#and i have to basically become expert enough in this to have something to SAY

[carpathxanridge]

the scariest thing about asking people for things you thought were a total long shot is when they say yes and you have to actually follow through and do the thing!

[h2llish]

【╰ヾ❝ MAY I HAVE THIS DANCE? ✧„

VIL SCHOENHEIT ── the two of you share a dance ☆ fluff, male reader, established relationship, lowercase intended, reader is not the prefect

fem aligned dni (she/they, she/her, etc)

vil was a busy person, as a model, actor, housewarden and student at the prestigious night raven college, of course he was. even when he took time off from acting to focus on his schooling. it wasn't unusual for your boyfriend to return to his room, where you were often waiting, looking quite tired.

with vil's often-busy schedule, it had practically become routine you'd go as far to say, to wait for vil in his room, where you would likely spend the night. you certainly took advantage of this routine, just happy to see vil, especially when he relaxed after a long day. vil never protested when he found you waiting for him, nor when you would (almost always) make the decision to spend the night with him.

and like this established routine, you were once again in his room as the day turned night, laying across vil's bed and watching your boyfriend complete his nighttime skin routine. there was a radio beside him, where soft music played. vil liked to listen to music every night as he got ready for bed, quiet enough so he didn't disturb anyone so late, but loud enough to fill the silence of the room.

you had been reading before vil returned to his room, but now it remained bookmarked and forgotten as you lay at the foot of the bed, chin resting on the back of your hands and watching vil, something you did every night. sometimes he'd catch you starring, and you'd grin, to which he'd always roll his eyes and smile.

you two sat in a comfortable lack of conversation with only the music to fill the silence.

your attention momentarily switched to the radio as the song trailed off and began a new one, one that sounded more classical, like something you'd listen to while dancing. oh. you smiled, rolling off the side of the bed and to your feet. you approached your boyfriend, stopping behind him watching him finish his routine before he acknowledged you through the mirror with a questioning look.

before he could ask you what you were doing, you held out your hand and grinned, "may i have this dance?"

he blinked, turning his attention from your reflection to face you directly, his expression almost deadpan, "[name]." he said, as if asking you if you were serious. you only shrugged in response to your name, smile turning cheeky, wiggling your fingers, urging him to take your hand.

your smile grew when he shook his head and sighed, muttering, "what to do with you?" as he placed his hand in yours, but despite the rather rhetorical question, there was a fondness to his tone. you pulled vil towards you, one hand going to rest on his waist while the other laced your fingers together. you expression was quite proud as vil rested his hand on your shoulder, chuckling.

as the song that led to this played softly, you began to lead, spinning with vil slowly. vil let you, relaxing against you as you pulled him closer, chest to chest. you fell back into a lack of conversation, one comfortable as you stared at vil, rather content with just watching him.

you're no expert when it comes to waltzing, but you learned what you could, the basics, from vil for vil, so that he knew he always had a dancing partner who sort of knew what he was doing if you ever found yourselves dancing in front of a crowd. but you guys weren't in front of a crowd (or dressed in stare worthy clothing as you spun). you were just two boyfriends dressed ready for bed, holding each other in the middle of a bedroom and twirling lazily, lacking the professionalism vil would probably have if it was any other setting.

but that's exactly why, because you weren't anywhere else ── you were in his room, where vil let go of that character of confidence he put on in front of everyone else. here, where he leaned his head on your shoulder as you stepped with him and spun again and again.

and while you danced, you stared at him, head tilted enough for you to admire who you held in your arms. you were often told that your second language might as well be praising vil, always there to throw compliments of all kinds at your boyfriend, making sure he knew just how wonderful he was, even if it you didn't actually use words to say it (because you know vil). you're sure you've never once thought vil was anything but beautiful and amazing. even now, you thought vil looked ethereal ── with his hair pulled back, a little messy with the curls under blond strands, and his faced covered in a veil of white he would have to remove when morning comes.

you swore to the seven that he was the prettiest person you'd ever have the chance of meeting (and here you are, holding him, the one who got to see him like this, in what you think is his most beautiful state, although you know he'd argue.)

as the song trailed off into another, you half expected vil to call it a night, saying how you both needed sleep. but he did no such thing, remaining in your grasp. he squeezed your shoulder for a moment when you almost brought the dance to a stop, and he let you continue to twirl him around the room slowly. and you noted to yourself that perhaps he needed this. being his boyfriend, you knew well how busy he'd been, and how hard he often was on himself to be the fairest. (although you would say he already was the fairest one of all.)

as the second song faded into the third, and the third faded into the fourth, and fourth into the fifth, your already lazy waltz turned into something more of a sway in your spot, no longer spinning around the room.

you smiled at him, squeezing his waist softly as you admired him laying his head on your shoulder. you finally broke the music filled silence, whispering so as to not disturb the peace of the moment, "you're so beautiful, vil." (you say, even though the compliment was small compared to the thoughts of just how beautiful he really was, lacking the words that could began to truly express. but you suppose it will have to do.)

vil's sleep schedule was a little off that night, something that rarely, if ever, happened, unsure of how many songs the two of you had danced to. but he lacked any complaints about it ── he thinks he'll let it slide just this once.

i had to man. managed to actually focus and write something really happy right now

do not repost, translate, copy or run my writing through an ai

[extendedtimeline]

Batman: Bloodstorm & Queerness

READ: this has been posted on twitter aswell, so if you find that, it's me lol! This will be an even longer version of that, with more description as I don't have the pesky world limit here! I wanted to start this out by saying I may get some things wrong, and this was something I'd originally had posted on a Mastodon Server my friends are running so I wasn't checking it over very much, just wanted to get my thoughts out! There are probably a lot of different ways this comic can be read, but I'm particularly enamored by queer readings of comics so that's what I'll be focusing on today. This won't be exhaustive on the queer metaphors in this comic, and I'd be happy for people to add on to what I say! I'm not an expert on making analysis posts, so forgive me if anything is unclear or out of place. I'm also getting used to Tumblr formatting, but fans here tend to be more active so I really wanted to share here! With that, let's get into it

Brief Summary

Before getting into my reading, I thought it best to give a (semi-) brief Summary of the comic itself. There's also someone context from the previous comic (as this is part of a trilogy!) that I'll try to provide too, but a lot of the material I'll talk about isn't really dependent on the fact you have the experience of reading Red Rain.

In "Batman: Bloodstorm" Bruce has been turned into a vampire (the previous comic delves into how this happened, but just know he's sort of shed the identity of "Bruce Wayne" and has given in to being Batman more "full time"). Batman finds out there are vampires he has not "killed" yet (as he had killed a large sum of them in Red Rain)(Because Vampires are undead he does not consider it murder to take them out). While he hunts these vamps down he is heavily resisting the urge to suck blood, and because he has resisted it, he is getting progressively weaker, to the point it's hard to do much of anything. In the first comic, Tanya (a vampire woman he had become friends with) had synthesized this replacement for blood, that would keep her alive and well without the need to kill. Bruce tries to recreate this, but it's not enough for him and he continues to become weaker the most he resists sucking blood.

While this is happening Joker has started working with the vampires LOL he's just being Joker using his charm and stuff to get them to comply.

Cut to Selina who we see get attacked by a werewolf like creature, and she becomes a werecat from this attack (I'd like to note, the way this was framed it very much reads like sexual assault). She intends to get her male attacker back for what he did to her.

Selina attacks Batman believing him to be the man, but they clear it up fast that he is not. She wants to help him, but in Batman fashion he denies her help.

There's this woman who Batman has been going to, trying to gain information on these super natural occurrings. He asks her if it's possible for him to survive when he doesn't drink blood, and asks what an alternative may be. She basically says GET A BITCH! (he needs the loving touch of a woman or something)

When he runs away from the woman, Selina finds him and takes him to her apartment where they cuddle until morning, and he DOES feel better after this. Like a considerable amount. He feels like his weakness is going away. So he lets her in on his scheme to catch the Joker and the rest of the vamps. They go to find them and take them down.

During the scuffle Joker shoots Selina with an arrow and she's killed. Batman, filled with rage, finally gives in to his urge to suck blood, and he sucks the Jokers blood. Making sure to take the necessary precautions afterwards to ensure Joker doesn't come back to life as a vampire.

In this world, if you suck blood, you become impure, and start to have reactions to stereotypical vampire deterrents. Batman believes himself to be unsafe now that he's sucked blood, and tasks Gordan and Alfred with killing him.

How is this queer?

In this section we will operate under the assumption queerness and vampirism are inherently intertwined in this story. That is to say, vampirism is just a stand in for queerness or queer experiences. Vampires and vampire media has been queercoded and littered with queer subtext for DECADES. I recommend reading up on it, or if you're into Video Essays I really enjoyed this video about the bisexualness of Dracula, specifically!

In these next images Batman is talking to another vampire about his vampirism (or more like the Vampire is talking AT him and Batman tries to deny it).

Batman says that he does NOT drink blood, and the way the vampire responds seems almost erotic lol? He tells Batman that he knows he WANTS to drink blood, and that sooner or later he'll just have to give in to it. Again, batman denies, denies, denies, but it's because he knows it to be TRUE, the desire is only getting stronger.

The vampire calls him a "filthy blood junkie" (to me this seems akin to calling a queer person "faggot" perhaps). The way he says that the vampirism is just "tempting the natural predator in [him]." struck me as a way of saying "you've always been queer, but the urge (to do something about it) is undeniable now, so what are you going to do about it?" The vampire goes on to say he used to HATE the site of blood (perhaps that he used to hate his own queerness and hid from it) but now that he's a vampire he craves it. It gives him satisfaction, exactly what he needs, he can't get enough of it.

This whole interaction reads (to me) as this man describing his queer awakening to Batman, connecting his own experience to Batmans, recognizing the signs. But Batman doesn't believe this. He doesn't WANT to give in.

These next images I share focus on Batman denying himself blood.

He describes how he's become addicted to the idea of something he's never even had before. This resonated with me, when you're discovering your queerness it seems a lot bigger than it is (bc being queer would be something easy, if there weren't societal pressures), and craving to have this experience you've never gotten. He seems afraid of himself. He sees himself as a predator, as someone people should fear. He doesn't want to be "tempted" by Alfred. I dont think he'd ever do anything to Alfred here, in a queer reading, I'd say this is the result of being told by people that you are predatory for who you love, and it becoming so Ingrained in your sense of self you BELIEVE it.

