#I'm not tagging the inhumans

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Broke (2016): BBC Sherlock is a phenomenal piece of media and anything that seems like a flaw just hasn't been fully explored yet

Woke (2020): BBC Sherlock is an incredibly flawed series run by an egotistical writer, it never deserved the hype and is actively bad on so many fronts (especially representation)

Bespoke (2024): BBC Sherlock is flawed and bogged down by increasingly poor writing, which many fans refused to see while it was airing, leading to hugely misplaced expectations (particularly for the final series), AND it has the seeds of some compelling characterizations and portrayals, some genuinely solid performances, and touches--albeit imperfectly--on complexities that are still being discussed today (particularly as it relates to the relationship between Sherlock and John). The huge cultural impact of the show has created a massive pendulum effect in its public perception, leading to most people today remembering a caricature of the show (whether positive or negative) rather than appreciating its nuanced merits and failings...that being said Season 4 sucked

[bucketsofmonsters]

Would you guys want me to post fanfics on here if they're still monster romance?? I asked this before for a one-shot and people said yes but this would be a long series I'd be posting weekly so I feel like I should gauge interest again.

[petrichorvoices]

I wish people talked more about headmates that act out the trauma the system has been through. I wish people acknowledged more often that we exist. And I hope that anybody reading this who does that in their system knows that your role in it doesn't make you unlovable if you don't want to be.

[laces-and-pearls]

If you think that it is okay to make s*x a duty for your wife even when she doesn't want it and push her to do so, you're a vile man and not a patriarch and certainly not a Godly man.

[lankylunatic]

Small doodle to do with something from an rp with a friend :3 I gave himb sharp teef becaues nobody can stop me doing so The extend outward when he opens his mouth wide enough, ie. a yawn :3c He just an eepy deepy plant boi

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 4 :)

[outlawssweetheart]

THIS IS MY ROMAN EMPIRE. 🖤

[crowleywasagryffindor]

Fuck it Friday

Tagged again by @theotherluciferr ahhh <3 <3 <3 We must share a similar time zone cause it is also Saturday for me but currently 1:30pm.

No idea what the rules of what you should share in these tag games are, so I decided to put up a snip from the next chapter of 'Lifeline' because I just had to laugh writing this and the chapter will be out tomorrow anyways. And also I have to go to work soon.

"Buck!" Christopher's loud voice from right beside his elbow startles him. Buck jumps, nearly losing his balance as his shoulder slips away from the door frame. He manages not to fall, catching himself on the doorframe and pulling himself upright, his other hand splayed dramatically over his heart. "Jeez, Chris, you scared the sh- uh, daylights, out of me!" "That's cause you were too busy pining after Dad," Chris retorts, rolling his eyes with a sly grin. "I called you like four times!" "You what - Pining after - I was not -" Apparently, his brain has forgotten the concept of how to English in the wake of Chris' accusation. "Do you even know what that means?" "Ugh, I'm thirteen, Buck, not three. Of course I know what it means. And," Christopher gives him a smug look. "You were totally pining." "Dios mio, how is this conversation even happening right now," Buck mutters, trying to ignore the heat building in his cheeks. And as if triggered by the sound of Buck using Eddie's favourite Spanish phrase so casually, Chris succumbs to uncontrollable laughter. He bends over, his laughter echoing through the room, a joyful chorus that even Buck's good-natured grumbling can't suppress.

I discovered how to find my mutuals but still have no idea who to tag and don't wanna in case it's bad form or they've already shared or anything so yup o.o

[soldier--poet--queen]

what came first, the body dysphoria flare up or the internet deciding now was a fantastsic time to show me transmasc content

[marypsue]

that post I promised about villain visuals

So I’m working my way (slowly) through Stranger Things season 4, and one of the things that came up as an issue, for me, early on, was the...aesthetically kitchen-sink nature of the season’s main Upside Down-related baddie. The further I get into the season (currently I’m between episodes 4 and 5), the more it’s looking like all of the disparate visual elements that the show is relating to the villain they’ve nicknamed Vecna are supposed to be connected because of Lore(TM) which is being dribbled out throughout the season. On the one hand, I can respect that as a storytelling move. But on the other hand, aesthetically, it’s still not working for me in this specific case, and I’ve devoted entirely too much brain power to trying to figure out why that might be. 

