#but now pretty much every time i fight a bigger group one or two of them will run away if i dont kill them first | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

frenchkisstheabyss · 1 year

Text

7 Psychopaths: Yeonjun

x Summary: You are X, a seasoned assassin, and your boss has just assigned you an unusual task. You have two weeks to gather six men for a top-secret mission that requires their unique brand of psychopathy. The trick is, you've got romantic history with all of them.

A detail that might make this a walk in the park or the fight of your life. Time to find out...

x Pairing: assassin!yeonjun x assassin!chubby!fem!reader

x Genre: angst/crime au/smut

x Word Count: 2.1k

x Warnings: violence, blood, knives, guns, general criminal activity, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected sex, strong language (naturally), a smidge of rough sex but nothing crazy, misogynists and xenophobes get their karma quite painfully

x A/N: This is #1 in a series of 6 stories featuring members of TXT/ATEEZ/Stray Kids. They all follow the same theme and can be read chronologically or you can jump around. I support the chaos.

| | Next Psychopath: Lee Know | |

This? This is bullshit.

You should be sitting first class on that bullet train to Kyoto right now, sipping tea as you watch the bustling streets of Tokyo fade into a blur of neon light. Instead, your ticket is ripped to shreds at the bottom of a gutter two countries over and you’re slumming it in the back alleys of Nowhere. With the exception of a few flickering streetlights ahead of you, it’s almost too dark to cast a shadow out here. “Too dark,” insists one of the drunken assholes trailing behind you, “For a pretty little thing like you to be out here all alone.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you count five of them. The ring leader, let’s call him Red Shirt, has enough liquid courage in him to lead the pack in announcing every filthy thing they’d do with you if you let them. You roll your eyes, pushing forward to your destination, dying to escape them and the unpleasant stench that the mugginess after tonight’s rainstorm has left lingering in the air. “She’s not listening to us,” teases Black Jacket, “Maybe she thinks she’s too good for you.”

The childhood trauma of rejection at the hands of an unloving mother flips a switch inside of Red Shirt that he’d know was there if he’d gone to therapy like his ex suggested and he’s charging towards you in seconds. Shoving your hands in the pockets of your long leather jacket, you take a deep breath, bracing yourself for a confrontation that you aren’t even kind of in the mood for. There are much bigger things to worry about tonight. Much more pressing issues than Red Shirt and his band of sexually insecure misfits.

You reach the edge of the alley, almost clear of the group, when a hand slams down on your shoulder squeezing tightly enough to leave a bruise. “I know you hear me talking to you! Do you know what we do to girls like you around here?” Red Shirt hisses, venom dripping from his words. Grasping the handles of the switchblades in your pockets, you whip around, unfolding them at the speed of light and burying them in his shoulders. The flesh squishes like raw meat on a butcher's slab. You love to hear it.

Red Shirt drops to his knees, deep burgundy blood soaking through his shirt and dripping down his shoulders. The scream of anguish he lets out is enough to split the earth in two. The other four stumble back, the shock of their leader groveling in pain for likely the first time ever enough to make them want to shit themselves. You stare down at him, your eyes cold and void of any sympathy, “You know what I do to guys like you?” Twisting the blades, one of them nicks bone, making him whine like a wounded animal.

“Do you want me to show you?” you ask, smiling warmly, “Or are you gonna gather your friends and get the fuck away from me before I make sure you never use these arms again?” There’s an attempt at speaking. A croak, drowned out by the waterfall of tears rushing down his cheeks. “What’s that? I can’t quite hear you.”

“Leave. We. Leave” he manages.

It’s not the groveling that you’re used to but it’ll have to do for now. The blades ease out of his shoulders smooth as butter. His body hits the concrete hard enough that he nearly splashes water---at least you hope it’s just water---on your high-heeled boots. You squat down, casually cleaning your blades on his shirt. “If it makes you feel any better” you sigh, “Red is your color.”

“Do I have to talk slower so that you understand me? I Don’t. Owe. You. Shit.”

The words of the cocky American cooking up dope in the basement of this hole in the wall laundromat echo in Yeonjun’s mind. They call him San Jose for the time he spent in California locked away in a supermax prison. You learn a lot when you’re shoved into a cage in a strange new place with people you don’t know. And, for Yeonjun, English was one of those things. This American didn’t need to speak slower. San Jose understood him the first time.

The insult was just overkill which is precisely why he feels no guilt popping coins into the max load dryer the American’s currently folded into. The window's smeared with blood from the bones that had to be broken to wedge him in there to begin with. Messy but necessary. Beneath the stained floors, marbled with dirt, Yeonjun’s associates facilitate more bloodshed among the guards too loyal or too stupid to run before things got this bad.

“You don’t have to do this!” the American begs, suddenly confident in the lack of a language barrier, “Please! I’ll get you your money! I promise!” Yeonjun taps at the glass, watching the American squirm like a panicked fish swimming in poisoned water. “So sorry” Yeonjun apologizes, “I don’t speak English.” The press of a button sets off the buzzing noise that signals the start of a cycle.

Tiny green lights glow beside the options Yeonjun patiently selected. Cycle: Heavy. Heat: High. Door: Locked.

There’d been a point where this was all about the money. But now? If he handed it over Yeonjun would throw it into the dryer and let it burn right along with him. Hypnotized by the clanking of the American’s body as the drum makes its labored turns, Yeonjun almost doesn’t hear the front door creak open. You stop dead in your tracks when you’re greeted by the barrel of a 45 ACP pistol. I said he almost didn’t hear the door. Just almost.

You throw your hands up, more as a peace offering than a sign of surrender. “You aren’t gonna shoot me are you, Yeon---” “You don’t get to call me that anymore, X” he snaps, raking his fingers through his platinum blonde hair, “You’ve got 10 seconds to turn around before I pull this trigger.” “Yeon---” He turns to you, his left eye twitching, and cocks the pistol. “San Jose” you say in an alluring tone, taking baby steps toward him, “I just wanna talk. Five minutes. That’s it. Can you give me that?”

Yeonjun can hardly look at you but he can’t bring himself to turn away. Why are the flowers most likely to kill you always the prettiest to look at? He groans, his rage softened by the sight of your face after almost a year apart, “Five minutes.”

Bent over the wooden desk in the manager’s office, you dig your heels into the floor, desperate to keep your trembling legs from giving out. You could say that you’d forgotten what it was like to have Yeonjun’s tongue performing acrobatics inside of your tight pussy but that would be a lie. There’s simply no way to forget how talented this man is with his tongue. Your memory though, pales in comparison to the real thing, and experiencing it for the first time in a long time has juices dripping down your lush thighs.