Next, I want to touch on WHY Bruce is so comforted by Selina. Why she literally makes him stronger, I have two ways I think this could be taken in my reading.

After cuddling with Selina all night, Batman feels MUCH better. He is getting his strength back just from being near her.

1) This is an interpretation I think is sweet, above anything else, that I was thinking about while reading. Selina is a werecat, Batman is a vampire. They can relate to eachother. They're both queer. They're both feared for something they cannot control. The reason Batman finds comfort in Selina is because she is his community. Living in places where there aren't a lot of openly queer people, finding another queer person is a major comfort. You feel less alone. She is giving him something he's desperately needed, and that's the hope that his future isn't doomed because of who he loves.

2) The reason she comforts him is because she validated his heterosexuality. He is cuddling with her and doing things that are stereotypically romantic and that comforts him because it means he can still "mask" (for lack of a better way to put that) his queerness. When he is with her, he can pretend that he is not fighting this battle with himself. He can pretend he is what society deems "normal".

When Selina is killed, Batman refers to her as "[his] last hope."

I think my second reading makes sense in this context, she was literally his last hope at denying his queerness, but with her gone he no longer feels he can hold back what he's been dealing with.

Batman is shown resisting what would normally hurt a vampire because he is still "pure". He hasn't tasted blood (had a queer experience). he brings up Selina having selfless love for him, she made him stronger. (Side note: that's really fucking sweet and I love batman and Selina sm)

This next image made my jaw drop, because to me, if you replace the word "sane" with perhaps "heterosexual" or "straight" it would make A LOT of sense.

Batman has completely given up on hiding his queerness. There's no point in resisting it anymore (was there ever when he knew how this would end eventually?).

I'll leave a transcription of the cursive in the alt text for these next pages. I feel the experience is a lot better when you read them yourself.

So yeah, Batman describes (very erotically might I add!) sucking the Jokers blood. Literally saying the Joker has WON. And like, I feel like this is speaking for itself but I'll try to describe how I felt while reading.

Batman giving in to something he's always wanted, and immediately feeling Shame and guilt at what he's done. Much like how, when things stay in your mind, you can deny them, but when you act things out (like being queer with someone-) you can no longer deny what you desire. He becomes impure once he sucks Jokers blood, so he runs away from all that can hurt him, and asks Gordon and Alfred to end him. Because what is he supposed to do now? Live on knowing what he has done, what he will become if he keeps going? If it's just one person, he can destroy the evidence of it ever happening, continue to deny what he knows to be true, but if there were more? he simply wouldn't be able to stay in denial.

I think Joker being the character here too, adds so much for me personally (as someone who likes batjokes) because in the literal sense it is Batman giving in to his urge to kill Joker, but from a queer standpoint, it seems like something entirely different. He hates the Joker, but he cant help but give in to this hidden desire he has that has been taking over his mind. It makes so much sense it's the Joker, because he is his greatest temptation.

[esamastation]

Part forty-one of Shizuroth, aka, the SOLDIER General's Self Saving Shizun.

Ao3 link.

Previous parts: twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty

-

"... So there's Natural Materia that grows and evolves and eventually spawns an offspring of exactly identical Materia that can then make the exact same journey - and then there's Artificial Materia that… doesn't?"

"You're really asking the wrong person - Genesis is the expert," Angeal sighs, rubbing at his forehead. "But yeah, that's basically it? Artificial Materia can still level up a bit, but it doesn't evolve or make a copy of itself."

Sephiroth nods, fascinated. "So Natural Materia basically does mitosis?"

"I… don't know what that is?" Angeal says, sounding lost.

They're walking through the forest, in between random encounters - following a wide old footpath towards the charcoal burner's house. The path has the signs of wheeled traffic where the dirt has really been compacted, but it was a while ago, and grasses have started taking real estate on the path. Still, it makes for easier walking than the wild, untamed forest.

"It's when something - a cell - splits into two identical copies," Sephiroth explains.

"Ah, then no, that's not exactly it - the offspring Materia is unleveled and undeveloped. It has to be matured anew," Angeal clarifies.

"Still. Eventually the offspring Materia becomes identical to the parent. It's asexual reproduction, at least," Sephiroth muses, fascinated by how organic it all sounds. Like Materia is actually a breed of organism doing what all living things do - eat and reproduce. And artificial versions are basically infertile! "I bet Artificial Materia still needs to be somehow seeded by the natural sort."

Angeal shrugs, helpless. "You'd really have better luck asking Genesis. Maybe you should send him a message, asking about it."

"Maybe I will," Sephiroth says, determined, and then looks up. "Heads up - bugs."

One random encounter later, they're back to walking.

"You know, you could actually just try using your Materia," Angeal comments. "Might give you some insight on how it works. Or do you not remember how?"

Sephiroth waves a hand. "You just push energy through the thing, it's not that hard."

"Then why not do it?"

Because MP is Qi, kinda, and using Materia basically burns it away. Or, well, transforms it. Part of it goes into the Materia being used, aiding its maturation, and the rest of it is transformed into whatever spell the Materia is for. It's very easy to use and very powerful and incredibly energy inefficient. And since Sephiroth still isn't sure whether he wants to take in ambient energy in the way of the locals, he isn't sure his MP actually replenishes? And sure, he could take an Ether, a potion that replenishes MP - but that's basically like drinking raw Qi, and the very idea is a bit alarming.

There's just a scary level of energy transference going on in this place, and his core is unstable enough!

Also Sephiroth would rather figure out how to consume the Materia itself, like you'd consume spirit stones - except he really doesn't need any extra Qi at this point.

"Maybe later," Sephiroth says and looks ahead for a distraction. "Oh, hey, is that the house?"

Angeal gives him a look, amused, but lets it go and looks ahead too.

The charcoal burner's house is built near to the side of a mountain wall, with three enormous charcoal kilns half carved into the stone of the mountain. The house is more of a homestead, with a large area cleared and fenced, with the house itself in the middle, a couple of storage huts, a stall, and a big shelter for wood.

It's a bit rundown, though. One of the storage houses has its rooftop caved in, and there's long grass growing everywhere. The charcoal kilns look not just cold, but like something had been nesting in one of them.

"That's strange," Angeal murmurs warily, looking around. "It… doesn't look like anyone's been living here for a good long while."

"Hmm," Sephiroth hums, crouching down to examine a footprint in the dirt. It's fresh. "Someone has been here very recently, though." Someone in modern footwear - with treaded soles. Not that he knows what kind of footwear the people of Wutai favour, but, still…

Angeal looks at the footprint and hums. "Be on your guard. There's something weird going on in here."

Cautious, they examine the place and find no signs of any monster attacks. What they do find is more footprints, all by the same set of shoes, going strong in the place and by all appearances checking out the buildings.

"Looking for something, maybe?" Angeal murmurs as they consider the footprints.

"Hmm. I don't see any signs of monsters," Sephiroth comments. "Didn't the mission files say the place was already attacked? Maybe we're in the wrong place."

"Maybe…"

While Angeal checks their mission files and coordinates to confirm they're actually in the right house, Sephiroth tries to figure out why it was abandoned in the first place. It wasn't sudden, that he can tell - whoever lived here had the time to pack up. Everything that's left was put away very neatly, too.

"Well, this is the right place," Angeal says, following him inside. "Either they got the coordinates wrong - or the intelligence."

"I guess it could be a trap," Sephiroth muses, poking around the charcoal burner's old office in search of any paperwork. "If this is really where an informant once lived, maybe that informant turned into a double agent and set a trap."

"You really think so?" Angeal asks, sounding more interested than alarmed.

"Not really," Sephiroth shrugs and picks up a crumpled piece of paper, someone's attempt at a letter that had gotten ruined by an ink smear. Gently he spreads it out on the office table to read. "Or else it's a terrible trap…"

The letter is addressed to someone's uncle, informing them of the charcoal burner's good fortune. Apparently their family had been invited by the emperor to live and work in the capital. Lucky guy.

"Maybe we should prepare for an ambush, just in case," Angeal comments thoughtfully, adjusting his gloves. "What do you think?"

"I think they would've revealed themselves already, if it was the case," Sephiroth says. "And this is a terrible place for an ambush anyway. It's far too open."

"Well, good thing it's not an ambush!" a voice calls from the outside before Angeal can answer.

"... Sounds like something an ambusher would say," Angeal mutters, clearly recognizing the voice, and Sephiroth chuckles.

Reno waits for them outside, lazily scratching at a bug bite on his arm. "Congratulations, you have been summarily recruited for a secret Turk mission," he says and motions around them. "Your station."

"Turk mission?" Angeal repeats. "It was you who sent out that mission file?"

"Yep," Reno agrees, shrugging unrepentantly.

Sephiroth watches him warily. He'd not interacted with Reno or Rude much, Angeal had kinda covered for him there. He'd not entirely sure why the Turks followed them to Wutai. Maybe this is it.

Maybe this is as far as he gets, before having to commit, one way or the other.

Sephiroth braces himself. "What's the mission?"

Reno grins and points a finger at him. "Your mission, starting right now, is to stay here," he says, "And get your shit together."

-

Man I've missed ff7 world so much. The whole magic system from Lifestream to Materia to summoning world ending Meteors from the sky is just 😗👌

I'm playing og ff7 while writing and none of the sequelsprequelsremakes come even close to comparing with how delicious Materia in the original game is.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Since people ask me a lot how to research this or that type of mythology or religion I'll just tell you how I go about researching mythology and religion I'm not familiar with in general.

Keep in mind I'm not an expert. I'm just a guy who reads a lot about mythology.

So first, know what you're looking for. What culture's belief system are we looking at? Because you can't just look at a broad region. If you wanna know about "African" or "Asian" mythology generally that will not help you. You need to be looking at something specific. A specific group or religion.

So let's say, as an example, you want to research the stories and beliefs and history of Tibetan Buddhism. Because that's something I'm looking into researching right now, so I'll take you through my process of getting started on it.

So the first thing I do is... google Tibetan Buddhism. Now this is a still-living religion that has continuously been practiced since it's founding, so I scroll past the Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica entries until I find something by the people currently practicing it. In this case, I found an article by the Sakya Monastery in Seattle that gives a basic overview of their beliefs and different types of the religion that is currently practiced. This is what I'm looking for. I want to give myself a fairly good foundation of understanding of what's going on here before I start digging past the surface.

