#Class Characteristics of bullets

[gaypirate420]

Shooting classes // Jayce Talis.

S1!Jayce Talis x male!Kiramman!reader.

Summary: Jayce's always been close with Caitlyn's brother.

A/N: If you want to know how Caitlyn's brother sounds to me, picture Charles from Dead Boy Detectives.

Angst/Fluff.

Jayce sighs deeply. First day as councilor and now he has so much to do after his talk with Caitlyn. As he makes his way out of the Kiramman residence, a sharp loud sound makes him jump, he looks around, birds flying off the trees.

Another one.

Then another one.

The councilman hesitantly walks around the garden, he stops as he sees you, gun in hand and eyebrows furrowed in concentration, a target lifts off the ground and less than a second you've shot it back down. Jayce stays extremely still, not wanting to be shot by accident or making you miss and lose concentration which is worse on his book. You lower your gun after emptying your gun.

"That was quite the show." Jayce speaks with a teasing tone, you whipped your head in his direction, taking your ear plugs out and smirking, a small redness crept on his tanned cheeks.

"if it isn't the man of progress." You teased, his cheeks feel a little warmer as he walks closer to you, his hazel eyes looked up and down at your outfit, so fancy even if you're in the middle of your garden shooting.

"Oh please, don't call me that." He rolls with eyes but let's out a small laugh, his eyes looked over to your targets.

"Bold of you to practice near your mother's vases and the old statues of your family." He spoke softly, you chuckled and shrugged.

"How's Caitlyn?" You asked as you loaded your rifle.

"She's- doing better." He didn't want to elaborate, maybe he shouldn't snitch to her older brother about how she's playing detective and definitely not about how he's going to help her now that he's part of the council. You nodded along to his words.

"Got a new toy?" Jayce spoke with curiosity, you lift it for him to see it, he pulls away from you, taking the rifle in his hands, his curious hazel eyes roaming all over it, his fingers brushing it like he's trying to dissect it in his mind.

He mimics the position you held earlier, holding the gun out towards a target. He chuckles softly and looks at you as if waiting for you to stop him.

"Go ahead, golden boy." You spoke softly, Jayce smirked. He is not a sharpshooter, he's never shot a gun but he's seen you and Caitlyn practice for years. The taller man nods and takes a deep breath, you take a couple of steps back.

His eyes are on the target, his finger pulls the trigger. The sound makes him flinch, he stumbles a little back and the butt of the rifle hits his shoulder slightly, he swallows a whimper.

"I think I got it." He says confident though, his characteristic toothy smile shining bright. You smirked and pointed, the target was untouched, the tree behind it whatsoever had a bullet hole on its side. A deep red crept on his cheeks again, he mumbled something incoherently that made you laugh.

"Oh do not get all embarrassed now, Talis. Let me show you how it is supposed to be done." You muttered quietly, what he didn't expect was your hands touching his body.

"Just fix your posture a little more.." You spoke softly, your breath clashing against his cheek, he nodded and let you move him, you were gentle and it made him tingle.

"Arms up." You fixed his arms, positioning the rifle properly and feeling his muscles under your hands.

"And..." You tilted his chin, he felt actual shivers down his spine, his hazel eyes meet yours, your face closer than ever.

"You do not know how to kiss!?" You said out loud, Jayce covers your mouth quickly.

"Don't tell the whole academy about it!" He whispers angrily, you chuckled and a small drunk hiccup makes you jump.

"I told you because I want advice not for you to make fun of me!" He whispered again, you rolled your eyes and nodded, your words were muffled by his hand but he could understand you saying you won't make fun of him again, his hand pulls away.

"Just- what am I supposed to do? I don't want to disappoint this girl." Jayce sighed, taking a big sip of his beer and running a hand through his hair.

"Just be yourself, mate! Don't think too much about it, you just lean in and go at it!." You stated matter-of-fact. Jayce stared at you, as if telling you that it wasn't that easy, maybe you need to be a little more descriptive. You take a swing of your beer and scoot closer to him.

"You get a little closer, tell her about her eyes, about how- you admire her and how you're inspired by her." You spoke softly, the taller man leaned closer, nodding along your words and listening intently, his eyes never leaving yours so he does notice the blush creeping into your cheeks.

"You- stare into her eyes, get lost in them for a second." You said even softer, the two of you stayed silent, staring into each other's eyes.

"And then I kiss her?" He asks snapping out of your thoughts, you nodded, before you could take another sip of your bear, his big hand cupped your face and he leaned in locking his lips with yours. You gasped as he deepened the kiss, his other brand on your waist, leaning you back against the bed of his dorm.

"There, you can shoot now." You said simply but Jayce's eyes were down on your lips, you had that feeling, before that night at the academy it was butterflies, having him close and just to yourself. After that night, it felt like nausea. Like a mistake it shouldn't have happened, a drunken night with a regretful ending and having to endure the following years of meetings girlfriend after girlfriend made it worse every time.

At least you still had his friendship, his love, even if it wasn't how you wanted it. But it lingered, with every hug that was a couple of seconds too long or with a short praise or even seeing him in the crowd in your shooting competitions.

His eyes got back to the target but then they returned to yours, his big and shiny as always as he lowered the rifle.

"Are you planning to kiss me and not talk about it for years again, mate?" You asked without thinking, the taller man stared at you with wide eyes, his cheeks a deep red but also it felt like a shot directly into his heart but you've always been like that, ironically even your words hit the target. He could see it, the mix between teasing and genuinely hurt in your eyes.

"I'm sorry about that night." He mutters softly, you freeze, that's not fair you weren't ready to have this conversation right here right now.

"I'm sorry I didn't talk about it the next day, nor ever. But I was scared." His big puppy eyes looked up at you, your face softened, you could never stay angry at him.

"Scared of losing your friendship, of not being enough for you. It was stupid-"

His words are cut short by your lips sealing his. His eyes widen but then close, leaning in and his big hand on your waist. You gasped softly wrapping an arm around his broad shoulders to keep him close.

"Let me make it up." He mumbled against your lips, you looked up into his eyes, the pleading gaze that stares into you.

"Let me- show you the love I feel for you that I always felt." Jayce whispers with a small quiver into his words, your eyes widen and your cheeks feel warm at the sound of that word.

"Please." The cherry on top.

"You know the way to my bedroom." You answered with a small smirk, Jayce smiles, a relieved but nervous laugh escapes him. He leans in for a second time, this time hungrier as he tastes you, before you know it, his arms wrap around your waist and legs and he picks you up, making you gasp and chuckle, burying your face on his neck and leaving soft kisses along it.

A/N: FIRST JAYCE FIC YAYYYYYY!!1!1!!11! I hope you like it! Excuse me if it's a little ooc for Jayce but it's my first time writing for him! Send requests! (Divider)

[happilychee]

laxus x reader (ft. love me not)

cw: a little suggestive, unhealthy relationship (it gets better, somewhat)

see, right now, I need you, I'll meet you somewhere now you up now, I see you, I get you, take care now

♡ there's a streetlight in front of magnolia's best bakery. you're the one who suggests it as a meeting spot, not knowing of laxus' love for sweets. you tease him to no end but still slam down your hard-earned jewels to pay before he can. you're surprised he offered at all; the lightning dragon slayer isn't known for being chivalrous. he certainly doesn't act like a gentleman when he tells you not to interact with him in the guild hall.

I need you right now, once I leave you I'm strung out if I get you, I'm slowly breaking down

♡ after almost breaking your bed, he cleans you up and throws the blanket over both of you. you fall asleep in his arms, but you always wake up alone. you don't know why he insists on staying in the evening when you both know he'll abandon you before dawn, but when his arms wrap around you and the darkness fades away, you let yourself succumb to it. just one more time, then I'll definitely kick him out first, you convince yourself.

all this time I'm thinking, I'm strong enough to sink it oh, no, I don't need you, but I miss you, come here

♡ you never officially break it off with laxus. there's no yelling, no shouting, no argument that's become so characteristic of your conversations. only tense silence, until you turn your back on the man, walking back to the guild hall. going somewhere he can't follow. laxus doesn't see the tears spilling down your cheeks, but he notices your clenched fists and the way your shoulders shake as you march away.

he love me not, he loves me he holds me tight, then lets me go

♡ you replay all your conversations over a mug of ale in the guild hall. gentle glances when he thought you weren't looking; sharp glares when you arm wrestled with natsu and gray. soft touches along your spine in the dead of night; harsh words when you fight over something trivial. you wonder if it was worth it, if the ache in your chest will ever subside, but then you look at your guild mark and realize you know the answer. you let the alcohol burn your throat, pushing your feelings down, down, down.

well, it's safe to say now you can tell I miss you the most I'll step away now it'll make it harder to know

♡ laxus travels as far as he can, trying to get to a place so distant that there isn't even a whisper of fairy tail. he wants to forget everything, but the trinkets he picks up during his travel say otherwise. it gets to the point where they're weighing him down, and he jingles like that damned celestial wizard and her keys. the dragon slayer finally bites the bullet and enters a post office, hoping you haven't moved out of your shitty apartment.

we know how to push each other 'til we go insane so, we probably shouldn't do this

♡ you stare at your kitchen table, covered in random shit from the package that was at your doorstep. you dig through the bits and bobs, trying to figure out which idiot decided to send you their trash. but you notice that the objects aren't all that random, and you glare at the box as you pick it up, trying to find a return address. there isn't one, but you recognize the handwriting. you toss the shitty box and its shitty trinkets into a corner, but you don't throw it out.

but I know if I'm not with you then I might miss you, yeah, yeah

♡ the fact that laxus' new job has him trailing grimoire heart all the way to tenrou island has nerves pooling in his stomach. the thought of seeing everyone again (seeing you again) scares him. is there a chance he can come back?

all this time I'm thinking we could never be a pair oh, no, I don't need you, but I miss you, come here

♡ the s-class trials bring bittersweet memories to your mind, but you stomp them down, because you have a job to do as an s-class mage. if natsu and gray think it's easier to take you down than to defeat erza, they've got a storm coming. they certainly would've lost if a certain someone hadn't interrupted your fight. you wave them off, focused on the cloaked figure approaching you.

you're gonna say that you're sorry at the end of the night wake up in the morning, everything's alright

♡ you don't think you've ever heard laxus apologize. hell, you thought it was impossible. but here he is on his knees, looking up at you with a pained gaze and more emotion on his face than you've ever seen before. before you can think about it, you start yelling, finally letting out everything you hadn't been able to say when you'd last seen him. still, you're dropping to your knees and falling into his embrace, sobbing softly. maybe you can try again.

at the end of the story, you're holdin' me tight I don't need to worry, am I out of my mind?

[katelynnwrites]

Wondering If I Dodged A Bullet (Or Just Lost The Love Of My Life) | Laura Freigang

warnings: angst and my round and round in circles writing

word count: 2897

summary: laura leaves penn state for frankfurt, another way to put it would be that you and your girlfriend break up because she leaves penn state for frankfurt

a/n: i struggled so hard to complete this and it ended up being far from my best work but it is what it is 🙃

You are eighteen years old when your world changes forever.

It happens in the form of a blonde striker named Laura.

Her eyes captivate you the second you meet them. They’re the same colour as the ocean on a stormy day and possess the same ever shifting qualities.

She’s all confidence on the pitch and yet oh so shy when off it.

When your college coach introduces you to her, you know it is inevitable that you fall for her.

You have all your lucky stars to thank that she falls for you too.

******

It is one month into your relationship with Laura that you learn she loves back scratches.

You discover it entirely by accident, having mindlessly run your fingers across her shirt covered back while she was studying.

The happy sigh she let out had been a soft one but you’d picked up on it immediately.

It’s still early in your relationship but Laura has always been open about her body to you so it’s only with mild hesitation that you tentatively slide your hand up under her shirt, to gently scratch your nails on her bare skin.

The German girl groans immediately. It’s a sound of contentment and you adore the way she melts onto your bed.

