, forced herself back, and bolted into the safety of the sacred darkness. 

It was like that at the next few towns, too. There were kind people, here and there. One gave her a soft dark shirt and soft dark pants when she met him in the night, thrust them at her and skittered off when she tried through rattling gasps to ask if he wanted payment; a few innkeepers let her stay the night and gave her meals in the morning that softened the hunger’s brutal edge. But it couldn’t last, because the figures in the alleyways always came back, and names that she remembered from another life haunted her until she fled back to the safety of the trees. 

The days grew colder. 

The woods were safer further south, deep and dark, filled with birdsong and the golden colors of the waning year, the colors bright as life. She’d taken a sharp rock and cut a stick to hold her weight, easing the pressure on the days when walking was too much. Her breathing was growing easier, and her neck didn’t bleed anymore. But the words that would call magic to her side still couldn’t find their way from her mind out through her lips. 

She was losing strength. The angels taught her traps and snares, but her feeble hands couldn’t tie the knots tight enough, and the few beasts she trapped slipped free when she tried to claim them. The herd of deer that once bolted at the sight of her now didn’t even flinch, the great many-pointed stag that led their numbers watching her passively while his mate and children drank at the riverside and foraged from the dying grasses. There was little to forage and less to live by, and some days the wavering mists of exhaustion hardly left her vision. 

Sometimes, on the nights the angels didn’t come, she dreamed of the stag instead. Of his glinting eyes in the brush, watching her, unafraid. She murmured prayers in the morning to whatever forces listened. 

She met the wolves in the pits of a moonless night, by way of gleaming golden eyes and an uncanny silence sweeping over her resting place, and she knew they’d come for her. She resolved herself to at least go down on her feet. 

When the first wolf lunged, she lashed out with her staff, squeezing her eyes shut against the wave of fatigue that swept through her body from head to toe and sent the blood rushing out of her head, and felt herself make contact. The beast yelped, and she blinked spots from her vision just in time to fend off a second, sending it sprawling across the scrubby ground. Her hands shook.

“Please,” she tried to rasp, though nothing but a helpless wheeze came out. The wolves paced. She shifted back, making space, feeling acid adrenaline spread slow like venom down her arms and into her fingertips, biting back the way every motion tore at the scabby flesh of her still-healing abdomen. 

The wolves kept pacing. In the dark, they moved like dancers, every footstep intentionally measured. Silent, despite their size, dwarfing her with heavy bodies—direwolves, not just wolves, but their largest and most vicious cousins. 

Her stomach growled with a ferocity that nearly sent her to her knees. 

The third wolf lunged. She grasped for the little magic she knew, one of the rare spells that remained without her voice, and scared it back with a shard of ice that burst into bitter steam across the pack. Its yelp was piercing and sharp and left her dizzy. Through the haze as she recovered, she watched the wolf pack flee. 

She dreamed of the stag that night. She dreamed of blood and the careful steps of hunting beasts, tender in the foliage. She dreamed that she staggered to uncertain feet and the stag was there, his muzzle nudging against her arm, strong and stable, as she found her way upright. She wrapped her arms around him. He was warm and smelled of musk and the gentle decay of the forest floor in fall. He didn’t flee. His fur was soft like the velveteen skin of something whose name she’d forgotten, a precious something she’d loved in another life, beyond her memory, behind the veil of the endless dark. She awoke grasping for it, the name on her lips but not close enough to catch it, even if she’d had the voice to speak. 

She dreamed fitfully, in bursts, interrupted by the empty claws of a hollow stomach scratching at the inside of her vessel like nails on slate.

The next day, something whimpered in the bushes when she went to change her bandages at the stream. She braced herself against her staff, and nudged aside the leafy branches, and found the wolf. It was panting,  golden eyes glazed grey with pain, curled up defensively with hackles raised. It growled at her approach, but the sound was weak, and tapered to a whimper. 

Near its feet, the ground was muddied with black-red blood. She traced the line from its paws to the place in its side where the fur was shaved down to muscle and a thin line of bone. The ghost of a spell and an icy projectile flashed across her memory.

Her hands were shaking again. 

She went to the water. This stream ran clear and cold, down from somewhere in the mountains, carrying the mineral taste of glaciers high above. Flakes of mud and blood trailed free from her hands when she dipped them in the current, and she watched them swirl away through the eddies and whorls. 

It was all mechanical, in the end. She pried a piece of moss from the bank, hefted it, ran it through the water and watched the dirt run off the roots towards the valley. Washed it clean, squeezed it under the surface and watched it fill with water. Stood and turned back to the forest. 

The beast didn’t calm, but it didn’t bite when she pressed the pad of moss as gently as she could against the gash. It snapped, and she looked it in the eye, waiting. Its jaws were wide, teeth yellowed and worn from use. It could tear her to ribbons even now, if it had the nerve. She wouldn’t last long. 

She washed the wound, and padded it with clean dry lichen, and flinched when she touched the beast’s side and a warmth filled her fingers that hadn’t answered her since she first returned to consciousness in the grave. She caught it like a soap bubble, soft as a memory. It settled in her chest and the breath that filled her lungs was deeper than she’d had in years. 

She’d forgotten how it felt, when the warding darkness at her center answered. When the healing power in her blood responded to her call. 

She forgot it again when the hunger returned in a wave of dizzying force, chasing all other thoughts from her mind. The wolf, rising from its rest in the hollow, tilted its head with a calculating glint and watched her. Gold eyes met gold. 

It turned to follow the water, limping ever so slightly, and padded off. 

She followed. 

The pack was waiting in a stony cavern where the stream met a sparkling river. She felt their wary gazes long before she saw them, hidden as they were among the warm grey stone. But they recognized their lost member and pounced on him, tumbling together in a massive joyful bundle over the sandy patch of riverside, and before long it was like they hadn’t even seen her. She found a bright place on a rock by the shore, and waited for the sun to warm her bones more than the hunger chilled them. 

Across the river, the bushes rustled. She knew what she’d see there. 

The stag disappeared into the brush, and her vision blackened. 

She awoke to the hot wet stickiness of a tongue on her face, and flinched, recoiling from the threat. In front of her sat the injured direwolf. 

“Hi,” she whispered, bracing herself. “Hi there.” The words stuck in her wound and scraped. 

The wolf cocked its head, stood, and licked her face again. It… did not try to bite her head off. This was not a situation she had anticipated. She particularly did not expect to be licked a third time. The wolf’s breath almost made her faint again. 

Behind the wounded animal, the packmates slunk forward, watching her. Waiting. 

The hunger in their eyes was a mirror of her own, and the shapechange came in its aching wake. 

She followed them, that night, in a wolfish skin that matched their own. It wasn’t long before she had to pause, the time limits of her wildshapes forcing her back to rest while the pack moved on, but the howl carried on. They didn’t like to leave their own behind. She learned their faces—the mother the first to lunge, the father the second, the grown pups that followed them with their own faces and minds and hearts. They walked the trails of the forest, and she learned their gait, their stalking dance, their silent patience. 

She slept between great warm bodies, and dreamed of blood and meat and the beasts that once wore the bite-marked bones on the floor of the den. 

In the days, she jostled with the pups as one of them while she could. When she couldn’t, she rested on the rock by the river, while the echoes gnawing in her stomach dueled the white-hot claws of her bone-deep scars. She scrounged late-season eggs from a duck’s nest and swallowed them raw, on her hands and knees in the riverbank mud, eggshells scraping her gums and spilled yolk staining the ground, and coughed up half what she found when her scarred neck screamed with pain from bending low. It staved off the ache for an hour. She scraped up the spilled remains in her hands and wept. 

On the fifth night, she followed the pack to a valley full of marsh-weed, where they found a limping boar. The pack struck in a whirl of fur and fangs, iron-stink staining the water. They fought her back from the bounty until the leaders took their share, but the scraps she claimed sated something, hot and vicious in the pit of her gut. 

It was enough for a day. 

She dreamed of it after, the blood that dripped from her fangs, the viscera on her tongue, the hot iron taste of it, the texture of muscle rending against her jaw. The heat on her lips and gums, bone crushing and crunching and cracking in her grasp, the relief like a soft warm pelt at the end of a long day’s journey as the soft squishing prey slid down her gullet like a prayer… 

She dreamed of it night after night after night, waking with saliva in her mouth, thinking of it between the angels’ words, the ghost of that sensation dancing through her mouth in all her forms. She sat by the river and echoed it, conjuring up the giving resistance of flesh under her teeth, biting her tongue till it bled to remember the taste. She dreamed of nothing but. She dreamed even in her waking hours, as the first autumn frost laced over the land and the pack sat full and happy from the hunt. 

She dreamed of it until the dream consumed her, empty of everything but teeth. 

She left the den on an ice-bitter evening under ponderous slate skies when the dull weight of the thought hung heavy like an overripe fruit, when she wondered what the wolves would feel like beneath her fangs, if their heavy furs would rip and tear the way that scrap of boar did or if they’d linger in the teeth and scratch and bristle. She slunk up the hill to the north on the pack’s favored trail, filling her muzzle with the scent of heavy musk and petrichor. 

The stag was waiting. 

His antlers glinted in the cold dead moonlight, graceful as a halo, round as the crescent moon. He turned his head. She met his eyes and lunged. 

She tore out the flesh of his neck like pages from a holy book, paper beneath her fangs as his blood ran like wine at a ritual. His stomach opened just as easily, staining the fallen leaves in garish scarlet, and his legs kicked feebly as she tore through the viscera that spilled free, relishing in the iron stench. Mouthful after mouthful, she ate her fill. She tore through muscle and tendon until she finally sank her teeth into his bright-hot heart and swallowed it in shreds. It might have still been beating, or the pulse between her jaws might have been her own, racing and vicious. She felt every piece reach her stomach, filling the void, hot in her chest like a hearthfire, bright as a star, sweet and tangy in the wolf’s senses and prickling in her own. 

She hunted the liver down among the mess and swallowed it next, and the kidneys, and parts she knew no name for that glistened red and pink and sickish yellow in the light. She savored the feeling, the soft wet warm of it, the taste of the life that would fuel her own. She pried out the lowest of his ribs and it crackled in her jaws and she chewed out the marrow until there was nothing left of worth. 

She didn’t know when he stopped moving, only that eventually, he did. It took too long. 

When the wolf’s stomach filled, she lost the shape and scrabbled at the stag with her own weak human-shaped hands, her fingers shaking, nails digging into the slickened meat for purchase and prying up scraps to devour. She shook and shuddered and buried her own face into the stag’s shattered chest, drinking the lifeblood until it dried sticky on the edges of her skin, until she was full, until her aching stomach silenced and stopped and grew bloated with bleeding flesh. 

She raised her head and her gaze caught upon his eyes. They were wide, and glassy, and milky with the haze of death. 

She turned away from the kill and threw up nothing but bile, choking on the taste of steel. 

“Thank you,” she murmured, too hoarse for anyone to hear, shuffling to the side and cradling his head in her lap, the warm blood filling her soft dark pants and seeping through to her skin. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Thank you.” 

She leaned over him, wrapped her arms around his neck, curling her fingers into his short soft fur. Velveteen. Buried her face in his, her eyes hot and stinging, she swore she felt the ghosts of hands in her hair as the blood dried sticky on her face and melted down her cheeks. She clutched him tight enough to strain the scabs down her chest and belly, threatening to once again reopen the wounds. And she stayed there, waiting, until nothing came. Her stomach was quiet. 

As she rose to her feet, she carefully bent and lifted as much of the stag as her body could manage. He was lighter than seemed fair, even to her haggard limbs. 

Her hands didn’t shake. 

There were hunters in these woods. The angels had told her, murmurs in the night, between the endless thoughts of hunger. They could help her. She stumbled through the brush, dragging the stag behind her, listening for someone larger than herself. 

In the hours before the dawn, she found a young man in the valley, carrying a crossbow and a knife. He stiffened at her approach, and stood there wide-eyed, watching. 

The words she spoke to explain herself died in rasping whistles in her throat, but still he watched, rapt, his eyes darting between the stag and her own face. 

“You… you killed that?” the man asked, gesturing. 

She nodded. Her neck twinged. She felt the man’s gaze skirt over her scarred neck, her hands slick with blood, the wrinkled scabby mess of her stomach where it was visible between the hem of her shirt and her makeshift belt. 

“Do you… need to… take it somewhere?” She shook her head. The man swallowed. “That’s a lot of meat for one person. Erm…” He looked around, and she tilted her head. “…Do you know how to treat it? If you’re planning to eat that yourself, you probably want to salt-preserve it, it’ll spoil quickly otherwise. I could… help?” 

She shook her head quickly, forcefully, then nodded, please, and the man flinched.  But he was true to his word. 

He led her to a clearing, his hands fluttering and his soft eyes nervous as she followed like a wraith, and showed her how to lay the stag down and open the rest of its body with a clean sharp knife. How to strip the meat from the bones, careful and keen, and process it into chunks and then lay it in pieces in salt to let it dry. She watched the process with singleminded focus, noting down every last motion, memorizing each flick of the knife. 

He let her borrow his blade, so she could clean the carcass and keep that velveteen skin. With a few weeks’ drying and treatment, it would make a good blanket to last the winter through. She stripped the stag to the bones, and kept those as trophies. That night, the angels taught her to sharpen them into knives. 

When the man had left, knife and bow in hand, retreating into the shadows, she realized that he never once quite looked her in the eyes. 

She kept the skull. Late at night she stared into its face, searching for the glint of the stag’s all-knowing gaze in the depths of his bones, knowing there was nothing on the other side. She stared at him until somewhere deep inside, a part of her became him. Until his eyes became her own. 

She took the form of a deer in the morning, wearing the weight of his antlers like a crown. The herd moved by her in the bushes and watched her like a ghost. 

She went south. The winter was upon her, and it was time again to travel. The herd had enough to haunt them.

[lucrezianoin]

Here is how to get astarion approval so high he will proposition you before the tieflings party. No evil choices, just some chaos. The score you want is 40.