After this, I look for more articles and videos by monasteries explaining the basics. If this were from a religion that is either dead or has not been practiced continually since its founding I would skip all this and just go to the next step. Watching YouTube videos made by outsiders.

So after I give myself an idea of how people who practice the religion present themselves, I go searching on YouTube for overviews. I'm specifically interested in videos made by people that regularly make videos about this kind of thing and take it seriously. Sometimes this can take some digging. Something to look for is people who cite their sources, people who present the facts without outward judgement, and people who acknowledge their own biases while they explain these things.

A lot of these videos often give me ideas for books and primary sources to start referencing. With Tibetan Buddhism there's a lot of the regular Buddhism texts, along with a few others. I'm not looking to become an expert in this religion or convert to it, so I'll settle for reading about these books. I'm fairly familiar with Zen Buddhism specifically and the history of Buddhism more generally so this helps me a teeny bit here but Tibetan Buddhism is very specifically its own thing so I start googling specific stories and types of practices mentioned in the videos and articles I've been using.

Once I have been reading things from various different perspectives and feel comfortable enough to the point where I feel like I could explain the basics to someone who knows nothing about the mythology or belief system, this is the point where I start looking into books. This is also the part where I actually start combing through various Wikipedia articles, following chains and looking through reference sections to see if there's any good sources I should be digging into.

When I look to buy or borrow books, it depends on how in-depth I want to go. As is, I'm probably gonna buy a couple of different books on a beginners guide to Tibetan Buddhism and perhaps something on the history of it. With each book I consider I look up the author. Are they an expert in this subject? Do they practice this religion? Would I rather buy a book by someone that follows the religion or someone that's a scholar of it? Because you will get very different results depending on who is writing it. Things written for spiritual purposes are very different from purely educational books, so what do you want to get out of this research? Are you just looking for entertainment? Do you just want to be more knowledgeable about the world in general? Does someone you love find importance in this subject? Are you doing research for a project? Are you looking to incorporate aspects of this religion into your own life? The types of books you buy or borrow will heavily depend on your intentions and you should be careful about actually reading the book descriptions and reading the backgrounds of the authors to make sure you're buying the correct one for what you're hoping to get out of this.

My purpose in this case is simply feeding my own curiosity, so I'm leaning towards buying Essential Tibetan Buddhism by Robert A. F. Thurman. It's a bit old but it's written by someone that's a professor of Tibetan studies and has translations of some essential texts in it, so it seems like a good starting point for me, and possibly also an ending point. Because like I said, this is mostly about my own curiosity.

If I wanted to dig further I'd probably start looking into the reference sections of various books for other things to read, start digging into lists of primary sources, possibly find free to watch lectures online by people with doctorates in this sort of thing, and read into primary sources I find referenced in the various secondary sources I've been consulting up to this point.

Basically, start on the surface and follow the rabbithole down. And always remember that the perspectives of people who study something in a secular way for a living and people who actively practice a religion will be different from each other. Pick and choose what sources you use depending on what your intentions are. Reading something about Orphic hymns for scholarly reasons or for other research purposes and reading Orphic hymns because you're a Hellenistic pagan who wants to incorporate them into your personal practice are two extremely different things. Both are valid reasons to buy a book on Orphic hymns but the two books that the two hypothetical people here would buy are very very different from each other.

Good luck out there and always be respectful while you're poking around.

[sadieshavingsex]

I think I've really started figuring out something about relationships and why mine seem to end so intensely. So this is just a little thought experiment, and, as always, I'm not an expert and I'm mostly writing this to talk to myself - take what resonates and leave the rest! So without further ado...

I think that these are some of the most basic ingredients a good relationship can have:

each partner having a baseline ACCEPTANCE of the other person and the ability to "let them do them" authentically

each partner being able to set BOUNDARIES that allow them to continue "doing them," as well as being able to tell the other "no" and stand up for themselves in order to keep those boundaries in place

each partner being COMFORTABLE with the concept that the relationship MAY NOT WORK OUT and truly being okay with stopping the relationship if it begins to go south

When these things start to get compromised, all hell breaks loose and you start the really vicious insecure attachment style cycles we've all come to know and love.

First of all, if someone starts to feel, for whatever reason, that this relationship "MUST WORK OUT," you are headed for disaster - this will create a scenario where at least one person in the relationship is more susceptible to letting go of their own boundaries if the other person asks. If there is any kind of question of the other partner not being able to accept them or their boundaries, the partner who feels things need to work out will simply let go of their boundaries for the sake of the relationship rather than stand up for themself or be able to walk away. Then you have a situation where boundaries are disintegrating and acceptance of the boundaryless partner is potentially starting to become conditional, so you've got the other two pillars of the safe relationship starting to fall.

Soon enough, you're in a very deep cycle. Putting aside your own boundaries for another person, no matter who they are, starts to breed resentment, and you start to feel unaccepting feelings toward the other person's behavior and probably feel that you're participating in an unequal power dynamic where they are making the rules of the relationship. Without your own boundaries, you likely start to impinge on your partner's - if you have to give up so much to be with them and earn their acceptance, they'd better be giving up the same! And then, the more that either of you give up, the more you probably start to subscribe to the sunk cost fallacy - you've changed so much for this person, so now you have to stay together even more, because this relationship would just be a total failure and violation otherwise.

FRIEND. Let me just say it right here from the start: if you stick to the three pillars above, you will probably be able to maintain a much healthier relationship with your partner and yourself!!! Because when you are not bending over backwards in ways that harm you, it's likely that you expect less of that from your partner as well. If you maintain the boundaries, it's probably easier to maintain your acceptance of each other, too. And if you keep your comfort with being alone, you're able to decide to leave in a respectable, peaceable way if the other relationship pillars start to fall in a way that makes you uncomfortable. I feel like these 3 pillars are the way to have a healthy, happy relationship with realistic expectations, that can still end really amicably if it needs to! But if you lose one the whole thing comes crashing down.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #5 – The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler

I read Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea last year and, despite thinking it was ultimately kind of a noble failure, liked it more than enough to give his new novella a try. It didn’t hurt that the premise as described in the marketing copy sounded incredible. I can’t quite say it was worth it, but that’s really only because this novella barely cost less than the 500-page doorstopper I picked up at the same time and I need to consider economies here – it absolutely lived up to the promise of its premise.

The book is set a century and change into the future, when a de-extinction initiative has gotten funding from the Russian government to resurrect the Siberian mammoth – or, at least, splice together a chimera that’s close-enough and birth it from african elephant surrogate mothers – to begin the process of restoring the prehistoric taiga as a carbon sink. The problem: there’s no one on earth left who knows how wild mammoth are supposed to, like, live- the only surviving elephants have been living in captivity for generations. Plop the ressurectees in the wilderness and they’ll just be very confused and anxious until they starve. The solution: the technology to capture a perfect image of a human mind is quite old, and due to winning some prestigious international award our protagonist – an obsessive partisan of elephant conservation – was basically forced to have her mind copied and put in storage a few months before she was killed by poachers.

So the solution of who will raise and socialize these newly created mammoths is ‘the 100-year-old ghost of an elephant expert, after having her consciousness reincarnated in a mammoth’s body to lead the first herd as the most mature matriarch’. It works better than you’d expect, really, but as it turns out she has some rather strong opinions about poachers, and isn’t necessarily very understanding when the solution found to keep the project funded involves letting some oligarch spend a small country’s GDP on the chance to shoot a bull and take some trophies.

So this is a novella, and a fairly short one – it’s densely packed with ideas but the length and the constraints of narrative mean that they’re more evoked or presented than carefully considered. This mostly jumps out at me with how the book approaches wildlife conservation – a theme that was also one of the overriding concerns of Mountain where it was considered at much greater length. I actually think the shorter length might have done Nayler a service here, if only because it let him focus things on one specific episode and finish things with a more equivocal and ambiguous ending than the saccharine deux ex machina he felt compelled to resort to in Mountain.

The protection of wildlife is pretty clearly something he’s deeply invested in – even if he didn’t outright say so in the acknowledgements, it just about sings out from the pages of both books. Specifically, he’s pretty despairing about it – both books to a great extent turn around how you convince the world at large to allow these animals to live undisturbed when all the economic incentives point the other way, a question he seems quite acutely aware he lacks a good answer to.

Like everyone else whose parents had Jurassic Park on VHS growing up, I’ve always found the science of de-extinction intensely fascinating – especially as it becomes more and more plausible every day. This book wouldn’t have drawn my eye to nearly the degree it did if I don’t remember the exact feature article I’d bet real money inspired it about a group of scientists trying to do, well, exactly the same thing as the de-extinctionists do in the book (digital resurrection aside). The book actually examines the project with an eye to practicalities and logistics – and moreover, portrays it as at base a fundamentally heroic, noble undertaking as opposed to yet another morality tale about scientific hubris. So even disregarding everything else it had pretty much already won me over just with that.

The book’s portrayal of the future and technology more generally is broader and less carefully considered, but it still rang truer than the vast majority of sci fi does – which is, I suppose, another way of saying that it’s a weathered and weather-beaten world with new and better toys, but one still very fundamentally recognizable as our own, without any great revolutions or apocalyptic ruptures in the interim. Mosquito's got CRISPR’d into nonexistence and elephants were poached into extinction outside of captivity, children play with cybernetically controlled drones and the president of the Russian Federation may or may not be a digital ghost incarnated into a series of purpose-grown clones, but for all that it’s still the same shitty old earth. It’s rather charming, really.

[annoyangle]

( I feel like this is gonna be a bad idea asking this🤣🤣😭😭😭)

Hey Bill I have a question for ya! Since your an expert on the human anatomy I was wondering if you have any tips on getting rid of headaches? I mean you've been in so many minds so you gotta know what triggers them?