She’d come over to study and you suspect, to complain about her upcoming psychology test.

Your girlfriend is awfully smart, being more than capable of keeping up her grades while still being a regular starter for your football team

You suppose that attaining a sports scholarship to study in Penn State should have given you an idea of just how driven she can be.

Laura’s a year older and thus, a year ahead of you. She has way more course material than you and her compromise for making sure she is able to finish her work and still spend time with you, is doing her work in your room. Often with her head in your lap.

You giggle at her protests the moment you stop giving her back scratches.

‘Schatz please don’t stop.’ She begs.

Her ocean coloured eyes have this beseeching look in them, the one that you are never able to refuse.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ You laugh, resuming your previous actions, much to the blonde’s delight.

******

One hundred and twenty one days into dating Laura, you learn that there is nothing she wouldn’t do for you.

Your girlfriend is a big all or nothing individual, that particular characteristic drawing you to her in the first place.

The German forward gives everything she has on the pitch, absolutely one hundred percent of herself regardless of the minute or the opponent.

It just didn’t occur to you that she would bring that into your relationship.

From using the little stove in the dormitory kitchen to make your favourite breakfast on game days, to carrying your bag for you after trainings, Laura is simply committed to you.

You don’t know how else to put it.

She is just an anything for my person kind of girl.

You’re beyond grateful to be her person.

The striker is stepping up her game now, video calling you from her hotel room in Germany, just so she can wish you good morning.

There is a significant time difference between Pennsylvania and Frankfurt but your girlfriend makes it work.

The blonde sets an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night, just to call you for a few minutes right when she knows you will be getting up for your classes.

‘Good morning schatz.’ She whispers, taking in the early morning sun that is lighting up your room when you pick up her call.

‘I’d say good morning too but I think wishing you goodnight makes more sense.’ You tease.

Your girlfriend giggles, ‘I’ll take anything you want to wish me. I just wanted to hear the sound of your voice.’

You’re glad for the poor lighting because Laura’s words make your cheeks turn a bright red.

‘Lau? You did not have to wake up just to say good morning to me. Rest is important for you.’

‘I know. But I wanted to.’ She says softly, adoration filling her voice.

‘Lau?’ You ask again, staring hard at your phone screen to make her out in her hotel room.

It is dark but you manage to, the weak glow of her own phone screen helping you do so.

She is tucked into her sheets, messy blonde hair strewn all over her pillow as she giggles, ‘Yes schatz?’

‘I miss you.’

‘I miss you too.’ She breathes, a small smile playing on her lips.

Every time Germany has a training camp for their youth teams, Laura flies back to her home country to participate.

Each time, you miss her more.

Her absence is sorely felt and you’ve taken to dropping her off and picking her up at the airport just so you don’t have to miss her any longer than you have to.

‘I’ll see you at the airport in two days?’

‘Count on it.’ You promise and you blow each other a kiss before hanging up.

******

Six months into your relationship with the German player is when you find out that she has a penchant for stealing your clothes.

You have been wondering where certain items of your clothing have disappeared to and unbeknown to you, Laura has been hiding them away in her room.

Hoarding might actually be a more accurate term.

Despite how clingy you can be to your girlfriend and she to you, you don’t spend every night together.

When you do, it’s nearly always in your room because your bed is slightly bigger than hers.

It is a sore point with the blonde and she often jokingly complains that it is unfair of Penn State to give their star forward such a small bed.

Today is one of the few times you are in her room and the first time you are alone in it.

Laura’s late in meeting you and you know your girlfriend well enough to be sure that it’s because she has got a bunch of questions for her lecturer.

So you had used the spare key she had given you when you were just friends, before you’d even started dating, to let yourself into her room because standing outside it alone had been too awkward. You know she won’t mind anyway.

Tired from the day’s early morning practice, you flop down on her bed and dump your bag down at the side of it.

You absentmindedly shift her pillow to get more comfortable, only to find something beside it.

As you stare at the piece of clothing, you realise that it’s one of your missing shirts.

Lying back down, you find another of your missing shirts tucked under the other side of her pillow.

You are very confused now, beginning to wonder if you have been forgetful enough to leave not just one but two of your shirts behind, the last time you stayed over in her dorm room.

But if you were, then why hasn’t the blonde returned the shirts to you? Or said anything?

Thankfully, you hear Laura’s key in the door so you don’t have to worry about it for long.

‘Hey schatz.’ She greets cheerfully, flinging her bag onto the floor carelessly and sprawling herself on top of you.

‘Lau!’ You exclaim and she laughs.

Her hands cup your face gently and she presses a brief kiss onto your lips.

‘Hi.’ You giggle, after readily reciprocating her affectionate gesture.

‘Hi.’ She breathes.

Your girlfriend buries her face into the side of your neck, leaving more intimate kisses there.

You groan at the touch of her lips on your skin. It gives you butterflies inside but you can’t let it distract you now.

‘Laura…Laura?’

She makes a questioning noise but doesn’t slow.

‘Why have you got my shirts in your bed? Did I leave them here?’

The German girl freezes.

‘Lau?’ You prompt, reaching out to hold her hand reassuringly.

Her cheeks are rapidly turning a bright pink and she stammers, ‘I-I didn’t mean for you to find out about that…you’re going to think I’m so silly.’

You plant a little kiss on her forehead and gently tease, ‘I already think you’re silly, in the best of ways.’

Laura smiles and then shyly admits, ‘You didn’t leave them here. I kinda stole them from you because I love sleeping with your familiar smell. You always smell so good and something about it just calms me down.’

You stare at her in stunned silence.

Long enough that Laura begins to look uncertain.

Then you blurt out, ‘I love you.’

Your girlfriend lets out a small gasp, her pretty eyes shining as she whispers, ‘I love you too.’

It’s the first ‘I love you’ for the both of you and you cannot put into words how much it means.

Laura seems to be thinking along the same lines because she traces your cheekbone lightly, the action filled with adoration.

‘I love you. I love you. I love you.’ She murmurs, in between peppering your face with kisses.

‘Love you too Laura. So much, even if you do keep stealing my shirts.’

The blonde smiles and confesses, ‘Can’t help it. I bring a bunch with me to every national camp too.’

Before meeting the German girl, you didn’t know it was possible to feel this strongly for anyone.

But as it is with Laura, you discover so many firsts.

You hope that you discover many lasts too because you want what you have with her to be forever.

Fervently, you hope that Laura Freigang is the girl you have your last first kiss with.

******

Forty five weeks of dating Laura and you decide that she is the love of your life.

Maybe it’s the good morning and good night kisses, or the way she so obviously cherishes every moment she has with you. It could even be the way she smiles.

The corners of her lips tip upwards and her eyes light up each and every time she does so.

Your girlfriend’s brother says that Laura’s smile is different when it is directed at you. He claims that it is special and you are inclined to agree.

Laura herself is special to you. Boundlessly so.

She has a new found habit of sliding her hand up and under your shirt whenever you fall asleep together.

The blonde striker craves skin to skin contact with you, loves the peace it gives her.

After your girlfriend admits why she keeps your shirts beside her pillow, you offer her a better solution.

Instead of your shirts, she can have you.

Laura takes you up on that immediately and her assigned dorm room practically becomes a storage room for her belongings.

She is always in your room because she spends every night there now.

It’s one of her favourite things to curl up beside you and rhythmically match her breaths to yours.

You are warm and oh so real, unlike the often cold material of your shirts.

The German girl can be possessive and it shows in how she holds you close, even as she sleeps.

Laura presses you into her, her palm resting flat on your back and you love it.

It has you feeling safe and wanted, two things that your girlfriend has never failed to make you feel.

You know that you are right, she is the love of your life.

******

Three hundred and sixty five days of being Laura’s and Laura being yours is when she gives you a necklace for your anniversary.

It is a simple piece of jewellery, a small heart shaped locket hanging on a delicate silver chain.

‘Do you like it?’ She anxiously asks, fidgeting with the rings on her fingers.

Admiring the gift, you breathe, ‘I love it.’

Gently, you kiss her to convey just how grateful you are. The blonde smiles into the kiss, her hands cupping your face instinctively.

When you pull away, you softly speak, ‘Thank you schatz. Will you help me put it on please?’

The striker grins brightly, ‘Of course.’

She makes quick work of clasping it around your neck as you hold your hair up.

Glancing at the mirror, you play with the locket and Laura prompts, ‘Open it.’

You feel a tiny latch you hadn’t noticed earlier just as she says so.

The locket opens when you press down on it and you gasp as you see the photo of your girlfriend sharing a kiss with you in it.

You pull Laura into a different kiss, deepening it to show her just how much you love her present.

‘Love you. Love you. Love you.’ You murmur, in between the kisses you keep pressing onto her lips.

Laura lets out a pleased sigh, intertwining her fingers with yours and promising, ‘I love you too.’

You squeeze her hand in yours but can’t take your eyes off the locket.

‘Schatz, this is really beautiful.’

Your girlfriend cheekily but honestly admits, ‘Like you.’

Then she laughs at the blush that rapidly appears on your cheeks, affectionately brushing her lips across your forehead.

******

Laura’s locket never leaves its place, around your neck.

Not even when you are nineteen and the blonde, twenty, the two of you unsure where your relationship is going.

The striker has got an offer from 1. FFC Frankfurt and she knows that taking it will be the best move for her career. You know it too.

It is just your fear of what happens now that makes you anxious.

You love your girlfriend, adore her so. She’s only been yours for slightly more than a year but she is the love of your life. You don’t know what you would do without her.

Your day starts with Laura’s good morning kisses, you eat breakfast together, walk each other to classes when able to, study together, go for training sessions with one another and share goodnight kisses when it is time to sleep.

For a lack of a better way to put it, you do not remember how to live your life without her. You don’t you if you can and that may be codependent of you but it is the truth.

From the way the blonde is fidgeting with her rings, you know the feeling is mutual.

‘I-I don’t want to leave you.’ She quietly admits.

‘I know.’

‘I love you.’

‘I know. And I love you too but you have to do this schatz.’

Laura’s voice is pained when she echoes your earlier words, ‘I know.’

Touching your necklace carefully, you begin to unlatch it.

The German girl inhales sharply.

‘Don’t.’

Her ocean coloured eyes are welling with tears when she covers your hands with hers.

‘Keep it. I gave it to you. It’s yours. Please, it’s meant for you.’

‘But Lau-’

Her words are fierce as she insists, ‘No! We’re not over, you and I.’

Your smile is wistful and cautious when you look up at her.

‘Laura you don’t know that. You don’t know if any club will want to take me, let alone one in Germany. The chances of me ending up in Frankfurt with you are slim if at all possible.’

The forward’s frown intensifies, ‘Don’t say that. You don’t know that.’

As much as you want it not to be, your tone is one of resignation, ‘Schatz…’

Your dorm room feels stifling in a way it never has before and even though Laura is sitting right beside you, on your bed, she feels so far away that she might as well already be in Frankfurt.

The blonde is staring at you speechlessly and you take her hand in yours.

Holding her hand is familiar and an intimate gesture…one that you know you will not have for much longer.

‘I love you. No matter how much time passes, part of me is always going to love you. But you need to stop thinking about me. About us…and move on. You are going to do so good with Frankfurt. You are brilliant Lau, please show them exactly how talented you are.’

Your words are barely audible but you mean it. You have never meant anything more. It’s with your whole heart, your breaking heart, that you tell them to the German girl.

Laura’s tears are spilling down her cheeks and she is shaking slightly when you break your heart for good with the next two sentences out of your mouth.

‘I’m your biggest fan. That’s never going to change, it will just have to be from a distance now.’

******

Maybe it was stupid of you to let the love of your life go. But you needed to, needed to learn how to live on your own and let her be a star, halfway around the world.

In a way, you dodge a bullet too because as painful as it is, you learn. Without the striker leaving, you never would have learnt.

And for Laura who has been looking sad in all the nicest places and wanting to call your name until you come back home, it pays off.