After making a case study of two of the Big Name Iconic Horror Movie Villains that the season namedropped, and a number of other Visually Iconic Horror Villains I have loved, I’ve come up with a handful of theories of why, say, Freddy Krueger feels instantly recognisable and memorable and aesthetically distinct, while Stranger Things’ take on ‘Vecna’, despite drawing heavily on Freddy Krueger for inspiration, doesn’t.

First off, I don’t think having a large number of visual/symbolic elements linked to your villain is necessarily always a problem. Or even that using various apparently unrelated visual elements to create a visual shorthand for your villain is a problem! But if you’re going to have a bunch of different, apparently unrelated symbolic visual elements associated with/representing your villain, you’re gonna want them to a) immediately and unmistakably cause the audience to draw an association with your villain, which means you’re probably going to want to b) use relatively few of them, so that that impact isn’t diluted. 

One of the easiest and most effective ways to make sure you don’t end up with all your visuals confusing your audience and failing to convey that immediate association is to establish a hierarchy of symbols/motifs/visual elements linked to your villain. So you have one or two elements that draw up a strong association with your villain from your audience, and then in concentric circles radiating outwards, you have more and more tangentially-associated symbols/motifs/visual elements. 

And a good way to establish a primary visual element, and link it strongly and directly to your villain in your audience’s mind, is to make it either a part of or directly connected to the villain’s physical presence/distinctive silhouette. If your primary visual element is something that, especially in a visual medium like television or film, can be repeatedly seen onscreen with the villain, it’s much, much easier for it to become linked to the villain in your audience’s imagination. 

Like. Let’s take a closer look at the Big Names the Duffers are dropping in season four. What’s the most immediately recognisable element of Michael Myers’ iconography? It’s the inside-out Bill Shatner mask. The most recent Halloween trilogy even used the image of it on its own as marketing material, since it’s such an immediate, obvious symbol of Michael, and pulls up the association at a glance. You see the mask, you know that’s a Michael Myers. 

Then you go down a level in the visual hierarchy, and there’s the coveralls and the big bloody knife. If you take away the mask, this is less immediately obviously a Michael, but it’s still recognisable once you link it to the mask again. The mask is the primary visual element to which some of these secondary visual elements are linked. The mask is the single element at the top of the hierarchy. 

Go down one more level, and you get into stuff that’s less related to that primary visual element of the mask, less related to the villain’s physicality and distinctive silhouette, and more related to the Lore(TM). I’m talking like the clown suit from the murder of Judith Myers (which they did use again for visual association with Michael, at least in Halloween 4), the jack-o’-lantern, the abandoned Myers house, even Judith’s tombstone. These elements, that orbit Michael’s hashtag aesthetic deal at a slightly greater distance, can be used to conjure up a sense of unease or building dread. But if you want instant recognisability and that sudden sharp jolt of fear, you go directly to the mask. If you ask somebody on the street to picture Michael Myers, they’re gonna think about the mask. 

I’m not as familiar with the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise as I am with Halloween, but it seems to me that Freddy Krueger, the more obvious aesthetic influence on Imitation Vecna Flavour, has a similar deal to Michael Myers going on. Freddy gets two primary visual elements - the knife-glove and the burn scars. Then you go down a level and get into costuming stuff like the terrible sweater and the jaunty little hat, and then down another level for stuff like the nursery-rhyme-singing creepy children and the horrible boiler-room nightmare realm (which, again, connect back to him less through immediate visual identification/actually seeing them onscreen with him, and more through Lore(TM)). 

Because Freddy has those few main visual elements established as his aesthetic calling card, he can pull whatever nightmare bullshit he wants, and we the audience can see and understand that we’re not meant to be remembering and associating every Bed That Eats or whatever with him as a Distinct Visual Element Of His Whole Deal. If you as a creator throw the entire kitchen sink of ‘nightmares’ at him, and every visual element that gets associated with him (or a pale imitation of him trying to do the same shtick) is introduced on the same ‘level’ or at the same time, the audience isn’t going to form a strong mental link between him and any of those visual elements. And then he won’t have any memorable signature visuals at all. And that makes a villain more forgettable. 