BOTH KRYPTOS AND PINCHY JUST MADE WHAT I WOULD CONSIDER """""MENACING GESTURES IN MY DIRECTION""""" AT MY FIRST ANSWER SO LET'S DIAL IT BACK A NOTCH (bƧ ꓕHE ⱯИƧMEʁ IƧ ꓕ ʁ E b Ɐ И И I И ᘓ ᘓO ᘓEꓕ ꓕHE bOMEʁ DʁIΓΓ DO Iꓕ DO Iꓕ DO Iꓕ) AND JUST SAY... YOUR FRAIL HUMAN BRAINS ARE BASICALLY SPIDERWEBS OF ELECTRICAL IMPULSES FLASHING AROUND BETWEEN OPEN ON/OFF BINARY MEAT SWITCHES. ELECTRICITY IS NOT A FORCE TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY! THE USUAL APPROACH TO DEALING WITH HEADACHES IS ANY OR ALL OF THE FOLLOWING IN COMBINATION OR ALONE! 1. TAKE SOME KIND OF MEDICATION TO 'DUMB DOWN' THE RECEPTOR CIRCUITS IN YOUR FISH BRAINS SO THEY DON'T ZAP AS MUCH ELECTRICITY AROUND INSIDE. THIS USUALLY MEANS ASPIRIN, IBUPROFEN, RUBBING YOUR TEETH WITH WILLOW BARK... SOMETHING LIKE THAT. THINK OF IT AS ADDING TINY AIRBAGS AND CRASH HELMETS TO ALL THE IMPULSES HURTLING AROUND IN THE OPEN SKY OF YOUR BRAIN SO THAT THEY LAND NICE AND SOFT IN YOUR BRAIN RECEPTORS INSTEAD OF FACEPLANTING FROM THE IMPULSE EQUIVALENT OF LEAPING OFF THE 5TH FLOOR ROOF! ALL THOSE BRAIN IMPULSES LANDING SPLAT ON THE FLOOR OF YOUR HEAD KIND OF PILES UP QUICK! 2. DRINK SOME KIND OF NON-CAFFEINATED BEVERAGE BECAUSE "THIRST" OR "LACK OF ELECTROLYTES" OR "WEAK BLOOD THAT NEEDS CHEMICAL REINFORCEMENT" IS DRYING OUT THE VEINS OF YOUR BRAIN MEATS! I RECOMMEND WATER, BUT BE SURE YOU'RE POURING IT IN THE CORRECT ORIFICE FIRST!! ONLY ONE OF THEM ATTACHES DIRECTLY TO THE BRAIN -AND IT'S NOT YOUR MOUTH!!

3. HAVE YOU SLEPT ENOUGH LATELY? IF NOT, YOU SHOULD REALLY GO TO BED. RIGHT NOW. I MEAN IT. GO TO BED. RIGHT NOW.

4. DE-STRESS. STRESS TURNS YOUR BRAIN PATHWAYS INTO DRIED UP HUSKS, I CAN SEE THE TUMBLEWEEDS ROLLING DOWN THOSE MIND HIGHWAYS NOW! STOP READING THE NEWS, DOOMSCROLLING ON SOCIAL MEDIA, AND GO READ MY SCRIPTURES INSTEAD! THERE'S PROBABLY A CODE OR SOME JOKE OR SOME WEIRD LITTLE ASIDE ONLY A HIGHLY TARGETED AUDIENCE WILL UNDERSTAND AND YOU PROBABLY MISSED IT! YOU CAN'T HAVE FOUND EVERYTHING ALREADY, ESPECIALLY THE STUFF THAT I WROTE IN 4TH DIMENSIONAL HYPERQUADRATIC DRIIFYIBPRZHBO-ESE!

5. PAY ME $50 BUCKS, NO, $200, NO, $40000 AND I'LL TAKE CARE OF IT FOR YOU MYSELF! JUST CUT A LITTLE HERE, SNIP A LITTLE THERE, AND BUDDY YOU'LL BE ON YOUR WAY TO THE GREATEST PEACE AND TRANQUILITY YOU'VE EVER EXPERIENCED! YOU WON'T FEEL ANY BRAIN PAIN OR ANYTHING ELSE EVER AGAIN!!

WHO LOVES YA? YOUR GRUNKLE BILL DOES!! ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU'VE BEEN RENDERED UNABLE TO CONTROL YOUR BODY AND BECOME A BREATHING PUPPET FOR MY WHIMS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

[allwormdiet]

Interlude 6

Justice for Paige McAbee

This is. Fucking evil. Chaining a woman up like an animal and parading her around the courtroom. Like what the shit.

Utterly fucking barbaric

Brief detour I guess to provide exposition on the existence of rogues

Going from heartbreak to outrage this quickly in succession was some fucking whiplash when I first read this arc, fucking tell you what

Actual torture.

The inhumanity of this entire arrangement is borderline sickening to see play out. What an utter failure of the system

Oh hey you two

I can see how people would get. Touchy. About a power like that. But touchy enough for a life sentence is fucked.

Also, credit where it's due, Bakuda's ingenuity in this situation is still pretty well on display

Bakuda is playing with fucking fire here, and not just pyrokinesis, har har

Okay you know what, callousness and cruelty aside, this is a fucking badass display from Bakuda.

Okay so what the fuck is up with the ABB capes, actually. Bakuda built a bomb that would've devastated, like, the entire Eastern Seaboard, and probably even further beyond that into the west and north. I'd say that she was slumming it as part of a gang that's only got a minor presence in one city and a few neighboring areas, but honestly Lung feels just as cracked.

Dude basically only fights harder over time, he would've taken down everyone in that warehouse if Skitter didn't make a Hail Mary play with Newter's hallucinogen. Kaiser, Sundancer, Bitch, Newter, and one or both of the twins would've been fucking smoked, maybe Labyrinth if Coil's guys didn't bother to pull her out. This dude could've been putting up massive numbers throughout his entire reign as the head of the ABB.

So what the fuck was he doing instead? If he's a gang boss with this kind of power at his fingertips, where's the fucking appetite that should come with it? Skitter didn't even think he was an A-lister before they fought and he proved her wrong, she thought he was like, a step above Uber and Leet? In what world does that misconception become publicly accepted?

I'd say this is gonna bug me, but uhh, Lung's going to the fucking oubliette to end all oubliettes so it's a bit of a moot point, isn't it

Like, okay. Fucked up, sure thing. But this is still such a massive injustice; it was a one-time thing and she couldn't have possibly known if this was the first time it ever happened. You could've demanded training for her power, if nothing else, but you throw her into Hell on Earth. Fuck me.

This is a level of determination that I think has so far gone unmatched in this story. Like, I'll give Taylor time to pull off something even more outrageously self-harming for the sake of an objective, it's her story after all and there's a lot of words left, but Bakuda really is something else.

Of course that "something else" does include being an abrasive piece of shit, but hell, she's a parahuman, I don't think I've met one of them that's without some kind of baggage.

Maybe there's a world out there where after her trigger event she comes down on the other end of the hero/villain line. Bombs aren't exactly heroic but she could build non-lethally for standard use and save the big damage for shit like Endbringers. Plus the obvious potential of having a bomb Tinker as an EOD expert, that would be game-changing.

She'd still probably be an asshole, but like. You don't have to be pleasant to be a hero, we know that one for sure.

Alas.

I was torn between wanting Paige to get out of this and wanting Lung and Bakuda to get what's coming to them.

Hi Dragon, wish you weren't the warden of the worst prison I've ever heard of in my life, see you later in the story maybe

Also. Six hundred prisoners in the Birdcage. Not counting whoever's died. That's a fucking lot of them.

Wait what the fuck happened to Newfoundland

Oh, Dragon hates this too, well there's a small fucking mercy.

Also, "the hole the men opened into the women's half of the Birdcage" is a fucking alarming phrase. We're just fucking letting anything fly down here, huh? Jesus Christ.

Dragon's description of the Birdcage's security measures is. Fucking extreme. This is a fucking nightmare, an absolute cavalcade of human rights abuses that I can't even begin to fathom.

Have children been born in the Birdcage? If not, who's preventing that? Is everyone being covertly dosed with contraceptives to keep them from having children? Do the block leaders have people on hand to deal with abortions? How do you handle dietary restrictions? Religious restrictions? What if it turns out you were wrongly convicted?

Literally everything about this place is a horror show. Every implication is dark as fucking Vantablack.

Gross

I guess this is what passes for society down here, huh

Well shit, I guess I'm glad Bakuda has some enrichment at least.

Okay, so, Marquis is a supervillain who's taken over a cell block, and he's a Brockton native invested in learning what he's missed out on

...Easy money says he's Amy Dallon's old man.

Not entirely shocked that Lung's spent time behind bars, though I assume that was before he got his powers.

And uhh. I'm gonna be real, I feel kinda bad for Bakuda here. Like she's a piece of shit, obviously, but for all her insults she seemed happy to work for Lung, enough that she made a point of freeing him from the Protectorate and putting him back in charge when she could've stayed in charge, taken advantage of his arrest and done whatever she pleased

and now he's gonna kill her. Because she insulted him. Because it'll make life in prison easier.

I mean, shit. I do not like Bakuda's odds in this exchange. It probably doesn't take a lot for Lung to have her debilitated, and from there the kill is even easier. Maybe he dies too, but I don't expect that to be the case.

Current Thoughts

Justice for Paige McAbee

The Birdcage is, I think, a very reasonable simulacrum of Hell, and its very existence probably gives in-universe philosophers, ethicists, defense attorneys, and human rights activists fucking hives.

Also, justice for Paige McAbee

I'm not going to mourn Bakuda, but maybe I'll mourn the version of her that could've been in a kinder world.

Last thing, just in case we weren't clear:

Justice for Paige McAbee

[devsgames]

Game Optimization and Production

I wanted to write a bit of a light primer about optimization and how it relates to game production in the event people just don't know how it works, based on my experience as a dev. I'm by no means an expert in optimization myself, but I've done enough of it on my own titles and planned around it enough at this point to understand the gist of what it comes down to and considerations therein. Spoilers: games being unoptimized are rarely because devs are lazy, and more because games are incredibly hard to make and studios are notoriously cheap.

(As an aside, this was largely prompted by seeing someone complaining about how "modern" game developers are 'lazy' because "they don't remember their N64/Gamecube/Wii/PS2 or PS3 dropping frames". I feel compelled to remind people that 'I don't remember' is often the key part of the "old consoles didn't lag" equation, because early console titles ABSOLUTELY dropped frames and way more frequently and intensely than many modern consoles do. Honestly I'd be willing to bet that big budget games on average have become more stable over time. Honorable mention to this thread of people saying "Oh yeah the N64 is laggy as all hell" :') )

Anywho, here goes!