Because some years later, as crazy as it is, you are in a German cab and telling the driver where the blonde’s place is.

You’re on your way back home to her, with her locket still around your neck.

German Translation:

schatz - sweetheart

[kevin-ibw]

For an alternate version of himself, SHAU Val is not amused.

I wrote a little short below read more if anyone is willing to read.

Reblogs are appreciated! ✨️

Word Count: 586

Warnings: None, unless you count someone’s inner monologue of simping.

For the sake of differentiating them, OG Val is called Val, and SHAU Val is called Tino

Tino could feel his counterpart's second pair of hands as they slithered around his waist, while the first pair gripped his shoulders, entwined with patches of sleek black fur. His own claws tingled with the urge to retaliate, to seize the other's neck and forcefully pry his hands away. Maybe even shoot a few angelic bullets while he's at it, but no, of course he couldn't do that.

A sneer curled Tino's lips in response to the other's grin, as he was pulled closer against his will.

Self-restraint had always been Tino's specialty, his defining trait. He prided himself on maintaining composure, refraining from erupting into fits of rageful tantrums and shooting up a storm. That was not who he was supposed to be.

"Why so tense?" Val teased, the smirk evident in his voice. "You and I both know that Vox is the stuck-up workaholic here, not us."

Except no, he was wrong on both accounts because, Tino is almost always up all night reviewing porno scripts and making major edits to them because his writers have no class or any artistic talent, and second Voxxy, isn't.

In all the decades he had known his own Vox, tension had never been a characteristic he ever displayed. Deciphering body language had always been Tino's forte, yet discerning Voxxy's true emotions proved to be a challenge. His smile danced between genuine warmth, malicious intent, mischievous amusement, and playful deceit. Tino recognized that the majority of the time it was a facade, but distinguishing between the different smiles has always been a daunting task.

It's a common saying that eyes are the window to the soul, but Voxxy always kept his own shut. A type of mercy he grants to others, claiming that there's no fun in bringing sinners into their cause if they just immediately kneel down the moment they locked eyes with him. Tino has never been more glad to have fucked up visual acuity, because at least he can properly bask in the glory that were the white spirals that move endlessly in Voxxy's eyes without falling into the spell of his hypnosis.

That TV head had no right to be so graceful.

Tino was broken out of his thoughts by Val's hum. Grin suddenly turned cheeky, and it was by then that Tino realized his mouth was slightly curled up into a small smile. The other just chuckles at him when the frown returns on his expression, more prominent than ever.

Val let out a snicker, tugged him closer until both of their shoulders were touching. Tino felt his own eye twitch. No doubt his white pupil had manifested from the intense emotion of anger that boils inside of him.

“Can you stop being fucking touchy.” Tino growled out, he felt a bit of his self control slip out. It was evident in his voice, it sounded too harsh, too hasty and he never would've known that he'd lose his patience faster with a version of himself.

How embarrassing.

The grin never leaves the other's face, eyes becoming half-lidded, and an eyebrow is lazily raised.

The amusement makes Tino want to sock his face even more.

The other's grip becomes tighter, and the red smoke from Val's cigarette begins to circle around him, eventually forming a hand to caress his chin. It spikes his irritation even further, and he tries his hardest to still his arms and not choke slam Val to the floor.

Tino could really use a line of coke at this point.

[pynkhues]

https://x.com/lestatdelioncat/status/1858608673855336516?t=KsAra9iHb3aUiMDx21TF2w&s=19 I dont understand what Jacob meant by this and I definitely would argue that Louis isn't the most vampire but that Claudia is

Mmm, yeah. My interpretation of what Jacob’s saying there is that Louis has an enormous capacity for self-indulgence, and its because he has that, that he has to restrain himself so fully. That makes sense to me, I think we see that in 2.05 in particular between all the boys and the drugs, but I think we also see it in how he bottles things up until they explode out of him and he does things like murder the Alderman Fenwick in a pretty gory and performative way, and, y’know, swims the Mississippi to get at Lestat (in more ways than one!)

Does that make him more vampiric? I don’t know if I think that does, but it begs the question of what you think determines a vampire’s core characteristics? It’s an ever-evolving archetype, and has definitely gone through a lot of iterations in the last twenty years in particular, but I think if you’re looking at the origins in traditional gothic literature, Louis is in many ways the quintessential vampire.

So! Let's have a look at that.

The origins of the vampire

The concept of a vampire in literature was actually created in the same summer retreat that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in, which is a delightful little slice of history. You can read more about it here if you’re interested, but the nuts and bolts of it is that a freshly-divorced Lord Byron, his doctor, Dr. Polidori, as well as Percy and Mary Shelly, and Mary’s stepsister, Claire Clairmont (who was pregnant with Byron’s child, a child he really didn’t want), went on a summer retreat to Switzerland together, and basically just spent months reading each other ghost stories which ultimately culminated in Byron suggesting they have a competition to see who could write the best one.

Hilariously, none of them really wrote a ghost story – Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, and Byron actually wrote two things, although he only finished one – a poem called The Darkness which is effectively a dystopian poem about the end of the world – and his unfinished project was a novel about a dying man who swears he’ll be resurrected to visit his friend after he dies.

It's this that’s actually taken up by Byron’s doctor, Dr. Polidori, who turns it into the 1819 short story, The Vampyre, with the lead character being heavily based on Byron himself.

In Polidori’s story, it features a man, Aubrey, observing his rich, sexy male friend, Lord Ruthven, who has superhuman strength and can’t be killed by bullets, and who seems to keep seducing women important to Aubrey right before they mysteriously die. Basically Aubrey slowly realizes through mounting dread that Lord Ruthven survives by drinking the blood of innocent women.

I’ve talked a lot about the Byronic Hero (and how I think Louis embodies the trope), so I won’t go too much into it here, but my point is that the original concept of a vampire is inherently built on those romantic ideas of class and wealth (which is important for reasons I’ll get into shortly), sophistication and intelligence, hiding in plain sight and seduction, and is generally understood to have queer subtext which many read into the relationship between Aubrey and Lord Ruthven (Ruthven literally seduces and murders Aubrey’s lover and his sister, isolating him to his companionship). He’s also inherently Byronic, being first started by him, and later based on him – Byron truly isthe I-don’t-know-if-I-want-to-be-him-or-be-with-him guy of literary history, haha.

Building on the origins and evolving the metaphor

It was the late 1800s though when some of the most genre-defining stories were published. The two biggest being Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1871) and, of course, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). The genre had evolved already at this point, but the archetype actually didn’t change all that much. In fact, the vampire as someone who is rich, predatory and seductive became character traits that became metaphors in and of themselves, namely as a class metaphor. This was started with Lord Ruthven in The Vampyre, but it’s really expanded here, particularly in Dracula, who’s understood in the context of the 1890s to represent the solitary nature of monopoly capital that sucks the life from the labouring classes. He hoards his wealth through land and gold, and preys on the working class.

There’s been a lot written on this, so I won’t labour the point, but the understanding of vampires as symbols of aristocracy and capitalism has always existed, and I know that we joke about Louis being the first vampire capitalist, but it’s actually not true. Capitalism has always been a vital part of the genre, because class has always been a central tenet of classic gothic fiction, for better and for worse.

Wealth and class is also central to Carmilla. It’s set in the 1800s in Austria while the wealth gap between the rich and poor is increasing, and Carmilla comes from an aristocratic, old money family. She benefits from being rich, and she uses her social power as a rich aristocrat in order to seduce and prey on people in the lower classes. Again, the entwining of wealth and class is really prevalent, but interestingly too, Carmilla’s the most explicitly queer of all of these early vampire stories, with the lesbian relationship woven through it effectively textual, but Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu also posits two means of being turned into a vampire, which is kind of uniquely interesting to me.

One is the way we know – vampires turn vampires, but the second is that vampires are people who’ve been rejected by God, whether due to suicide, as explicitly stated in the book, or excommunication from the church for a sinful life. While this hasn’t literally carried forward much in the genre, I do actually think its still there. The elements of sin and quote-unquote ‘corruption’ are still threaded through most vampire fiction even today, and while hedonism is more common in modern vampires, there are elements of misery that feel pervasive. The idea that vampires are born either through being turned, corrupted or dying by their own hand is just one that I find really interesting, and I think also speaks a bit to elements of the Byronic Hero that the vampire is inherently steeped in as an archetype.

…And evolving some more

It was actually Anne’s books in the 70s that relaunched vampires into the stratosphere popularity-wise, and they did evolve in theme and metaphor as a result. Vampires are understood to be manifestations of current anxieties, which yes, in the 1800s was the rise of monopolistic capitalism, female sexuality and homosexuality, and in the 70s through 80s became metaphors for anxieties around STIs, the AIDS crisis, and addiction in particular, but these themes of class and misery never left the genre.

That said, the Vampire as an archetype in and of itself was also informed in this period really by the Milton’s Satan archetype which has gone on to form the modern concept of the anti-hero. I talked a lot about the Milton’s Satan archetype here in terms of Lestat, but the important thing to note is that it holds to the idea of a protagonist as a fallen angel who becomes a hero-villain, hedonistic, vain, proud and horribly, terribly human.

So, do I think Louis’ the most vampiric of the vampires?

Yeah, actually. In a lot of ways, Louis marries all the foundations of the traditional vampire. He’s as wealthy, intelligent, and seductive as Lord Ruthven was, but he really feeds into the late 1800s vampire as a symbol of the parasitic nature of monopolistic capitalism and landed wealth. He chooses to be solitary and rejects community, he’s using women’s bodies to keep his family in wealth, he’s hoarding and commodifying art and wishing death on artists to increase profit, he’s gentrifying San Francisco, he’s turned in a church on a night he likely would’ve commit suicide, tying back into Le Fanu’s idea of alternate ways of vampires being turned, hell, he’s even doing drugs with addicts in the sprawl of the seventies, using his social power over Daniel by flaunting his wealth to get him into a room with him.

And he’s a Byronic Hero. So he’s miserable while he does it, haha.

That joy in the hunt that Claudia has to me is more like Lestat’s, which I do think as I said in the Milton’s Satan / Fallen Angel archetype post is more tied up in the demonic than the vampiric, traditionally speaking. There’s definitely crossover though, especially as Milton’s Satan has informed the modern anti hero, and vampires are generally always anti heroes in modern fiction. I don’t think Claudia necessarily is a Milton’s Satan either – I’ve said it before, but I think she’s a true Gothic Heroine – but she definitely has some of those attributes of a fallen angel, particularly in the sense of hedonism and perversion of form and family.

In a lot of ways, it’s part of the fun with Claudia – she gets these elements of both Louis and Lestat, and gets to be her own thing too. Her vampirism is its own unique monstrousness, but I don’t think she plays as cleanly into the traditional vampire as Louis does.

I'll leave it there, because this is way more than you asked for, anon, haha, sorry. Hopefully it's interesting.