Not all of these are necessary btw, if you di all of this you'll get over 40. Avoid what sounds too evil and check that you're getting up to 40. Also remember that for the party romance you actually only need 20.

- When Lae'zel is in the cage, talk to her before releasing her and ask her to say "please"

- Attacking the thieves at the ruined temple

- When Shadowheart mention needing a cure (at camp) make sure to choose the option about being cautious

- When you meet with Zevlor, refuse to help saying you have your own problems. (you can help anyway, don't worry)

- When Lae'zel meets the tiefling and ask him to bow, go along with her at least once, then you can stop her and apologise to the poor man

- When you meet Wyll, you can talk with the guy training the children. Tell the children that they will all die

- After saving Arabella, tell the druid woman that you just wanted to see what would happen

- When you meet Auntie Ethel at the refugees' camp, let her fuss over you and then tell her about the tadpoles

- You know the kid with the magic ring trick? Pocket that ring

- When you meet the two siblings mourning their dying brother, Astarion will approve of you send them to face the owlbear (but I never choose this, because it makes me sad). But I think the big approval comes in the dialogue just next, where you can say that using the tadpole seems like a great idea

- At the blighted village, when the goblin spots you, you will get approval if you attack them back

- Say boooo to Volo

- Open the door where the sexy moans are happening

- At the entrance of the goblin camp, if you can, thow shit at the guard

- There's a goblin that will ask you to kneel and kiss his foot. Uno reverse it, and intimidate him

- Let the cleric at the goblin whip you

- After you free the owlbear, pet them at camp

- Get the necromancy of thay, and the amethyst that fits in it and give it to Astarion

- Recruit Karlach with him in the party

- Killing the monster Hunter will also shoot up your approval of TEN POINTS. I usually never kill him, but if you're close to the party and you really want to get to 40, this is also an option

- When you meet Raphael, agree with Astarion that you should not trust him

- If you decide to do auntie ethel too, make sure to convince her to free Maryna and get the deal at the same time

Now, I think the majority of approval will come with how you talk with him at camp.

- Go along with his dialogue about killing you if there's any tentacle showing. Just play along, don't shut him down

- Go along with the "whose blood would you drink" dialogue. Your answer doesn't really matter as long as you don't shut him down

- When he bites you, of course, offer to give him your blood

- During the mirror dialogue (sometimes it happens pre-sleeping together) you can insult him a bit (you're not aging gracefully), but at the second reply reassure him. The last reply is fine for all the lines and they seem to all get approval, as long as you don't just leave.

In general this is usually all I need to get to 40, which is pretty high. In my last playthrough I managed to also get to 40 without doing many of these.

But as I said, you only need 20. Just remember that he likes being petty and asserting dominance over others, he loves the tadpole, he is cautious, he's a little silly and chaotic, he's selfish, he likes joking and talking so don't shut him down.

Just remember that he's much more explicit about sex being an exchange if you get the proposition before the party, and you end up missing the scene of the party. Up to you! If you see that he's at 40 he will proposition the moment you talk to him, so if you accidentally got his approval too high and want to see both scenes you can technically kill the goblin leaders and free halsin, talk to him, then when you sleep you get directly to the party where you will have the party scene too.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Thailand is back in charge

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

June 2024 Week 2

Ongoing Series - Thai

Wandee Goodday (Sat YT) ep 7 of 12 - There is so much to love about this pair. But one of the things I truly adore is what great communicators they are about what they want & need as friends & as lovers. As boyfriends? Not so much. But the way they can (and do and did) communicate speaks well to their ability to communicate in the future, once they have resolved the inevitable doom the BL gods will reign down upon us over the next 3-4 eps. I guess what I am say is... these two are gonna be awesome husbands.

The break up was sad but inevitable.

Yay for a crying kiss. I do so love a crying kiss! 

Can we talk about the fact that all that tension was worth it?

Excellent kiss all round from GreatInn. Possibly one of the best of the year. Their only issue in winning this category in 2024 is that they're up against OffGun, TayNew, and JimmySea, not to mention BillyBabe... and MosBank coming soon. But I gotta say, for a new pair? Fantastic work boys.

My Stand-In (Fri iQIYI) ep 8 of 12 - I literally spent this whole show saying “Oh, Poor Joe!” Which is now the actual name of his character: Poor Joe. He's like the country music sad sack. How much is this narrative gonna keep kicking him while he's down?  

Sunset X Vibes (Sat iQIYI) ep 1 of 12 - Star Hunter + MosBank + a beloved familiar face? You ready? Let's go. I got a lot to say.

Unexpected supernatural historical paranormal mythological Sign-esk elements happening in our dream sequence opening. I’m not mad about it. But I do think it’s going to be mishandled in the dubious hands of Star Hunter. My BLabies, no matter what else, with Star Hunter we can rest assured there will be chaos and narrative mess. And now, lucky us, there will be a supernatural mess. But at least it will be sexy and high heat.

Honestly, I'm not worried about MosBank and I know what to expect from Star Hunter,. So we're all on the same page.

Meanwhile, enter a cute side couple (normal for this studio). WAIT a second I know that face! That's Tenon of PitchBank fame (side couple, and only good thing about, Golden Blood). I’m sad to see his pair busted, but delighted to see him pop up again in a BL.

Tenon appreciation time: He kisses beautifully everyone, and he is a killer eye-emoter. We are in for a real treat with this actor. (Especially if we get to a place in the narrative where he pines. OH PLEASE MAKE HIM PINE.)

Okay back to the show. I love Tenon but I also LOVE his infiltrating, wicked smart, younger brother character. This role is great for him. I adore an industrial spy. I enjoy a rich boy pretending to be an intern in his family's company (yes it's a trope, just not common in BL). Excellent work Thailand. No notes.

In conclusion?

It’s a cheesy silly office BL and I am enjoying it immensely because I have no expectations. So don't burst my bubble. Star Hunter is bound to do that on its own without tumblr's help.

We Are Cute (Weds iQIYI) ep 11 of 16 - Oh my God they are all so cute! I love the beginning bit when Peem was feeling down and Phum tried to cheer him up. Ridiculously charming. All the sides were super adorbs too. The actual name of this show is "We Are Cute". Meanwhile, Kluen = the only boy in a BL ever to take his unfinished drink with him? I like him even more now. 

My Love Mix-Up Th (Fri YT) ep 2 of 12 - New take on the umbrella trope to be trapped under a parasol together. NO SINGING. Honestly? I am not loving this as much as I really wanted to love it. It's the middle of the rankings for good reason. I do like the idea of historical Cinderfella BL though. Why isn't that what I'm watching? The play with in a play is a dangerous trope to deploy, it only distracts my with attractive possibilities. 

Love Sea (Sun iQIYI) ep 2 of 10 - I'm gonna try to cycle back to ending this rap-up week on Saturdays, which means the recap for this episode will be in next week's weekly (so to speak). Meanwhile, I am doing a Trash watch on this show. Hopefully that will get updated tomorrow.

Knock Knock Boys (Thurs Gaga) ep 4 of 12 - It’s fun enough. Kind of a pulpy lark. Best + Seng = a surprisingly good match.

Only Boo! (Sun YT) ep 10 of 12 - Good kiss from the sides. No surprises there. The main’s kissing was fine too, I guess. I like that they had a genuine struggle with being an idol and not being able to date. It’s nice to see that depicted on screen in a BL. I wish we had a bit more of a montage around the rise & success of Moo's boy group. But I understand the money in play for this kind of show prohibits that. All in all? It’s fine. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

At 25:00 in Akasaka AKA 25 Ji Akasaka de (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 9 of 10 - Oof. This ep was painful. So much awkward desperation and confusion. Oh Japan, must you?

Crazy to be in a place and time where there is no other noted non-Thai BLs airing. Not even from Korea. What is going on? Are we in 2020 all over again? Please no.

It's airing but...

The Last Time (Thai Fri YT?) - Convoluted story of loss and possible reincarnation or something. Can't find it.

OMG Vampire (Thai Sun ???) 10 eps - I can't find it. Comments from last week suggest this is not my thing anyway, but Lee Long Shi very much IS my thing. I've put the search on hold for a bit and y'all can let me know if it's worth tracking down. Also, who knew Frank & Big could kiss like that? Not me.

ARGH could Monster Next Door please just start airing. I am SO tired of waiting for Big to lead out a BL. It should have happened years ago. *grumbles in chronic second lead syndrome*

In case you missed it

Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru 2 AKA Aki wa Haru to Gohan wo Tabetai 2 Haime! (Japan movie) - Continues the (frankly) lackadaisical story from part 1 ans was meant to drop yesterday. We thought maybe Gaga, but nothing so far.

The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer released to Korean theaters 5/25. HoTae & DongHee, side couple from Unintentional Love Story are back! Same actors, same character names. I love them. Devastated this hasn't had international distribution.

As others see us: NuNew's 'Awful' Performance in BABYMONSTER's 'SHEESH' Goes Viral - I don't like BL being noticed by Kpop stans. I flipping LOATHE this song and I'm not wild about Babym. This is all 'round uncomfortable making and I want it to stop.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

June Releases Still Coming

6/26 The Rebound (Thai Weds Gaga) - MeenPing are back in their 3rd BL together, a basketball based romance (Meen was a national basketball player, so yay for that). I like this pair better than most (I still do miss Meen with Est but Est has a fantastic looking new BL coming from GMMTV so yeah...) Anyway I'm up for a sports romance starring a man who, yah know, actually played that sport so... I'm game (pun intended).

6/26 I Hear the Sunspot AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru (Japan Weds Gaga) 10 eps - A new series adaptation of beloved yaoi I Hear the Sunspot (first adaptation was feature film Silhouette of Your Voice 2017).

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Forget "boyfriends but they don't realize it." These two are married but they don't realize it.

Praise be, he didn't leave his full drink behind. BEST BOY.

It was a great make out sesh.

THAT LIP BITE.

All round excellent ep this week, We Are Cuties.

Top tier flirting banker from the fuck buddies though. Man, their innuendo is on point. And I do mean that point. (Wandee Goodday)

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity

@rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in it's infinite wisdom doesn't like too many tags.

There's these tricks, remember.

[evilbihan]

A guide to writing Tomáš

This is a Bi-Han centric blog, but I really want to talk about the mischaracterization of Tomáš too because it irks me to no end and I believe he deserves better. Not to mention that most of his mischaracterization usually comes at Bi-Han's expense as well.

Tomáš is not the sad, broken, overly sensitive crybaby the fandom likes to portray him as. Every time I see yet another version of the same fanart where poor Tomáš is bawling his eyes out and running into Kuai Liang's arms because Bi-Han was being "mean" to him, I immediately unfollow the artist. Tomáš is a grown man, it's disgusting how the fandom keeps babying him. Not to mention it's getting boring and on top of that, it's completely wrong characterization of both Bi-Han and Tomáš. In the scene where Bi-Han snaps at him, Tomáš barely even bats an eyelash. He looks confused and annoyed if anything, not heartbroken, and he certainly doesn't break down in tears either. Tomáš literally chose to talk back to Bi-Han, he's not afraid to say what he thinks, which is proven by the fact that he even confronts Liu Kang for letting his family die. Tomáš is courageous and he stands up for himself. This man watched his entire family get murdered in front of him and chose not to let it haunt him. ("Their ghosts no longer haunt me.") Of all three Lin Kuei brothers, he's the one with the highest emotional maturity, choosing not to let emotions cloud his judgement, unlike Kuai Liang (blind anger/hatred) and Bi-Han (frustration). Tomáš is so much stronger than people give him credit for. He's not some damsel in distress that needs saving and he definitely doesn't need Kuai Liang to defend him, especially not from Bi-Han who respected Tomáš and his skills enough to let him join them for important missions when he had everyone else in the Lin Kuei at his disposal. It's awful how some fans deliberately paint Tomáš as weak and Bi-Han as cruel, so they can make Kuai Liang look better.

A lot of the traits that define Tomáš are usually taken away from him in fanfics and fanart and given to Kuai Liang instead. Tomáš is the loyal, brave and kind brother who wants peace above all else, who wants his brothers to reconcil, who is truly selfless and respectful, even towards some of his foes. Believe it or not, Tomáš is not the "soft" brother. He chooses to be kind and fans mistake it for weakness. Despite being angry at Bi-Han, Tomáš doesn't want vengeance against him. He wants his brothers to stop fighting, for Earthrealm's sake and because they're family. Tomáš might be the youngest of the brothers but he's wiser than them. He has seen enough death and bloodshed to know no one will come out of this war as a winner.

Tomáš used to idolize Bi-Han, not Kuai Liang. Bi-Han, who is known to be cold and ruthless. As I said before in another post I made, Tomáš is no less ruthless than his brothers. He is not sweet and innocent. Just like Bi-Han and Kuai Liang, he was trained to be a lethal and stealthy warrior. Even before joining the Lin Kuei, Tomáš was a hunter. He grew up in a family of hunters. Listen to his taunts at the end of each round and the way he giggles while performing one of his fatalities. Tomáš enjoys hunting, he enjoys the thrill of it.

There is no part of the story or any intros that indicate that Kuai Liang and Tomáš were ever close before their falling out with Bi-Han, but it is said that Tomáš used to admire Bi-Han. I don't know why the fandom made up the wholesome bond between Kuai Liang and Tomáš because of that one scene in which Kuai Liang conveniently tells Smoke that they're brothers because he needed him on his side. Kuai Liang doesn't even bother interrupting when Bi-Han reprimands Tomáš. He even questions Smoke's resolve. What brought them both closer are a few shared ideals, such as the wish to honor their father's legacy and continue their duty of protecting Earthrealm. Kuai Liang is now the only family Smoke has left, which is why he's doing everything he can to prove worthy of his trust. He calls himself the Shirai Ryu's second in command, he's the one who recruits Hanzo, he's supportive of everything Kuai Liang does and never contradicts him despite having different opinions than his brother, possibly out of fear of losing his family yet again.