Optimization

The reason games suffer performance problems isn't because game developers are phoning it in or half-assing it (which is always a bad-faith statement when most devs work in unrealistic deadlines, for barely enough pay, under crunch conditions). Optimization issues like frame drops are often because of factors like ~hardware fragmentation~ and how that relates to the realities of game production.

I think the general public sees "optimization" as "Oh the dev decided to do a lazy implementation of a feature instead of a good one" or "this game has bugs", which is very broad and often very misguided. Optimization is effectively expanding the performance of a game to be performance-acceptable to the maximum amount of people - this can be by various factors that are different for every game and its specific contexts, from lowering shader passes, refactoring scripts, or just plain re-doing work in a more efficient way. Rarely is it just one or two things, and it's informed by many factors which vary wildly between projects.

However, the root cause why any of this is necessary in the first place is something called "Platform Fragmentation".

What Is Fragmentation

"Fragmentation" is the possibility space of variation within hardware being used to run a game. Basically, the likelihood that a user is playing a game on a different hardware than the one you're testing on - if two users are playing your game on different hardware, they are 'fragmented' from one another.

As an example, here's a graphic that shows the fragmentation of mobile devices based on model and user share. The different sizes are how many users are using a different type of model of phone:

As you can tell, that's a lot of different devices to have to build for!

So how does this matter?

For PC game developers, fragmentation means that an end-user's setup is virtually impossible to predict, because PC users frequently customize and change their hardware. Most PC users potentially have completely different hardware entirely.

Is your player using an up-to-date GPU? CPU? How much RAM do they have? Are they playing on a notebook? A gaming laptop? What brand hardware are they using? How much storage space is free? What OS are they using? How are they using input?

Moreover PC parts don't often get "sunsetted" whole-cloth like old consoles do, so there's also the factor of having to support hardware that could be coming up on 5, 10 or 15 years old in some cases.

For console developers it's a little easier - you generally know exactly what hardware you're building for, and you're often testing directly on a version of the console itself. This is a big reason why Nintendo's first party titles feel so smooth - because they only build for their own systems, and know exactly what they're building for at all times. The biggest unknowns are usually smaller things like televisions and hookups therein, but the big stuff is largely very predictable. They're building for architecture that they also made themselves, which makes them incredibly privileged production-wise!

Fragmentation basically means that it's difficult - or nearly impossible - for a developer to know exactly what their users are playing their games on, and even more challenging to guarantee their game is compatible everywhere.

Benchmarking

Since fragmentation makes it very difficult to build for absolutely everybody, at some point during development every developer has to draw a line in the sand and say "Okay, [x] combination of hardware components is what we're going to test on", and prioritize that calibre of setup before everything else. This is both to make testing easier (so testers don't have to play the game on every single variation of hardware), and also to assist in optimization planning. This is a "benchmark".

Usually the benchmark requirements are chosen for balancing visual fidelity, gameplay, and percentage of the market you're aiming for, among other considerations. Often for a game that is cross-platform for both PC and console, this benchmark will be informed by the console requirements in some way, which often set the bar for a target market (a cross-platform PC and console game isn't going to set a benchmark that is impossible for a console to play, though it might push the limits if PC users are the priority market). Sometimes games hit their target benchmarks, sometimes they don't - as with anything in game development it can be a real crap shoot.

In my case for my games which are often graphically intensive and poorly made by myself alone, my benchmark is often a machine that is approximately ~5 years old and I usually take measures to avoid practices which are generally bad and can build up to become very expensive over time. Bigger studios with more people aiming at modern targets will likely prioritize hardware from within the last couple years to have their games look the best for users with newest hardware - after all, other users will often catch up as hardware evolves.

This benchmark allows devs to have breathing room from the fragmentation problem. If the game works on weaker machines - great! If it doesn't - that's fine, we can add options to lower quality settings so it will. In the worst case, we can ignore it. After all, minimum requirements exist for a reason - a known evil in game development is not everyone will be able to run your game.

Making The Game

As with any game, the more time you spend on something is the more money being spent on it - in some cases, extensive optimization isn't worth the return of investment. A line needs to be drawn and at some point everyone can't play your game on everything, so throwing in the towel and saying "this isn't great, but it's good enough to ship" needs to be done if the game is going to ship at all.

Optimizing to make sure that the 0.1% of users with specific hardware can play your game probably isn't worth spending a week on the work. Frankly, once you hit a certain point some of those concerns are easier put off until post-launch when you know how much engagement your game has, how many users of certain hardware are actually playing, and how much time/budget you have to spend post-launch on improving the game for them. Especially in this "Games As A Service" market, people are frequently expecting games to receive constant updates on things like performance after launch, so there's always more time to push changes and smooth things out as time goes on. Studios are also notoriously squirrelly with money, and many would rather get a game out into paying customer's hands than sit around making sure that everything is fine-tuned (in contrast to most developers who would rather the game they've worked on for years be fine-tuned than not).

Comparatively to the pre-Day One patch era; once you printed a game on a disc it is there forever and there's no improving it or turning back. A frightening prospect which resulted in lots of games just straight up getting recalled because they featured bugs or things that didn't work. 😬

Point is though, targeted optimization happens as part of development process, and optimization in general often something every team helps out with organically as production goes on - level designers refactor scripts to be more efficient, graphics programmers update shaders to cut down on passes, artists trim out poly counts where they can to gradually achieve better performance. It's an all-hands-on-deck sort of approach that affects all devs, and often something that is progressively tracked as development rolls on, as a few small things can add up to larger performance issues.

In large studios, every developer is in charge of optimizing their own content to some extent, and some performance teams are often formed to be dedicated to finding the easiest, safest and quickest optimization wins. Unless you plan smartly in the beginning, some optimizations can also just be deemed to dangerous and out-of-reach to carry out late in production, as they may have dependencies or risk compromising core build stability - at the end of the day more frames aren't worth a crashing game.

Conclusion

Games suffer from performance issues because video game production is immensely complex and there's a lot of different shifting factors that inform when, how, and why a game might be optimized a certain way. Optimization is frequently a production consideration as much as a development one, and it's disingenuous to imply that games lag because developers are lazy.

I think it's worth emphasizing that if optimization doesn't happen, isn't accommodated, or perhaps is undervalued as part of the process it's rarely if ever because the developers didn't want to do it; rather, it's because it cost the studio too much money. As with everything in our industry, the company is the one calling the final shots in development. If a part of a game seems to have fallen behind in development it's often because the studio deemed it acceptable, refused to move deadlines or extend a hand to help it come together better at fear of spending more money on it. Rarely if ever should individual developers be held accountable for the failings of companies!

Anywho, thanks for reading! I know optimization is a weird mystical sort of blind spot for a lot of dev folks, so I hope this at least helps shed some light on considerations that weigh in as part of the process on that :) I've been meaning to write a more practical workshop-style step-by-step on how to profile and spot optimization wins at some point in the future, but haven't had the time for it - hopefully I can spin something up in the next few weeks!

[fruitsoxs]

midnight munchies

sometimes getting high with your crush ends in success

pairings: Modern!wolfwood x AFAB!reader warnings: !nsfw minors dni!, smut, making out, fluff, kinda mentions being high (doesn't go into much detail about that), cunnilingus, fingering, adam sandler notes: this went a bit out of my control lol- i may or may not have a part 2 in the works. also i have like a bunch of headcannons for my modern wolfwood in this fic if anyone wants them-- word count: 2.2k words

“Remind me again why we can’t grab all these snacks?” The gravelly voice of your dearest friend Nicholas D Wolfwood asks, grabbing a few bags of chips from your kitchen. You sigh and shoot him a look. “Because I get the munchies and literally cannot control myself when I’m high.” You reply as the microwave beeps lightly. You pop open the door and grab the popcorn with a smile. Nic sets a bowl down next to you, and you give him a quiet thank you, before pouring the warm snack into the bowl.

It’s movie night - a now weekly tradition the two of you have developed. A night where you pick out a terrible movie, get high, and just hang out. 

You’ve only been friends with Nic for about a month now, after meeting on the balcony at some party you didn’t want to go to. It’s crazy how immediately the two of you clicked. And instead of making out and never talking again, you held yourself back from kissing this insanely attractive man and got his number instead. To be friends. 

Now the two of you are basically inseparable. Texting constantly, always hanging out during your free time, and basically becoming the ultimate pair of best buds. And although that relationship is great, you can’t help but long to be something more…intimate. You thought he was attractive the moment you saw him with his messy dark hair, and tan skin. He’s like straight out of a TV show. As you got to know him more though, you couldn’t help but just keep falling. He’s funny, nice, a bit of a loser, and he is really good with kids. He’s like a dream guy! 

Even now, as you sit next to him on your shitty ass couch, you can’t help feel your heart flutter within your ribs. The way he leans back, and puts his arm across the back of the couch- almost around your shoulders. The way he throws a chip in the air and catches it with his mouth so casually- his light chuckle as something funny happens in the movie. It’s all so perfect. 

You’re not even paying attention to the movie at this point, eyes focused on him with this small smile. You’re sure you look absolutely in love, but he’s not even paying attention to you.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss Adam Sandler.” 

His eyes are hyper focused on the movie (Hotel Transylvania 4). You’re a little confused on why he’s actually invested in this movie, but he’s cute so whatever. His smile starts to widen, and his eyes glance over to you, as if he’s waiting for you to answer. 

“He’s not in this one?” You ask, turning your head to the screen with a slight blush. “How can you not tell?” Nic asks, laughing softly. 

“Oh I’m sorry I’m not an Adam Sandler expert like you.”

He laughs again, throwing his head back. He’s so cute. You break out into a little giggle of your own, and join him in what feels like a non-stop laugh session. Yeah- the effects are starting to hit you now for sure. As soon as you can catch your breath you cool down, and with a happy sigh you lean over resting your head on his shoulder.

He smiles when your head hits his shoulder and looks down at you. “This is kinda cute, you know.” He mumbles softly, only loud enough for you to barely hear it. Your cheeks turn a bit pink, and you let your thoughts inside your head flow through your lips without even thinking. “You’re kinda cute, you know.” you huff.

He smiles softly at the words, his eyes lighting up. “What was that?” He asks, an amused tone to his voice. “You gotta be louder than that.” He chuckles, flashing you a coy grin, before turning back to the movie.