This is, actually, probably one of the main reasons why the slasher genre fell into a pattern of ‘distinctive mask + signature weapon’. It’s an easy formula for creating a visual shorthand for your villain, and relates those visual elements that you want to be primary directly to the villain’s physicality. To bring up the third Big Name of slasher horror, there’s nothing inherent to, say, a hockey mask that links it to Jason Voorhees. Except for the fact that we almost never see him without it. The why of it being a hockey mask is not as important as the fact that it’s a fundamental aspect of his whole Look(TM). 

“But Mary,” I hear you say, “you’re talking about slashers. Stranger Things’ ‘Vecna’ isn’t technically a slasher. And what about villains who are more inhuman than slashers? Villains whose physical presence isn’t fixed or doesn’t even exist? Villains who are outright monstrous?” Well, you have a point, rhetorical strawman! I was specifically talking about slashers since the show was so obvious about drawing on Freddy, but I think these theories can also be more broadly applied. 

In terms of visually distinct, recognisable, memorable monsters, what comes to my mind first and foremost is the lineup of Universal movie monsters. And I’d say they’re actually incredible examples of the theories above in action. They tend not to have such a kitchen-sink assortment of visual elements associated to them, but rather, to stick to one or two primary visual elements, directly related to their physicality and silhouette. I’m thinking the flat-topped head and huge feet of Frankenstein, the hunched hairy figure of the Wolfman, Dracula’s widow’s peak and high cape collar, the Bride’s beehive, the Creature from the Black Lagoon’s armoured fish-face, the Mummy’s wrap...

These images became so famous, so memorable and recognisable, that they have visually defined entire genres of monsters. They get echoed and parodied across pop culture (Grandpa and Hermann Munster! Lurch! Abe Sapien and the Shape of Water fishman! Dave Vanian and Gerard Way in the Bela Lugosi evening dress and facepaint! etc etc etc!) to the point where people don’t even know where the originals come from (vampires in cartoons from the 70s-90s frequently had blue skin, because actors playing vampires in black and white films from the 30s-50s would be painted with pale blue facepaint to make them appear more deathly pale onscreen, because blue read pale and red read dark. This is the same principle behind the set of the 60s Addams Family sitcom being mostly pink!).

(As an aside, the whole ‘one or two primary visual elements related to the villain/monster’s physical presence’ thing might have contributed to why I feel like the Invisible Man doesn’t get nearly as much play in lineups of classic monsters. Gonna have to percolate on that thought.)

In terms of a villain or monster without a set physical form, I believe it’s even more important to establish a primary visual element associated with them. For something like a shapeshifter or a nebulous eldritch idea, they’re by necessity going to have a broader range of visual elements associated to them/involved in the storytelling around them. Having a primary visual element as a visual shorthand for that villain/monster means it can carry through the various scenes of that villain/monster exerting their influence on the world/the story, so that the audience can then identify it as that villain/monster’s calling card - and it can be used to create dread and terror easily and effectively without having to invoke the villain/monster by name or in person every time and breach the Law of Conservation of Shark (which is also the major storytelling problem I’m having with Stranger Things’ ‘Vecna’, but that’s a related but separate post). 

In terms of examples, I’m thinking of Mirrors, or Oculus, both of which had some nebulous, unembodied concept of evil reflections as their villain. Mirrors specifically linked its villain to any reflective surface. Oculus kept returning to the image of the ornate mirror where the evil made its home. I’m also thinking of Grave Encounters, which had a similar setup - the villain is an entire haunted mental hospital - and which did an okay job up until it abruptly fell into a trap at the end that I’ve seen at least one other villain fall into. (But I’ll get to that later.)

“But Mary,” you cry, “these examples you’re examining are all on film! Surely you cannot apply these theories of yours to a villain or monster with no set appearance, such as those featured in such media as books or podcasts? Surely it must be different when the eye of the audience’s imagination is responsible for all the visuals?”