Tomáš is a very curious and open-minded person. Unlike Bi-Han and Kuai Liang who are both equally disgusted by the idea of fame and stardom, Smoke seems eager to play a part in one of Johnny's movies when Johnny suggests giving him a role in a film he made. He's also the one reaching out to others to try and bond with them, to make friends. He tells Raiden that he wants to visit Fengjian, he asks other characters questions about themselves etc.

Tomáš is without a doubt traumatized from what he's seen and been through. Similar to Bi-Han in the previous timeline, Smoke is concerned that he's tainted by evil due to his nightmares about the Enenra. Ashrah reassures him that her kriss can't sense any evil, but there's a chance he might still become corrupted.

I hope this makes sense and will help writers and artists out there to portray Tomáš more accurately in their works. Too many people in the fandom have a wrong idea of who this character is.

[iloveundertaesooomuch]

Some advice from AU Calebs!

Heck yeah I did it! Finally i finished ONE of the HUNDREDS AU crossover ideas I have in my head!! Crossovers are fun guys!! (I apologise for a bad english in advance. Writing this it a rush.)

"It's ok to ask for help." (A Reverse Of Feathers And Mud by @jess-the-vampire)

I couldn't make a crossover meme without the legend. Sorry, not sorry. He is such a sad lad but tries to stay positive and be happy for his family uydfykudsutsudskudsluds (*dies*). I have to admitt, Caleb's dad energy is too strong for me to handle without wanting a hug him. No wonder! He was THE grandpa for centuries straight without a break. At least Caleb gets his whole family together in the end. Comics with him and either Hunter and Philip or Luz and Eda make me run in cirles around the room aaaa.

"You are not a burden." (Brother's Keeper by @idoodlestuffsometimes)

Damn, you definetly created one of the darkest AU in the fandom. Each time I re-read AU related posts I scream my lungs out because it is so angsty and so great. I am genuinely scared of your Belos ngl, because.. this man didnt loose anything and he still proceeds to do all that stuff. Enconter with him has 0 survival rate.

POOR CALEB! At least in the world of memes he had an opportunity to flee the captivity twice (the bald head and the car). This man had no moment of mental rest for centuries oh my God. One of my friends wants to fight his brother personally to protec Caleb at all cost sksksk. Well, at least Hunter will always have an actually loving relative! And if the happy ending is going to be canon, I think the future looks great, especially knowing how much pain all your characters go through currently. (And I think both Caleb and Hunter would need the "you are not a burdain" affirmations. At least some form of support in their situation.)

You said in the latest ask-answer that BK!Caleb was supposed to have white streaks in his hair so I attempted to add them. Hope they look fine! Colors for the outfit I got from Belos, so they would match, I guess???

"Murder is okay." (Loose Strings by @oldmanpip)

My bro, brother, friend... Despite you being not to involved on the discord server, my brain is still rotting with your great awesome AUs. And I know you know that. Your Caleb is really loose in all sences of that word and I love that. Wonder if your AUs will ever be available to the public. Because oh boy oh boy they deserve to be recognised. (Loose Caleb is such a conservative grandpa who never did anything wrong, wdym?)

"Your feelings matter." (Pip In Time by @celestialscribbler)

Honestly? Man, your comic is the reason I got invested in Witteclaw couple at all. Even if the "Pip in time" is not their story, but you wrote their teen romance so sweetly. Those two melted my heart... I scream each time I re-read your comic for 100th time. Just WOAH my brain goes brrr! And Caleb as a character is also written really really well. I love him so much. He is such good brother but MAN HE NEEDS A BREAK FROM BEING AN ADULT! BOY! Insirt crying and heart emojis here.

(PS: hope you still care about your health!)

My thoughts:

I have been drawing this for more than a month I think? And the only reason for that is my university. I hope to actually get an ADHD diagnosis because something is clearly wrong with me. But thats not the point.

There are so many ideas in my head. Goofy and not. The only problem is that I have less and less ability to do what I want lately. I wish I could bring them all to life, but at the same I dont know if anyone will be interested. Would AU crossovers look too self-indulgent? Or nah? Idk. (Just Grimwalker-Isle already has so much potential for stupid ridiculous fun I am runnin on coffee juice.)

Litteraly my mind is plagued with different fun plots and possibilities I am going crazy. But I also have A TON of WIPs that I need to finish. Perhaps I will attempt to manage everything at once, but, no promises.

Wish me luck on my exams!

[glorious-sunset]

LBFAD Closing Artwork – Hidden Meanings, Part 2

The amount of thought that went into the artwork of LBFAD (Love between Fairy and Devil) is astounding! Parallel to the opening artwork, the closing artwork has 12 images, with the last showing events after the close of the series :D The images are grouped into themes and have many hidden meanings. Images 5-12 are discussed here (see Closing Artwork Part 1 for my discussion of images 1-4).

Image 5: Oblivion River bordering Cangyan Sea (image above)

Images 5-8 as a group show important locations within the series.

The Oblivion River itself is very significant as the warfront between Shuiyuntian and Cangyan Sea, and the resting place of spirits. Xiao Lanhua’s (XLH) simple wish at the Lantern Festival is for Oblivion River to be free of war. Besides war, Ronghao’s (RH) actions have added to the tragedy here, as the tortured spirits of both Moon Tribe and Fairy Tribe members are unable to rest. The first step toward peace is achieved here as DongFang QingCang (DFQC) and Changheng (CH) work together to bring relief to these poor spirits.

The hunters’ camp that DFQC and XLH visit in ep. 15 is located not far from the banks of the Oblivion River. The people of Cangyan Sea work hard for their sustenance and rely on hunting and fishing. The hunting aspect of their culture is represented by the injured deer in image 5.

The deer is also a good metaphor for CH. From ep. 26 until the series end, he wears antler-like headgear. Where a finger of Cangyan Sea stretches into the Oblivion River, on two occasions he receives profound psychological hurts. In ep. 27, he first learns from DFQC and XLH that RH is not the man he thought he was. RH was his only friend, and someone that he had trusted completely! But he didn’t know RH’s true nature at all. This shock is followed by a heart-breaking conversation with XLH. They had just married each other in the mortal realm and he tells her that he meant every marriage vow they made to each other. He finally reveals his feelings. But she rejects him all the same. As he tells Yunzhong (YZ) later in this episode, she was the only colour in his grey world and he now has no reason to live. He practically forces YZ to sentence him to execution. Like the dying deer in the image, at this point he is on the cusp of death.

In ep. 30, CH returns to this area to confront Xunfeng prior to the war. He learns that XLH’s life will be sacrificed when the war begins. Against his strongest instincts, CH had entrusted XLH to DFQC, and now it seems that DFQC is throwing XLH’s life away! D: CH hadn’t wanted any part of this war, but he is forced to lead the army to protect his love.

Also in ep. 30, Jieli confronts Dieyi by the Oblivion River, tricks her with an illusion of XLH, and bluffs her way into getting the antidote for Shangque. A great final act for Jieli, as she now expects to die from her own poison. Her only thought had been of protecting her friends, knowing the price she would have to pay would be her life.

Image 6: Tree of Emotions

During their hunters’ camp visit, XLH and DFQC discover that his metaphysical Tree of Emotions has started to sprout leaves! XLH walking beneath the Tree is a reference to DFQC telling Taisui in ep. 36 that “she has left traces all over the sea of my emotions.” From the very beginning to the very end, XLH has been the focus of DFQC’s emotions. She has triggered all seven emotions in him to intense degrees: joy, worry, sadness, pity, love, hate, jealousy (hate towards her enemies and jealousy towards CH, all because of his love for her).

Image 7: Lucheng

What’s not to love about the charming city of Lucheng? :D 500 copies of XLH’s likeness are posted all over town! DFQC and XLH spend a lot of time being jealous of each other’s engagements :D They spend months living together in Mr DongFang’s compound. A flower is bought with one gold bar. And wishes are made during their beautiful Lantern Festival date.

The wishes that XLH made come true! She wishes that DFQC “will always be safe and happy, surrounded by friends, brothers, loyalty and love, and never lonely again.” The effect is seen as early as ep. 26 as DFQC bonds with Xunfeng (XLH says “I think my wish seems to have come true.”) Later, his three “brothers” Xunfeng, Shangque and Changheng, and the Kings of Northern and Southern Youxin counties band together to save him when he is comatose. Finally, they loyally follow his orders to aid Shuiyuntian in the last episode! XLH’s wish that the Oblivion River be free of war also comes true.

DFQC’s wish, “XLH, I want you to stay by my side forever,” is partially fulfilled when XLH proposes to him a few episodes later. And by the end of the series it has come true :D

Image 8: Haishi

Haishi, the seaport city hiding a big bad den of evil, doesn’t have a lot of screentime. It appears in eps. 2-15 but not after that. The image shows the terraces of Haishi next to the central bridge. This view is seen only once in the series very briefly in ep. 3. (I discuss Haishi in more detail here).

Image 9: XLH against Shuiyuntian

Images 9-12 as a group show important events that occur after Lucheng.

The scene in ep. 26 where XLH faces off against the Shuiyuntian army is a pivotal moment for her. She is given the option of returning home to Arbiter Hall or Fountain Palace, which is exactly what she has been dreaming of since ep. 1. All she has to do is sacrifice DFQC. Easy choice, right? And so it is; she doesn’t need to think twice to realise that her idea of home is now wherever DFQC is. As DFQC says in ep. 35, she made an enemy of the world just to follow him. (This is repeated in the OST song Amnesia, “I once made the world my enemy.”)

This is the second time she has faced the might of Shuiyuntian. In ep. 9, she is accused of being a Moon tribe spy and would have done anything (except endanger Da Qiang) to protect her right to be accepted in Shuiyuntian. Now, she will do anything to protect DFQC.

Image 10: War

War between Cangyan Sea and Shuiyuntian strikes again. Unlike the images of the war 30,000 years ago seen in the opening artwork, this war has key differences. DFQC and CH are unwilling adversaries of each other. The Moon Tribe have very few soldiers, and their women and children are on the battlefield. YZ fabricated a blatant lie in order to attack and annihilate the Moon Tribe :(

Image 11: Our hero returns

This is the very last scene of the series (this artwork is my favourite!) After a long, cruel, 500 years of absence, DFQC has finally found his way back! He emerges as the ultimate hero, after his long journey from the heartless villain who tried to kill an innocent fairy. This ‘fairy’ now means everything to him.

His lovable mannerisms are shown in the image. One hand is behind his back (regal) and one cradles XLH’s head as he pulls her in for a kiss (dominating). The robes he wears are the same as in the last scene. Both have their eyes closed to savour this long, long, long-awaited moment :D

Image 12: The Rest of Eternity

As in the opening artwork, the twelfth and final image of the closing art is of the OTP’s life after the series end! They might be sitting on a boat on the Oblivion River. Then again, it could be a location we haven’t seen in the series - travelling on their honeymoon! DFQC has removed his crown, and hence his responsibilities at least for the moment, which supports the idea that they are on holiday. The lavender dress that XLH wears is of very special significance (covered in my ep. 5 review). And finally, they can watch the sunrise together every day for the rest of eternity :D

Here is a link to my article: LBFAD Closing Artwork – Hidden Meanings, Part 1

All of my LBFAD articles can be viewed with the tag #lbfad reflections (hyperlinked) and the table of contents to these is here.

[zayne-li]

Bloom

I do what I want in this fandom ok I write indulgence for myself. SFW.

Length: 1.2k

Pairing: Zayne/trans masc reader

Warnings: none

Other: Fluff, hurt/comfort, reader is a trans man who's been on T for a year

It's a quiet afternoon. A rare one, where Zayne and you both ended up having the same day off for once. Well. So he thought. Neither of you had been able to see much of each other lately, with his long shifts and your own busy schedule as a hunter. And well… You might have asked Xavier to trade a shift with you so that you could spend the day with your sweet boyfriend, but Zayne doesn’t need to know that. 

Anyway, he looks so content right now, like a big happy cat. Both of you are curled up on the couch, his head resting on your thigh while you watch a movie together. Well, you were watching the movie, but your poor sleep deprived Zayne dozed off about 20 minutes in. Your fingers carding through his short, soft hair probably hadn’t helped him stay awake either. Not that you mind. You hum and continue brushing through it almost absently as the credits start to roll, looking down at him as he takes in a sharper inhale, indicating that he’s finally waking up.

 

Zayne sighs, his hand coming up to wipe at his eyes as he yawns and his eyes crack open. Adorable. You give him a second to regain his bearings as he rejoins the waking world, but your fingers continue to pet his hair as he watches the names scroll by on the screen. He frowns and pouts a little as he looks up at you, and there’s something that flashes in his eyes you’re not sure you recognize.

“I slept through the entire movie?” He asks, disgruntled, his voice hoarse with sleep still, and you laugh, the hand in his hair moving to stroke his cheek as he turns onto his back to look up at you more fully.

“Clearly you needed it. It’s okay. You’re cute when you’re sleeping.” You respond, and he looks like he’s about to retort, but instead he yawns and rubs at his face again. 

“It’s been a long week. Month.” Zayne manages once the yawn subsides, and grunts, turning over so he can grab around your middle and press his face into your stomach. His voice becomes muffled now, rumbling against you in a way that’s almost ticklish. “I missed you.”

Your thigh fell asleep a long time ago, but you aren’t about to tell him that. Not when he’s acting so cute it makes you want to squish him like a stress ball. 

“I missed you too.” You shift a little, and his arms just hold on tighter. 

“Was the movie good?” 

“Yeah, it was…” You start, like you’re about to continue, but pause… It ended up being a pretty sad movie, actually. One where the couple at the beginning was so happy together, and throughout the course of the hour and a half, watched them slowly fall apart because one of them changed. They grew apart as they found themselves as individuals, rather than who they had become and remained for each other. It had left you with an odd, bittersweet feeling. The joy of becoming who one was meant to be versus the heartbreak of losing someone you thought would be with you forever. 

“What was it about?” Zayne asks, nuzzling his nose into your belly button, getting under the hem of your shirt and pressing a soft kiss to your hipbone. It makes you shiver a bit. 