From his position behind you, the second time you’ve had a man on his knees tonight, Yeonjun’s fingers press into the softness of your ass. It looks glorious beneath the teal overhead lighting. Flawless in every way. Just like everything else about you. The taste of you is addictive. Sweet enough to rot his teeth. He squeezes your ass harder, raising you up to create the perfect angle for him to swipe his tongue between the slickness of your folds. His tongue brushes over your clit, making you moan in ways he can’t help but grin at.

“Why me?” he asks between sloppy, eager laps at your slit, “What does your boss want me for?” Nails tapping on the desk, nearly scratching the cheap plywood, you arch your back at the tugging in your lower belly. “She has plans. Something big and I don’t---aah---question her. I just---fuck.” Your body collapses, a spark traveling through your veins like liquid fire. “I just know she wants you back with us.” Yeonjun rises to his feet, pushing your dress up further to reveal the small of your back. He kisses it with the gentle lips of a man born to be a lover and bred to be a killer.

“But do you want me back?” he asks in a rare moment of vulnerability. You groan, rolling over onto your back, hands covering your face. Spending time with him, talking to him, loving him, the entire experience of being with him had been one of the only things that made waking up in the morning worth it in a life like this. None of it was ever just about the sex, as amazing as it is. It was always about him. Do you want him back? Of course, you do.

The head of his cock nudges at your slit, smearing your juices through the delicate petals of your pussy. Yeonjun runs his hands along your curves, indulging himself in the nostalgia of nights like this. “Do you?” Taking him by the collar of his shirt, you drag him on top of you, kissing him passionately as you lower yourself onto him until every inch is buried within you. “I do” you whisper, the sincerity in your eyes swearing to him that you aren’t lying. You wouldn’t. You can’t.

The feeling of being wanted by you again, knowing that you’ve wanted him all this time, is a high unlike anything else. Your legs wrap around his waist, keeping him flush against you as he dips in and out of you. The ridges of your walls when you clench around him. The blood pumping through those gorgeous veins that travel up his shaft. It’s almost too much. You kiss his forehead, stroking the back of his neck, unsure if that thumping is your heart or the body in the dryer just beyond the door. “I missed you so much” he moans into your chest, licking beads of sweat from between your cleavage.

“Fuck me harder then. Prove it.” You pose a challenge that he takes on without hesitation. Pinning your arms over your head, one hand keeping your wrists locked together, he thrusts into you with a force that carries a certain finesse civilian men painfully lack. He doesn’t miss a single sweet spot, making every tiny movement count. Every sensation pushes you closer to the edge of oblivion---and the desk. You don’t even have to speak for Yeonjun to know you’re about to cum. Your body tells him. It always has.

That thumping? It was your heart after all, and it’s at maximum volume in your ears as you come undone beneath him. The death grip that your walls have on him, your moisture coating him, leaking out to make a mess of his pants, has him coming right along with you. The warmth in your belly as he fills you up has you silently begging him not to stop, your brain still too lost in ecstasy to formulate more than a few incoherent whimpers. If he had it in him never would but you’re milking him so well, draining him of everything, that all he can do is stumble backwards before you take his soul too.

“Fuck” he pants, his body propped up against the wall behind him, “You’re the devil.” Pushing yourself up, you use what little balance you have to get your clothes back together. You wink at him, throwing your coat back on, “But you love me.” Locking eyes with him, you help him fix his pants, teasing the rim of his tip before tucking it away, “I’ll see you in Berlin then?” “Wouldn’t miss it for the world” he answers, lips hovering dangerously close to yours. You kiss him once more and his arms come around you, desperate to keep you here forever.

A cutesy ringtone blares as your phone vibrates in your pocket. You know by the sound of it that it’s your boss. “Answer it” he insists, kissing you one last time before turning you loose. With the phone in your hand, anticipating an interrogation from your boss, you march out of the manager’s office, ignoring the half conscious man with salami for skin hanging out of the dryer. “You be a good boy now, San Jose!” you shout behind you.

Yeonjun follows you out of the office, shoving the body back into the dryer without taking his eyes off of you, “You can call me Yeonjun again!” You can only laugh to yourself, disappearing back out into the night. You like that name better anyway.

#yeonjun x reader #yeonjun x you #yeonjun x y/n #txt x reader #txt x you #txt x y/n #txt au #yeonjun angst #yeonjun smut #txt angst #txt smut #chubby reader #plus size reader #thick reader

214 notes · View notes

luimagines · 1 year

Text

He Tries to Impress You Part 2

Masterlist

Part 1

Part two will include Hyrule, Sky and Time.

Content under the cut!

Hyrule

“Soooo....” You poked his shoulder with an innocent look to you face. “Mr. Legend says that you can do magic.”

Hyrule flushes slightly. “I swear he makes it to be cooler than it really is. It’s just something I’ve always been able to do. The other guys can all harness magic in one way or another. I don’t know what the big deal is.”

You grin wider. “You say that, and I get that’s where you’re coming from, but you’re the only one that doesn’t need something to do it.”

“Something?” Hyrule raises an eyebrow, amused. “What’s a something?”

You huff jokingly. “You know! A something! An item! A tool, a weapons a weird pine cone looking thing or something shiny! But you don’t need that stuff... Right?”

Hyrule can feel a little bit of pride in the way you’re getting excited over this. He’ll never understand why the group seems to place importance on this skill of his but he supposed his Hyrule is wrapped as it is. There’s a lot he doesn’t understand and he doubts he ever will.

“Right.” He agree, smiling brightly. He can almost see stars in your eyes by how excited you get at the concept.

“Show me?” You wiggle in place. “Please?”

Hyrule snorts. “It’s not that impressive unless it’s on a grand scale. But that’s reserved for battle.”

He snaps, getting bits of electricity to web between his fingers. It’s a small party trick that he likes to show new people before he shows off something much larger and grand. He remembers that moment with the Captain before they both took down a swarm of remaining monsters together.

You gasp excitedly, grabbing his hand without notice. “No way! How did you do that!?”

Hyrule pauses, his brain screeches to a halt. Your hands are very soft from what he can feel on his fingertips. He knew that he was sweet on you but he can feel his heart get caught in his throat at they you seem to stare at him wonder.

“Do it again!”

Hyrule does it again without thinking, completely entranced by your expressions. If you would smile like that at him every time, you could tell him to jump and he’d ask how high.

He was worse off than he thought.

He clears his throat again and moves so he can hold your hands instead. It catches your attention enough where you stop looking solely on where the magic came from but onto his face at last. Hyrule smiles, trying to fight his blush at how well this was going for him. “I swear I can do other things.”