[idkfitememate]

Harry Motherfuckin’ Potter OC Pt. 2

Basic Information

Full Name: Eden Dolion Alaister-Harrow

Meanings: Eden; Place of pleasure and delight, Dolion; Deceit & Betrayal, Pagonis; Peacock/Vain & Showy, Harrow; To Ravage/Plunder/Seize or Capture

Nickname(s): Crow, Peacock, Big Bastard, Shifty Shit

Birthday: 9/24/1979 (Month/Day/Year)

Age: Eleven (At start); Twelve (when in school)

Zodiac: Libra

Gender: Nobody knows (Genderless/Neutral/Intersex/Fluid)

Pronouns: They/Them He/Him She/Her (They do not care)

Romantic Orientation: Biromantic

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Nationality: American

Ethnicity: African-American/Greek

Current Location (Home): New York & Washington

Living Conditions: High-Class, Cleanly, safe

Title(s): The Bosses Kid, Next in Line, Underboss, Second in Command

Background

Birthplace: Jersey City, New Jersey

Hometown: Stenhekin, Washington

Social Class: Upper/Higher Class

Education Level: Slightly elevated/Eighth Grade

Father: Alfe Bertrand Harrow (Wizard/Unknown Location)

Mother: Kalma Solanine Alaister (Mob Boss/Alive)

Sibling(s): None

Birth Order: N/A

Children: N/A

Pet(s): Parson’s Chameleon (Fem;Named Chel), White Bellbird (Male;Named Albert Anastasia)

Other Important Relatives: Aunt (Runs personal Safe House; Named Dionisia Hemkock Alaister)

Previous Relationships: None

Arrests: Wanted American Criminal

Prison Time: Over one life sentence

Occupation & Income

Primary Source of Income: Working under Mother (Mafia)

Secondary Source of Income: Mixologist/Bartender (Illegally)

Tertiary Source of Income: Underground Fight/Dog Fight ring (Super Illegal)

Approximate Amount Per Year: $3,476,450 USD (£672843.95 Pounds)

Content with their Job (Or Lack their Of): Entirely Content in their situation

Past Job(s): Barista

Spending Habits: Fast Food, plushies, weapons of all kinds

Most Valuable Possession: A Dakin Garfield Plush

Skills & Abilities (Ten point scale)

Physical Strength: 8/10

Offense: 10/10

Defense: 7/10

Speed: 8/10

Intelligence: 6/10

Accuracy: 8/10

Agility: 8/10

Stamina: 10/10

Teamwork: 5/10

Talents: Hand to hand combat, Marksmanship/Gun wielding, knife combat, blunt object combat, chemical weaponry, torture techniques, leadership, planing, intimidation

Shortcomings: Magic, listening, anger management

Language(s) Spoken: English (American & British), Modern Greek, Slav-Macedonian

Drive?: Able too (illegally)

Jump-start a Car?: Able too

Change a Flat Tire?: Able too

Ride a Bicycle?: Not able too

Swim?: Able too

Play an Instrument?: If screaming counts

Play Chess?: Not able too

Braid Hair?: Able too

Tie a Tie?: Able too

Pick a Lock?: Able too

Physical Appearance & Characteristics

Face Claim:

(Found on Pinterest!! If anyone finds the original, please tell me so I can credit!!!)

Eye Color: Deep Brown/Black

Hair Color: Black

Hair Type/Style: Voluminous & Fluffy, curly and course; Large Afro puff that covers the eyes and stops on the bridge of the nose, back stops at the bottom of the head.

Glasses/Contacts: Needs reading glasses

Dominant Hand: Left hand

Height: Six ft One in; 182 cm

Weight: 150 lbs; 68 kg

Build: Sleeper

Exercise Habits: Every other day;Switch arms and legs every other day

Skin Tone: Dark brown with deep brown freckles

Tattoos: A Family Crest on the chest (above the heart) and sleeve of ravens/crows/the night

Piercings: Full ear, septum, snake bites, tongue, sternum

Marks/Scars: In general around the chest/neck/face; bullet grazing on the neck, rope burns on arms/chest, bullet wounds on one knee, a thin scar across the eye (no blinding)

Notable Features: Sharp teeth (shark-like), painted nails (usually black, green, or gold)

Usual Expression: A wide grin, teeth on full display; muscles are usually tensed (only un-tensed around trusted friends/family); eyes are wide and alert

Clothing Style: Black Tie/Formal; Suits, ties, long cocktail dresses, lace/velvet gloves, etc

Jewelry: A silver tooth, family ring on right pinky finger

Allergies: Fur, peanuts

Body Temperature: 99° F (37.2° C)

Diet: High carb, many vegetables, many fruits, hates banana

Physical Ailments: Ears are a bit shot/slightly deaf (blame the gunshots)

Psychology

Jung Type: ESTJ-A

Jung Subtype: Extorvert

Enneagram Type:

Moral Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Temperament: Sanguine/Chloeric

Element: Air/Fire

Primary Intelligence Type: Itrapersonal Intelligence

Approximate IQ: 120

Mental Conditions/Disorders: Paranoia, PTSD, schizoaffective disorder, BPD

Sociability: Extremely

Emotional Stability: Extremely Unstable

Obsession(s): Friendships/Relationships

Compulsion(s): Making sure area/position/place/building is safe, checking on friends to make sure they’re safe

Phobia(s): Autophobia, Aphenphosmphobia

Addiction(s): None

Drug Use: Cigar (tobacco)

Alcohol Use: Various kinds

Prone to Violence?: Absolutely, Extremely

Mannerisms

Speech Style: Constantly joking with dark humor, uses formal language

Accent: Slight New York

Quirks: Runs fingers through hair, bites tongue and lips till they bleed

Hobbies: Mixology, roller skating, assembling/dissembling weapons

Habits: Spinning pencil/pen like a butterfly knife, unneeded flirting

Nervous Ticks: Punching solid objects, scratching skin

Drives/Motivations: Money, making others uncomfortable, defending friends

Fears: Getting kidnapped, Mother betraying them/Betraying their Mother, killing Mother

Positive Traits: Fiercely loyal, somewhat logical, physically inclined

Negative Traits: Batshit insane, heavy trigger finger, incredibly violent

Sense of Humor: Extremely dark and constant, a coping mechanism

Do they Curse Often?: All the God Damn time

Catchphrase(s): “Now, let’s fight like real men.” “Jesus motherfucking CHRIST.” “I’m going to rip your nerves out and tie you into a braided knot.”

Favorites

Activity: Mixing drinks, rolling blunts, making money

Animal: Chameleon’s, Lyrebird

Beverage: Fluffy Duck (alcohol)

Book: Mob Girl ~ Teresa Carpenter

Celerity: Al Capone

Color: Teal, Crimson

Designer: Christian Lacroix

Food: Deep Dish Pizza, Strawberry ice cream

Flower: Chrysanthemum

Gem: Pearls

Holiday: Mother’s Birthday

Mode of Transportation: Car

Movie: The Godfather

Musical Artist: Frank Sinatra

Quote/Saying: “Gag me with a Spoon.”

Scenery: A dark warehouse only lit but a single cigar

Scent: Tobacco and gunpowder mixed with blood

Sport: Baseball

Sports Team: METS BABY LETS GO METS ITS ALL ABOUT THE METS LETS GO METS BABY

Television Show: Family Matters

Weather: slightly overcast, little humid

Vacation Destination: The Bahamas

Attitudes

Greatest Dream: To take over the Family Business

Greatest Fear: Failing Mother

Most at Ease When: With Mother/Friends

Least at Ease When: Alone with their thoughts

Worst Possible thing that could Happen: Mother dies by their hand

Biggest Achievement: Taking down a rival groups kid

Biggest Regret: Getting close to that kid and gaining genuine love/respect for them

Most Embarrassing Moment: Walked in on a meeting in pajamas

Biggest Secret: Has killed a few wizards (both knowing and unknowingly)

Top Priorities: Keeping friends safe, pleasing Mother, keeping Mafia safe

Wizarding

House: Slytherin

Wand: Pine wood with a phoenix feather core, 13 and rigid flexibility

Standing: Half-Blood, Metamorphmagus/Animagi

Animagus: Lyrebird

Pet: White Bellbird (Male; Albert Anastasia)

Top Classes: Transfiguration & Charms

Affinity For?: Dark Magic

Affiliation: Our fuckass group (name work in progress)

Backstory:

Eden was born to a single mother in the heart of New Jersey, and immediately their fate was set in stone.

They were destined to take on their mother’s business, being taught for day one that the world was cruel and not worth any light, only the darkness they will inevitably find.

They were hidden from public view for years, which severely impacted their psyche. Declared criminally insane, that’s what they all said Eden would be when they finally started to work…

It was fine, fun even! to be covered head to toe in the sticky red substance that others would call blood. What they did came naturally, weapons becoming an extension of themself. Teeth, bones, severed limbs, they all became trophies that proved Eden earned their spot next to Mother, as the Underboss.

It came as a shock that they were of magical descent, never believing in the mythological. There was no point, no physical evidence, at least, not until Eden subconsciously transformed into a past victim when speaking about the things they did to his corpse. Sure, they were used to looks of fear from their men but damn that weren’t this bad before.

It was a weird talk, having to hear about their Father who wore robes n’ shit and cast spell and blah blah blah, they honestly fell asleep in the middle of it all.

It ended with them getting a bunch of… Knuts, sickles and galleons?? And told they were going to a magic school for a couple years and that it would be safer????? Alrighty then, whatever Mother says goes.

Now they’re here, traumatized and tired, riddled with dark humor and the tiniest understanding of magic, a weird ass stick and some other guys.

Maybe they can make a Wizard mafia… wonder if any of these stick twiddlers know how to fight fist to fist.

Miscellaneous

They have killed before and will do it again.

DARK HUMOR DARK HUMOR DARK HUMOR DARK HUMOR DARK HUMOR DARK HUMOR DARK HUMOR DARK H-

If you really wanna get to know this bitch you’re gonna have to PRY-

They bring roller skates to Hogwarts and rollerblade around but always keep them under their cloak, so people just think their fast as fuck boiiii

Can and will tell you how to disassemble any gun imaginable and perfectly rebuild it from memory but will struggle with basic grammar

Can only swim due to assassination attempts. Can also taste/smell many types of poisons, same reason

They’ve beat up Draco before.

Fucking hate Dumblebitch (real)

They once opened an underground bar for ghosts and only closed it when the ghost started acting batshit insane and drunk and the smell could be traced back to the Slytherin

(Any questions please ask I’ll probably write a more cohesive backstory later I’m tired lololol. Questions are more than welcome tho I did make this bitch on a whim!!!)

@libraryraccoon I deserve a damn award for this.

[bibibbon]

Hi Bibibbon. I’m working out what I want to do to with Momo for my rewrite, so have some facts that I’ve mostly settled on for her. (The bullet list format is inspired by @/Lorddog45’s fact lists)

•Momo wanted to go to Seiai Academy, but ended up going to UA due to the pressure from her parents and the hero who recommended her. (I’m still trying to figure out who that hero is).

•I’m taking some inspiration from Noelle Holiday from the game Deltarune for Momo’s characterization and Momo’s mom.

•Hear me out, but. Hana Shimura survived the Decay Incident and managed to avoid All for One’s detection while he was searching for Tenko (unfortunately Hana wasn’t able to find Tenko during this). Hana was put into the foster care system and was eventually adopted by the Yaoyorozus. Hana is now Momo’s adopted older sister, Also, Hana is trying (and failing) to find Tenko. Very important to note that Tomura thinks Hana dead.

•During the final year of Junior High, Momo’s mom became the governor of Aichi Prefecture. Prior to that Momo’s mom was the mayor of the city the Yaoyorozus lives in.

•The Yaoyorozus also runs a very successful company for Hero Support Items. They also work closely with the Hero Public Safety Commission. The Yaoyorozus are also one of the primary sponsors of the Annual Hero Gala, a rewrite original event that happens once a year in early January. (Also, both Class 1-A and 1-B will be attending the Annual Hero Gala once January rolls around in my rewrite)

•The primary reason why Momo’s parents allowed her to go into the pro-hero profession is because Hana is set to inherit the company.

•If she hadn’t settled on becoming a pro-hero, then she would’ve became a doctor instead.

•Despite only being able to properly interact at the Annual Hero Gala and other Hero Events, Tenya and Momo consider each other childhood friends. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Shoto because Endeavor sucks ass.

•Speaking of the Annual Hero Gala. The Aoyamas are also sponsors of the event (per the command request of AFO though), but while Momo has interacted with Yuga’s parents at the Gala before, she has never meet Yuga prior to attending UA. In fact, Momo wasn’t even aware that Mrs. and Mr. Aoyama even had any children much less a son her age.

•During Elementary and Junior High, Momo did Fencing. Due to this the default weapon Momo uses is a Sabre. She was also apart of the Track and Field Club, Literature Club, and Tea Ceremony Club.