Instead of answering the question, you find yourself blurting something else. “Zayne… Are you still attracted to me?” 

That causes him to pause, his lips stopping their gentle kisses on  your warm skin, and he looks up at you entirely bewildered. Your eyes meet for a long moment, and his own bore into you like he’s trying to determine the source of such a sudden and ridiculous question. After all, you’d had sex once already today, before either of you had even gotten out of bed. 

“... Have I done something to make you think otherwise?” He asks after a pregnant pause, and the hand you have resting on his shoulder drifts a little lower on his arm as you look away and shift beneath him.

“No… I just…” The thought of speaking the worry you have out loud is embarrassing, because you know it might sound silly, or maybe just insecure.

Zayne sits up. Propping himself on one of his arms, and you feel a tingle in your leg where he was resting as blood begins to flow properly again. 

“Tell me.” 

You can’t meet his eyes, and he doesn’t force you to, instead waiting patiently. 

“I just mean… I’ve changed a lot the past year, you know?” You’re trying to dance around the subject, but he catches on almost immediately. 

“You have.” Is his simple answer. You can almost hear the gears turning in his head as he tries to work out the puzzle you’ve placed before him. 

“And… I’m going to keep changing.”

“Is that not one of the beautiful things about life? My love, we all change.” Zayne says, and leans a bit closer, his free hand coming up to your cheek. “You’re afraid that the more masculine you become, the less attracted I will be to you.” It might have been a question, but coming from him it’s a statement. 

Your face feels hot, but you lean into his large palm, just nodding, afraid of your own voice at the moment. There are tears that seem to be pricking at the backs of your eyes as you keep them fixed on your own hands in your lap. 

Zayne sighs, and out of the corner of your vision you see him shake his head. 

“Look at me.” He says, and you obey, the lump in your throat growing tighter once you see his earnest expression. 

“I just… I don’t want to lose you because of it.” Your voice is small, and Zayne sighs again, leaning in to press his forehead against your own as he strokes your cheek with a thumb. 

“If you believe that’s even possible, then I’m not sure you truly know me at all. If anything… I love you more than I did before you began this journey. I feel as if I am getting to see you for the first time in my life, and it has been a privilege to be by your side and watch you bloom.”

“Zayne…” You whine, unable to handle the surge of affection in your chest. 

“Your gender makes no difference to me. And it never will. What matters to me…” He continues, determined to quell the anxiety in your chest, and his hand slides down to rest on the beating of your heart, “Is this.” He turns his head, his nose brushing against your cheek, and presses a soft kiss to your lips. “And this.”

You lean into the kiss, reaching up to hold him closer by the back of his neck. “What about when I start growing back hair and a beard?” You ask. What if he doesn’t want that? The person he fell in love with was soft and dainty, and nowhere near who you’re becoming now.

Zayne chuckles. “If those things make you happy, then I will love them too. As long as I get to see your smile.”

[mediocre-quill-ink]

Dirty cop pt3

Content: this one dosnt have Connor in it, just internal angst. A dwelling inner conflict. Back at the squat. Start of an enimes to lovers arc?

My cooling system trembled as I sat, staring out the window.

The events of the last week rang through my circuit board nonstop. Connor. The famous deviant hunter set me free.

I've heard whispers of what he's done in the time sense we interacted. A ruthless detective. Androids self destructied after meeting him, one he even shot.

It baffled me to my very core. He's hurt so many desprate lives. So many innocent people wanting freedom, and he killed them. And yet... of all poor souls I lived? A new feeling ruptured at my theriam pump. Anger, flattery, betrayal, sadness, guilt.

No, rage.

Why did he allow me to live? I've met poor souls who deviated due to terrible happenings. Attacked and tortured with fire, used by their owers, abandoned for newer shinier models left to die. And yet he let's me escape because he got off?

I shivered at the thought of the snow rushing snow outside the abandoned house, snow flakes rushing past and fighting for safety on the ground.

I turned slowly to look at Ralph, he was writing frantically on the opposite wall. He's been at it for what feels like hours. Ra9 written on top of or across other other lines and paragraphs of the same symbol. He's been shaken sense the investigation down the street.

Thankfully, no one came in and investigated the squat but the close call of it all was enough to make him a more nervous wreck than usual. "Ralph?" I muttered. He jumped for a moment, seemingly forgot I was still here. "Yes y/n?" He asks. I squeezed my seat slightly. "I think the man I love is a terrible person." My theriam pump vurred suddenly at the realization.

Love

Do I love him...

Ralph paused for a moment. "Who does y/n love?" He asked.

I thought for a moment. Was love even the right word? I desired him, but... love, I wasn't sure. What would his reaction be if I told him who it was?

"Just... an android I've bumped into a few times." I replied softly.

"... does ralph know this person?" He asked.

"No, I don't think so."

He stayed silent. "Why is he bad?" He finally asked.

I thought. Figuring out how to phrase it. "He puts his... selfish desires over the desperation of others."

"Ralph sees..." he muttered. "Ralph has never... felt romantic feelings twords someone, so Ralph does not understand your struggle, but Ralph has... suffered from selfish, cruel people. If this person is selfish, Ralph would suggest staying away."

I took a moment to think. He was right. I should. I really should, but for some reason, he hasn't swayed me.

"Thank you for the advice, Ralph. I'll try to keep it in mind." I responded.

Pt 1 Pt 2

[nerves-nebula]

Really thinking about your owl house au stuff, because I loved how u wrote Hunter to have such a complicated relationship with Belos. Well nebulously it wasn’t anymore complicated than canon but the way your Hunter would have gone back to Belos in spite of everything is very real to me. It’s my favourite owl house au to roll around in my brain honestly, and it’s really weird to think about, because it requires the characters to be smarter if they wanted to help Hunter. It’s a Disney show, these guys aren’t built to recognize the complexity. If Hunter goes back to Belos, it would be, ‘You can’t help him if he doesn’t wanna be helped’ and ‘If he were a good person he’d make good choices’. It kind of breaks my immersion to have them be smart about it and go ‘y’all are seeing this right? It’s so fucked up actually. This is not healthy, this guy needs help immediately my God-‘. I don’t really have a point I just think about this a lot and appreciate your older art.

; _ ;

thankkksss i wrote it while moving out for collegeeee and it was fun but to be entirely honest i hate the way my fanart looks, especially of the owl house. i drew him the best i could but there's something about making fanart of characters that makes me just hate my interpretation of them. it feels so clunky and shitty compared to the way everyone else draws them. sorry for abandoning it but im glad y'all still like it.

i think Luz is a pretty smart girl tbh, she was kinda friendly with hunter and recognized him as Not a Terrible person before they were ever really like. friends or something. she was TRYING to befriend him cuz she could tell it was possible. i think if hunter went back to belos she'd feel hurt and betrayed but also sad for him, the same way she did in hunting palismen. cuz hes sad. hes a sad but bad boy who feels obligated to take care of his poor sick uncle.

but there is a sort of truth to the whole ‘You can’t help him if he doesn’t wanna be helped’ thing. i mean, they CANT. they can help him when he comes to them and begs for it, they can help him when he accepts the help, but otherwise pushing it would just further isolate him and make him feel like he cant talk about this kinda stuff to you.

i based that on advice i'd seen about how to help your friend who's being abused. if you rage that they should break up or run away every time they talk about their partner hurting them, then they're gonna stop opening up to you. it sucks but sometimes the best u can do is offer to support them and show up for them and be there if they ever need to take you up on it.

uhhhhhh. what was i saying. anyway. thanks!

[avatarmerida]

Huntlow Lounge singer/ Bartender AU part 2 is here. Part 1 is here. Hope y’all like it. Based on soldraw’s AU. K bye 

---

Willow made a habit of staying late. She’d sit in the back, reading or repairing costumes until close when she could have Hunter all to herself. Sometimes Luz stayed to close with him and the three of them would chat but Luz always found a reason to leave them alone. Despite her best efforts and her patience, Willow could never stay longer than Hunter. She longed to walk him home, see him in a setting other than behind the bar, but he always found an excuse to linger. She didn’t press him about it but found it impossible to see him anywhere but work. 

Luz said he was just shy, but Willow saw a different side of Hunter. He was hardly timid, no, he was cautious. He was thorough and prepared and determined. Beyond that he was smart and funny and dorky. He was such a dork she could hardly stand it. He was handsome, but that was obvious. He was different around her, like he was nervous and calm at the same time. She suspected his heart raced when they were near just as hers did. She had been burned before, but he didn’t know that. Neither of them spoke much about their past and it wasn’t because they didn’t trust each other, but it was nice to have someone know the version of herself she liked the most.

 So maybe there was something in his past that made him hesitant to return her advances (they were returned, but she had to lay it on thick sometimes for him to register them as flirting).

But she really liked him, so she’d take what she could.

Once Willow managed to close the door despite the vicious wind, she quickly began to remove her damp accessories. Her poor gloves didn't stand a chance against the snow that seemed to fall with a vengeance. As she rushed to the back, she found it odd how different this place felt when it was just her. When it was just her and Hunter, there was unique life to the room that made it shine even in the faint lights. But being here by herself made her miss Hunter’s laugh echoing. Was it sad it had only been a day and she was missing him so much? She sighed, knowing she wouldn’t see him tonight with the storm getting progressively worse. 

She hoped Hunter was warm enough. She knew his apartment was still a work in progress. Darius had been using it for storage until recently but Hunter insisted he didn’t take up much space and had been describing his redecorating efforts to her. She hoped one day she’d get to see it in person, that he’d take her up on her offer to go shopping with him. 

As she focused on getting warm and changing into dry clothes, she thought about how to pass the time. She thought about leaving little notes for Hunter to find, maybe a cute little scavenger hunt. A hunt for Hunter, she laughed to herself.

It had been awhile since Willow had a crush, well at least one that she allowed herself to accept. Before she came to the Owl House, Willow had worked at a club where she counted the seconds until she could leave. She had unknowingly been given the desired spot of one of the other girls who then made it her mission to make Willow as miserable as possible. She’d heckle her, pay patrons to boo her, rip and hide her dresses, anything to get in her head. People started coming just to try and make her mess up.

After she left, she didn’t sing for a full year. 

But then, Luz brought her to the Owl House after hearing her singing while she was watering  her window plants. And she finally felt safe enough to sing love songs again.

Then when she met Hunter, she started understanding them. That’s how she knew, when she looked at him and a thousand songs sprung to her mind all at once, she knew there was no backing out now. He made her dizzy and giddy, like how she felt when she sang. Something about being in love just made you want to sing more.

She tried to keep her cool, not to rush in. But look at her, so infatuated that everything around her always finds a way to remind her of him. So enamored that just hearing his name turned her into a puddle. So smitten that even now she felt she could hear his voice echoing in the next room. So bewitched that she dreamt of- wait no she really did hear him now.

Hunter? She thought, peeking out the door to see it was true. Her heart spun, feeling as though this was a gift or a sign or just grand luck. She went to go greet him but stopped herself as she spotted her lipstick sitting on the counter. 

Eh, couldn’t hurt.

As she carefully applied her lipstick in the small mirror, she heard something from the main room she was certain no other being had ever heard before.

Was Hunter… singing?

She snuck another look and sure enough, there he was sauntering around the room, holding a broomstick in his hands as his prop shifted between being a microphone and dance partner. His voice was low and rough, but it was carefree. It was the most beautiful thing Willow had ever heard.

“I'm making believe that you're in my arms

Though I know you're so far away

Making believe I'm talking to you

Wish you could hear what I say…”

He danced around the tables, placing the chairs atop them so he could clean under them. He was lost in his performance, dedicated to his craft as he slid with his broom to ensure no area was missed. He did not mind the emptiness, there was something in him that was so bright it carried him around as it inspired his song.

“And here in the gloom of my lonely room

We're dancing like we used to do

Making believe is just another way of dreaming

So till my dreams come true, I’ll whisper-

 But his secret audience was so engrossed in the scene before them, she forgot to mind her stealth as she leaned against the doorframe as she opened the door to see him better, the creek of its hinges gave her away.  

“Willow!” Hunter exclaimed, hiding his makeshift dance partner behind his back. “Hi! Hey! W-what are you doing here? You don’t work tonight.”

“No one’s working tonight,” she said with a smile. “I got caught in the storm and this was closer than my place so I took shelter. What’re you doing here?”

“I uh, don’t have a phone at my place so I didn’t know not to come in,” Hunter admitted sheepishly. “Eda called here to see if I showed up and told me not to leave unless I wanted to be an icicle. She said she’s got blankets and supplies in the back room so I thought I’d do some cleaning since I’m stranded.”

Among other things, Willow thought to herself. She decided to keep the fact that he had crashed his concert to herself, lest she risk not getting a repeat performance in the future.

“Well, I hope you’re okay with company,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Yeah,” he said simply, as he took the sight of her in. He had never seen her like this. It was a dress she hadn’t worn before, at least not one Hunter had seen her in. It was her signature emerald green, but it was velvet. It was less flashy than her usual outfits but every but as stunning. The waist was cinched high and to the side and led the eye to a dramatic slit. Her hair was still drying from the snow to let her natural curls shine as they twisted around her face as they were always meant to. The only blush on her cheeks was her natural one and her glasses were still slightly fogged from the shift in temperature. 

Hunter couldn’t help but notice she had still found the time to apply her red lipstick. 

“You, you look so…”

“Oh, ha yeah,” she said, realizing  she was technically wearing her work clothes. “Yeah, uh my coat and dress got covered in snow so I hung them up to dry. Luckily I’ve got plenty of clothes here.”

“Yeah that… that is lucky,” said Hunter. He was positive she’d look amazing even in her street clothes but seeing her dressed up always turned his brain to mush. He naturally retreated to the bar.  “Do you uh… want a drink or something?” He didn’t know what else to ask.

“No, that’s okay you’re not on the clock,” she chuckled when suddenly her face lit up. “Wait, can I make a drink?” she asked as though it had been a lifelong dream of hers. 