You get more excited. “Like what?”

Hyrule thinks for a moment. A lot of the spells he knows are offensive instead of defensive and will hurt you if he tries them. There’s his Life spell but he doesn’t really have any injuries and it’s just the two of you right now. He hums and tilts his head this way and that.

He smirks.

He pulls away from you slightly and chants the familiar words. His vision shifts and he shrinks.

He can hear you scream in delight and clap. When he opens his eyes again, you’re much bigger than he is and look positively enamored by this very small concept.

“Hello!” He calls out. But he knows you won’t understand him. No one ever has. “You’re very pretty.”

“Oh...you’re so cute. I think I love you.” You coo at him, catching yourself a moment to late. “Oh-! Um! I mean-”

Hyrule can only laugh. “It’s ok. I think I love you too.”

But you won’t know that part.

Sky

Sky tried to stay on his feet as monster were coming in the left and from the right. There was very little that the Master Sword couldn’t take down.

Sky smiles fondly at the memory. Fi would have loved each and everyone of the boys in the group. He’s sure of it. Which is why it hurts when some of the talk of their distain for the blade or perhaps- it was merely a bad time of their life like the Rancher mentioned.

Even so, none of them had the connect he did to holy blade. Sky isn’t entirely sure what to think about that.

He cuts down the bokoblins from an area he’s already forgotten. He knew it was mentioned but who knows at this point if they’re not going to have monsters coming in from the in between time periods and be a mix of either.

Sky takes a breath and readies a spin attack.

He sees you in his peripheral and there’s more monsters coming up on the far end of the field.

Sky frowns, not wanting to see you get overwhelmed by the threats. He raises his sword skyward- lighting collects by the blade in a move that he’s all terra familiar with.

He strikes down and sends the beam your way.

It misses you by a hair- taking out the monster you were fighting in the process and scaring away the monsters that were already aproaching.

You stand there, slack jawed and slowly turn your head to look at Sky.

He pauses. Should he... have not done that? Did you not know that was an option? It’s not something he likes to do all the time. It always managed to make his arm feel weird and the lighting scars from Demise left an ugly scar.

Sky waves.

You wave back robotically before you turn your head again to see the carnage left over. You give Sky a thumbs up.

A laugh barks out of the young hero before he can stop it and he jogs to where you stand frozen on the battle field. “Enjoy the show?”

You shut your jaw with a small click and point to the sword in his hand. “...Could that thing always do that?”

Sky looks down to where he holds the blade. “To my knowledge, yes. I‘ve always been able to do that move with the Fi.”

“Fi?” You ask.

Oops. Sky bite in the inside of his cheek. He didn’t mean to let that slip. That was on accident.

You don’t seem to take notice of it. Before Sky can blurt out one of his most trusted companions on his journey of herodom, you point at the next group of monsters that approach. “How long can you do that for?”

Sky shrugs. “A few more times before my scars act up.”

Your mouth opens but you shut it again. “Ok- nevermind. Don’t do that.”

Sky smirks and does it to next group

You yelp, now actually seeing it in action and jump behind him, keeping your hands on his shoulders. “Warning!”

He snorts, putting his free hand on yours. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“...Yeah...” You say breathlessly. “No kidding... No wonder all you guys talk about it....Can it do anything else?”

“Of course.” Sky acts offended on behalf on the blade. He lets the moment take a breath before he smirks and bumps his elbow with yours, hoping to earn cool points. “Do you want to see?”

“Yes!”

Time

Time had realized very quickly that he had a slight problem.

He wanted your attention on him and only him. Time never considered himself a jealous man nor would have thought that would have feelings of insecurity this late into his life- and yet here we are.

Time watches you interact with the boys with a small smile on his face. At least he can see that you enjoy their company and they make you happy with their youthful antics. It’s something he knows can’t fully keep up with even if he tried.

But- that doesn’t change the fact that you hardly give him the attention he desires. Something ought to change that.

Time also never considered himself a show off- something that the boys occasionally tried to get him to indulge him. However, he’s never felt a need to do so. Admittedly, even now he’s still not sure if those are the means to get your to notice him. It would seem ingenuine to his person.

Until it begins to rain cats and dogs at least.

The storm is unprecedented and causes the dirt underneath their feet to be unsteady and slippery. Many of them try to run only to land on their butts or faces.

His armor would be his downfall in moments like this. If there would be any lightning his very life could be at stake. But then he sees you helping Hyrule get back to his feet, ushering Legend under the cover of the jacket you’ve lent.

Lightning strikes in the distance. He needs to get everyone under cover and get out of his armor.

“There’s a cave this way!” Wild calls out, holding his hand over his eyes to keep the water out in vain.

Twilight is quick to follow suit, picking up Wind and Four and holding either one in each arm. Time follows them as quickly as the terrain would allow him to go. The cave is colder and stone from the entrance to the pitch black back- but it’s dry.

Time sheds the metal from his body as fast as he can. As the others file in, Time finds himself doing a mental head count. Wild, Twilight, Four and Wind entered before him. Hyrule and Legend follow soon after, both covered in mud and sopping wet but unharmed as well.

More lighting strike and for some odd reason, Time feels compelled to head back out there- sans his armor.

Warrior and Sky head in last- the scarf and sailcloth held them both back from entering with the others.

Time undo's the last of the claps and looks around once more. The clouds have it difficult to see out into the open despite it being only three in the afternoon.

Sky coughs and begins to rid himself of his layers like everyone else. “We’re missing one...”

Time runs back out.

Frantically, he begins calling out your name, just barely being able to hear himself over the thunder. Lightning strikes closer- hitting one of the trees and exploding it on contact. The pieces rain in a fiery array of painful reds and blacks.

You scream.

Time turns on his heel to head toward the sound.

When he gets to you- he sees that you’re trapped between one of the larger pieces of the tree- flame holding on strong despite the torrential rain- and another tree you seemed to have attempted to take shelter under once you were separated.

Time doesn’t hesitate to rush forward and grab the flaming piece of wood, hauling it away from you. “Come on. I’m getting you out of here. You’re going to be ok.”

You nod numbly, taking his hand. Effortlessly, he hauls you up into his arms and takes off the way he came. Lightning continues to strike around you and tree continue to be caught on fire and explode but Time makes it back to the cave without a hitch- even if he feels marginally winded. And he’s definitely going to feel his back and hands tomorrow- but for now, everyone is safe.

“Old Man your hands!” Legend cries out in horror.

It’s only after he’s set you down at you notice them as well and gasp.

“Believe it or not, I barely feel it.” Time responds, going so far as to wipe them on his pants.