“I said you’re kinda cute.” You repeat, this time louder. Suddenly you’re feeling a little brave. There’s an almost permanent smile on your lips, even as your heart thumps softly in your chest. Nic’s breathing stops for a moment, before his chest erupts into a light chuckle. He lowers his arms around your shoulders, and pulls you into his side. You can feel the vibrations in his chest from the laughter, and smell the smoke on his clothes. 

He angles his head down to look at you. “Aww thank you darlin~” You can feel his breath against your face and it makes your heartbeat pick up. He looks at your relaxed expression and chuckles again. “Is it hitting you already?” He asks, his hand squeezing your shoulder softly. “You really are so cute…”

You make no effort to push yourself away, but hide your face a bit. “Don’t make fun of me like that I might actually explode.” You mumble, flustered beyond all belief. He puts his fingers under your chin, and lifts your face up so it’s facing his. 

“Adorable…” His hand drops, but you stay looking up at him. His tone is soft, but there’s a hint of amusement on his face.  “If I tell you a secret, will you promise me you won’t tell anyone?” he lowers his tone to a light whisper, leaning in closer so his lips graze your cheek. “Just between us?”

“I promise.” You mumble oh so softly, taking in his scent. Your eyes are a little wide, staring up at him with red cheeks. This feels intimate. 

“Okay…I think I like you.” He whispers, his tone so soft. “It’s dumb and cheesy I know, but I just…” he trails off with a sheepish smile. “Wanted to be honest with you. I mean we just smoked together, and I’m a little bit stoned, and you’re cute and this just feels right to tell you how I feel about you.” He rambles, lifting his head away a bit so you can see that he is serious.

It hits you hard. Really hard. He likes you too. You should kiss him, or tell him you feel the same way. Instead though, you give a little dramatic gasp. “This is crazy, but I…” you trail off, your teasing tone becoming more serious as your voice drops down an octave. “I think I like you too.” And when you say those words, they come out serious. You’re being honest.

His eyes widen, and it looks like he’s letting the news settle before he leans in more. “How much?” he asks with a tiny, playful smile. You lean forward and press a soft kiss to his lips, closing your eyes as you do. It’s a small kiss, and before he can kiss back you pull away. “That much.” 

In an instant he sweeps you up into his arms and pulls you onto his lap, his lips connecting with yours again. It’s a heated kiss, one filled with passion. He pulls you against him, and you have to hold back a whine as you rub against him softly. His tongue swipes against your lips, and as soon as you part them he’s shoving his tongue right into your mouth. He takes a little while to explore every inch he can, before he pulls away. It leaves both of you panting. 

“Wow.” Is all you can say, dazed from whatever that was. Nic doesn’t seem to be doing much better, nodding with a smile. “That was…really nice.” He agrees. “We should….keep doing that.” You mumble.

You both lean in for the kiss, picking back up where you stopped. Your hands rush to his hair as your lips move in sync. He puts his hands on your  waist, squeezing your body softly. He pulls away from the kiss, and pushes his lips against your neck. He trails kisses down, nibbling and sucking slightly. “N-Nic-” you moan and grind down slightly. He gasps at the pressure and lets out an honest to god whimper. “F-Fuck darlin’- you’re driving me crazy.” he mumbles against your skin.

You whisper a curse, your body heating up at the little nickname he calls you. “I love when you call me that.” You murmur. You feel him smile against your neck, and his lips leave your skin as he pulls back. “Oh is that so?” I guess I have to keep calling you that then, Darlin’~” He chuckles, watching your reaction. He must like it, because the next thing he does is lean down next to your ear. “Does it just make you melt?”

You let out a shaky moan, and his laughter vibrates against your ear. “You fucking tease.” You shoot at him with feign anger. He pulls away from your ear and instead presses his lips to yours again. A sweet little apology kiss. You grab onto his face and deepen it again.

It turns into a lazy open mouthed kiss soon enough, his tongue twirling around yours as soft moans leave your throat. As you pull away you bite his lip softly which causes him to grunt. Next thing you know you’re being flipped onto your back with him hovering over you. His lips are on yours again, and he trails his hand up your shirt. His hand is warm, and calloused. The skin to skin contact sends a shiver down your spine.

He slowly pushes his hand up further, cupping your breast, massaging it through your bra. You whimper against his lips, and in return he moves his hand to your other breast and gives it some attention as well. The feeling goes straight down, and you buck your hips up in a desperate attempt for some friction. 

He hums, and starts moving his lips down. He places phantom kisses over your clothed nipples, and keeps moving down. Your eyes widen at the realization of where this is going. His fingers dig into the waistband of your bottoms, and he pulls them off quickly. Now completely bare- he stares down at your exposed pussy. His pupils dilate with a hunger you don’t think you’ve ever seen before. He flicks his eyes back up to your face. “This okay?” He asks- voice soft.

You nod, but he doesn’t move. “I need a yes darlin’.” He mumbles. You can tell he’s excited, especially with the way his fingers dig into your thighs, but he’s still taking the time to make sure you’re alright. Cute.

“Y-Yes.” You manage to get out- despite being helplessly speechless by the situation. At your consent, his fingers trails down your stomach. Your breath hitches in your throat as he takes two fingers and dips them slowly through your folds. “So wet for me, and I’ve barely done anything…” He trails off, smirking as you twitch below him.

“I can’t wait to taste you.” He growls softly, lifting your legs into the air. He starts trailing kisses down your thighs, lowering his head between your legs. It takes everything within you not to scream at him to hurry the fuck up. He bites the inside of your thigh ever so softly, before his face hovers your cunt.

His eyes meet yours and he smirks before letting out a warm breath against you. You whine and try to lift your hips up to meet his face, but he’s holding you down. “Now, have some patience. I promise you it will be worth it.” He coos, softly.

The noise you let out must tell him how desperate you are, because right after he chuckles and licks up your folds, never breaking eye contact. 

“Nicholas- oh my god!” You arch your back up and cry out. He smiles and slowly inserts a finger into you, soon joined another. “Let me hear all those pretty noises.” His mouth moves against your cunt. You sob out his name again, and he presses his tongue against your clit.

He licks and sucks at the sensitive bud, while his fingers curl inside of you. The noises you let out are loud, and rather sinful. You’re not sure if your neighbors are appreciating the symphony of lewd screams as much as Nic is- but you honestly don’t care much right now. Your hands drop to his head, gripping onto his hair as he eats you out. 

He moves his fingers in a certain way that has your toes curling, and it becomes clear that you’re already close to the end. “Nic I’m close-” You warn breathlessly.

He speeds up his fingers in response, mumbling praise against your folds. It’s enough to send you over the edge- and the orgasm hits you fast. 

“FUCK- I’m coming- oh god I’m-” You squeeze your eyes close as you yell out for him. The pleasure waves through you, causing your body to jerk around a bit. He works you through your climax, lapping up everything that flows out of you like a starved man.

You fall slack against the couch as he sits back up, wiping his face. He’s got this lazy, satisfied smile on his lips as he looks down at you. 

You reach your hand out to his dick, still trapped in his pants but he shakes his head. “Tonight is all about you.” He mumbles, grabbing your hand to intervene. He brings your palm up to his lips, and kisses it softly. He pulls you up and has you sit with your face rested against his chest. He wraps an arm around you lazily, and goes back to the movie.

“Hey Nic?”

“Yeah?”

“I thought I was the one who got the munchies while high”

“Shut up.”

[usernamesarehard1]

I feel like we don't talk enough about Call's backstory. I mean, it was really tragic and set the stage for all of his emotional turmoil throughout the series.

He lives in a town where his dad is considered crazy/insane/etc, and so everyone assumes that Call is crazy too or that Alastair is causing some kind of harm to him.

Adults and children alike hate him solely because they don't understand him. He is literally physically and verbally attacked and beaten constantly by his classmates for being disabled and for being "weird", and the teachers do nothing about it. Like he actually canoncially experiences constant abuse

And then he gets home and he can't even really open up to his dad, the ONLY person in his life, because Alastair is so emotionally closed off due to his own traumas. And then he has to worry about Alastair instead of worrying about himself.

Like, Call was literally traumatized and thought that he was an awful person because everyone told him he was and physically punished him for his existence.

And I am in no way an expert on any psychological disorders but when I have read about the basics of certain ones, it would not surprise me if Call would be diagnosed with some of them irl. Like when I was researching "quiet bpd" at one point it sounded just like Call to me. He has no sense of person identity and tears himself down inside thinking he is a terrible person, while simultaneously going back and forth between putting his friends on a pedestal and distrusting them entirely. And we see in the books how he is very clingy to Aaron and Tamara, especially Aaron, and has to use them as a safety net for himself. And how he is just constantly terrified of abandonment, especially by Aaron and Tamara. And how he isolated himself so much and struggles to process or express his emotions.

And when I read a bit about ODD (oppositional defiance disorder) I sounded similar to Call. Like, Call does seem to have a distrust for and rejection of authority in the beginning of the series, which makes sense because the authority in his life (teachers, etc) only put him down for struggling. It isn't until he realizes Rufus has his best interests at heart (most of the time) that be begins to trust him, but he is still very wary of the other Masters and Assembly members. And from what I have read ODD tends to primarily affect children and becomes easier to move past as they get older so Call slowly becoming more trusting of authority over the course of the books makes sense.

(Sorry if I didn't explain those things well, it's very indepth in my brain but hard to put into words)

Obviously these two diagnoses are very broad spectrums but it would not surprise me if Call feel somewhere on them.

And then of course Call obviously has social anxiety and depression in the books. And it would not surprise me if he had some sort of PTSD going into the Magisterium based on his upbringing. And I have seen a few people say that his Evil Overlord List could be a sign of a specific type of OCD.

Like, Call was a KID. This was the only world he ever knew. In his most impressionable years he knew nothing but hate from people outside his family and very limited emotional support or connection inside his family.

Again, I'm no expert on any of these things. I just have basic info, but when I did learn immediately made me think of Call. Tbh I feel anxious about posting this because I'm terrified I have something wrong here or that i am misremembering something. I just wanted to share the connections my brain made.

I really wish the books had more about Call's friendship with Aaron and Tamara helping all of them to start heal through each other's comfort since none of them ever really had that emotional support prior to each other.

And tbh I'm kinda surprised Rufus didn't notice a lot of what was going on with Call. I really wish the books had delved into that more rather than having Rufus get mad at Call for his trauma responses.