•Momo absolutely loves tea and she can ramble on for hours about the history of tea. Once the dorms has been implemented, it is not uncommon to walk in on Momo and Yuga having a several hour long convo swapping history facts about Tea and Cheese. There’s no such thing as an allistic UA student <3

•She’s a lesbian. And one that was knee deep in comphet before befriending Kyoka.

And that’s all the Momo facts I have finalized so far.

~

Also, and yes! Trans girl Tomura! I love using gender expressions as a metaphor for freedom and the like. Meaning, the further Tomura is in her transition = the more AFO loses control. And the closer Tomura grows closer to the League of Villains, AFO loses even more control of her. Basically what I’m saying, AFO fails at bodysnatching Tomura due to the Power of Estrogen Pills and (villainous) Friendship.

If you can't think of a hero, then just make an OC that would have the characteristics that would fit who you're thinking of. If you want a Canon character, I would recommend someone like Ryuko or Uwambi

I have never played the game, so I will take your word for basing Momo and her mum on the game

Having hana survive with shigaraki acting as an unreliable narrator for us would be so sweet ( parallels with Canon izuku), and I wonder how scarred Hana would be? Do you think she would face any struggles due to her background? Do you think part of the reason she was adopted in the first place was because kotaro and the yazarou family were close, or they might have been interested in Hana sharing the same lineage as Nana shimura

Hana must have been cared for by the yazarou family since they want her to inherit the company. I suppose that this may mean that they treated her like one of their own and that Hana herself tried really hard to get in their good graces. Momo and hanna are also really similar so they can pass for siblings.

Do you think that the regrets hana has about the way she treated tenko cause for her to treat momo differently? Maybe she is a bit distant with momo, but tries her best to be incredibly supportive of momo, especially when she says that she would like to become a hero.

It would be a convenient marketing strategy to present momo and hana as the hero and support duo which is probably why momo was encouraged to become a hero more than a doctor imo

The heroes having something like the met gala that gets funded by multiple rich people is so cool. Momo and yuuga being familiar with the procedures as well as iida and shoto in that case yet they never really interacted deeply with one another is an interesting idea to explore their relationship with family identity and wealth

Momojirou! Would love to see how you choose to develop the dynamic and if you will have yuuga tease momo about her crush on jirou or even try and play matchmaker with mina

Momo and yuuga Bonding over random hyperfixations and interests as well as them both being rich kids who find difficulty with their identity and what the world wants them to be is so good!

Shigaraki finding herself and coming out would be intriguing to explore, especially if you choose to make magne (another trans woman) act as a big sis to shigaraki helping her and probably being the glue for shigaraki bonding with the rest of the leauge as she finds her identity and as AFO loses his strings on her

[renardtrickster]

My last post going over my thoughts on Hazbin Hotel ended at episode 4. 8 episodes later, in honor of the season ending and also Symmetry, the rest.

It's a lot longer, so I'm ditching the bullet points and putting it under a readmore.

My largest and foremost gripe with the series as a whole (and this extends to Helluva Boss as well) is that the female cast feels weirdly underdeveloped. They're not poorly written per se, Charlie is likeable and well-realized even if she's been mostly static (vanilla protagonist?), and Vaggie did get some interesting folds when her being a former angel was revealed (I didn't know this was a fan theory btw), but Niffty's been mostly a joke, and all the same they're blown out of the water compared to the amount of screentime and focus devoted to guys like Angel Dust, Alastor, Vox, and even Husk perhaps. The good thing is that this is one of those issues where you don't have to "go back" and fix anything, you just have to give them more of a spotlight in future episodes. Which I hope they do.

I think even Christians would agree that Lucifer was always the most interesting character in the Bible, and I was excited for the show's take on him. There are shades of "Lucifer as an embodiment of freedom in contrast to God's order" which is a pretty standard read on his character, but the big thing they seemed to stress was his characteristics as a dreamer and an artist, which is pretty fresh. So introducing him stuck in a creative rut and essentially poo-pooing Charlie's dreams for the hotel is a good indicator that something's deeply wrong. It turns out that Hell is a pretty hopeless environment to be in, and his disinterest in the Hotel or helping Charlie make it succeed was because he's now riding the philosophy of "if you never chase your dreams you never get hurt when they fail", which is just depressing to hear. I have thoughts on the show's depiction and philosophy on Hell, but I'll group it with my thoughts on Heaven two paragraphs from now. Also his design fucks, I like the snake-apple-crown around his top hat, I didn't even notice his torso is meant to look like an apple core until someone else pointed it out, we stan a short king, etc. etc.

I found Heaven to be pretty interesting. I was expecting most of the angels to look more or less the same as each other, but the variety in display (some are furries, some are dudes, some are polygonal creatures) was more interesting, in addition to making me think "wow the fact that they draw from the same design pool in hell is interesting", to which my main man @arcane-nrok posited that it's because the people in Heaven and Hell are not fundamentally different from each other, where they end up depends solely on their environment and upbringing. Then Adam said nobody drinks because "there are no hard days in Heaven" and we both began pogging out of our minds.

The biggest bombshell when it comes to discussing Heaven or Hell is that despite our antagonists literally being the forces of Heaven, God has never been mentioned even once. Because of this, I have to disagree with the people claiming that Hazbin Hotel is some screed against Christianity (even though as an anti-theist, I wouldn't object if it were), and I definitely don't think it's a "fuck you mom" immature one either. It reads to me as more of a rebuttal and criticism of Christians and Christian morality than the actual religion itself. I mentioned the implications of class inequality before, that Adam more or less implies that if you have an easy life, you'll more easily find Heaven, and that if you have a harder life, you'll more easily find Hell. And while I know a lot of Christians were offended by the fact that the Angels don't seem to like the sinners and also don't seem to give much of a shit about the concept of redemption either, this reading makes sense if you imagine them not as Angels but as humans, interpreting doctrine in whatever way benefits them at the expense of others. Allegorically, Adam is the "christian who has never read the bible" who flaunts basically every rule but is de facto understood to be a "good christian" and so his behavior gets a pass as he and everyone else focuses on the shortcomings of everyone else, Lute is so ideologically locked into eating from her trash can that she's essentially been turned into a weapon focused on denouncing and punishing the unworthy, Sera is empathetic and aware of the internal incoherency and cruelties of the system he upholds but is locked into it to such an extent that she has to justify, compartmentalize, or ignore those glaring issues, and Emily is the same, except young enough that the indoctrination isn't as strong, and without the "tenure" such that she's most likely at risk to be excommunicated for her concerns. And on Hell, the great philosophical evil present over anything else is that while there may be some truly despicable people in there, the possibility of redemption must remain, to such an extent that it's positioned as an almost universal right and that the denial of it is an almost cosmic injustice (which in terms of theology and critical reading of the bible is almost as old as, the bible). Not only is the denial of redemption a tool used by the Angels to justify the existence of the system as it is (the argument of "they had their chance to get into heaven, it's too late now" is said by Adam at least twice and by at least five different sinners), but the sheer bleakness of it was enough to temporarily drain all the joy and hope from creation's first artist and dreamer. In short, the nightmare that Hazbin Hotel conjures isn't that God is cruel or unjust, but that he's been dethroned by his most fundamentalist followers.

Also Vaggie got kicked out of Heaven for refusing to kill a child, so I actually I take it back this show is extremely biblically accurate.

To suddenly jerk away from theology, philosophy, and societal critique and back to "here's my cartoon criticism", the pacing. I still maintain that if you blame anybody but the jokers who gave them eight episodes to work with, I'm going to fuck your wife, but I feel like it's been as much of a good thing as a bad thing??? The good news is that the plot is advancing constantly (as opposed to Helluva Boss which can feel dawdling and aimless), and the brisk pace means we don't have to "dwell" on things that make me groan when other shows dwell on them. Sir Pentious' introduction to the hotel, for example, could have devoted more time to the "Angel Dust feels that Pentious is a sussy amongus and also maybe a bit inadequate because the snake is an immediately better guest than him" element, or could have had Sir Pentious run away after getting caught, the attempt at redemption being a fib until he comes back a second time and stays for real. But they didn't in either case, and I feel like the episode was better for it (I was pleasantly shocked when he signed on for real). The bad news is, there's no room to breathe, meaning that everything necessarily must reach the high stakes being set by the rest of the plot, and we can't devote more time to the quieter, slower moments without making them take up the episode (as in episode 4, not that I thought that sequence was bad). Episode 7 is the embodiment of this dual nature, I think. Charlie felt hurt by Vaggie keeping secret the fact that she used to be an Exterminator, and while she felt hurt (as she should, her feelings are valid), she did ultimately resolve them after a frank talk and an exploration of what she's really feeling. Seeing that is refreshing after seeing Every Other Show turn this "plot" into a season-length dramafest, but Charlie essentially resolved this on her own with the help of Rosie, and by the time she meets up with Vaggie they've both essentially buried the hatchet without even the implication they talked to each other about it. "Deeds not words" was the big clincher for Charlie forgiving her, but I'm not alone in thinking this is some sort of mis-step, right? My hope with season 2, along with getting more episodes, please, is that they get more room to breath, but also don't "slog". A tough needle to thread, but a doable one I believe.

"Too much red." - Adam Firstman

Season 2 is a killer for a fair number of shows that end season 1 with a bang. They can enter "the sophomore slump" as they try to find their footing exploring new ground while also not fully divorcing themselves from the identity they built up in season 1. But I feel like they set up quite a number of threads to follow up on. The Angels have been defeated (RIP Adam, he sucked but he was fun to watch), Lute is still thirsty for revenge, and apparently they not only have Lilith, but they're going to deploy her soon. Pentious officially got into heaven, which will undoubtedly cause a shitstorm as redemption is proven officially possible, the Seraphim are the first to meet him, as well as "I wanna see how this goober acts in heaven". The hotel is rebuilt, and is now "on the map" seeing as how everyone knows Charlie stopped the extermination. Alastor has an ace up his sleeve with Charlie's deal, and his motives are still largely enigmatic. Vox and his cronies are emboldened and plan to make a push. There's at least three powderkegs present, with several irons in the fire nearby, which should be plenty of material to follow up with or deliver on.

My final hope is that, as I said in the last post, Hazbin Hotel feels like an improvement upon Helluva Boss's shortcomings. There's still shared issues, like the aforementioned Feminism Loss, but it knows and follows on its own premise (whereas the IMPs haven't been doing much assassinating), swears casually but only purposefully overuses it for obnoxious characters like Vox or Adam or when someone is emotionally compromised (meanwhile half of Blitzo's dialogue can bleed into a white noise of fuck words), keeps up the tension and advances the plot (as opposed to the aforementioned dawdling and aimlessness), etc. So in the same vein as my hopes that Season 2 of Hazbin Hotel follows up on its strong points while working on its weaker points, I hope Season 3 of Helluva Boss similarly learns and improves from its sister series.

[forensicfield]

Determining Characteristics on Firearm Identification

Each bullet or shell casing has two distinct properties when it comes to firearm identification. The design of a barrel's rifling, such as four grooves with a right twist, the width of lands and grooves, and its caliber are all class features....

Continue reading Determining Characteristics on Firearm Identification

[sitepathos]

Their Favorite Magical Subject

Price

Charms

He remembers the first spell you used when you first joined 141: Windgardium Leviosa, which you used on a tank and made it float like it was a balloon instead of a 55 ton war machine. The sight of his boys’ eyes nearly popping out of their sockets still makes him chuckle.

His favorite use of your charms has to be after a particularly long and gruesome mission, him and his boys wanted nothing more than a cold drink, but all the bars were either closed are were clearing out to clean up after a night of rowdy customers. You then had the genius idea of using the Refilling Charm on the half-decent case of beer they were able to buy, which allowed them to drink as much as they want and the bottle would refill itself.

Needless to say, you made a lot of friends that night.