“Don’t! Don’t do that!” Wild flinches.

You stare at him in shock and awe. “You saved me.”

He reaches out and pats your head, trailing his hand down the side of your head with more tender than he realizes. “Of course. Didn’t think twice.”

You gulp and take his hands, avoiding eye contact. “Come on. This will hurt later. We have to take care of it.”

Worth it. Time sighs and lets you pull him along. At least you’re safe.

Part 3

#linked universe #linkednuniverse #linked universe x reader #lu x reader #Time's took more exposition than anticipated #this was less *trying* and more *succeeding* to impress #...#I swear I don't have favorites ^.^*#that's a lie #but it was unintentional nonetheless

282 notes · View notes

shoyoist · 2 years

Note

thoughts on pottery date with hanma

it's such a domestic thing to him that he's a little put off by the suggestion at first. you're on the back of his bike, watching him smoke and racking your brain for something cute you could do with this man that wasn't illegal or bound to get you in trouble — and then it hits you!

you've taken a pottery class before, and it'd been fun. so when you remember that the art college nearby is having an open day, you make a decision. “so, shuji...”

when you give him the idea, he laughs at first. “you want me to walk in ‘n spin a lil flower pot with you? a vase? what, is this your way of tellin’ me i should be getting my pretty doll some flowers next time, hm?”

and then he realizes you're serious.

imagine him sitting awkwardly on one of the little stools by the wheel, watching you shape a blob of clay with the tools you'd been handed, content with just watching you bec each group that came in was given just a single wheel.

he's so cute 😭 with his knees to his chest because his legs are so long and he's sitting so low, not knowing what to do with his hands while he waits for your creation to take shape. he's so out of his element </3

everyone's quiet and playing nice at their own corners and shuji has never stepped foot into a college building in his life before, he just doesn't know how to act. he's quiet enough that you check up on him every now and then, wondering if this was really a good idea—

“shuji, baby, you alright?” “shuji, are you having fun?” to which he responds with a simple nod or tells you “dollface i hafta be doing somethin’ before i can say if it's fun or not.”

some of the others milling around the other wheels in the room have so many tattoos, and so many people have dyed hair and wild haircuts that he doesn't look out of place exactly, but his aura still has people glancing over at the two of you. not that he minds.

he watches you patiently, because hey, if you're okay with walking into underground fight clubs with him and watching him fight, and letting him into your house at 1am to patch up his bruises and injuries, he should be a good boyfriend and enjoy whatever you want him to do with you, too. and when you finally finish with your near-perfect bowl and let him try out the wheel and ribs himself, he ends up having more fun than he thought he would<3

hanma has big palms and long, deft fingers and so even though he's never done this before in his life, he gets the hang of it pretty quick. but he's still never done this before.

his brows furrow together with focus as he runs the sponge on the inside of his spinning clay and gently touches the sides of it with the ribs. he gets clay on his chin, on his shirt and it's all over his hands in a muddy mess 😭 ++ the work comes out little better than a wonky blob.

there's time for a clean up and a little tea break while the class waits for their things to dry, and hanma notices the much bigger, more complicated models people have made and feels sheepish as he stares at his blob. he feels better when you tug at his sleeve and giggle about it though, because even if you're making fun of him at least you're having a good time<3

“what's it supposed to be?” you ask, and he runs a hand through his hair, a little embarrassed as he admits in a gruff voice, “a flower vase. for you... don't fuckin’ laugh, baby.”

“for me?” you pout sweetly, and he rolls his eyes, snipping at your nose with two fingers and cracking a grin when you dodge with a yelp. and on the way home, with your bowl and his blob flower vase carefully wrapped in newspaper and stored in your bag, he tells you that he did have fun.

“we could... do more of that if y’like.” he blushes despite himself when you hug him from behind, half of your laughter lost in the wind as he swerves his motorcycle to take a right. he glances into the mirror, heart fluttering just a bit when he sees your smile. he's glad you can't see his face right now. he feels the heat on his cheeks well enough.

“never fuckin’ mind.” he drawls, teasing. “i'm never doin’ that again then. zero outta ten, dollface.”

“no!” you protest, grabbing his shirt and pinching his side a little, and fuck it fucking tickles, he almost crashes you both into a passing tree — and he tells you so.

“might as well die if you're never gonna make an ugly ass flower vase with me again,” you huff, moving your hands onto his shoulders instead. and he smiles, knows you feel his smile when you reach over to pull his cheek.

he really did enjoy it, so much more than he thought he would. and he knew you'd be displaying his ugly ass flower vase on the sill of your living room window anyway.

maybe next time he comes over, he really will get you some flowers — for you to put into it and look at them, and think of him whenever he's not around<3

#‶ ೫ ₊ love letter.#‶ ೫ ₊ me agápi — anonymous.#HAHA this got soo long nonnie i hope you like it!#i'll tag it as a real work because it is fr #hanma fluff #hanma x reader #hanma shuji x reader #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers fluff #sob sob doing cute domestic things w shuji <333 #i looove him your honour i doo

378 notes · View notes

stevishabitat · 4 months

Text

wodneswynn Hey, listen: We're not gonna get anywhere with this "socialism" stuff unless we can establish solidarity networks that provide. real, tangible aid. And I do mean "tangible" in the sense of "you can fill up a box with it."

Back in the old-timey days, when we didn't have things like a minimum wage or gov- ernment assistance, folks didn't think twice about paying union dues every month out of their meager paychecks. And in those days, when it was a regular, everyday occurrence for union people to get beat up or outright murdered for their union-ing, the unions still managed to win a lot of their fights. Reason for all that? The bigger part of them union dues I mentioned "went into a strike fund",

Time on a picket line means time off the clock. And as for me, in this economy, if I go a week without a check, my family don't eat. I go two weeks without a check, and we're homeless. And them's the brakes.

Rjenroses: In my community we started a co-op in order to, in part, purchase things with mass buying power (i.e, we can get things at wholesale if we order enough of them, so we can, for example, eat organic food for about what conventional costs a lot of the time.)

But we also set aside a little money each time we order, and that money helps pay for donation boxes... and the social network we created when we created the co-op means that if someone has a crisis, someone else probably has the answer. "This family just lost their job and can't afford to buy presents for their kids" may get a response of "Here are presents for every single family member" or it might end up with finding a job for the people looking for work, or both, because the co-op membership is diverse and represents a lot of people who are otherwise. very connected in the community.

When a part of town is out of power, it's usually possible to find a co-op member who can run for ice or bring a meal, or offer use of a washer/dryer for the evening.