“Sure,” said Hunter and before he could say another thing, Willow ran around the other side, eager to learn the ropes from the master. He laughed as she positioned herself against his side, scanning the bar for her ingredients. 

“Hmm,” she said, reading the labels. “I wanna make a Hunter drink, what should I start with?’

“Oh, you don’t have to-.”

“Wait no no no, it’ll be a surprise,” she decided. “Close your eyes.”

He obliged and did not protest the way he would if literally anyone else tried to take over his space. He heard bottles clack together as she searched for the right one, the caps coming on and off as she loaded the shaker and combined her choices.

“Can you hand me a glass from up top?” she asked.

“I might need to open my eyes to do that,” he chuckled.

“Oh what? You don’t have the layout memorized?” she teased. “Didn't you tell me you could do this in your sleep?”

“Far enough,” he said, slowly walking over to where he knew the glasses were. It sounded like something he would say, but truthfully he didn’t recall saying that to her. 

“You can open your eyes,” she said with a chuckle, appreciating his effort as he reached up to grab a glass for her. 

“No, not that one,” she said as he brought one down. “I need a tall one cause you’re tall.”

“Alright,” he said, putting it back and reaching up to grab another. He had to move closer to where Willow was standing to do so, and he was mindful not to bump into her but she seemed unconcerned. He set a glass down and she found it to her liking. 

“Okay,” she said, still shaking the tin. “I wanna do that thing you do where you pour it up high without spilling.”

“Okay,” he chuckled as he leaned show at the counter and watched her get ready to pour. She seemed uncertain and Hunter instinctively stepped in, just as she had hoped. “Here, want me to show you? It took me awhile to get it right.”

“Yes please,” she said. He went to begin the pour when she stopped him, wanting to have a more hands on learning experience. 

“Actually, uh I’m not really a visual learner,” she said.

“Oh, okay do you want me to-.”

Knowing he wouldn’t suggest it, Willow placed herself between him and the bar and placed his hand over hers. He quickly got over his shyness in favor of instruction as he proceeded to remove the cap from the canister to prepare their tools. He put a scoop of ice in the glass as he put the tin back in her hand, his hand resting over hers to guide the pour. 

“The trick is to start at the cup and then pull up,” he said, reciting from the book that had taught him. “You wanna start with it titled and adjust as you go up to keep the flow consistent so it doesn’t splash.”

He raised her arm with his as they poured Willow’s creation into the glass, not spilling a drop. “Perfect.” She brought the shaker down slowly to the counter, wanting to linger as long as possible in the practical embrace. She gently pressed her back against his chest as she looked up at him over her shoulder. He was so tall. Who let him be so tall? 

After a moment, she felt him step back as he was aware of his intrusion in her space unaware of how welcomed it was. “Yeah that’s uh… that’s great.” He cleared his throat and Willow saw her ears turn red.

“Okay, now you gotta go down to the end of the bar so I can serve it to you,” she said, positively giddy. 

Hunter practically teleported around the corner as he rushed to the opposite side of the bar. 

“No, go all the way down,” she instructed as she gathered the fishing touches, deciding between lemons and cherries before settling on both. “All the way to the end so I can slide it to you.”

Hunter obliged, making a show of rushing again and Willow laughed. 

“All right ready? Here it comes!” She said, delighted as she lined up her shot. She delicately slid the glass down the bar to him. He caught it, and she jumped up in victory at the lack of broken class.

“Impressive,” he said, genuinely meaning it. “Took me months before I could do that without breaking the glass.”

“Well I guess I’m just a fast learner,” she boosted, basking in his compliment as she walked down to him with two straws in hand. She plopped them in the glass as Hunter admired the coloring of her drink. “Shall we?”

He leaned down and took his straw as the pair went to share the drink. They were each too entranced by the close proximity to one another to actually take a sip. Hunter didn’t know how to look into her eyes as darted back to the floor as hers remained on him. They finally took a sip at the same time, and both of them promptly spat out their drink at the same time.

Hunter tried to be polite about it and play it off as an unrelated cough but Willow turned her head and did a dramatic spit take as she exclaimed in disgust.

“It’s uh interesting.” coughed Hunter

“It’s horrible!” She said, rushing to get water. “Oh my gosh, did I make poison?”

“No, no I uh,” Hunter actually wasn’t too sure. “What was in that anyway?”

“I don’t remember everything, I know I put gold tequila in for your hair and I added lemonade and then whiskey cause I dunno it seemed like you and then some cherry something-.”

“It’s… an interesting combination,” he said, choosing his adjectives carefully. 

“I guess you’re just too complex to be captured by a mere beverage,” she sighed, a little disappointed as she was hoping to impress him. 

“Or maybe I just don’t taste that great,” he countered. She raised her eyebrows at him, her mind racing with countless cheeky things to say in response. She bit her lip at the urge to point it out and Hunter quickly caught her meaning and his mind raced with what to say that didn’t imply he was implying something or that he would want her to want him to. “Er, uh I mean…”

Willow chuckled. “Here, lemme make us something not gross,” she said as she got two new glasses. “Extra cherries?”

“Always,” he said as she brought out the grenadine. “Do you want any help?”

“Oh no, I’ve watched you make this hundreds of times, this one I know I can do,” she declared and Hunter couldn’t help but blush at the idea that she had committed anything he did to memory. 

“Voila!” she announced with a flourish, presenting two perfect Shirley Temples. Hunter was impressed (though slightly disappointed they would not share a glass again). 

Hunter took a taste and was delightfully surprised (not that he doubted her). “Wow! It’s perfect!”

“Luz better look out, I’m coming for her job,” said Willow with a smirk.

“She’ll probably let you have it, she’s getting sick of me,” joked Hunter.

“I find that hard to believe,” she said, sipping her own drink. “Who could ever get sick of you?”

“Well, she says she’s tired of me talking about-.” Hunter stopped himself, realizing the reason stood in front of him. 

“Yeah?”

“Uh… science fiction,” he said instead, which also wasn’t a total lie. “ 

“Really?” said Willow. She and Hunter had read a few chapters aloud together when they worked on repairing some of the older costumes Eda had collected. It helped them stay focused and wake. “Did you do the voice? She’s gotta love the voice you do for the robot guy.”

Hunter smiled. “No, only you like that.”

She really did adore his voice. 

“So, does this mean you’re gonna sing for me now?” She smirked.

“Me? What?”

“Well yeah, I mean I made you a drink,” she explained. “I thought we were trading.”

“No one would come here to hear me sing,” he joked, secretly wondering if she had heard him earlier and if she had, if she suspected who was singing about. .

“Well aren’t we lucky that no one is exactly who’s here right now?” She grinned. “I bet you sing better than I bartend.”

“Eh, I think we’re tied,” he said.

“Oh, c’mon you got something better to do?” She laughed. “I mean, we gotta pass the time somehow right?”

“I guess…”

“C’mon what if I help you like you helped me,” she suggested, leaning over the bar to twirl his loose strand of hair. “Give you a lesson? This is actually the best spot to sing in the club you know.”

“Here?”

“Yeah,” she said, getting up to take a few steps back. “Well, actually riiight here. It’s the very center of the room. It’s like you can reach every part equally and the ceiling curves a bit see? It makes the echo perfect, especially in an empty room.”

“Wow,” he said, and even just speaking he could tell she was right. “Too bad if you sang there you’d get bumped into every night.”

He’d never get anything done if she was that close to him all night.

“Yeah,” she agreed, as she quickly darted to the stage to grab her props. “Probably get my toes stepped on a lot.”

“We can put up a ‘no dancing sign.’”

“Oh no, but I do really love it when people get up to dance during my set,” she said dreamily, as she returned to him carrying her feather bow, dramatically throwing it around her shoulders. “I think it’s so romantic.”

“Really?” Said Hunter, his blood chilling at the way she said ‘romantic’ 

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I mean, you know I can’t see anything in detail up there without my glasses but when I sing a slow song and a couple gets up to dance, it makes me wanna sing forever. Like, it's their song and they just can’t bear to not dance together when it’s playing. Like they just want to hold each other and add a memory to the song. It’s like being a part of something bigger, ya know?”

“I think so," he said, captivated by the passion in her voice. “You sang for Eda and Raine’s first dance, right?” 

She almost gasped. “You remember that?” 

“Of course,” he said. “It was unforgettable.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean  that was the name of the song right? Unforgettable?”

“Oh! Oh, yeah that uh that’s the one,” she gave a nervous chuckle. “I didn’t know you heard me sing at the wedding.”

Willow wasn’t entirely certain exactly what Hunter remembered from the wedding. But that had happened before they met, so maybe the end of the night was the blurry part. 

“Yeah,” he said, trying to be casual about it. He had been mesmerized. “There’s wasn’t a dry eye here.”

He had been the first one to cry.

Willow went to put on a record for Hunter to sing to, fully intending to at least get him to try. As she flipped through the selection, a thought weighed on her mind. 

“You ever had a song like that with someone?” she asked him, holding her breath. 

“Uh, n-no not really I guess,” he said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “I’ve never had someone to have a song with, to be honest.”

“I have a song like that,” she said. “I mean, I have a song I want to be like that.”

“Which one?”

“Oh, I don’t sing it during my set,” she said, selecting a record and walking over to the player. “I’m like saving it, I guess. It’s silly, but I don’t want to see other people dancing to it. I want to feel how they feel when they dance, like it’s just mine. Well, ours, I guess? But, no one’s asked me to dance in awhile.”

“What?” Said Hunter, literally in shock. There was no way that was true.

“Yeah,” she said, taken by his surprise. “No one ever wants to dance with me cause I like to lead, and apparently my grip is tight,” she shrugged. “Plus, ya know it’s kinda hard to dance while you’re usually the one singing.”

“Well, if you want… I-I’d like to dance with you,” he said, saying it quickly like it was his best kept secret.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “I mean, if you don’t mind giving me a dancing lesson and a singing lesson. I’m clueless about both.”

“Okay, yeah sure,” Willow smiled. She suddenly wished she had put more thought into her selection. But truthfully there was no wrong option. She chose a song that had played during the wedding, just to see if he recalled hearing it there. 

She wondered if he remembered dancing there.

Couple of jiggers of moonlight and add a star

Pour in the blue of a June night and one guitar

Mix in a couple of dreamers and there you are

Lovers hail the Moonlight Cocktail…

“I’d love to dance with you,” she said breathlessly. 

As she made her way over to him, he looked uncertain that she was really walking to him even though there was no else here. She still felt nervous, slowly extending her hand to him as though he would suddenly regret his decision. But he took it. Hunter’s mind raced with what he was supposed to do. Did he pull her in? Spin her? Kiss it? His mind was both blank and overwhelmingly full. Willow just smiled, happy to take the lead. Happy to have someone who wanted her to. 

 “Here,” she said gently as she moved his hands around her waist before wrapping her own arms around his neck. She draped the boa around his neck, and although it tickled his nose it eased his nerves. She always knew just the right amount of silliness to balance things like that, like she knew the range of emotions she inspired. 

The music was the perfect pace, not too fast, not too slow as Willow showed him how to step. She took his hand in hers and spun around, never letting go finding new ways for their hands to touch. As she passed behind him, she brushed the back of his waist with her hand and he felt as though he was a slinky uncoiling. As she got closer, they seemed to move less. His hands finally fell with confidence on her waist and her hands rested on his chest as though they had no intention of being removed.

Just as Hunter was getting used to things, the record stopped. He also forgot there was music, he was so focused on her. How long had they been like this? 

“I should probably go out on a new record, huh?” He asked softly, but he could’ve sworn she pulled him closer as if to suggest she couldn’t imagine him leaving their embrace. 

In the silence they could perfectly hear the chaos outside. Knowing the world behind their colorful door was cold and dark made everything about her warmer and brighter somehow. Like everything was dying to tell them that they were meant to be here right now, just the two of them. There was a moment waiting for them. 

Hunter looked down into her eyes, and when he held her craze and didn’t turn away it was like he summoned the words Willow began to sing. It was a song they both knew none of the club's records held. 

Which made it even more theirs.

“Hold me close and hold me fast, the magic spell you cast

This is "La vie en rose”

She didn’t have to project, this was only for them to hear. The room carried her voice  like a leaf in the wind,  didn’t need to fill the room, just the bubble they were in. 

When you kiss me, heaven sighs, and though I close my eyes

I see "La vie en rose"

She made herself more comfortable and leaned her head against his chest. He felt her sigh and it relaxed him, Hunter felt the hum of her voice surround him. Like a lullaby, like a shield it made him feel safe. His head naturally rested atop hers, the smell of her perfume tickling his nose as her curls acted as a pillow. Everything was soft and gentle here, holding her was like being inside a cloud.

When you press me to your heart, I'm in a world apart

A world where roses bloom

Hunter couldn’t help but know she had never sang this song on stage before. Was this the song she was saving? Was she singing it now because there was no couple here to claim it or because he was the only one here?

And when you speak, angels sing from above

Everyday words seem to-

“-turn into love songs,” Hunter finished without thinking. Willow held her breath and smiled. It was like she was hearing the song for the first time as Hunter couldn’t help but sing it under his breath. 

She raised her head to see him and as she did, their noses nearly brushed as he looked down at her. The last lyrics swirled in the air between them, neither wanting the song to end and possibly take the moment with it. 

“You really do have a nice voice,” she said softly.

“Uh thanks,” he replied faintly. “No one’s ever said that to me before.” And now twice in one night?

“That’s a shame,” she said. “I’ve always thought that.”

“So do you,” he said, breaking through the silence. “By the way. H-have a nice voice. But you probably already knew that. It’s pretty. Everything you do is pretty though. I mean, well-.”

“Thanks,” she blushed. Of course she had heard it before, but it somehow meant more coming from him. “You have pretty eyes.”

He scoffed as though he couldn’t possibly believe her.

“What?” She asked.

“Well it’s just that people don’t really notice my eyes when they look at me,” he said, trying to play it off as a joke. 