To which I say: you make another point, rhetorical strawman! There’s a reason I believe Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House to be (rightfully) unfilmable. Her haunting is so deeply psychological, so wrapped up in what is unseen, unspoken, indescribable, that to try to put it to film - or even put it into images - is to do it a massive disservice. The idea of boiling it down to a couple of pieces of iconography is downright laughable.

But not every literary villain or monster is a Hill House. And I believe that there are a great number of cases in which these theories still apply. Stephen Graham Jones’ My Heart Is A Chainsaw - which, you may be unsurprised to learn, I loved - came up with two possible slashers right out the gate and immediately gave them each a set of primary visual elements. Stacey Graves and her Sadako hair and broken jaw, Ezekiel with his huge hands (and, a level lower, his creepy church). You don’t even see the slasher until the very end of the book, but you already know what you’re looking for, so the reveal Works. There’s Coraline’s Beldam, with her button eyes, spider hands, black keys, and world of putty. There’s Long John Silver and his peg leg. I keep seeing people say that, no matter what she looks like, they always know fanart of Ianthe Tridentarius on their dashboards by her golden skeleton arm. 

Hell, even returning to Frankenstein’s monster: in Mary Shelley’s text, he’s immediately distinctive. He’s Huge, and looks like someone who should have been beautiful based on his disparate parts but, as a whole, is instead corpse-like and repulsive. And this imagery is so thematically linked to his whole deal, so the imagery feeds the story and the story feeds the imagery, and the resulting creation is so visually distinct that even Frankenstein’s monster designs based on the book rather than the Universal movie are instantly recognisable to me when they cross my dash (which happens not infrequently). Frankenstein’s monster is so immediately visually recognisable and so memorable that he’s lasted more than two hundred years in popular culture. I think that’s a point in favour of primary identifying visual elements, even in text. 

And here, now that I’ve talked about these principles in relation to non-embodied villains and villains in text, is where I’m going to take a brief detour and talk about book!Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

In a lot of ways (a lot of ways), Stephen King did this right. Pennywise is a shapeshifter, without a set physical form (so no distinctive silhouette) and takes the forms of people’s worst fears. There is a whole kitchen sink of visual elements connected to this - literally a kitchen sink, since in one scene King has Pennywise taunt parents with the voice of their dead child from their kitchen sink drain. 

But King did a very clever thing in establishing two primary visual elements related to Pennywise from the outset. He gave Pennywise a favourite form - Clown - and a favourite haunt - sewers - and, from there, tied every other nightmare thing in some way back to those two elements. All of Pennywise’s monster forms have some kind of aesthetic element from his clown costume included - orange puffballs are the ones I remember most strongly. Almost all of the big setpieces that directly involve Pennywise and not someone under his influence, the fights and the near-misses and escapes, happen in or around plumbing. Which isn’t incidental, it’s very deliberately brought to the foreground. And these threads carry through the whole book - right up until the end. 

Right at the end of IT is where Stephen King makes the same mistake that Grave Encounters makes right at its end, a mistake that sits at the opposite end of the spectrum of You Fucked Up A Perfectly Good Aesthetically Coherent And Memorable Villain Is What You Did from what the Duffers are doing with Imitation Vecna Flavour. King tries to bait-and-switch the audience from the primary visual elements we’ve come to associate, strongly and immediately, with Pennywise, for some hitherto completely unrelated visual element that has nothing whatsoever to do with the extremely aesthetically compelling villain he’d built up until that point. There are a whole host of reasons the climactic fight of IT felt flat and anticlimactic to me, but the aesthetic betrayal is definitely a contributing factor. 

Anyway. Up until the end of the book, I’d say Pennywise is a beautiful example of how you can have a whole sideshow of creepy bullshit associated with your villain, and still make them visually distinct, memorable, and compelling. You just need to make sure you understand what you want the primary visual elements to be for your villain, establish them well, and thread them through the constellation of images and motifs you collect around that villain. 