We had one year where we were making donation meal boxes for a holiday, found out on the last delivery about a family in severe need, talked about it in the co-op group and ended up showing up at their house with not only a meal, but enough dry goods, paper towels, toilet paper, etc. for a month, plus a credit with the co-op for fresh fruits andveggies.

I cannot overstate the power of networking. in your community. This one started out. in a natural parenting group, but quickly spread beyond that, from college students to retirees. It's like a small town, only more open-minded. We started with about 20-30 families. There are now hundreds of people involved.

I had a trans kid land with me at one point and asked if anyone had size whatever clothes and within a few hours we had a box on my porch, within a couple days we had a bunch of things he needed.

The co-op keeps a lending library of tools and weirdly specific kitchen devices like an Æbleskiver pan, a food dehydrator, a capsule maker and a carpet cleaner. The kinds of things people need once or twice a year, but might not have the room to store.

We periodically do a buy of sensory toys and sensory bin supplies, for example, because we have a lot of autistic members and parents of autistic kids,I have bought socks from the co-op that were purple with unicorns farting rainbows on them. We recently got in Black History: flashcards and we've done a lot of Black Lives Matter and Hate Has No Home lawn signs. Pretty much if people want it and we can find it at wholesale, the co-op will order it.

It even spawned a side-business (more than one, actually, but this is the relevant one) of an online app for co-op managing, called http://managemy.coop so that other communities could take advantage of our experience and start out with an easier tool than the google spreadsheets we started out with.

Anyway... if you want to network within your community, this is a really, really good way of connecting with a broad cross-section of people.

nyshadidntbreakit: All that stuff about unions still applies, too. Unions have hardship funds. If you're a union member and you're broke, or you've been fired, or whatever, you can apply to the union for a grant to help you out. The binmen in Birmingham pulled off a months-long strike. recently thanks to the union paying their living costs. Unions force employers to pay decent pension contributions and have safe sick leave policies,

If you're employed, join your damn union!

solarpunk gnomes: You might check out http://www.transitionus .org/transition-towns too. They're trying to build resilient communities by getting neighbors to talk with each other about stuff.

7 notes · View notes

the-punforgiven · 2 months

Note

DBD knight and his squad vs. the original 4 FH knights who wins? (My money is on the FH gang because they actually take care of their gear and they have BOMBS)

I think that kind of depends on when and how the fight goes down tbh

I put way too much thought about this here so for the sake of people who don't care I'm gonna put it under a readmore.

Because like, in DBD, the cosmetics for Knight show that under the influence of The Entity, he can essentially fight forever, with his Draugr skin showing that despite being basically being a walking corpse he can still operate with his full mental faculties and power.

Plus, his Squad that he can summon at will is shown to be spectral, capable of phasing through walls and shit at will, but also becoming physical to interact with shit

However, as implied by the item description for the Enchanted Plates cosmetic, this is only in The Entity's realm. Yes, he is suffused with eldritch power, yes he can fight beyond death, and yes, he can resummon his squad if they are Banished but only in The Entity's Realm, it doesn't have the level of power it does outside of it, and most likely wouldn't be able to imbue Tarhos with the power it does.

However despite this, Tarhos Kovács is still a massive hulking man in heavy armor with a huge sword and considerable battle skills.

Now here's the thing though

For Honor's minions are implied to be like, normal average people. As a result of this every For Honor character, therefore, is fucking huge. Plus like, all of them are really good at fighting In Lore:tm:

So without the help of an eldritch god of suffering, it turns into a 4v4 that's pretty heavily in favor of the For Honor knights, by virtue of them just being bigger, stronger, more heavily armored than 3/4ths of their opposition and just flat-out better equipped than the whole group

However in the entity's realm, with the help of an eldritch god of suffering supporting the shit out of one side of the fight, especially letting Knight resummon his boys, that definitely fucks with the balancing somewhat

But here's the thing

See, For Honor had a crossover event with dbd once upon a time, (I've still got a couple of the cosmetics from it tbh, it was really fun iirc), which, if we take as Part of the Lore, we get to see how the entity operates in the context of a trial where both sides are armed and capable of fighting.

During the crossover, the Trapper was still mortal. He was big, similar in height to Lawbringer and Jiang Jun, and certainly had a lot of health and damage, but he could still be killed. However, the fight between the two teams of players would continue, both teams would keep dying, respawning, and fighting, and eventually The Trapper would return.

Because the entity, deep down, doesn't really care if either side definitely wins. Obviously she prefers if the Killers do, but despite her power she still makes victory and escape possible, because she feeds off that hope. In truth, the entity wants both sides to suffer. She offers extra favors and power to those who kill in her name, but their suffering and anger feeds her just as much as their sacrifices do.

So, while Tarhos and his boys would be much more powerful in The Entity's Realm, the entity would do as it always does, keep them suffering. Keep them killing. Keep them feeding her.

So I think, in a fight between The Knight and his Squad and the original 4 For Honor Knights, in the world of For Honor, the FH knights would come out on top relatively easily

In The Entity's Realm, though, I don't think it'd matter, really. Tarhos would be much stronger, yes, but the nature of the place they're in and the powers involved means that no matter who wins it'd still be a stalemate. They'd just keep fighting, keep killing each other, on and on, forever.

At least that's how I assume it'd go down lol, it's been a good while since that event

#Thanks!#asks #paladin-official #For Honor #dbd

5 notes · View notes

weed-ols · 9 months

Text

Reviewing Every UKISS Release: By Unpopular Demand ~ New Generation

Oh the great psychic damage I've inflicted on myself to do this. I was so excited, thinking about how this would let me gush about Bran New Kiss or Inside of Me, but unfortunately, I must start at the dreaded beginning: New Generation.

I will admit that this wasn't as bad as I expected. There was a lot of cringing, a lot of "oh baby what are you doing?" being whispered, but not the total trainwreck I had built up in my head. To be totally honest, I think that these two songs could've been pretty decent with better packaging and fully embracing the campiness, but I digress.

Just for funsies, I've also noted the YouTube and Spotify streams (if applicable) from the day I did the review. Dunno what to make of it yet, but I'm sure it'll be interesting.

(Also I like how I slowly become more and more unhinged as I type this review out.)

New Generation - 1st Mini Album | 2008.09.03

So I was already listening to Kpop around this time, but like most people, paid like zero attention to this because I liked the bigger and more popular and better packaged boy groups at the time. I was also just developing my logical reasoning when this came out, so I don't really remember much about this. No idea what the general feel/reception for this was, and I think the first time I listened to this was probably late 2009 after ManManHaNi, and somehow I remember really liking this at the time.