“What do you-oh.” She realized he meant his scars. It wasn’t that Willow didn’t notice them, but they didn’t take away from him at all. Between his jawline and his laugh, who had time to get hung up on scars? Plus, they just made him look more rugged in her opinion. But she knew what it was like to have others make you feel uncomfortable about something you can’t control. “Well, if you want my opinion, they don’t make you any less pretty.”

Hunter blushed. He was glad she was able to be lighthearted about it, most people tried to change the subject or ignore them. But somehow she could see more in him.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ve actually been thinking about covering them up, might make me more approachable I guess.”

“Well, you should do whatever makes you most comfortable,” said Willow, saddened that other people had made him feel this way. “If you want, I can lend you some cover up.”

“Oh, well I don’t think we’d-“ before he could point out the difference in their complexion, she held him still as she rose to her tip toes to press a kiss to his cheek. She lingered for a moment so when she pulled away, a bright red lipstick mark was left over his scar. 

Willow felt that was the only appropriate way that his scars should be covered. 

“There,” she said proudly. “It’s covered.”

His eyes couldn’t help but he drawn to her lips. They curled into a smile and held her faint chuckle of joy. She had smudged her lipstick, a rouge line of red hanging from the side of her mouth. Her lips that had just touched his cheek. He instinctively reached and went to wipe it away but the moment he touched her face, Willow’s eyes were likewise locked on him. Her eyes fluttered between his eyes and his lips, unsure which one was more alluring. 

His mind was consumed with how she managed to be so soft and yet so adamantine. How her eyes managed to shine like peridot, to cast a cool shade of the tree of her namesake, to piece his heart like a thorn. How her lips were red wine and roses and fire.  She was sweet and brash, so familiar but so surprising, she was so unreal and yet she was tangible. She was magnetic. Before he knew what he was doing, he was moving closer. They both were, like an invisible string was finally being threaded. They were both in disbelief that the other was moving also.

His lips hovered by hers, the gentle whistle of his breathing stung her heart. She felt like she was melting, like her heart was leaking lava as her chest filled with fire and bees and the warmth of every sun in those corny books he read to her. His nose rested beside hers and the space begged to be removed. Willow rose onto her tip toes and pressed an inquisitive peck to his lips. 

They both felt it signaled more, yet Willow felt him lean in only to quickly pull away. 

“Wait,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Hunter, you have nothing to be sorry about,” she assured him. “I was the one who-.”

“I just wouldn’t want you to do something you regret-.”

“-thought this was something else and I-.”

“Because if you’ve been drinking I don’t-.”

“What? Hunter, I haven’t been drinking.” She stated simply.

“What?”

“Yeah, I’ve had the exact same drinks you’ve had,” she said. “Are you drunk?”

He felt intoxicated but he knew it was not the work of the typical spirits.

“No, I… but it’s getting late,” he said, changing the subject rather than finishing his thought.  “I should go try and shovel the walkway.”

“Why, you got somewhere to be?” she asked playfully. Trying to get rid of me? She almost joked, but did not voice in case the response would not be the same tone. Besides, the howl of the wind told her his task was in vain. He reached for his jacket anyway.  ”Ya got a hot date or something?”

“No! No, nothing like that,” he chuckled nervously. “I just… well I assumed you did.”

“Me?” she said, delighted at the assumption. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, you just look so nice,” he sputtered. “I mean, you always look so nice. The other singers usually change out of their costumes when they go home, unless they have a date and whenever you work the late shift, you always look so beautiful before you leave. I just assumed you were seeing someone. I just figured they must work late or something and with the storm they’re probably worried about you.”

He continued to ramble, saying she didn’t need to be dressing up for someone to look as nice as she did, but he had heard Skara mention there was someone she was excited to see after the show and it was a night he remembered her looking particularly stunning. Not that he didn’t think that every night. 

But Willow couldn't stop herself from smiling, she wanted to laugh when it clicked that Hunter hadn’t been holding back from flirting with her because didn’t like her, he assumed she was taken. He had no clue that he was the one she stayed dressed up for. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that she had been chasing him. 

“So you’re saying I look too stunning to not be on date right now?” 

“Heh, I-I guess,” he said. Stunning was not the word he would’ve used. It was the word he thought, but not the one he would’ve said.

“Well, I guess someone better ask me on one then, huh?” she said, looking up at him with sparkling, heavy lidded eyes. 

The words sizzled on the edge of his tongue, begging to be set free as his lips parted in surprise. Suddenly so many meanings changed. So many times she had sought him out, and not to pass the time while she waited for someone else, but because he was her first choice. He was worthy of time where she could be out doing adventurous and interesting things. She turned down offers to hear him tell the same lame joke over and over again.

His heart raced hoping to be faster than his brain as the sentence tried to string itself together, to be confident and coherent and most importantly audible. There was no tall, dark, handsome, faceless stranger waiting out in the cold unknown for her. She stayed up late to spend more time with him. The notion of kissing him existed to her beyond and before an impulse. She was waiting for him. How long had she been waiting for him? 

“Would you eh,” he started, his heart in his throat. “Would you…”

She didn’t deserve some last minute thing in the club where she worked, unceremoniously stranded and cold. She deserved to be picked up in a fancy car he did not have, to be given a bouquet of flowers as lovely as she was, to be paraded around town by someone whose sleeves were not covered in wine stains. She deserved to be swept off her feet, to soar across the room with confidence, to be kissed without hesitation. 

But maybe this was the first step.

“... I would be… it would be so… I-I was wondering if I could take you on a date,” he finally finished. His heart  was pounding, she was so close she could probably feel it. He exhaled as Willow’s lips curled into a smile. It was a smile he hadn’t seen before. He couldn’t place it. Was she amused? Happy? Bewildered? Appalled? Upset?

“Okay.”

“But y-you don’t have to answer right now-.”

“I’d love to.” She said moving closer to him as he looked at the floor, his anxiety trying to contribute to the moment. 

“- I know it’s kind of out of nowhere and you probably have to check your schedule-.”

“I’m free right now.” 

“-And if you-,”

But before the back and forth could continue the light vanished. It was only a matter of time, it was a powerful storm. But all awkwardness and embarrassment would have to wait as Hunter shifted into protective mode.

“Oh shoot,” muttered Hunter, realizing he had forgotten to light candles in preparation. Willow read his mind and shared his disappointment, imagining how romantic it would be to dance in the candlelight. He took Willow’s hand and carefully led her back to the bar where he knew there were matches. The room was nearly pitch black as Hunter took his time to make his way around. Willow found her way to the bar, and hoisted herself onto the counter, swinging her feet as she listened to Hunter scurry behind the bar. 

“I’ve got a candle,” she announced as she picked up the small stained glass container, allowing him to follow her voice to where she was. He rummaged a moment before finding the box

He struck the match and held the flame between them, the dim light reflecting off Willow’s glasses and her face resemble a moon. Hunter was so captivated he completely forgot to light the candle she held out for him. 

The world was quiet and loud again. The world  turned and flipped and shifted as the air held something heavy and purposeful. Like the match he held lit a fuse. 

“You were right.” Willow whispered, setting down the candle like it was choreography. She reached out and adjusted the boa his shoulders still held and used it to hold him in place, as though he was about to float away. Sitting on the bar, she was his same height and used that to look right into his eyes.

“Right?” He gulped. “About what?”

“I do have a hot date tonight,” she said, as she swiftly blew out the candle he held and brought him forward as she pressed their lips together. The box of matches quickly fell from his hands as they went to bring her closer. She balanced herself on the ledge as his arms wrapped around her waist. He somehow knew the way to turn his head as he moved with her. He felt her fingers wander through his hair as though she was trying to figure out a way to be closer to him. 

“A-are you okay? Are you comfortable?” he asked, almost unable to breath. Even this close he could hardly see her in the dark. Even this close, he could hardly believe she was real. That she wasn’t mistaken. His mind held the image of her sitting on the bar like a siren luring him from the safety of the shore. 

She responded with a tiny laugh as she peppered small kisses along his jawline. She was obsessed with that dang jawline of his, she was surprised it didn’t cut her as her lips glided down from his cheek to his neck leaving a ruby red trail behind her. He closed his eyes as he finally accepted his fate and held her tighter as he deepened the kiss. He could feel her smile as his hands moved up her back to embrace her and found bare skin. Her long hair had been hiding the exposed back of her dress and it felt almost forbidden to Hunter, but Willow couldn’t help but feel like this was about to be her favorite dress. They fell into a natural rhythm as if they always found themselves in such a kiss. But as Hunter went to move his hand to the counter to steady himself as she leaned back to make room for him, he lost his balance and hit an empty glass. It fell to the ground and promptly shattered, and when it did it snapped them out of their shared spell. Their eyes slowly opened and it felt as though they just returned to their bodies. Willow realized she could see him perfectly. At some point during their… activity, the power had come back on. How had they not noticed? How long had they been kissing? 

And how long until they did it again?

Willow waited, listening to the sounds of them both panting, their breathing almost perfectly synced. Hunter stared at her with wide eyes, unable to believe that the flush in her cheeks was caused by him. Willow looked at him, decorated in varying shades of red and felt it suited him extremely well. Finally, he broke the silence.

“I should uh probably clean that up,” he said hoarsely, and Willow felt his hand leave her side and when it did she instantly felt colder. When he left her hands she didn’t know what to do with them, and sat on the bar in haze as Hunter went to fetch a broom. Her hand delicately touched her mouth as the moment replayed in her mind and she desperately tried to memorize the feelings of his lips on hers. It had been slow and fast and scary and exciting and peaceful and chaotic. It was so much all at once. So much for not rushing things, she thought.

But had been everything she thought it would be, and more. What a rush indeed.

The way he stumbled from the back room, the way his eyes danced between her and the floor, the way bright red seemed like it would be taking permanent residence on the tips of his ears told Willow the feeling was utterly mutual. She watched him sweep the floor, and she could tell he felt her gaze on him. 

It could snow forever as far as she was concerned.

Three Months Ago…

“Don’t tell him I told you but he’s been working up the nerve to talk to you all night,” Luz said, looking around. “He’s really sweet and I wanna introduce you but I have no idea where he is.”

“He’s the new bartender, right?”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t usually drink,” said Luz. “Our glasses got switched and now he’s kind of… loopy.”

“So he’s drunk?”

“Basically! But he made it very clear he’s afraid of getting drunk,’ said Luz in a small panic. “Because he doesn’t know what kind of drunk he is or something and now he doesn’t even know he’s drunk. But I guess he’s a ‘wandering away’ kind of drunk!”

Willow couldn’t help but chuckle, she was the same way. But she didn’t know how determined Hunter was to finally talk to her, and Luz was worried his current state would lead to embarrassment. “I’ll keep my eye out for him,” Willow assured. “Why don’t you look upstairs? I’ll check the hallway.”

Willow scanned the room, assuming Luz’s friend would be someone easy to find, someone probably sloppy or scared or out of their element. But the wedding was [pretty unruly, it was harder to find someone who wasn’t drunk. Then, something caught her eye. Or rather someone. 

He was tall, his honey colored hair had attempted to be gelled back but a rogue strand came forward and hung in his face which only made him look more dramatic. His features were sharp but his eyes were soft. His jawline seemed to make him look more dressed up, like he had escaped from an oil painting. He wore a clearly second hand suit that was just a smidge too big for him, but the way he rolled up the sleeves made it look stylish. He was a prince, plain and simple, how could he not be?

And he was walking over to her.

“So word on the street is that you really want to catch the bouquet,” said the stranger with a unique confidence as though it wasn’t always there. Willow could tell he was buzzed and everything felt cozy and warm to him. She gave him a smile.

“You heard right,” she said, swirling her wine in her glass trying not to openly swoon at being on his radar in such a way.

“You looking to get married next?”

She raised her eyebrow at him as she screamed internally. “You looking to help me?”

He chuckled, impressed by her quickness. “So long as our reception doesn’t have to be here,” he smiled. “I don’t think Eda would give us a fair price.”

Willow wasn’t used to someone being able to keep up with her. “True, but it’s nothing like that anyway,” Willow said before they started talking about color schemes. “I’m just competitive and I like flowers. Just something silly I've always dreamed of doing.”

“Well, I think I could help you with that,” he said, leaning against the wall beside her.

“Oh?” She felt the blood rush into her cheeks. Must be the champagne kicking in. 

“I’m tall, thought I’d offer my services,” he said as slick as he could manage.

“And what’s in it for you?” she asked. “The bouquet at a wedding is pretty hard to acquire. Emira has elbows like daggers and Skara can jump like three feet in the air.”

“Just a dance,” he said simply. 

“You wanna dance with me?” she scoffed. “Have you seen me dance?”

“I have,” he said dreamily. 

Willow just chuckled. She knew she danced wild and bold, she had taken Gus by the hands and spun him around so fast he nearly flew away. When Raine pulled out their fiddle, Willow’s feet never touched the ground as she jumped and kicked without a care in the world.  She was not exactly an approachable dance partner, yet this stranger looked at her like he had witnessed an angel taking flight.

She looked at him skeptically, waiting for a twist but his admiration did not falter. She couldn’t find a flaw in his proposal, but she couldn't help but feel she was getting more out of it.

“Okay then, deal,” she said, offering him her hand. She nearly missed as the alcohol slowly started to make itself known. He took it like it was precious and held it rather than shook it and she couldn’t help but giggle. He looked at her with such genuine interest, not a hint of irony. How did she not just combust? “I’m Willow, by the way.”

“I know,” he said, placing a small but firm kiss to the back of her hand. “I’m Hunter, it’s an honor to officially meet you.”

[duhragonball]

Chainsaw Man ch.40-47

🎶Pu-ma man/ When will he find love? (Pu-ma man)🎶

We have now reached the Reze arc, which is the longest one thus far. I get a sense of importance from this one, although it kind of repeats a lot of the same situations we've seen before.

Last time, Makima took Denji out on a date, and reassured him that he does indeed have a heart. Denji's been riding that high ever since, because it's been troubling him for a while now that he might be losing his sense of empathy and other emoitons, but apparently all he needed was Makima to tell him "nuh-uh" and he's fine.