Also, what happens when Call goes home during the summer (especially when Aaron wasn't there)? Was he attacked again? Was he verbally harassed again? Did he return to the Magisterium with bruises or anything? The books did say that he would often have injures from the attacks by his classmates (I remember them mentioning a black eye, split lip, and bandaged arm in one flashback).

I have just been thinking about it a lot recently.

[ohbo-ohno]

.. that purge playlist screenshot got me thinking..

the annual purge has started. Soap is confident in himself, staying alive tonight. Locked up in his home, which is out of the way and secured properly(he’s an explosives expert, what did you expect?), so, yeah! He’s making it through. He already does enough killing in his job, he doesn’t want to spend leave doing what he’s no doubt gonna do when he gets back.

all’s well, it’s late, and Soap’s getting ready to head off to bed in his basement. Simple, easy, super secure. He’d hear anyone trying to get in, and his weapons are right at his side! An easy night! .. right?

it’s late. Or early? It’s still dark out when he jolts awake to a crash. Did- did something just break? Where was it? He climbed out of his little makeshift bed, grabbing his gun, just in case.

goes upstairs, there’s nothing there.. musta been a ‘coon! Yeah.

except, it wasn’t. When Soap gets back down into the basement after doing a quick patrol of the house, someone’s down there. A big hulking someone who looks.. familiar.

before he can put his finger on it, that big someone lunges for him, pulling Soap’s back against his big chest as he wraps his hands wrap around his throat, cutting off his air.

that’s when it hits him. That smell. That’s Ghost’s cologne!

uhhh the brainworms stopped brainworming so blah blah Soap wakes up, groggy and chained to a bed. Not his own. Tries to look around, all he sees is the large bed he’s laying on in a dark room. maybe an hour or so later, someone comes down into the room. Ghost. Mmmmakes a comment about how Soap was out longer than he thought he would be, how he should have closed the door behind him going back down into his basement, uhhhhahhdsh yeah

(this is really fucking long I’m so sorry feel free to ignore I JUST HAD TO GET THIS OUT sorry if you don’t want long things like this sent into your inbox 😭😭)

-👑

that purge playlist is because im writing a ghoap x reader purge au (that i hope to have finished today) for the love of my life lumi

there's soooo much you can do with a purge au!!! you could have ghost use soap as basically a hunting dog, dragging victims to his master for him to kill. you could have reader as a bonkers insane murderer who ghoap become obsessed with after see her kill someone. you could have poor ol' johnny get taken and kidnapped :/

i loooooove your idea, and i'll add a tiny little layer to it if you don't mind:

maybe johnny's a barista and ghost is one of his regulars. he comes in at the same time everyday (not super weird at a coffee shop) and always waits in johnny's line, even if the other line is shorter. he's intense and creepy as hell, barely ever speaking - as soon as johnny figured out his regular order, he stopped speaking at all. he gives johnny heebie-jeebies, but he tips like $20 every day, so whatever

except the day of the purge, he finally speaks. says something super generic like "goin' out tonight?" and johnny gives back an easy answer (no, i'm no fool, smth like that), and ghost says "good. make sure you don't leave your place. never know who you might run into out there."

which like. creepy, but no creepier than ghost (which is the name he always gives, and there's no way it's his actual name yeah?) has ever been. johnny brushes it off, forgets it by lunch

and of course, simon is very glad to see his boy listened to him when he stops by his apartment that night and sees he's locked in. too bad he couldn't afford a better security system

[still-a-morosexual-help]

Since you’re like the Mammon expert I just need to ask, do you know where people are getting the idea that Mammon has pacts with witches? Cause he has canonically said that he wouldn’t make pacts with anyone else, ESPECIALLY witches

Like why would he make such a big deal about being mc’s “first” if he already has a bunch of other pacts

Love your blog btw <3

I had no idea people thought this tbh

But yeah Mammon doesn't have pacts with the three witches - he explicitly says so in s3 because MC, who it turns out is just as possessive as Mammon but much better at hiding it, gets jealous when they think he does.

To clear it up further:

(Season 3 spoilers ahead)

1.) Mammon's Deal with the Three Witches

• The Guardian Demon Devilgram goes into detail about this

• Basically, when in the human world (on an errand for Lucifer I believe) Mammon saves a 9 year old, orphaned, homeless girl from a mugger (in s1 it's said she's sickly as well)

• She imprints on him (like a little duckling) and starts following him around, despite him initially trying to scare her off

• Deciding he can't leave her alone in the human world but also knowing he can't bring a human child to the Devildom, he calls Lucifer and asks for help

• Lucifer puts him in touch with the three witches

• The three witches now look after the kid as long as Mammon pays them and pays for all her needs (which he plans to do till she's an adult/capable of providing for herself) - the witches, however, are overcharging him for everything and it's one of the main reasons he's always in depth and scared of them (to the point that he has nightmares about the witches)

• He visits the girl frequently and she always clings to him and begs him not to leave. He becomes really happy when MC calls him a good dad

• He has no pacts with any of the witches and in S3 firmly states that he doesn't plan to make any

2.) Mammon's Pact with MC

• Mammon, in S3, says he wouldn't make a pact with just any random human

• However, when Mammon makes a pact with MC they are just a random human

• BUT Mammon could also have easily avoided making a pact with MC. Just a few chapters before they make a pact, it's made canon that:

a.) Levi can't even come close to beating Mammon in an actual fight and that, even while half asleep and not in his demon form, Mammon can easily overpower Levi

b.) Mammon is the fastest of his brothers

• Meaning that, in S1, instead of making a pact to get Goldie back Mammon could have;

a.) Overpowered Levi, without having to resort to an actual fight or transform to his demon form

b.) Gotten the card from MC/Levi because he would have been more than fast enough

• Meaning there was an actual conscious decision on Mammon's part that made him decide to make a pact with MC instead. Made him, as far as he knew, sign away his free will to a stranger he just met when he didn't have to do that. Something that, by Mammon's own admission, made MC stand out to him when really they should have been just another random human

• In S3 MC time travels, all the way back to when the brothers were still angels. Here they actively encourage the brothers' sins & for Lucifer to give Diavolo a chance. Before they get kicked out to their own timeline, Michael(??) tells them that though the brothers won't remember them, their actions will have an effect

• As it turns out, Michael(??) wasn't wholly correct as, in their dreams, the brothers (I believe it was Asmo & Lucifer who explicitly spoke about it) do remember there being someone else with them, though they can't place who it is

• In this past timeline, MC & Mammon have an instant connection unlike the initial animosity from their first meeting in S1 - probably because this MC is familiar with Mammon and is looking at their closest friend, while Angel! Mammon is much more confident than Demon! Mammon

• MC stares at Mammon in a way that makes him blush & stutter, enough that he calls them out on it twice. They can find his pranks funny and encourage his dreams when no one else does - enough that he instantly starts liking them (not in a crush way mind you) and by the time they find Levi Mammon's casually teasing MC like they actually have been friends for years instead of just meeting that day.

• MC had an effect on Angel! Mammon - and if Angel! Asmo could still remember them even if couldn't remember them - then Mammon definitely did

• So when he made a pact with MC there's a huge chance that at least subconsciously he didn't see them as just another random human

Because I need validation and I live for shameless self promotion;

1.) Fic between unnamed GN! MC & Angel! Mammon from S3

Familiar Strangers

Mammon gets a little more time with the strange angel his little brothers picked up and picks up a few things of his own.

2.) Mini fic about GN! MC & Mammon making a pact

Physical Contact

Physical Contact made during the Pact formation for all 7 brothers

.

thanks🥺<3

[sicklyseraphnsuch]

RotG and HiJack Recs

Alright, I'm building this list because some of these fics are just a tad dusty, and they could use more love. (A lot more love, I am literally dying from how much I adored these.) But note that a good few are incomplete.

Let's start with:

INCOMPLETE FICS

The Long Road:

Presently Gen, but Hiccup very much falls for Jack. He does however retain his feelings for Astrid, so bear that in mind. There's the classic Viking mindset when it comes to homosexual relationships that's pretty much giving Hiccup like a lot of anxiety.

But beyond that! I cannot shower this fic with enough praises! It gives me the same sort of excitement that the RotG movie does. Jack's characterization is Spot On. He's friendly and outgoing and also incredibly secretive and flighty. It balances out Jack's blunt mannerisms with a joyous charm and just that hint of vulnerability (which he keeps so well hidden lol).

The plots take place after HttyD, during the Riders of Berk TV series. Jack is folded into the Dragon Rider group who considers him some kind of Elf. Yes, this is Jack Frost in all his frosty glory. The way the story builds on a solid foundation of camaraderie and friendship, giving plenty of scenes to show how Hiccup and Jack became great friends, lends well to the Hiccup's realization of: "Oh I'm into him". Without giving too many spoilers, that "oh" moment is forever ingrained into my memory because of how PERFECTLY timed it is.

This blends Guardians of Childhood book verse with HttyD book verse, mostly via cameos over lore. Overall, a beautiful, fun, and simply enchanting read. I cannot recommend this enough.

A Story about Ice, Dragon Fire, and Belief:

Another gen fic. Mostly, it's about North looking at Jack and going, "he's my son now", and Jack having absolutely none of it. When placed together with Stoik and Hiccup's relationship, it becomes an almost interesting study of contrasts. North is the guy who's trying to prove something to a boy that he disappointed. Hiccup is the guy who's trying to prove something to a man that he disappointed. But ultimately, it ends up the same with a schism forming between the two pairs the harder one of them tries to breach it.

Also, it talks about how Jack is a force of fucking nature? And his blizzards can kill and have killed in the past? There's a little bit of trying to reconcile that with his new ID as a guardian. North is not doing a great job helping here.

But really the Crown Jewel of this fic is North and Berk's reactions to North (and by proxy his relationship to Jack). We go a little into the historical Viking side of things (like the pillaging et al), and apply that lens to this jolly old man. Let's just say some troubling (hilarious) assumptions are drawn. Also...

Everyone loves the sleigh.

I think this is one of the few RotG and HttyD crossovers that really do a good job of merging the two movies. Primarily because it's not just Jack in Berk. And this just made me hungry for more fics where more of the RotG cast arrive as Berk, and be just 100% fantastical and strange as the bedtime stories they are. Put some respect on the Guardians name, if you know what I'm saying.