Obviously, time soured my opinion of this mini album, but now as an adult with a mostly functioning prefrontal cortex, I can say I don't really hate it? I hate the packaging of this mini album, but it's oddly endearing in how poorly it's aged.

Another thing I noticed while going back over this is how hard Soohyun, Kevin, and even Kibum carry in these first two releases. I'm not knocking on the others, and it makes sense since Soohyun had been a trainee the longest under some bigger companies, while Kevin and Kibum had both already debuted. They just seem a lot more polished in all aspects, and a lot more committed to the cheesiness. I'm probably not gonna rank them for later releases, but for this one, I think I'd put them as Kevin > Soohyun >> Kibum >>> Dongho > Eli/Xander.

While I don't have my personal rankings of them from that time (based solely off of how much I liked them, irrespective of ability, commitment, etc), I think based off of how I viewed them in 2009, it would be probably Dongho > Kibum > Xander/Kevin > Soohyun/Eli. Yeah, I was a delusional kid who had a crush on Dongho since he was closest in age to me, Kibum and Kevin were both flower boys and good dancers, while Xander was a fellow Canto speaker with an accent I could understand, plus he was funny. Soohyun and Eli were really victims of poor styling at the time, but who wasn't?

Now onto the actual songs -

Intro (Pump Pump) | YouTube Music 10k | Spotify 3.4k

I actually kinda really like this?

Catchy, more mature than Not Young, but also not inappropriately so, and it's got a cute cheeky and fun vibe?

If they turned this into the title track, maybe they would've had a fighting chance in the bloodbath that was 2008 boy group debuts

Not Kevin and Soohyun actually being able to show off their singing here more than in the actual album songs

There's like a random gunshot(?) sound and I don't really understand it

The Kibum-Kevin-Soohyun verse is kinda interesting, and by interesting, I mean it feels like they did Kibum dirty by drawing that comparison, but like also there's no other way to structure it since he is their next best vocalist

Common UKISS intro W I don't think I've ever disliked any of their intros 7.75/10

Not Young (Audio) | YouTube Music 367k | Spotify 132k

The opening quite literally gives me psychic damage, while also making me coo like an affectionate auntie watching her stupid nephews do dumb shit

Kevin's voice unsurprisingly suits this very well, that honey-like voice was made for this kind of cheese, and boy is he hard carrying

Soohyun, bless his heart, is kind of both actively ruining and saving this song

Like he's hard carrying too, and that "You gonna be my lady, yoohoo~" actually goes so hard, but his voice just sounds...way too mature for this

Which makes me wonder if this was a directional problem, or if he just wasn't able to do it at this time because he nails this concept 7 years later for Action (spoiler I guess)

Really love that first prechorus, I don't know what it is, but that Kibum-Soohyun-Kevin buildup really works well

Lyrically, I think the YT comments actually sum it up for me - "We're the new kids on this block" vs. "Stop treating us like kids" - which is it make up your minds

Also shoutout for being their first and only noona-chasing song they really never revisited this concept ever again

Really funny that Dongho is the only one at the right age to make this concept work (and maybe Eli and Kevin too, possibly Kibum if we're being generous) but he gets like 3 lines

I also found a super old live radio version of this song from their promotional period, and yes it's in the crunchiest potato quality imaginable, but it was insightful

Soohyun and Kevin sound great as always, Kibum's voice actually felt much stronger than in the actual song or in music shows, and the rap line was there

Hard carried by Soohyun and Kevin, Kibum did his job, Dongho was there, and RIP to Eli and Xander for that awful last verse (80% not their fault)

6.5/10, needs more commitment to being cheesy and to not the title track

Not Young (MV) | Fan upload 703k

You know, I feel a lot of my bad feelings for the song come from the MV

Like the psychic damage this video inflicts should be studied

Love the fact there's no official MV uploaded so there's only a crunchy fan upload to watch

I actually don't know if this is the same upload I watched back in the day, but the date doesn't seem to line up?

Anyway, crunchy potato quality is completely on brand, YouTube is telling me it's 480p but this feels like 240p at best

The stupid Windows Movie Maker transitions are taking me out

So like we all know NH is a broke ass bitch, so I wanna know if this is actually like a member's house, a staff member's house, or if they just rented it

Dongho's mom's hair is like peak Asian Mom hair like I knew so many women with that exact hairstyle, and not the skin-toned lipstick everyone wore back then

Kevin's hair and outfit are peak 'flower-boy-wannabe-bad-boy' like we all thought that hair was soooo hot, and you were either drowning in your own clothes or cutting off your circulation with no middle ground, and this was a cross-cultural phenomenon

Honestly, I feel like you could just go to a local school and see a bunch of boys dressed like this

Xander's Ronald McDonald hair I'm so sorry you had to go through that

The High School Musical-esque dance scenes have me in tears like those basketball jerseys are so goofy and Kevin's legs are lost in the fabric

Flower boy haircuts from this time are like basically the precursor to Karen cuts *cue Abby Lee Miller voice "she's got a really cool and trendy haircut it's like long in the front and short in the back"

Also his eyebrows from this time are tragic, those were dark dark times

This was also a peak fashion look for us girls back then, and you know what, it's still kinda cute

This was so serious for them I'm crying

I still don't quite understand this part

RANDOM PRE-DEBUT KISEOP CAMEO!!!!! I don't remember if he was on set because he was covering for his friend, or if his friend invited him to be an extra, but I just love that he's technically been there from the start

Is he supposed to be the antagonist of the MV? Like I get the plot is they're trying to impress their noona and whatever but like is he supposed to be her boyfriend or something, and they're gonna beat his ass in basketball to win her over???

If that's the plot, they need to get Kevin off their team that boy cannot run

No comment on Dongho's hair that's just tragic

But this whole scene takes me out like this is peak comedy

Why is Kevin perched on the bench like that, why are Dongho and Soohyun sitting on the floor and why is Soohyun grinning like a maniac, is Eli okay???

You may not like it, but this is peak male performance

This frame is a work of art

So so serious for them, I can taste the cheese

This is honestly so confusing I don't get it, but I guess I'm not galaxy-brained enough. Like did they not have enough footage or something? Is there a scene change quota they had to meet or what?

I love that every single part of this MV can be carbon dated, and not one bit aged well, and I just think that's so iconic

So I've come up with two different ratings for this MV

12/10 if you take this completely unseriously like this is so funny, so poorly aged, so cringe, it's amazing. Even while cringing, I still had fun

3.5/10 if you take this seriously, like wtf was NH thinking (spoiler, they were not)? Like even when I first watched this as a kid (and within their target age demographic!!! I, a young elementary school girl who was entrenched in East Asian media and came from a similar cultural background!!!!) it was pretty cringe. I'm giving it pity points because Soohyun was so committed to this and the funny Kiseop cameo.