On his way home, it starts raining, and he takes shelter inside a... well, it looks kind of like one of those covered bus stop benches, except it's much smaller, like it's only meant for one person. Then a woman ducks inside with him and she starts laughing, then crying. She says it's because Denji's face reminds her of her recently deceased pet dog.

Denji donated money to some charity collection on the street, and they gave him a flower in return, so he gives this to the woman to cheer her up. Well, he pretends to cough it up from his mouth. On the first reading, I thought he had actually swallowed it, because I wouldn't put it past him.

When the rain lets up, she invites him to the coffee shop where she works so she can thank him properly sometime, and he has nothing better to do so he just heads straight there. He actually makes it in before she does, but she's happy to see him so she just buys him a coffee and sits with him, even though she's supposed to be waiting tables.

So it's basically what we've seen before with Makima and Himeno. Denji meets a girl who acts nice to him, and he immediately falls in love with her. The only real twist this time is that he decided after the date with Makima that he's devoting himself to here, so now he's falling for this girl, Reze, and he feels like he's in a love triangle now.

And what makes this internal conflict so sad is that neither girl actually cares about him the way he thinks. We'll get to Reze later, but I think it's pretty clear that Makima is just stringing Denji along to fulfill some greater plan she has. She told him from the start that he was her pet, and she spends time with him and tells him reassuring things, but only enough to ensure his continued loyalty and good behavior. I can't prove it, but at the same time it seems incredibly obvious.

Let's check in on... ugh... Aki. All the Devil Hunters in Public Safety work in pairs, and Aki's current "Buddy" is the Angel Devil. I thought the Angel Devil was a girl, but turns out I was wrong. Denji thought the same thing too, so I guess I'm not the only one.

Aki loathes Devils on principle, since he considers them the enemy, and he only tolerates them in Public Safety as tools and weapons for hunting down other devils. He doesn't want this assignment, but Makima orders him to do it, because she believes the Angel Devil will prove useful. She told Aki he doesn't have to like the guy, but he does need to at least pretend to get along with him.

But Aki can't even manage that. Angel Devil doesn't really want to do anything. He's considered to be friendly towards humans, at least by devil standards, but he doesn't like being forced to work for Public Safety, and when Aki reminds him that he'll be killed if he doesn't do a good job, Angel Devil concludes that he'd rather die, honestly.

Also, there's a scene where they find a half-digested Devil Hunter inside a devil Aki killed, and Aki asks Angel Devil to use his powers to give the poor guy a painless death, and Angel Devil refuses to do even that, so Aki has to do it himself. So yeah, these two seem to be completely irreconcilable. Aki resented Denji and Power for their unprofessional personalities, but at least they could follow orders.

This is the part of the program where I usually rag on Aki for being a total chump who just lets the plot passively wash over him like a turd in a sewer, but this arc actually goes somewhere with him, so that's a fun thing to look forward to.

Back to Denji, he keeps coming back to the same cafe to see Reze, and when she finds out he never went to school or learned to read, she suggests that they sneak into a school in the middle of the night so she can show him what it's like. Or, I don't know, maybe Japanese schools leave their doors unlocked at night, so this is a popular dating activity.

Reze tries to convince Denji that it's kind of fucked up that he never got to go to school, and that seems to stress him out, so she takes him to the pool and offers to teach him how to swim. She also convinces him to skinny dip, since it's too dark out for them to really see all the nudity.

But then it starts raining, and they go back inside to wait for it to let up. Reze excuses herself to use the restroom, when...

... She runs into this guy, who chases her up to the roof of the school. His exact deal is never made clear, but he's got a contract with the Typhoon Devil, who wants the Chainsaw's heart. He's apparently had experience with these kinds of jobs, and he's had success using targets' loved ones against them. So his plan here is to take Reze captive and use her as bait for Denji.

This doesn't work out the way he expected, as Reze turns out to be more formidable than he expected. She gets behind him and applies a rear naked choke. Then she just starts singing in Russian while he dies. The song is apparently called "Jane Fell Asleep In the Church", and it's also the title of Chapter 43, where this scene takes place. When I google the song, all I find are Chainsaw Man references, including fans asking if this was a real song or something Tatsuki Fujimoto invented for this story.

Once she's finished with that, Reze confronts the Typhoon Devil, accusing him of causing this rain that forced her and Denji back into the school. Typhoon apologizes profusely, as he had no idea she was involved here, but she offers to excuse him if she assists her from here on. Also, she wants him to dispose of the guy she just killed. How do these two even know each other?

Reze says nothing to Denji about the incident on the roof, and invites him to a festival. As they watch fireworks, she asks him to run away with her so he can get out of the Devil Hunter life, but he refuses. His job is going very well lately, and he doesn't want to give that up. This is significant because up until now Denji just appreciated his job for the food and shelter he got out of it, but now he seems to feel a sense of attachment to Public Safety, and not just because he thinks his boss will have sex with him later.

I guess what I'm saying here is that Denji seems to have developed an appreciation for his career in the abstract sense. He's good at the work, and he takes some professional pride out of it, and he feels recognized for his efforts. Reze's whole argument for leaving is that he should be in school and getting more out of life than the bare minimum, but that kind of backfires, because her saying that forces Denji to realize that he already has more than the bare minimum. He just hadn't been thinking of it that way because his ambitions were so low.

Reze concludes that Denji must like someone else, so she goes in for a kiss, maybe to say goodbye, and then...

She... bites off the end of his tongue? I mean, that's creepy as fuck, but wha--? Denji realizes he's under attack, but she he goes to pull his rip cord, Reze pulls a knife and lops off his left hand. What are knives made of in this world?

I guess this is an effective enough way to take down Denji. I mean, he can't transform and he can't call for help, but still, if Reze's trying to kill this guy, you'd think she would have gone for the hands first. I guess I shouldn't tell her how to do her job. Her boss at the cafe keep scolding her, but she got Denji to come back several days in a row for lunch, so she clearly knows how to draw customers. Whom am I to tell her how to kill people.

But she forgot one thing: Denji's assigned buddy, Beam, the Shark Fiend. We met this guy in the last arc, and Makima paired these two off while she was having Power's excess blood drained off. Beam's powers allow him to swim through solid materials, and in fact he was nearby most of the time, trailing Denji discreetly by swimming in the road. When this arc begins, we see the fin on his head following Denji, and he even pops up and Denji chews him out for revealing himself. For whatever reason, Beam seems fanatically devoted to "Lord Chainsaw", and so when Denji ordered him to keep a low profile, he obeyed. And so he kept such a low profile that Reze never noticed he was around until now.

So Reze escalates things by pulling the ring on her choker, which turns out to be a grenade pin? Uh-oh.

So what is this? Bomb Woman? Bomb Devil? Bomb Fiend? What's weird is that a lot of these characters have the same basic concept for their powers, but there's all these unique explanations for how they got this way. Beam and Chainsaw Man look a like, but Beam is a Shark Devil who inhabited a corpse, while Chainsaw Man is the result of Denji merging with Pochita. Angel Devil isn't merged with any humans at all, live or dead, but he just happens to look like a human.

So Reze could be any of these things, or something else entirely, and I think the answer is going to turn out to be "something else entirely". I just noticed her apron thing is covered in sticks of dynamite, so that's pretty badass.

So from here, it's a pretty standard Chainsaw Man battle. Reze quickly catches up with Beam, who tries to defend his "lord", but he's hopelessly outmatched. The only reason he manages to escape with Denji is that some civilian Devil Hunters from the festival notice all the exploisions and come to deal with her. But she's a lot stronger than the devils they're used to fighting, so she makes short work of them. Still, it's enough time for Beam to escape to...

... Well, I don't know where this is, actually. It's some facility used by Public Safety, and Aki happens to be there, so when Beam shows up with Denji and claims to be with the Special Division they get Aki to vouch for them.

Beam can barely speak, but he reports that "Bomb" is an ally of the Gun Devil. Aki wants to know how he could know this, but Beam says Makima made him promise not to answer this.

Reze isn't far behind, and she tries to use her human form to trick Public Safety into siding with her against Beam, but it doesn't work. Two of their guys try to hold her off while Aki and Angel take Beam and Denji away in a car.

So these guys have power to infect a target with mold or something, which seems to stymie Reze for a bit, but then she removes her own head and tosses it into the building like a grenade. That's pretty wild, but we're not done.

I think all of that must have just been a diversion, because the actual Reze is already inside the building, and she attacks the good guys while they're still dealing with the exploding head thing. Also, the body that tossed the head is still active. It runs into the building and also explodes.

There's a fight in the buildng, but I think you already knew how that was gonna go. All the important characters are in the car, and before long Reze intercepts them and shows off the heads of two of the guys she killed, just to make a point. She offers to spare Aki and the others if they surrender Denji, but she's not going to be stopped.

Aki refuses, though, and makes a break for it, and then some other Pubic Safety Special Division guys show up to help. Aki must have called them during his flight from the building. Violence Devil tries to beat her up, but she's too strong, so he runs away.

Next up is Kobeni, who... curls up in a fetal position and begs for mercy. Good hustle, Kobeni.

I'll give them this, they survived the engagement, and they bought time for Aki to put some more distance between Reze and Denji. The whole time, he's got Beam and Angel feeding their blood to Denji, but he's running out of options. She catches up to them pretty quickly, but he can't call for more help, and he refuses to surrender Denji. He talks about ramming her with the car, but seriously, what good would that do?

But then something tears out of the car, and it's...

Chainsaw Man! He's back, and this time, it's personal. Aki warns him that he's still too weak for a fight, but I don't know about that. Denji never had a chance to go one-on-one with Reze before, because he didn't know she was the enemy until it was too late. Also, Denji's pissed because every woman he meets is only interested in him for the "Chainsaw heart", but what about his heart?

Reze tries to feign affection for him as a diversion, but Aki keeps Denji on point. Hey, look at Aki making himself useful for a change.

So then they get ready to fight, and I gotta say, this looks pretty awesome. Reze's got a really cool design, and I like how this grudge between them has been set up. She betrayed him completely, and he's really ticking her off because this was supposed to be a stealth mission, and now she's fighting the entire Public Safety team in the middle of the city.

But we're out of time, so we'll have to pick this up in the next installment. Don'cha dare miss it!

[just-for-kixs]

TOH Spoilers!!

Time to tackle Hunter's identify crisis montage. It was bound to happen y'all.

I'm pretty sure Hunter has run into the Gravesfield statues of Phillip and Caleb so I'm wondering if that sparked his whole "I'm growing my hair out to reclaim my identity thing." Also because his little hair worm is a pretty distinctive character trait that's also associated with Caleb so he'd likely want to get rid of that. But let's take a closer look at the image sequences before we dive into all of that.

So first we see Caleb. Already, the likeness is uncanny, the poor dude's got the eye bags too. So it's pretty obvious why we see him in the reflection during Hunter's mirror identity crisis so I won't dwell too much on this.

Next up we have Belos. Now this is a little more interesting, until this point we really don't see too much of a resemblance between Hunter and Belos besides the fact that they're technically related. However, it's not until the next reflection there's a little bit more of an understanding on why Hunter is also seeing Belos besides the fact that he is obviously traumatized.

His hair looks exactly like Belos's hair. Like even the positioning of that single stray strand of hair, it looks exactly the same. It's really sad to see though because it's implied that he grew out his hair to try and step away from Caleb and also from the Golden Guard. Belos probably made him keep his appearance clean and orderly since he was in a position of power but also to keep him looking as close to Caleb as possible.

Him growing out his hair is an act of defiance. Hunter was actively working to reorient his identity only to be hit with the realization that he looks almost exactly like Belos. It's truly tragic to see. And Hunter just spirals from there. He desperately tries to grab control of his own identity by taking a pair of scissors and hacking away at his hair, cutting away all the reminders.

I think Hunter's realized that he's never truly going to be freed from those connections he desperately wishes to sever. It's sad but it's true. He's a clone of an evil genocidal tyrant's long dead brother. But, now he does have the control to reforge his own face and path forward. He's Hunter, not Caleb, not Belos, and also not the Golden Guard anymore.

[moth-eats-paper]

UPDATEEEEE

I've made it to season four so here's an updated log of the Magnus archives thingy mubob (this contains spoilers :3.)

Oh the pig no no like you sir

Oh god I guess this pig is a weird thing

THE CIRCUS?

Oh god not more circuses

Oh dear I think the pig has decided to eat clowns now

Oh self cannibalism

Whelp the pig ate someone

Loud sound

The eyes doing it's thing

JOHN DOING THE THING WITH THE EYE

Tim keeps scaring people

Tims not ok

OMG TIM STATEMENT

Tims brother went missing

I don't think it's Tim's brother

Whelp he's gone

Oh clowns know

OH DEAR CLOWNS

I don't think that's your brother Tim

Oh blood

Oh dead clown

Oh no more skin .

Oh famous clown

Tim and Elias drama

Oh we're in China

Oh creepy opening

I wonder. Is this in Chinese? I know that the eye can allow you to read other languages in order to obtain more knowledge. Even if you never spoke that language or were able to read it you just suddenly are able to.

Oh screams

Nevermind I'm pretty sure it's in English cause it seems the person writing it is a British soldier

Does he have the black plague?

OH DEAD BODYS IN THE WATER

Oh-

This is a sad man

“True and total war”

GOD DAMMIT NO CIRCUS

HE CAN READ MANDARIN AND AND CHINESE NOW (cause of the eye)

IT WAS FROM 2004 NOT 2014

Oh the proper one's are in America

Space station time

I wonder if this is the same space station as the one Gertrude read

I think she kept talking about it in one of the statements well more specifically the guy who it is from

We love Melanie (even though she keeps trying to kill Elias but she has a good reason)

FAIRCHILD IS BACK

IT IS THE SAME SPACESHIP BUT JUST A DIFFERENT GUY

Because the one Gertrude read was the isolation guy. This is about the other two people who were on the ship

Oh god the space weird space hands are back I think

Oh blood

Oh he's bleeding

Oh god he's just going to let himself die

Old screaming things

Don't envy the isolation guy he had a really shit time

Whelp now he's in limbo space

OH SOMETHING'S BLOCKING THE STARS

Oh deep thoughts

Melanie is thinking deep

She's skeptical of stuff

Oh dear

IS HE STUCK IN SPACE

Viscera I think is how to pronounce her name?