And the problem I have with the Duffers’ ‘Vecna’ is that they simply haven’t done that. They haven’t identified any primary visual elements, they haven’t established a hierarchy of visual elements underneath those one or two primary ones, and they haven’t established a clear aesthetic link between any of the visual elements they’ve tried to associate with their villain. 

Part of the problem, I think, is that they tried to show too much, too soon. They really threw everything but the kitchen sink at the guy right in episode one. Is his main motif supposed to be spiders, or clocks, or the vines, or the rotting corpse thing, or the eye thing, or the flying demo-creatures, or the haunted house, or or or? I don’t know, and so I haven’t formed a strong association between him and any of them. And that’s before you even pull in the nightmare murder sequences, which I know now are tailored to the victim experiencing them and not meant to be recurring motifs, but I didn’t know that in episode one, when they should have been establishing their hierarchy of imagery! So I was trying to throw all of that spaghetti, mentally, at their Big Bad, and none of it stuck. 

It’s actually even worse for Imitation Vecna Flavour, too, because of the comparison that’s invited by his nickname. I’ve never played D&D and my familiarity with it comes primarily from The Adventure Zone, but the Duffers very kindly went out of their way to have their characters establish in dialogue that D&D’s Vecna does have an immediately recognisable primary visual element! Vecna’s missing (iirc) his left arm and his left eye! The characters all know immediately by that description that that’s a Vecna! The show itself told me this! So, by inviting the comparison, the Duffers just made their own shit look worse. (Which is exactly the problem they’re having with all of their previous-season callbacks, also, but that, again, is a separate post.)

“But Mary,” the voice of the rhetorical strawman whispers, in the back of my mind, with vicious satisfaction, “you love Dracula, which is an enduring classic and the source of a major recognisable, memorable pop culture monster. And isn’t this exactly like what Dracula would have been like for Victorian audiences? Bram Stoker basically invented the modern vampire mythos singlehandedly. And the Bela Lugosi evening dress, widow’s peak, high-collared-cape image didn’t exist until at least thirty years after it was published. Wouldn’t Victorian audiences, who would only maybe have heard of vampires through Slavic folklore, also have seen it as like throwing too much spaghetti at a villain and seeing what stuck?”

Unfortunately, as usual, the rhetorical strawman has a point. Dracula does have a whole lot of Apparently Unrelated Creepy Bullshit associated with him, aesthetically and visually. You could argue that the blood-drinking becomes his primary visual element, but in the whole novel, I think we only actually see him do it once, and it doesn’t exactly tie in to all the other bullshit he’s got going on. And he doesn’t even have the flimsy excuse of Tragic Backstory(TM) to tie it all together. He’s old and gets younger? St. George’s Eve? Lack of reflection? Wolves? Decaying castles? Coffins and grave-dirt? Lizard Fashion? Blood-drinking? Renfield? The brides? Burning eyes? Shapeshifting? The straw hat that suit neither him nor the time? Holy symbols? Garlic?? Victorians would absolutely have been justified in being like ‘hey Bram you’re sorta throwing the kitchen sink at this one’. And yet, for whatever reason, Dracula has endured long enough to get a visual shorthand so iconic it’s become a meme and a joke. 

The only theories I have to offer are: 

1) The ways in which the various visual elements related to Dracula were introduced was gradual and mysterious enough that they weren’t all introduced at the same time and with the same level of apparent importance, and the mystery made them memorable. 

2) The construction of Dracula as a villain was unfamiliar enough to Victorian audiences that they didn’t have an existing frame of reference to compare him against and find him a pale imitation of, and instead, they had to create an entirely new ‘kind of (horror) guy’ box to put him in, mentally. 

and/or 3) I just like Dracula better. Sue me. 

Anyway. This post has gotten more than long enough, and has wandered somewhat from its initial purpose, so I will simply say that even with the red thread of Lore(TM) starting to string together the visual elements of Stranger Things’ ‘Vecna’, I still find him unmemorable, not at all visually interesting or compelling or coherent, and basically the aesthetic equivalent of CRT TV snow. Visual white noise. 