Honestly, I feel like you could just go to a local school and see a bunch of boys dressed like thispoorly aged, so cringe, it's amazing. Even while cringing, I still had fun

Not Young (Stages) | Highest viewed 191k Music Core

Again, I never watched these when they first came out, and I also don't think I watched any of these very much prior to doing this

Not gonna talk about their actual debut stage because that's like 8 pixels total

Also not doing all of their stages, just Music Core because it's actually in really good quality

Look at those fits that was peak fashion in 2008

Dongho's silly little cardigan and bowtie, Kevin's goofy polka dot sweater vest, Soohyun with the plaid vest and random sweatband, Kibum with a random tie, Eli wearing a hoodie I swear every boy had it's a real time capsule

Yeah, I'm grabbing screencaps on mute I'm not subjecting myself to this psychic damage

The multiple bracelets is so real that was such look back then

I remember I used to collect those cheap rubber bracelets to try to recreate that look

This is such an unserious part of the choreo but I will admit it's very cute in a stupid way

Also, all I can think of is the other members talking about how they think his hands are freakish and alien-like, and I think that's just foul of them, but also not undeserved considering how snarky Kevin was in those early days

Oh Soohyun, I'm so sorry they did you dirty like this

Like it's incredible how he de-ages himself a few years later when he gets decent hair and styling

And he was so committed to this like he's literally beaming while everyone else is just smiling

He also winked right before this Soohyun is the cutest I swear

Eli's comically large chain

The dance is cute, but also insanely cringy because they're kind of taking it too seriously and not as full-on campy cheese

Like I said before, Soohyun, Kevin, and Kibum really stand out here as being much more polished and cleaner in their dancing, are clearly committed to the character, and have a good eye for the camera

Dongho is also a standout because wow I forgot he had that je ne sais quoi stage presence

There's a lot of moments where the dancing doesn't quite sync up, and I think it's fairly obvious that they're still very new as a group

They have backup dancers, though not in this particular stage, but I think they had them for their actual debut stage and Music Bank

So I lied, let's check out the Music Bank stage

This actually is from before the Music Core stage (MuCore is listed as 2008.09.27, while the MuBank is supposedly from 2008.09.12)

I didn;t mention this before, but I'm fairly certain the MuCore stage is lipsynced, but the MuBank stage is definitely live

Terrible quality pic, but these were some other peak 2008 fits

I knew so many guys who had Kevin's hoodie

And not Soohyun's trash bag jacket

Soohyun and Kevin are already very good and stable at singing live and making it seem easy, while Kibum definitely struggles a bit

Honestly, I wonder if NH invested in more singing lessons for him, if Kibum could've ended up where Kiseop is now - a solid subvocalist who can also hold his own and step up to being a vocalist

I just watched this dude pull his shirt up over his head for this and no, I don't understand this part of the choreo

I don't really know much about rapping and don't have many particular thoughts on it, but Xander and Eli can be heard clearly, so that's a good thing, right?

Honestly, just ranking both of these stages as 4.5/10

MuCore stage was in better camera quality, sharper and more coordinated group dancing, but probably lipsynced and no funny backup dancers

MuBank is like 360p max and kind of a mess, but I always love hearing Soohyun and Kevin singing live, and there are funny backup dancers

Give It To Me (Audio) | YouTube Music 43k | Spotify 7.9k

I honestly had zero recollection of this song at all

So if Not Young is borderline age inappropriate for being too immature, Give It To Me swings wildly in the opposite direction and teeters into being too mature

Xander, Soohyun, and arguably Kibum are old enough for this song, while Dongho is way too young, and Eli and Kevin are either barely old enough or still young (my personal opinion, based off of some of the lyrics, but the stage of this song is actually fine)

Honestly should've been the title track, they 100% would have had a fighting chance at debut and be remembered as either 'cool new rookie group' or 'wildly inappropriate rookie group', but both are better than 'cringe rookie group'

This is like a proto-Quintessential UKISS™ song - dance beat, Soohyun doing adlibs like rent's due, Eli dropping horrifically funny one liners, and the singing dominating the rapping in all aspects

Now if only this song was a "baby I love you even though you cheated on me pls come back" song

Hard carried by Soohyun and Kevin, who are both surprisingly singing lower than what they usually do, and also do not have a shouting match at any of the song (!!!)

Does that count as early installment weirdness?

Special shoutout to Kibum who actually sounds really good for his two lines. Dunno if his voice just suits this kind of song, or if this is just a more comfortable range for him, but he sounds much better here

Another special shoutout to Dongho for having no lines, you're doing amazing sweatie <3

"And u're so tight" Eli why did you say it like that

"My boo" #1

"Shorty/shawty/whatever tf they say" #1

Does this count as a UKISS Sex Song? Feels gross typing that out, but like looking at the lyrics, I think it does?

UKISS Sex Song #1

6.75/10, knocked off points for being age inappropriate, Eli's rancid one liner (which did make me laugh), and the terrible lyrics in the rapping

Give It To Me (Stage) | Fan upload 15k

I had no idea they did a stage for this

Also, why is this actually better than Not Young?

Love the black/white/gold scheme going on

Also, these are peak Bad Boy circa 2008 looks I would've gone crazy for these guys back then

The trashbag bootcut pants, the random embellishments, the fingerless gloves, Xander rocking the shirt tied around the waist, whatever the heck Eli's accessories are, and the tragic and dramatic 2008 hair? I would've honestly lost my shit

Wait oh my god those aren't bootcut pants those are skinny pants with leg warmers oh my goddddd iconic

So are these the same gloves from Tick Tack? Also Eli wtf is that on your neck???

It's hard to tell if this is sung live or not, but what I do know is Soohyun is making his singing expressions, so I think it's live, with slightly off audio? It's hard to tell honestly, maybe the mics were bad?

Why was this not their actual debut? This is literally what was considered so 2008 cool, the outfits were peak bad boy fashion, and the choreo is very much a product of its time (not derogatory)

Also got a good chuckle with Soohyun being the centre for the dance break while flanked by Kevin and Kibum, it's what he deserves

7.75/10 much better than Not Young in terms of dancing and coordination (makes sense, this is dated 2008.11.06), the outfits are 2008 stylish, and they all seem so much more comfortable with this?

That concludes this review of New Generation. You know, there were a lot of emotions going through this, a lot of "why does NH not think?" and "oh my god sweetie, I'm so sorry they did this to you", and "what were we all smoking back in 2008 to consider this cool?", but I think I had fun while doing this.