MARTIN HAS A CRUSH ON JOHN?

Viscera and Melanie are gossiping and I'm here for it

Oh performance review

OH GOD ELIAS

JESUS CHRIST ELIAS STOP LEAVE POOR MELIAINE ALONE

WHAT DID HE DIE OF

WHY DID YOU GIVE HER THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM DYING

THAT'S TERRIFYING

He can just make her watch her dad's death!

I want texas toast I'm going to go make some

JOHNS IN AMERICA

Whelp he's being followed by a police officer

And Jared's “death”

GERTRUD WAS ARRESTED FOR BREAKING INTO A MORGUE

He just has to read statements to make him feel better

A screaming oven lovely

OH THERE'S A FIRE

OH A TRAINS ON FIRE

What do you mean you'd burn them?

John is better!

OH SHIT IT'S THE POLICE

WHAT IS THAT ACCENT

OH MY GOD ITS THE VAMPIRE HUNTER

YIPPEE MARTIN

I fucking hate Shakespeare

Lovely more masks

Poor Tim

And Melanie

AWW

OH SHIT

SOMETHINGS HAPPENING

PETER LUCAS IS BACK

Lucas seams so silly

Viscera gets really excited about her reading and I love that about her

Mmm more statements

I'm pretty sure John just asked for a statement because he was starting to feel sick lol

MORE VAMPIRES (I think) YIPPEE

His accent is kinda hard to understand

BODYS IN BOX

Spoopy people

Love how she calls the vampire hunter old man

Oh bodys on table

Silent screamers

OH WATER

Staby stab

Oh she killed him

OH SPOOKY THING

HAHAH DOLL THING (why is his voice kinda-)

More Marten :3

This girl sounds like an asshole

THIS PERSONS TRANS TDZSDHUGDZ

That is a long ass name

“Spiders are eating” PFF

Oh don't walk into people's jaws

Mmm Japanese spider movies

YOU HAD TO TRY AND CONVINCE YOURSELF HE ONLY HAD TWO ARMS

Oh spoopy

Oh they found A Way to distract Elias

A leitner?

JARED

Jared is cool

Jared's mom was an ass

Hmmm more things to kill and torture everyone

I keep forgetting meat is in this

Jared is so sad

MURDER

YIPPEE VISCERA

We're back in America and they found a bomb and the taxidermy or what's left of it

John and Tim drama

YIPPEE TIM A JOHN ARE OK

Oh tunnels

Bomb time

The meats back

LITENER

No more arm

And now he's in the water

PFFF

HELEN

Aww

YIPPEE SPOOPY

Meeting timeee

Gurtrud tape time

Wolfgang?

Puppets?

I think this is from a older time in europe because of the writing and how it is worded

DON'T GO

Mmm more robotic things

OH GOD A STAGE

Mmm birbs

BLOOD

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CURL YOUR LEGS INTO A FIST

Funsies

Oh he's being protective of martennnnn

PLANS

SECRET PLANSSS

JOHN STATEMENT HDHJDGKDVJHK

Awww john

ITS LIGHTENERS

Melines to relatable

MELANIE STATEMENT

MARTIN NFSUSSTUDIY

TIMM

Aww goodbye Jarey

mmm masquerade

MARTIN!!

“sorry Elias I can't hear you there's a DOOR in the way” I love marten

Hehehe bomb

Oh god marten don't die

OH GOD THAT'S NOT WAX WORK

MARTIN NO

ELIAS FUCK YOU

Uh oh

SILLY MUSIC

WHAT'S HAPPENING

Mmm nothing is everything and everything is something

God what is happening

EYE THINGGGG

TIMMM

TIM SET OFF THE BOOM

Oh

What the fuck is this

He's not responseuve

Oh eye always watching

ELIAS STATEMENT?

(I'm listening to this for a second time)

Hehehe sad man

Oh

Oh dear

THE ELBOWS DON'T WORK

The sky?

Oh

OH

Ma ma that's not edible

I don't want the box to sing

NOT THE COFFIN

Oh tunnel

Hmmm blood

TRAIN TIME

Hmmm watching

WHERE'D SHE GO

Oh dig

DOOR

Ants?

Oh

He screams

Who are we watching?

MARTIN

What

ARE TIM AND DAISY DEAD?

Bye Eliasss

PFFFF

OH

Lucassss

YIPPEE PETER

NO TIM AND DAISY ARE DEAD

Season 4 babyyy

Oh

Poor marten

This is so sad

Oh

WHAT

WHAT DO YOU MORE GOODBYE

First actual episode of season 4 :3

Oh?

WHO IS THIS

WHAT

WHERE

YOU SAW JOHN IN A DREAM?

WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU

Oh statement

He sees how people die funnn

“What am I?” I ask that often

Oh

OH

Ship into the middle of nowhereeeee

MEMENTO THING

Snakes?

Oh

Nevermind it's death

Why ya calm

Oh

Did you accidentally kill a bunch of people

Nope

YOU GOT A GUN?

YOU KILLED THE CAPTAIN!????

oh

OH GOD YOU KILLED EVERYONE

This is this Oliver guy

SPIDERS

Oh

That's funnn

Oh boy

Melanie (I think it's her)might have scared him off

Oh

OH

JOHNS AWAKE?

Zombieeee

I keep sending the homophobic vase because I can

oh no it was gorge

AND VISCERA

Magic tape?

JOHN!

HIII JOHN

oh

6 MONTHS

He's very confused and I can see why

Hehehe eye thing

Statement timeeee

YOU CUT SOMEBODY'S HANDS?

I think this dudes on something

Maybe

Idk any more everything is odd

YOUR BEING FOLLOWED MX STATEMENT PERSON

Oh

This person's a little silly

Awww I love John

Even though he keeps making have deep thoughts

THEY CAN'T FIND DAISY'S BODY?

Oh oh god marten are you okay buddy

Oh

Aww

He miss his boyfriend (I'm desperately waiting for them to get together)

W E B yippee

Oh god meline she's very traumatized

Oh

Oh that hurt

OH MY GOD THEY'RE GETTING ATTACKED BY THINGS

(Not at the moment)

I think everyone's losing it

HE JUST CALLED HIMSELF THE ARCHIVIST NOT “Johnathan Sims head archivist” JUST THE FUCKING ARCHIVEST

EVERYONE IS EITHER DEAD, PART OF SOMETHING, FUCKING LOOSING IT OR ALL THREE.

[nuevo-city]

can i have. oc infodump please im genuinely so curious

HI HI OKAY HI.

some background info on this world; ~700-1000 years in the future. cyberpunk dystopia. almost all of the world is a desert, with only one city of mutated humans remaining. nuevo. these humans main survival adaptation is their ability to survive the slight remaining radiation from the nuclear apocalypse that happened, as well as their ability to drink saltwater, but they have powers too. the city has been divided into three “levels”, all built vertically on top of each other.

the lower levels are a cyberpunk undercity type place, with crime both violent and harmless running wild due to the lack of the hero society’s influence here (i’ll talk about them in a seperate post, but unfortunately to convey it simply, imagine the heroes from mha if they were basically the fbi and the cia at the same time and also even more corrupt and like. paying off the villains to kill people)

. the middle levels are basically solarpunk aesthetic with none of the e benefits of solarpunk, vaguely-futuristic nyc. think spider-verse earth 1610 for what daily life is like, just a lot more future-y.

upper levels are where the hero society mainly influences, the city in the sky. the RICH people live here. generally if you’re up here you’ve got ties to the hero society or the government, or you just work here and live in the middle levels.

NOW. this is my precious son leo grayson arnaud. vigilante name red noise. bisexual transmasc disaster/professional enabler older brother/part time wannabe wine aunt. he is sad and pathetic and here for a bad time, not a long time. (*cough cough* leo-grayson-arnaud.carrd.co check it out if it still works)

he’s a vigilante!!! he’s awesome!!!! he’s a boyfailure!!!!!! he’s cool as fuck!!!!!!

some info: he’s deaf! his powers let him control sound waves, so he uses them to be really fucking loud so he can utilize noise to electricity to electrocute people with the power of punk rock, but uh…. (garfield meme here) you are not immune to power drawbacks. safe to say, he’s lost most of his hearing. he was also raised the cyberpunk equivalent of a catholic lol? but it’s more akin to like,,, the legal religion from the silt verses than anything. he’s also got an AWESOME boyfriend

(the cowgirl in the second image is @the-lonelyshepherd’s oc shay. if you’re reading this and don’t know her, check her out!!! she’s cool and shep’s stories are so awesome)

this is sam pines. my BOY. fellow disaster tboy, professional hunter noceda relater-to. absolute poor little meow meow. he’d probably like mother mother but he doesn’t even HAVE a mother mother, carrion bird motif, “my guilt does not purify me” ass.

(the flower clasp is only part of his design while he’s in the cult.)

anyway he’s a born and raised lower level kid. he was abandoned by his mother (DO NOT THINK SHE WAS BAD FOR THIS. it was her only option) and grew up in the foster system until he was nine. at that age he was roped into a cult known as the sentinels. (ill go more in depth with them in another post too) they promised him food and shelter, and he needed it, so he took it. over time he was made to be a soldier for them.

he’s basically a prophet for the sentinels? of sorts. it’s very confusing and strange because it’s a Cult and that’s how they are but yeah. he does get out eventually but it’s more “outcast as a heretic and hunted down and almost killed and then saved by the leader because she thinks he’ll be useful if he still has some devotion left”

bonus info: he’d probably like will wood and jhariah tbh. he lost an arm to his own powers (if i had a nickel for every time power drawbacks showed up in my main ocs if have two nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice). he feeds stray cats. he falls asleep in the weirdest positions. chronic pain haver (the haverrrrr). all i can think of as basic info rn but im working on making full refs and posts for the rest of the team

[td-frog]

thoughts on disventure camp e4:

tom and jake

seeing people complain about tom being a hypocrite for snarking at jake here and i agree that it is hypocritical. but i don't think it's bad writing (i honestly really like it?)

like. tom and jake are messy. they have no communication. they overreact to everything. that's like their whole thing.

idk why tom ghosted after the first season, or while he's continuing to be distant (and now, more openly hostile). this is because the show hasn't told us yet. i assume, given that it's only episode 4 and this plot is getting a lot of attention, that there will eventually be some explanation. it doesn't really feel out of character to me at this point, just that we're missing information.

also specifically the reason i like this interaction is because it makes it very clear that tom is also being shitty here! like imo that was clear from the very start with the ghosting and dodging confrontation stuff, but more recently the focus has been on jake's jealousy. and while i do think jake is being unreasonable as well, tom is not innocent. as before, they are messy!!

villians' alliance and elimination

first off: i so called miriam being out this episode. didn't know the exact context, but in order for the alec helping fiore plot to work long term she needed to be out of the picture.

i like that she played well here though. like she did exactly what she should have done in the situation and it just didn't work out. sad to see her go, but not surprised.

poor connor tho :( my man's all alone now. i'm hoping that with grett turning on yul (you go girl) that maybe he'll last a bit longer

also yet again reminded why i love alec as a player and a villain. he's so good at planning and thinking things through, and he's not just thinking in terms of his own best interest. man plays this game like chess.

like. the rest of yellow team would have happily let ellie or fiore lose and get booted despite the alliance. alec's main goal was to get rid of miriam, but at the same time he was proving to ellie (and less so fiore) that he was also looking out for them.

i also like that it's not working out as cleanly as he'd like. miriam exposing him may not have been a problem here, but it will be later. in s1 he was able to largely fly under the radar for a while, and now is having to change tactics.

other thoughts

aiden and tess made me smile :) i want them to be friends

like ally's apology and hunter's non-apology (and fiore's wtf response). i think ally's really sweet and i get why fiore doesn't buy it but i'm glad someone on this team was like "maybe bullying a child is wrong"

ashley's backstory :(

predictions for next episode

elimination is harder to predict because the teams are even again. i'm thinking yellow team again makes the most sense, given the inevitable fallout of the villain reveal and the vote for yul. my guess would be connor vs. yul (vs. alec?) and of those three i see yul as most likely.

(could also be connor but the letter from miriam might save him somehow; i'm mainly doubting that they'd take him out of the competition here bc that'd be pretty unsatisfying for the connoriya drama. kind of leaning this actually bc yul being betrayed but not eliminated could also be juicy.)

if it's not yellow team... i could see gabby on cyan, mostly through process of elimination. tom and aiden need to stick around for the drama with jake, ellie's got the villain thing, and tess hasn't really gotten to do much other than be stuck in the middle of things.

gabby also hasn't really gotten to do anything besides support ellie, but i wouldn't be surprised to see her go early- like with james and lake, it feels like her character so far this season has been more in support of another character, and the impact her elimination would have on ellie feels like the most likely plot direction for this team to take.

that said idk why anyone would vote gabby out at this point. but i digress.

i really doubt it'll be magenta. fiore and jake have their own plots happening that i doubt will be wrapped up next episode, hunter and ally's relationship feels like it needs slightly more focus and deterioration before either of them goes home, and ashley just doesn't really seem likely?

aside from elimination

jake's gonna be sad about miriam. i think tom might be too, but unclear how exactly he'll react. will definitely make their whole thing worse, because for some reason they decided miriam should hold the brain cell of their relationship.

yellow team is definitely gonna have drama: fallout from miriam telling everyone alec was untrustworthy, the whole situation with grett and yul's relationship, connor being the only outsider to the alliance.

not sure what else- hunter and ally might have some plot progression, but i think those top two bullets will be the main points.

also whatever advantage connor got will definitely come up- seen speculation that it's like the "make people switch teams" card riya got in s2 but idk how that would play out