(Also, to cap this rant off, since I mentioned the Law of Conservation of Shark a few times - is there any more iconic, recognisable, or memorable villain image than that great white shark fin, slicing silently up out of the water?)

[the-loneliness-perch]

also Dan calling Phil an alien in an affectionate goofing around way in the soup video was such a small thing but like. ouch my neurodivergent heart

[braintapes]

i truly love the hotel podcast so much it’s like the one piece of media i’m really invested in where calling the characters, whether in canon or in fan works, disgusting, miserable, pathetic, sickly etc etc etc is actually genuinely truly the highest form of compliment and not just an ironic joke

[iccarian]

personally although i know she wasn't ready for it at the time it was discussed, i do love the idea of daisy becoming director of shield

[schoolhater]

god. its really frustrating the way internet virality works. everyone who sees success can only do so at the expense of others.

both shahed and shaima+mohammed (wafaa's siblings) were the initial targets of the recent wave of scam allegations, yet only shahed's gofundme was spread and received support as a result. maybe this is because and shaima and mohammed are slightly older, more traditional people who can't work the internet as well, maybe because they were less willing to share the intimate details of their pain online. maybe it's plain luck. either way its pretty shitty that only one person received the proper support after all that abuse, and that everyone else is being ignored.

since shahed reached her goal i want to redirect all of our righteous anger and empathy toward some of the other palestinians who were primarily targeted by this hate campaign. many of the campaigns on this list are stagnating in the amount of donations they recieve, despite the amount of attention they've received lately. of course, everyone here is vetted by either 90-ghost or el-shab-hussein:

shaima and mohammed @wafans-blog, who was accused of being a scam for having the same organizer as shahed, even though that is very common with gofundmes. [verification]

mahmoud balousha @helpfamily, who was targeted by one of the biggest blogs on this website and likened to a porn account. [verification]

amira alanqar @amira-world , who was targeted by some arrogant bitch who thought they knew better than actual palestinians how to vet a fundraiser and who also claimed that there was no point in donating to palestinians because evacuations are uncommon. [verification]

basel ayyad @basel-1995, whose posting habits were scrutinized to an inhuman degree as an excuse to dehumanize him. [verification] (he has been vetted twice!)

basel's cousin fadi ayyad. [verification]

heba al anqar @heba-baker, who was accused of being part of a belgian botnet because of her surname. [verification]

ahmed and abdulrahman al-nabih @ahmedalnabeeh11, who were accused of scamming for having relatives with chronic illnesses during a genocide. [verification]

and of course:

omar saad, ahmed @/90-ghost's brother, who is still in khan yunis with his family. ahmed, our sole vetter for a while, has gone through immeasurable abuse in the past week and we all owe it to him as people who have benefited from his labor to take one burden off his shoulders. [verification]

tagging for reach,, i'm sure you understand i am desperate

@timetravellingkitty @meaganfoster @briarhips @mazzikah @mahoushojoe 

@rhubarbspring @schoolhater @pcktknife @transmutationisms @sawasawako 

@feluka @terroristiraqi @irhabiya @commissions4aid-international @wellwaterhysteria 

@deepspaceboytoy @post-brahminism @junglejim4322 @kibumkim @neechees 

@mangocheesecakes @kyra45-helping-others @marnota @7bitter @tortiefrancis 

@toiletpotato @fromjannah @omegaversereloaded @vague-humanoid @criptochecca 

@aristotels @komsomolka @neptunerings @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @heritageposts 

@ot3 @amygdalae @ankle-beez @communistchilchuck @dykesbat 

@watermotif @stuckinapril @violentrevolution @mavigator @lacecap 

@socalgal @chilewithcarnage @ghelgheli @sayruq @northgazaupdates2

[advestager]

i was browsing ao3 before bed and now i need to go acquire a smoking habit just so i can reenact the exhausted ben affleck meme

[mellifluouaamor]

Kissing Mashle boys before running hc?