In the Shadows of My Mind:

This one is an RotG only fic. No pairings except for whatever's going on between Pitch and Nightlight (and by proxy Jack). It's not a for real pairing. That said, it's such a complex and intricate relationship that doesn't resemble a romance but remains markedly intimate. Basically, this fic takes advantage of Pitch and Nightlight's ridiculously long history then throws Jack into the mix. Alive, human Jack in an early 18th century colonial town wherein he very recently did not drown (and boy, isn't that suspicious?)

My favorite thing about this fic is how spot on the dialogue feels? The lexicon, the syntax feels true to the time its set in. Although, I can't say that it is accurate as I'm not an expert of this time period in this region. Regardless, it certainly appears that a good stack of research went into this.

All that said, this fic has captured Bill Joyce's writing style the best, but with a deeper, more complex, more mature layer underpining that bedtime like vibe. There's a good host of OCs but genuinely, I didn't notice them as OCs. I could really believe they were characters of Joyce's books. Not to mention, they feel like fully fleshed out individuals even if they have like maybe two paragraphs of screentime.

The entire premise hinges on the idea of "what if Jack survived the skating accident" and everyone's reactions to that, as well as... the hidden secret thing that involves Nightlight. GoC spoilers are hinted so beware. But the little interplay between Nightlight and Jack is such a delicious little mystery, and also makes me so sad. These two boys deserved better.

Then we throw in Pitch for fun, because Pitch is always fun, and he just makes the whole thing even more complicated or as Jack calls it, "unnatural". But he's not even the main villain. It's Christianity. JK. That said, the fic does explore the idea of well, how would a fairly backwater colony be able to explain how Jack survived or... the powers that's slowly revealing itself from within him. There's a particularly nasty boy (around Jack's age), who is an OC and I believe an exceptionally well placed one. The OC understood his role to play and he plays it fantastically. Everytime he shows up, I too feel scared and indignant and excited all at once.

Speaking of great OCs, shoutout to Jack's Da. His appearances are brief but the impact is maximized with each appearance. He has that sense of realism and whimsy baked into him that I could gush endlessly about.

Overall, just a pure delight to read. Will re-read again and again.

Zastruga:

Total Gen fic. And a classic in my opinion.

I started reading this when I was in college - note the publish date. Nevermind the update date. Because even after all these years, this story? Still good. Still very very good.

This takes the original RotG plot and makes it more epic, and also more sad. RotG was very joyful at its core, which this fic somehow manages to retain. But it's just under a layer of sad. It's not overwhelming angst though, just enough to really pinch your heart.

Also whereas the movie has a few epic battles before things go really wrong, this fic stretches that out into a proper war against Pitch (and Jack). That's right. Jack is with Pitch ala Mother Gothel/Judge Frollo style. Jack isn't locked up entirely. He's given just enough rope to hang himself with. Mind the Jack whump is what I'm saying. But also do note that Jack's character remains as steadfast and loyal as he ever was in RotG, so the whump just hits nicer since this Jack isn't so irrevocably changed.

I have re-read this before. I will re-read this again. Nevermind the incomplete status. There's plenty of chapters that simply give me great joy.

COMPLETE FICS

It's the Great Spirit Sleigh, Hiccup Haddock:

Gen fic, in that there's no pairing actively getting together. But remains faithful to the original canon's hinted love interests. So Hiccup has a big crush on Astrid and Jack leans towards Tooth. That said, the relationship between Hiccup and Jack is just plain adorable and also heart-wrenching. They care about each other. So Much.

Now this is just a good holiday cheer. It literally has the Hallmark movie template, which is the point really. You know, the whole "oh no, a holiday is ruined" followed by "clever and charming ways to fix the holiday". With Hiccup and Jack taking the starring roles.

If you know your Hallmark movies, then you know that the leads get together in the end. And they don't in this fic. But the amount of "Gosh do I care about you" is so good. It's a lot of hurt and a lot of comfort. And I am here for it.

Also, this fic was completed way before the HttyD 3 movie so it doesn't have a canon compliant ending. That may be a bonus for some of you.

Scary Monsters and Super Creeps:

Pre JackRabbit (Bunny/Jack). But honestly the pairing isn't the main focus, mostly that Jack and Bunny admit to liking each other (but not to each other). So their dynamic remains in the best bros category. The pairing mostly shows through the plot machinations.

So long story short, Pitch opens the Guardian-Verse and recruits the other versions of the Guardians - the corrupt versions. And it's good, action/adventure fun. There's some gore, so mind that. Because the corrupt versions are nasty little things that fight dirty. Which makes the action feel like there's legit stakes. Also makes for a quick read because you must know what happens next? Did they get out of this sticky situation? Are they going to be okay? That sort of thing.

[i-write-hurt-not-comfort]

@yuukanaazu hi there! thank u for your question, i would LOVE to talk about this. i've thought about this so much and i love the who Mukami backstory. i would like to disclaim i'm not a history expert but i've researched this a fuck ton. whilst a lot of the Mukami routes have bits of the Romanian history lore scattered around, the most lore comes from Ruki's MB but especially his LE, so i'm going to be using that as my main source.

putting this under a cut here because it's very long. TW for discussions of the Romanian orphan crisis.

so right off the bat in MB, we see Ruki clearly has this trauma surrounding something which happened in an eastern european nation, as seen in this manga panel when he's sitting in class and the teacher is talking about an outbreak of orphans.

although they don't SAY Romania, it's pretty heavily implied that it's Romania as this was where the infamous orphan crisis occurred and we know the Mukami's met in an orphanage. the REAL confirmation of what actually happened in Romania comes from Ruki's LE.

credit where credit is due, rejet did alright with the Romania lore. in the 1960s, Romania was under a dictatorship by Ceaușescu. Ceaușescu's socialist policies had Romania and its capital Bucharest in declining conditions. wild-spread poverty caused children to run away from home so there were already some children on the streets. Decree 770 was enacted in 1966 which banned abortion and contraception with the hope of population growth directly leading to economic growth.

Ruki's father was supposedly a politician during the time of Decree 770 being enacted. it is implied Karlheinz convinced Ceaușescu to impose Decree 770 to cause wide-spread casualties particularly in children and use these for ghoul experiments. Karlheinz also convinced Ceaușescu to impose higher taxes and embezzle public funds.

it's unclear exactly when Ruki's father was dismissed from his political position, but we see it happen in LE and he becomes an alcoholic. over the next few years, birth rates would increase substantially, especially over 1967, 1968 and 1969 when the policy was still knew. parents who were unable to take care of their children gave them up to orphanages. by 1977, parents were taxed for being childless. potentially this is when Ruki's father dies and they all enter the orphanage.

children ran away from home due to parents being overloaded with children and poverty stricken. by the 1980s, conditions in the orphanages had significantly declined. Ceaușescu was killed in December 1989. supposedly, Kalrheinz was assassinated at the end of the revolution too, and was hung in public, but his corpse disappeared.

conditions in the orphanages were as follows:

Children did not have access to food, water, medicine or basic needs

Many were not educated and were illiterate 

Hygiene was below standard and sexual assault common 

HIV/AIDS spread throughout orphanages particularly in the 1980s 

Military run orphanages often saw violent child abuse 

Children self-harmed and abused aurolac, a type of paint inhaled as a solvent (commonly distributed around Bucharest during this period right through to common times) 

Gangs were formed inside and outside the orphanages which led to further violence

There weren't enough beds 

Some children were sold off as slaves for money or to be abused (Kou is an example of this) 

Disabled children were sent to special places and were treated the worst

the Mukami's lore is mostly implied from theories, and the bullet points i'm about to drop are only my perspective. though it is based off canon events.

here, we are going to assume the timeline matchup or make some kind of sense…

it DOES kind of make sense if you imagine the Mukami's to be born in 1966/67 due to the abortion ban

thus they would be around age 10-11 in 1977 when they all entered the orphanages

obviously the orphanages were overcrowded by this point in time, hence the conditions were so bad 

Azusa was at the orphanage first and when Ruki arrived, he followed him around

Ruki was creeped out at first but eventually came to see Azusa as a younger brother

then Ruki meets Kou when he's in the middle of trying to kill himself and calls him a loser 

Yuma joined the orphanage last, and became friends with everyone after meeting Kou in the punishment cell 

so the order is Azusa, then Ruki, then Kou, and then Yuma 

Ruki

Ruki's father was a politician… until he wasn't

when Decree 770 was enacted, he turned into an alcoholic and began abusing Ruki's mother

it's explained in Ruki's LE Maniac Epilogue and it's a bit vague but I do think the implication is that Ceaușescu imposing higher taxes (potentially the childless tax in 1977) is what caused Ruki's father's dismissal 

this means Ruki was a baby when Decree 770 was first enacted but he was pampered so he didn't know that was going on in the real world 

1977, Ruki's father was fired then committed suicide, his mother had an affair and ran off, and Ruki entered the orphanage

he was beaten up a lot for being an ex-aristocrat 

Kou

Kou was born to an aristocratic family but they were exiled when he was still young 

(i headcanon his parents being from another country, possibly Italy considering his name was Emilio) 

he was off-handed to a nanny but she abandoned him when he was young

she potentially abandoned him due to having to care for too many orphans (early 1970s)

kou spent most his childhood on the streets, at which point he was shown to beg for food and money

he exchanged this (IN CANON!!) for aurolac (which i write about here) 

eventually he was taken into the orphanage, right when some army officers shot some people in front of him 

there he was sold off to aristocrats, aka slavery, and gouged out his eye

continued using aurolac in the orphanage

Yuma

i will assume he ended up in Bucharest around mid-1970s

his farming family in the village which burnt down was poor due to socialist policies and higher taxes 

he was in a gang as the name Bear and was one day thrown into the orphanage when everyone else was shot 

his leader Lucks had been shown to be prostituting himself to get money for the gang

Yuma steals food from the orphanage and got into a lot of fights due to people insulting his gang

Azusa

Azusa was raised by Romani people

it isn't clear whether he was born into a Romani family or whether he was born accidentally and abandoned and then taken in by the Romani people 

i personally headcanons the former 

he was weak compared to everyone and Justin, Melissa and Christina beat him up a lot

one day they were killed for burglary and Azusa cried

then he passed out in front of a shop and was sent to the orphanage 

he enjoys getting beaten up at the orphanage and that's when he meets Ruki 

i am sorry that this is SO LONG. if you made it to the end, thank u and congratulations. i love this lore. if you want it saved somewhere, i have it all here (+ more information).