Your charms have come in handy in the field countless times, such as Alohomora, which has allowed them to quietly breach a building without setting off alarms and alerting hostile (also when he’s lost his office key for the umpteenth time and really doesn’t want anyone to know).

Gaz

Flying Class

The first time you showed up on your broomstick was the moment he knew you and him were going to be friends.

He always wants to go for a ride with you, no matter how hard a mission he was on was. In fact, the thought of soaring through the sky and feeling the wind on his face is what motivates him to power through the mission.

When you introduce him to Quidditch, he instantly falls in love. You show him your monthly copy of Quidditch Times and go over every article inside, from interviews of famous players to announcements of new broomstick models.

Please take him to a Quidditch match. A Hogwarts match, the Quidditch World Cup, he doesn’t care. All he wants is to see people play on broomsticks.

He’s tried many times to convince Price to let you fly them into missions on your broom, but the captain’s said no every time. Still, he’s sure he’ll wear the man down and get his wish one day.

Ghost

Defense Against the Dark Arts

This man is focused on the offensive and defensive aspects of magic since that’s what you’ll be using while in the field.

He may act like he doesn’t care, but he loves it when you go over every spell that’s taught in the class. His favorite spell is the Disarming Charm, Expelliarmus, as it knocks the target’s weapon out of their hands, allowing them to be apprehended or taken out.

Of course, this man would obsess over the Unforgivable Curses when you tell him about them; being able to control a man, inflict unbearable pain upon him without drawing blood, and then killing him in a single blow. Of course, he’d never ask you you cast them. To him, you’re pure and innocent; leave the heinous acts of violence to him.

And if you ever ask him to help you brush up on your charms and curses, he’ll happily agree to be your test dummy. Of course, if you want to practice blocking bullets, he’ll insist on rubber bullets and the moment you get hit, he’ll drag you to the infirmary and call it a day.

Soap

Care of Magical Creatures

While all forms of magic, no matter how dull, blow him away, this man is amazed when you tell him all the magical creatures he’s heard about in stories are real.

Especially dragons. He absolutely loses his shit when you tell him dragons are real and reside in reserves scattered around the world.

Will ask you for lessons on magical creatures and records everything in his journal, sketching creatures in great detail and listing characteristics, how to care for them, and his personal thoughts about them.

If you have any magical creatures you care for, he’ll help you with them. From feeding, grooming, and walking, he’s there with abundant energy and a bright smile. And if you ever need to leave the base for a few days, he will totally babysit.

Alejandro

Charms.

Like Price, he’s in love with your charms, but his reasons are more personal.

When you volunteered to help him rebuild Las Almos, you used what would become his favorite spell: Repairo. The sight of seeing his home being repaired in a matter of minutes before his eyes is something that will stick with him for the rest of his life.

Not only did you repair the town, you cast a spell that brought rain to help them through their summer drought and healed the hurt townspeople with healing charms, like Episkey, the Bandaging Charm, and Vulnera Sanentur.

After Las Almos was repaired and was back on its feet, you became an honorary member of Los Vaqueros and the towns people built a statue of you in the the town plaza so that your deeds would always be remembered.

König

Potions.

After you gave him the first Calming Drought, he became fascinated at the art of brewing potions and always asks to watch you whenever you have to brew a potion.

On multiple occasions, both the core members of 141 and Alejandro have walked in on you two sitting on the floor of your room, the giant sniper sitting crisscross and watching you with undivided attention as you brew a potion.

Also asks you to give him potion lessons, and you do; he keeps detailed notes on everything you do in a little notebook and studies it as he gets ready for bed. It also helps calm him down from the day’s chaos.

When he shows promise in potion-making, you allow him to help you with large orders. You also trust him to use your cauldron and personal supplies when you’re unavailable. He keeps his potion notes on him at all times and whips it out every time he brews, no matter how many times he’s made a specific potion.

[dyxtd21]

The Ancient Attainment:

(Chapter 2)

(Monday 1st, June, 20XX, 5:00 pm)

The day seemed to pass by quickly, and it was unnoticed by Zebra Jasper nor Ametrine, who was pacing back and forth, awaiting for someone to arrive, as was Zebra Jasper, who was seated down. Both of them didn't care that the day went by too quickly since for them and their kind, they were all immortal, and they would see the next day again and soon, continuously.

"Where is that bastard?!" Ametrine yelled quite angrily. A part of him didn't like when others were late, and if they were...well, that's another story. As for Ametrine's appearance, he was tall, at 6'5", and with an athletic body. Like all gemstones of his species, he looked extremely youthful, as he was in his 20s. He wore a 1940s attire, complete with a sport coat, slacks, button-down shirt, and a sleek Porkpie hat. His gemstone was oval-cut and on his right hand. However, those weren't his most prominent features.

His first prominent and noticeable feature was his whole colouration. Just like his namesake and gemstone kind, his colouration was a combination of two colours, purple and yellow. However, his colouration was split horizontal, with the purple colouration on his upper part of his body while the yellow colouration was on his lower part of his body, splitting just right at his hips.

His other prominent feature, which was hard to notice, was his nature. You see, Ametrine had only two, dualed, personalities, between politeness and...sadism. He was extremely dangerous whenever he felt sadistic. Many have tried to tell the tale, but... many have failed and met their downfall at Ametrine's hands.

In all honesty, citizens of Gotham City compared Ametrine to Two-Face but in a more flashy and upgraded manner, which was something that Ametrine despised, and yet, his pride and ego didn't.

That son of a...indecisive and dualed two-bit ain't nothing like me. We're so opposites. Ametrine thought one day as he heard the whispers and discussions of him being compared to Two-Face.

"Relax, Am. He'll appear. Take deep breaths, my dear." Zebra Jasper clarified as he tried to relax and sooth Ametrine with his deep and smooth, velvety voice. Ametrine gave out a low growl but, nonetheless, took a deep breath and exhaled, relaxing in the process.

Zebra Jasper was a gemstone just like Ametrine but only different and...intriguing. He stood at the height of 6'4" with an athletic physique, and just like Ametrine, he looked like he could be in his youthful age of his 20s.

His most unique feature was his clothing attire. He was dressed in a typical 1920s-1930s mob boss/mafia style with the addition of suspenders and a fedora, which was covering his whole face except his mouth. This made it hard for others to see his face and eyes.

Moreover, his other unique feature was his whole colouration, which was an alabaster white with jet black stripes, equivalent to a zebra's.

Zebra Jasper also had a commanding, enigmatic, and a sex appeal aura surrounding him, but nobody couldn't blame him. He did look charming and attractive to many, which made his business dealings and other jobs extremely easy and paired with his "grey" morality, he was always battling and choosing different sides but mainly, he enjoyed staying on neutral grounds, doing everything only for himself.

Zebra Jasper was also one of the Elites, a second high ranked gemstone, which, in the gemstone hierarchy, means that the Elites have far more power, more abilities, and are able to create other gemstones. These set of characteristics are only for the Elites, however...there were some lower-class gemstones who broke the rules and created gemstones by themselves or together. They were severally punished.

"You know? I had a thought..." Ametrine suddenly spoke out, snapping Zebra Jasper out of his thoughts.

"And that is?" Zebra Jasper tilted his head a bit to the right, interested in what Ametrine thought of.

"Putting a bullet through that two-timing, split bastard's hea-" But before Ametrine could finish, Zebra Jasper interrupted him darkly.

"I do not think that's a good idea, Am. We don't want the whole city to know about us and our species now, do we?"

"I guess not..." Ametrine replied slowly.

"Good. Now, that's settled, leave Two-Face to Pyrope. He knows exactly what makes Two-Face tick." Zebra Jasper stated while looking at Ametrine.

As if on cue, Pyrope opened the door to Zebra Jasper's hideout, which was a lovely furnished warehouse, and stepped inside.

With a stoic, calm but authoritarian voice, Pyrope reported:

"I have good news and bad news."

[dzthenerd490]

File: Goosebumps - Welcome to Dead House

SCP#: ATI

Code Name: The Vampire Town

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: The entire town had been walled off, the roads leading to SCP-ATI have been destroyed and reconstructed to lead away from the town, and a perimeter outside of the town had been filled with do not enter signs. The cover story is that the walled off town is actually quarantined due to an out of control and unstoppable gas leak, which is technically not a lie.

Foundation staff within SCP-ATI are to never take off their protective suits and/or armor, especially when around the "citizens" of SCP-ATI. Under no circumstances are Foundation staff allowed to go anywhere with SCP-ATI instances especially alone. Foundation staff participating in tests are or collecting samples from SCP-ATI and its instances are to do so when escorted by Foundation security. Foundation security must have UV liquid bullets and UV flashlights with them at all times. 

Should the "citizens" of SCP-ATI ever rebel against the Foundation all "umbrellas" are to close right away, and all buildings are to be smashed allowing sunlight in. This is to continue until the SCP-ATI citizens either surrender or are extinct. 

Description: SCP-ATI is the small town and the citizens of a said town known as Dark Falls. The people have been exposed to an anomalous yellow gas by the nearby factory that suffered a chemical spill. The gas spread everywhere killing everyone, but they didn't stay dead but instead became vampiric like ghouls. They have the common characteristics of a vampire being they are immortal, they have a hunger for fresh blood, and UV rays like sunlight is lethal to them. Essentially this is all there is to them and their anomalous properties. Unfortunately, skin and blood samples harvested tend to be no different to died skin and blood from corpses and decompose twice as fast as normal dead human flesh does. Though just like any vampire so long as they drink fresh blood, they will regenerate their wounds and their strength. 

SCP-ATI was discovered in July 1992 when a concerning rise of families had disappeared. Evidence recovered by Foundation agents showed that they all ended up going to a hidden town of Dark Falls. Foundation agents posing as a family went in to investigate but quickly had to withdraw when the citizens of SCP-ATI started attacking them right away. As such the O5 Council approved sending in Mobile Task Force Epsilon-6 "Village Idiots". They were able to quickly surround the town and rounded up the citizens. The citizens agreed to surrender but also begged for blood as their population was growing due to them adding each family they consumed. Thus, having more mouths to feed and less blood to go around as time went on. For whatever reason they must drink the blood directedly from living victims. Blood, even fresh blood, cannot be ingested by the citizens of SCP-ATI, how or why this works is unknown. 

The Ethics Committee was rightfully horrified and furious at the citizens of SCP-ATI and the O5 Council took advantage of this. They proposed to have the D-Class fed to the citizens regularly. They are also to have a population cull every [data expunged] months. The Ethics Committee approved this and eventually most Foundation staff ended up joining in. The main reason almost everyone in the Foundation was on board is due to the personality alterations of SCP-ATI citizens. It appears that anyone who has had their blood drained by SCP-ATI they not only turn but consider themselves true citizens of SCP-ATI and thus help with future feedings. Weather this is actually a part of the anomalous effects of SCP-ATI or just desperation formed out of their increased hunger. 

The citizens of SCP-ATI are now used as labor for minor projects such as mass production of easy to produce Foundation items. In return the town making up SCP-ATI has been filled with large umbrella like structures that allow the citizens to roam around freely. They are made similar to umbrellas to ensure that if the SCP-ATI citizens ever rebel from the Foundation they can close allowing sunlight in to neutralize them all. 

To this day Foundation staff, Administrative staff, and Ethics Committee members debate on whether or not SCP-ATI should be neutralized or if its citizens should be given better treatment. Thought as the years go by, less and less Foundation staff worry about the conditions of SCP-ATI and just leave it be. As such it has been mostly forgotten and those that do remember simply don't care enough to change the current status quo. The unfortunate fate that most SCPs will eventually face within the Foundation. 

.

SCP: Horror Movie Files Hub

[amanita-phthalo]

This account is a fun little roleplay account I've made to pass the time and flesh out this character before I use it in a campaign. I will also post/reblog here all the fun D&D stuff that I see.