MASH BURNEDEAD, FINN AMES, LANCE CROWN, DOT BARRETT, RAYNE AMES, ABEL WALKER, ABYSS RAZOR, WIRTH MADL, CARPACCIO LUO-YANG, ORTER MADL, KALDO GEHENNA (SEPARATE) ⍣ GENDER-NEUTRAL READER

synopsis. the boys' reactions to you kissing them and then running away.

author's note. that one panel where orter tells cell to bend over has never left my mind and i may have brought it over to these headcanons i'm (not) sorry. orter can bend me over anytime- AHEM ANYWAY LIVE LAUGH LOVE WIRTH HAHAHA

you, running away from MASH? given his inhuman speed and reflexes, that'll be impossible. even if your action is as harmless as a kiss to his cheek, the first-year would reflexively grab your wrist and pull you flush against his chest before you can take a step away from him.

you'd be subjected under his signature blank stare for a few seconds as he tries to process what just happened, and when he finally registers the feeling of your soft lips on his cheek, he tilts his head to the side in an adorable manner.

"can you do that again?" he asks, surprising you. mash can't explain it - but he likes the warm and fuzzy feeling that would bloom inside his chest when you kiss his cheek. your kiss feels like... a bed of cream puffs. (don't question his analogy)

oh, sweet summer child FINN. if you kiss him right on his freckles in front of his friends, he'd combust on the spot as a string of unintelligible words streams out of his mouth. a flush of embarrassment would rise to his cheeks and when he turns around to tell you off, you're already running away, leaving him to think of how he should get back at you.

he'd spend the entire afternoon attempting and failing to ambush you, with you giggling gleefully as you skip out of his reach. argh, why do you have to be so hard to catch?!

when supper rolls around, you sit next to a defeated looking finn with your tray of food. as you're eating, he points out that you've got some sauce around your mouth and before you can wipe it off, finn has already leaned over and licks the corner of your lips (with his cheeks burning). you drop your spoon in shock while dot gags loudly in the background.

"oh," is all LANCE says when your lips land on the corner of his mouth. his fingertips brush against the spot you shyly kissed and when he turns to face you, you're already gone. figuring that the embarrassment must have gotten to you, he presses a loose fist against his lips as he chuckles softly.

the following hours would be lance contributing further to that embarrassment. he'd kiss your cheek when you're in the middle of a conversation with your friends, and he makes sure that you won't be able to pull away by gripping your jaw. the kiss would last longer than necessary, causing an awkward silence to fall on the group.

if you confront him about it, he'd simply squish your cheeks in his palm as he taunts you for being unable to do anything. try to talk back, and he'll silence you with his lips.

DOT would short-circuit the second your lips make contact with his cheek, his face flushing as red as his hair. as you run away from him laughing, he'd hold his face like he just got slapped, gibberish spilling over his lips and unable to think straight. mash and finn would have to hold him up to stop him from collapsing.

once dot recomposes himself, he'd chase you in the hallways and it immediately becomes a game of tag... with him almost crashing into the walls as you deftly dodge his lunges.

when he finally catches you, there's no escaping from his onslaught of kisses as he wounds his arms around you tightly. your forehead, your cheeks, your nose, your lips, your neck - he leaves no area untouched. when dot returns a favour, he returns it tenfold.

RAYNE would turn his head the moment he registers the lack of space between your bodies - and that unexpected action causes his lips to meet yours in a kiss. you immediately pull away from him with a loud gasp, and the perpetual frown on his countenance prompts you to run for the hills.

touching his lips, he'd wonder why you ran away after boldly kissing him, unaware that you weren't supposed to do that and that you had only intended to ask him about homework. it wouldn't take long for him to chase you as if you're a little rabbit being preyed on by the wolf of adler dorm. (finn watches with a slack jaw as his older brother terrorises your poor soul)

the moment rayne catches up to you, he'd cage you against the nearest wall with his arms on either side of your cowering form. he's at a loss to know how to respond to your profuse apologies, only wanting you to kiss him properly after that accidental kiss earlier. he eventually manages to silence you by gingerly planting his lips on the tip of your nose.