So, without further ado, here are some details about it:

Name: Amanita Phthalo

Nicknames: "Nita" by family and close friends, "A. phthalo" by Witherbloom friends

Species: Fairy

Species Features: Standard Fairy features, +2 Wis., +1 Cha., Use Wis. for Fairy Magic feature

Species Spells: Druidcraft, Faerie Fire (at 3rd level), Enlarge/Reduce (at 5th level)

Species Languages: Common, Sylvan

Class, Sub-Class: Druid, Circle of Spores

Class Proficiencies: Typical Druid proficiencies, Insight, Arcana

Class Features: Typical Druid features, typical Circle of Spores features, Additional Druid Spells, Wild Companion

Class Ability Score Improvement: Feat - Magic Initiate (Druid)

Magic Initiate (Druid) Spells: Shillelagh, Thorn Whip, Speak with Animals

Class Cantrips: Mending, Poison Spray, Primal Savagery

Class Spells (Prepared): Cure Wounds, Entangle, Inflict Wounds, Blindness/Deafness, Gentle Repose, Hold Person, Moonbeam, Wither and Bloom, Animate Dead, Feign Death, Gaseous Form, Revivify, Vampiric Touch

Ability Scores: Str. 8, Dex. 10, Con. 12, Int. 14, Wis. 17, Cha. 14

Background: Witherbloom Student

Background Features: Typical Witherbloom Student features

Background Proficiencies: Typical Witherbloom Student proficiencies, Alchemist's Supplies

Background Language: Primordial

Witherbloom Initiate: Spellcasting Ability is Wis. for Witherbloom Initiate Spells

Witherbloom Initiate Spells: Chill Touch, Spare the Dying, Sleep

Character Details: Chaotic Good, Ignostic, Modest Lifestyle

Hair: Plantlike, soft

Skin: Pallid, fungal

Eyes: Inky, reflective

Height: 2' 8"

Weight (lbs): 13

Age (Years): 24

Gender: Genderflux

Personality Traits: "I love brewing up a new recipe, even if some might be repulsed by my choice of ingredients. Or the final product. Or both." and "I live by my own set of weird and wonderful rules."

Ideals: "Purpose. I study because there are things I need to know. I'll find my place in the world, and I'll make the world better. (Good)"

Bond: "I do what I can to protect the natural world."

Flaw: "I speak without really thinking through my words, invariably insulting others."

Fey Characteristics: Bovine lower legs, mushroomlike body (appears outwardly normal, but has various places from which spores are released, such as the palms), plantlike hair (excluding fur), long tail

Sexuality: Asexual, Lesbian

Pronouns: (she/they)

Starting Equipment: Sling (with 20 Sling Bullets), Quarterstaff, Leather Armor, an Explorer's Pack, a Druidic Focus, an Ink Bottle and Pen, a Book on Plant Identification, an Iron Pot, an Herbalism Kit, a School Uniform, a set of Common Clothes, a Pouch containing 15 GP (Gold Pieces)

Trinkets: A child's parasol covered in moss and leaves. A pair of earrings modelled after her favorite toadstool, A. muscaria, that were gifted to her by her childhood friend before she left for Strixhaven.

(For sake of consistency/comprehensiveness, I never use she/her and they/them in the same paragraph)

(Portrait made using the Forest Fairy meiker by @elequinoa)

[essaysonbanality]

Leather

A man on Grindr once told me that “leather was like drag.” I pressed him on the point multiple times, but he couldn’t say much more than that. He typed it out with such finality that it seemed to him perfectly self-explanatory. I guess I understood what he was getting at, but I hate pronouncements. Pronouncements are for people who somehow have lived in this world as I have and still have the balls to think that they can be right. Maybe it is my millennial hemming and hawing that is the real problem.

Though I hated how he said it, I got the gist of what that man on Grindr meant. Gay men wear leather to become someone else. Just like in drag, there are entire leather productions and competitions where various men wearing leather go up on stage and perform for an audience. I have caught glimpses of these shows sometimes while I have hung around the Eagle or Bullet. The newly announced winner demonstrates the appropriate shock and surprise and receives a leather sash with big bolded letters pronouncing him as “Mr. Bullet Leather 2023.”

There are layers here; some stretching back to rituals and observances only known by the daddies and the boys who love them. Some reason that this system of competition exists and exalts certain characteristics. I am not intending to suggest that we are performing on the bones of old ritual that has lost all meaning. Quite the opposite actually. I think the entire production is imbued with more ritual significance now more than ever.

Leather serves as a stark contrast to drag in a lot of ways. While drag is meant to accentuate femininity and challenge gender conventions, leather attempts to solidify roles and to reinvigorate an image of masculinity. But it is an image of men refracted and warped across time from an era immediately prior to AIDS that gay men seem to yearn for. The idea of men who wear leather jackets and Levi jeans that draw all eyes to their bulge, sport an aggressively prominent mustache, and struts with a cigar in mouth. Except this man existed in the 1960s and 1970s, and now he does not.

Oh sure, that man probably never truly existed. He was always fantasy. An amalgamation of characteristics that a gay man wanted both to emulate and be dominated by. But somewhere between then and now that man went from living to extinct. Now at every leather bar in America you can watch locals attempt to recreate that now extinct man for an audience who never met him. Like a game of telephone across generations and time until you are left with men who are being worn by leather — not wearing leather.

The reason this ritual is so much more important now is because the oft-revered leather daddy symbol harkens back to a time when gay men had purpose. Cruising, bathhouses, gay bars, leather events, and many other subversive acts were radical before the 1990’s because they either directly challenged the status quo or were the only means by which gay men could subvert it. Without the radical or subversive element which imbued these spaces and acts with meaning, many have lost their appeal and edge.

This degradation over time is a topic that modern queer authors have been grappling with for the past few years. Books like Cruising; Gay Bar; or Times Square Red, Times Square Blue have raised the alarm bells on the disappearance of gay public encounters. These books all typically have the same premise: a famed gay institution is dying and that is a bad thing because of X. While all these authors acknowledge that these institutions were human and therefore contained problematic elements, they all speak to a common loss. The loss of equitable sexual relations between men, cross-class commingling inherent in public encounters, and a subversive edge that keeps the whole thing interesting.

Radical sexual acts are now all about bespoke and customized experiences meant to appeal exactly to your sexual desires. No longer do you need to traipse through some bushes in your local public park before weariness has you settling for the older, out-of-shape man you saw milling around. Just open the app and find the exact model you are looking for and they will be at your doorstep before you know it. Even the glory holes in bathhouses have expanded in size so people no longer have to suffer the horror of enjoying a sexual experience without knowing the exact age, height, and BMI of the person they are blowing.

No doubt there are justifiable fears and reasons driving this reality. Young gay men raised by concerned straight parents who passed on their fear of that “gay disease” AIDS, a population raised on the “stranger danger” curriculum, and a culture which, despite preaching equity, has yet to apply that to lust. But one can’t help feel that something went awry here.

What is left then? Groups of men putting on custom leather gear all bought from shops now offering express global shipping on orders over $40. Elaborate themed nights at leather bars catering to an increasingly bored community that has resorted to newer kinks in the name of subversion. Picky cruisers who would rather walk three hours in a dark park than touch someone they don’t immediately find attractive. Attractive men who claim that their commodified sexual acts broadcast on Twitter and OnlyFans are really in the name of liberation for all.

Leather men and the spaces they inhabit have taken on a new desperate edge. The ceremonies and pageantry becoming an increasingly tenuous link to a time and place that no longer exists, but that young gay men wished they were alive to experience. Vests, chaps, and mustaches all seeming to say “Remember? This used to have a purpose!”

Come to think of it maybe that guy on Grindr was right all along. Leather is sort of like drag.

[magneto666666]

Greetings, brothers. Welcome to this short report on the quality and quantity of our brother, Lieutenant Titus's single-player campaign. The short of the short report? The Emperor provides! In this case, he provides a good, six-seven hour campaign filled with adrenaline, amazing vistas, and no end to cannon fodder for a trio of brave space marines. Faced with endless hordes of tyranids, Titus proves himself to be a potent weapon of destruction, especially when he gets a massive upgrade and becomes one of the Emperor's ~~latest brand of expensive miniatures,~~ cough, one of the most powerful soldiers of humanity, a Primaris Space Marine.

There is much to love about Space Marine 2. It's a great jumping on point for someone who wants to understand the appeal of this fictional universe: Warhammer 40k is bombastic, it is a setting of colossal magnitude, where eternal war reigns uninterrupted and some of the most fun you can have is on the very front lines with your two best lads and a bolter rifle. This is perhaps the first of Titus's mistakes - he doesn't join the hot conflict against the horrific tyranids with his best boy crew, as those are unfortunately all dispatched at the game's opening. Instead, he is joined by Chairon and Gadriel, both of whom have first names, one assumes, but you'll care about them as much as you'll care about Titus's own - oh, I'm sorry, I meant DEMETRIAN. See? No one cares. Chairon and Gadriel are understandably suspicious of this sudden blast from the past rejoining the Ultramarines and receiving command over them; unfortunately for everyone, Titus is characteristically mum on any details that have to do with the reasons behind his sudden transfer, or about any element of his past, for that matter. The conflict there is a thing to be in awe of - not because it is good but because it is at once so dumb and so quintessentially Space Marine. Them big lads won't open up to one another even when the alternative is a bullet in the head - and of course, Chaos (never far from sight) is happy to exploit those fractures. Everything's okay, though - Gadriel only almost kills Titus at one point, before the two bury the hatchet...in the skull of a Chaos cultist, naturally.

The storyline of this short campaign is a genuine joy to go through. Not because it's masterful storytelling but because it embraces the ham of the universe. The stakes are immediate and they certainly feel enormous to Titus - but at the same time, are so negligible to the universe at large that when the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines shows up, the player can't help but feel that he's on a pit stop before he faces up to bigger, scarier threats. The level of the threat here is just big enough to seem overwhelming for Titus at times. When he manages to swim through all the challenges the campaign has for him, there is a real sense of a job well done, of accomplishment - and just in time, too.

Because, no matter how cool the sights are or how impressive the sheer number of foes on the screen at any one time, how gory the executions, the issue this sequel faces is, Titus is just about the most jack-of-all-trades Space Marine you can play in this game. The fact that there is no talent or level up system means that you're more or less playing with the same character at the end of the game as you are at the beginning. Weapon unlocks and new maps are all good and nice, but there are only so many of them, and they hold the interest for only  so long.

But then, this is hardly a problem that reflects on the rest of the game. The co-operative multiplayer, in which I have  about five campaigns' worth of playtime at 41 hours of overall playtime, doesn't have this problem. What it has instead is six classes, eight maps (up from six at game's launch, soon to become nine), and six difficulties (up from five). The classes have satisfying unlocks that permit the use of different builds, abilities that feel powerful and like game-changers, weapons that can be upgraded and come into various alt versions which allow the player to define their playstyle. Titus has none of that. Examined through this perspective, his romp across the star system has the status of weapons demo, a lengthy theme park that shows you the sights and offers several adrenaline rushes.

Funnily enough, I don't mind that one bit. It was fun.

If anything, I wish that the developers went through the maps from the single-player campaign and updated them a little bit so that they would be useable in the co-op multiplayer. That shouldn't be hard, surely - you can already tag along with a friend on their first go-round of the single-player campaign by taking control of Chairon or Gadriel. Those single-player maps showcase, from what I recall, truly awe-inspiring background scenes - and the level design isn't anything to shy away from either. The boss battles were - they were alright enough, no worse than the boss battles you'll find in the co-op missions. Frustrating little buggers well worth filling up with bullets.

What about the co-op multiplayer?