ABEL doesn't express much emotion in the first place, so it's no surprise that he didn't give much of a reaction to your kiss on his forehead. when you did it in the middle of his conversation with the magia lupus, he stops talking abruptly while the other members gawk at your boldness. with a quiet "teehee", you prance out of the room as he touches his forehead.

in class, in the hallway, in the cafeteria - abel would stare at you from afar like you've committed the highest degree of crimes. you think that you may have offended him by pulling what you did in front of the magia lupus, but that's not the case as you would come to find out later.

in the evening, abyss brings you to abel's room by the scruff of your shirt. you're wondering why the hell you got dragged out of bed, and it isn't until you noticed abel staring at you expectantly did you realise he wants you to give him a good night kiss like a mother would to her child.

ABYSS, who had never received physical affection from anyone before in his entire life, would be so flustered that his mind becomes a jumbled mess. he doesn't even realise that you've already fled from the scene by the time he can think coherently again (and he's disappointed).

the kiss you gave him would linger on his mind for hours, and he'd throw subtle glances at you - specifically your lips. the warmth that spread from the spot you kissed on his forehead is... comforting, reassuring even, and he doesn't think he can continue his day without getting another one from you.

eventually, abyss would work up the courage to approach you. when he shyly tugs your sleeve with his gaze averted, you immediately understand what he wants and lean in to plant a sweet kiss over his evil eye, causing red to dust his cheeks. he'd hug you on impulse, wanting to be as close to you as possible.

WIRTH doesn't appreciate having his study time interrupted, so if you try to break his concentration by kissing the side of his neck, he wouldn't give you the chance to run away by trapping your feet in mud. he'd then drag you over to sit on his lap, where you'll be forced to stay until he's done studying.

it doesn't matter if you're in the library or the common room, you'll just have to endure the embarrassment of being sandwiched between his body and the table. he doesn't even hide the fact that he's enjoying the way you're squirming uncomfortably on his lap - that's what you get for trying to distract him.

he'd pinch your side if your squirming starts to get annoying, and if you try to protest, he'd immediately shut you up with a kiss - with every contact between your lips lasting longer than the previous one. it eventually reaches the point where you're left breathless after his kisses, and he smirks at the debauched look he's able to paint on your countenance.

CARPACCIO would stare at your fleeing figure with the same stiff expression he wears every day; he'd internally question why you would run off after kissing him when he has no intentions of harming you.

since he can't feel pain, your affectionate gestures are the only other external stimuli he can feel. he registers the pleasant feeling in his chest when you first kissed him, and has become addicted to the feeling since then. so really, he'd just accept your surprise kisses.

although he won't go after you when you run away, he'd actively seek you out and splay himself across your lap like a cat. when that happens, it's your cue to shower him with the kisses he has grown to like. this frequently happens since he tends to stay up all night for his research, and the warm feeling of your lips helps him fall asleep.

ORTER won't admit it, but your kisses are capable of breaking his composure; so when your lips suddenly press against his jaw, he'd freeze up on the spot, giving you the opportunity to book it before he can catch you. once you're well out of his sight, he'd push his glasses up the bridge of his nose with the faintest hint of blush on his cheeks.

of course, no actions go without consequences - and you are no exception. to punish you for your little misdeed, orter would call your unsuspecting self into his office before bending you over his desk when you least expected it. he'd relish in your shocked expression and proceeds to intimidate you into submission, only stopping once he spots the teary beads in the corners of your eyes.

orter is not a cruel man. gently cupping your jaw, he presses a long kiss on your temple as a silent apology before letting you go.

another one who you won't have a chance to run from. KALDO can tell when you're about to attack him with a kiss and would pretend to be oblivious until you make a move. the moment you lean into his face, he quickly turns his head and places a hand at the back of your head to push your lips against his.

you're helpless in his grasp as he wraps an arm around your waist to press you against his body. if you just had a sweet snack, he would deepen the kiss and literally devour your lips, wanting to taste what you ate. when he finally pulls away, he'll try to guess the name of the snack while playfully smiling at your embarrassed expression.

kaldo treats it like a little game. if he can catch you before you kiss him and he happens to have some honey on hand, he gets your honey-flavoured lips as a reward and you'll be in for a long night.