I've played so much of it, I kid you not. For me, personally, it has the staying power of something like Valve's Left for Dead 2. I've played it with my friends, I even play it solo, and either way, I have immense amounts of fun. I've levelled up the Vanguard all the way to the max, level 25, and am well on the way to levelling up the most vanilla of all classes, the Tactical. These are very different classes - the Vanguard is quick, has a massive amount of mobility thanks to his grapnel launcher. The launcher allows Decimus to close the distance with ranged enemies. My preference for the close-ranged melta rifle weapon, which unleashes waves of close-to-mid-ranged flames, is fantastic at cleaning up rows of tyranid shooters. The Vanguard never fails to deliver nail-biting combat, the kind of edge of your seat gameplay that might frustrate over a personal mistake but never lets go. The higher difficulties are a trial and a baptism by fire; every time my two companions and I have gotten through a deadly mission with a single spit of health left, I've felt such indescribable triumph as few co-operative games offer.

The Tactical's not half bad, either. That class has a wonderful array of ranged weapons, though the fact you're locked to only using the chainsword is a bit of a bummer - though I do not wish to take away from that particular weapon's cool factor. I chose to level him up for the experience of shooting everything mean and chaotic with a heavy bolt rifle. That's a fun weapon, a fully-automatic mid-range rifle that can make swiss cheese out of just about any number of frustrating little mobs. The Tactical's an absolute beast with it; that said, the Auspex scan is perhaps the most underwhelming (if supremely useful) class ability among all six. You pick a point, you throw a scan, it increases your damage - and you can upgrade its length, its damage, that kind of thing. Useful, incredibly so, seeing as it can tear victory from the jaws of defeat. Nowhere near as satisfying as a grappling hook or as fun as a shield in front of a gatling gun, say, or a death-from-above style drop-off with a jet-pack.

But I quibble. The amount of work the game dev Saber Interactive has put into the game since release has been nothing short of impressive - and deserves some applause. The premium content packs they've put out have been met with a more mixed reception but that doesn't ruffle my feathers. If they'd paywalled the new co-op content, I might've thought ill of them, but when they're offering cosmetics at a fairly low price point with the full understanding that these cosmetics will appeal only to a minority of die-hard fans, I find myself gracious about the whole thing.

If there's one thing I do dislike about the higher difficulties of the co-op, it is that mini-bosses that spawn randomly can be an absolute irritant. Rather than be challenging, foes like the helbrute turn into the worst bullet sponges you'll ever meet - I haven't yet tried the game on difficulties five and six (I should, I know) but I can't imagine that those become more fun. As a result, I've taken to cheesing helbrutes wherever possible - and I'm far from the only one who does so.

A further moment of admiration for Saber Interactive came to me rather recently when I noticed that the co-op maps displayed an extensive level of modularity during certain sections that I either didn't notice at first or wasn't there to begin with. The next big patch, with a new map, new paid cosmetics, a bunch of reworks and new systems and even some PvP goodies, is dropping a week from the day of writing this review. About half a year after its release, Space Marine 2 remains a prime co-op offering; it is certainly a fantastic Warhammer 40k title for the exceptional height of its vibes (is there any word more apt than this to describe Titus's wonderful nonsense?). And if the price point is too steep, I am convinced it's only a matter of time before it drops by twenty to thirty percent on some Steam sale or other. For my money, Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2 was one of the best day 1 purchases I've done - or thereabouts.

[poetrysings]

— spotted in the streets of brooklyn, it’s REBECCA HENNING. they have lived in the city for FOURTY YEARS, working as an OB/GYN. the FIFTY-TWO year old will probably be seen around PARK SLOPE a lot, seeing as that’s where they live. people say they can be a bit RETICENT and RANCOROUS, but friends know them to be PROTECTIVE and PERSUASIVE. you know for sure you’ve found them when you’ve come across THE SOUND OF HEELS WALKING THROUGH COBBLESTONE, COLOR-CODED BINDERS, HAVING A WARM SMILE AND A WARM BOWL OF SOUP READY FOR ANYONE WHO NEEDS IT. welcome to brooklyn, it’s been waiting for you! —

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BASICS

full name: rebecca anne henning

nickname: becca, becs.

age/date of birth: 52 / nov 12th, 1972

zodiac sign: scorpio ☼ virgo ☾ aries ↑

gender identity: cis female (she/her)

hometown: manchester, england

current location: brooklyn, new york

time in town: forty years

sexual orientation: pansexual

occupation: ob/gyn

PERSONALITY

labels: the prodigy, the opaque, the catalyst

positive traits: longanimous, vehement, protective, incisive, meticulous, persuasive, assertive

negative traits: intransigent, reticent, brittle, distrusting, rancorous

hobbies: working, researching, hiking, horse-riding, scrapbooking, art collecting, candle-making

languages spoken: english, french, a bit of latin

instruments played: none

favorite color: blue, pink, red

favorite food: okra soup, ghormeh sabzi, chocolate mousse

APPEARANCE

height: 5'6

distinguished characteristics: n/a

tattoos: a couple phrases along her body in different languages from her travels

piercings: earlobes and helix

right or left-handed?: right-handed

RELATIONSHIPS

parents: anthony henning (surgeon), freyja henning (stepmother, surgeon), alexa cohen (oncologist & activist), nicholas gold (lawyer)

sibling(s): four in total, one younger sibling, one half sibling, two step siblings

spouse: hana chen

children: redacted

pet(s): a black cat named nova

BULLET POINTS

tw: cheating, divorce, teen pregnancy, adoption, depression

alexa met anthony on a warm evening on her very first day in oxford's pre-medical program when she accidentally entered the fourth trimester class instead of her own as a freshman. others would've backed out immediately, apologize and go to her own class to start their year right. alexa however, quick to her feet and noticing her mistake the minute she entered, took a seat next to an amused anthony and proceeded to take the class alongside the others, making questions and answering a few whenever she was allowed to. anthony, two years her senior, was impressed not only by her beauty but her assertiveness and cleverness, inviting her for a coffee and a private tour of the campus. quick enough, the couple fell in love and married after anthony graduated college and started med school. their plan was to wait a few years, get medical school done and get halfway through internships and residencies before even considering having children but when a year and a half after their wedding they were surprised by a positive pregnancy test, the couple couldn't help but rejoice.

rebecca was born during a rainstorm in november in manchester's royal infirmary, the very same hospital her father was making his residency in. she lead a very normal life for a child who has two med students as her parents; they were barely present throughout her formative years, forcing her to spend most of her time with her grandparents, aunts and uncles who were graceful enough to accommodate her on their itinerary and lives, but whenever her parents were around if even for a short amount of time, they always tried to make the most out of their time together. they were strict with the rules they had set for her firstborn, but always made her feel loved. and the joy only multiplied when the second-born, Rebecca's younger sibling, was born.

things started getting complicated by the time rebecca reached teenage-hood. her father, a now renowned general surgeon who had found a job in the most prestigious hospital in new york and had moved his family to the states, started to behave oddly. he'd claim he had long shifts and rather sleep at work and don't come for for a week straight and whenever he was in the house, his sole attention would be on his phone, leaving his family aside. alexa loved her family as it was, loved the good and the bad and claimed she was fine with this sudden shift in her husband, claiming it was only phase, shutting down everyone who dared to suggest anthony was being unfaithful or was disrespecting his own family until the day everything blew up: anthony came home one night to pack his stuff and tell his then wife he was leaving, that he had been cheating on her with a colleague and she was pregnant with his baby. Alexa was left brokenhearted, completely disassociating herself from her family and burying herself in work. rebecca, being a young teenage girl with no supervision or care, began rebelling. what once was the perfect daughter in the eyes of her parents became a nightmare that failed classes, skipped school and hung out with the wrong type of crowd, a scream for help that caused the relationship with her parents to break slightly with every fight they had.

at age 15 rebecca started to date her very first boyfriend. he was charming, quick-witted and payed attention to her in ways her parents didn't, so she fell. hard. she loved him for two years, through good and bad. the couple even began planning a future together where they could move back to her hometown once they were done with their high school years, dreams of freedom away from their homes to start a life of their own. all their dreams came crashing down the day rebecca found out she was 5 months pregnant after fainting in pe. she told her parents, hoping they would support her and guide her through the process, that they could find an answer as to what to do next but was only met with harsh words, threats and hurtful words that claimed she was on her own from that moment on. she then went to share the news her then boyfriend and found him on someone else's arms, breaking her heart into a million pieces.

rebecca then made a decision to need no one but herself and the kid she was carrying for years to come. she worked tirelessly for the last four months of her pregnancy to get her ged and find a small apartment in queens, a place to make a home for her and the child on the way. and then, the baby came. she had promised herself she'd be a better parent than her own, that she would care for her child more than she cared for herself and she did tried her best. for three months, rebecca didn't sleep; going from one work to the other to caring for her child to bring them the bare necessities— until everything stopped working. her breaking point was the day her baby got sick right as her landlord cut her electricity and water for being a few months behind on rent only to threaten to kick her and the baby out of the apartment by the end of the week. it became painfully obvious to her that if she kept the child as her own, there was a chance her child wouldn't survive. keeping her promise to always see for the child before her own selfishness, she did what she thought was best for them; gave them up for adoption praying they would find a family that could give them what she couldn't.

the decision weighted on her for months, making her stay in bed for months on end, letting herself get absorbed in the darkest pits of her inner hell until a light appeared in her way in the form of a good friend who encouraged her to leave her bed and do something for herself. she applied to a few universities and was accepted into brooklyn college for their pre-med program, surprising even herself. she worked two jobs and did the entire program in the four years mark, earning a spot in the nyu school of medicine upon graduation with full scholarship to continue her career. things began falling into place, even earning a paid medical residency even before graduating from medical school. she was later offered a position in brooklyn's hospital center.

for years, she dedicated her entire existence to her job, blocking any type of personal life aside from friends. which was exactly how she ended up falling for hana. she always knew the feelings she felt for her from the minute she met the other as a twelve year old first arriving to new york were not entirely platonic yet it never truly develop into more as both women weren't ready to come to terms with them. once it did, however, there was no way to stop it from happening, it was simply meant to be. hana and rebecca were meant to find eachother, spend their lives together and ultimately, they vowed to do so the day they got married.

when her mother called for the first time in over thirty-five years, rebecca didn't expect it to go well, nor to create a new relationship with her now that they were both mature adults. It took them months to heal the wounds of the past so it really was a surprise when she mentioned her baby, wondering what had happened and reopening a wound she had fought hard to at least, ignore.

WANTED CONNECTIONS ( * will be a wanted connection on main )

Child she gave up for adoption ( any gender / fam / 36 )*

To this day, her biggest regret is giving them up for adoption although a part of her knowns it was for the best as she could not provide them the life she knew they deserved. She has recently contacted a private investigator to find try and find them. Although the outcome and what will happen after she finds them is still unclear, she wants to make sure they are doing fine, see if there's anything she can do to help them, now that she is able to.

Siblings ( any gender / fam )

There's four, total. One legitimate younger sibling (around 43-47), a half sibling (40-43) and two step sibling (ages undefined). Their relationship can be shaped into whatever we decide, it could be a healthy mix of everything. Rebecca left the family home at 15-16, the chances of them even recognizing eachother are slim if they haven't kept in contact all these years apart but, maybe blood is ticker than water.

Baby daddy ( male presenting / 52-54 )

They truly thought they'd last a lifetime together— until the day that she disappeared from the face of earth without much explanation. There were many rumors as to what happened but no one really knew the truth, not even Rebecca's parents who were too upset to even discuss the matter, only telling their daughter's boyfriend to forget her and start a new life. They used to dream about living together, start a family and ultimately follow their dreams— to this day, the way their relationship ended is a mystery to him. The fact that they share a child together is a mystery, too.

Best friend ( any gender / plat / 45+ )

How they met is unclear, but they have been friends since Rebecca was 16 and pregnant, struggling to get by in the streets of New York and they have been inseparable since. They've saved Bec's life more times than she's willing to admit by simply being there for her and in return, Rebecca is the most loyal and caring friend anyone could ask for.

MORE WANTED CONNECTIONS

co-workers at the hospital, former classmates, clients, neighbors, friends, kids she's randomly adopted in all but name throughout the years, the sky's the limit!