I have most of the notes for Bring It Back2 Old School written out, so now it's just a matter of editing and collecting screenshots, which honestly pains me to think about. If New Generation was a dark time in UKISS history, Bring It Back2 Old School is purgatory.

So fun bonus fun fact, if you've made it to the end:

I don't know how many people know this since I also found this out not too long ago while digging around, but XING, the old group that Kevin and Kibum were a part of was an absolute disaster in like every possible way. I got some of this info in English, and the rest in a bad KR-EN translation (so possibly inaccurate), but apparently the XING CEO was actually a former SM CEO who worked there around 2000-2003ish before getting ousted by the board of directors, and was responsible in part for the famous slave contracts.

So out of spite, said CEO took a bunch of SM-affiliated trainees (from my understanding, they were sort of on a shortlist to get into SM) and founded his own company to compete with SM with these new trainees and his new boy group. XING was an absolute disaster for only being around for 4 years with 5 different lineups and 18 total members having been involved. Kevin and Kibum were part of the original lineup, but Kibum bailed after a few months with the excuse of 'focusing on his education', while Kevin stayed long enough to go from maknae to leader, before dipping after the third lineup (also, according to the article I read, he was the CEO's favourite because he thought he had star potential lol). A bunch of the guys who left sued the company around 2008-2009, and got their contracts terminated.

It's hard to understand what the contracts said exactly because of the shitty translation, but it was something like exclusive 10 year contract that will be extended if a member takes personal breaks, goes to school, enlists in military, and/or goes on health leave and profits would only be paid out in fixed amounts after selling 500k (or 250k I can't remember but it was some crazy amount) units (unclear if this means total albums, or just for one release).

Apparently in 2010ish, the CEO was talking about having a 'XING family reunion concert' and asked all the guys about it and got left on read, so then he finally let the name die and moved on to terrorizing more boys (no for real, he allegedly threw a bottle of alcohol at one of the XING guys when he told him about wanting to leave).

#ukiss #uwukiss #everything was so low budget i'm crying #like i'm sorry but it feels like they were set up like i don't think the other groups' debuts were a secret #and they were given this to compete with them that smells like foul play

8 notes · View notes

13-rats-in-a-trenchcoat · 11 months

Text

Traffic/Evo Watcher headcanon, don't mind me

Ok, so we've known awhile now that the next season of the Life series is going to be released soon, so naturally I've been re-watching the previous seasons and going over POVs I hadn't seen before. While going down this rabbit hole I came across a Martyn stream I missed where he was talking about the Watchers lore and how he and Grian worked on it for Evo and then he kind of altered it from what Grian originally imagined (i.e. the Watchers being representative of us, the audience, who watch them for entertainment) to the more sinister lore we Traffic connoisseurs are familiar with today. This got me thinking. A lot. Too much even. What if we, the audience, were STILL the Watchers? I'm not talking about for the Life series or Evo series specifically, I'm thinking more broad spectrum, like across the MCYT multiverse type thing. I like a cohesive story, and I like puzzles, and when there are stories that look like they could be pieces of a bigger puzzle I enjoy smooshing them together in one giant headcanon that more or less makes sense, so here we go.

The canon lore we have (as I understand it anyway) is as follows: the Watchers first made themselves known during Evo, where they messed with the Evolutionists as they went through each Minecraft update, ultimately separating them for the final dragon fight where Grian would leave Evo and become a Watcher himself. From there the Listeners (who I know diddly squat about) got involved and helped the Evolutionists escape the Evo server, thus getting them away from Watcher influence. Or so they hoped. The Watchers somehow regained power over the Players that were involved in Evo, along with some of their friends, and put them in what is essentially a never-ending loop of death games as punishment for their defiance. Grian didn't like how the Watchers operated, so he left them to join his friend in the death games. The Watchers feed off the Players' negative emotions, but leave their memories, thus enabling them to start fresh each season without holding on to previous grudges (though considering Impulse's thing with BDubs and the clock and Tango's rage that might not be entirely effective)

This is where my headcanon comes in. The Watchers are a group of people/sentient beings of some kind who feed off of the negative emotions of others and watch their misery and struggles for entertainment. They're a mischievous bunch, some might even say troll-like (of the internet variety, not like in fairy tales), and at least two of them enjoy speaking in rhyme, i.e. they're artistic and dramatic. Sound familiar? Because to me this description sounds very much like the wider MCYT fanbase, especially the fan artists/writers. I mean come on, when have we NOT jumped at the opportunity to turn a pretty normal moment into the angstiest piece of writing/art imaginable. Case in point, Mumbo and Grian at the ghast farm in Last Life. They were giggling through that whole interaction, yet I've watched SEVERAL angsty animatics about just that one scene and I've loved every second of it.

This next bit is likely a pretty big reach, but the thought popped into my head and wouldn't go away so I would just like to get it out there. Grian doesn't really interact with his comments on an individual basis, but he definitely has addressed the more negative ones, especially the ones that go after his friends when they're on an opposing side of whatever war he's started at that moment in time. This ties in pretty well with him not liking the way the Watchers operate in my opinion, and it also ties in with him leaving the Watchers to help his friends. Not necessarily directly, but more in the sense of the vibes matching up.

We currently don't know enough about the Watchers to definitively say how plausible this headcanon of mine is, like we don't know exactly how many Watchers there are, or how many Listeners there are, or what separates a Watcher from a Listener, or really any info about the Listeners in general. I do think it's a pretty fun headcanon though, and until it is directly contradicted this is how I will view the Watchers. Thank you for reading my essay.

#the watchers #evo smp #traffic life series #last life #trafficblr #watcher headcanon #limited life #third life

10 notes · View notes

midwesternorcprincess · 2 months

Text

so my evil uncle, as i've called him for several years now, well, it's complicated, i guess. i called him my evil uncle because he was very nasty for a while about ten years ago to my parents and my sister, who did him no wrong. he accused them of stealing from my great-grandma, which i take as an almost unforgivable insult. we were so poor we could barely afford food at the time, my parents were both going through major health issues, and my great-grandma would buy us groceries of her own volition when shopping. but my uncle is such a controlling hardass who has to have everything his way, that to him that was stealing i guess because HE didn't want it done, never mind what my great-grandma wanted to do with her own money. and he changed the locks so we couldn't get into her house or my grandparents' house (again none of us has ever stolen anything in our lives and we had nothing but great relationships with these relatives)

and that was the last straw for me, but it didn't come out of nowhere. he's always just started stupid ass arguments wherever he goes because of that need to control people who are minding their own damn business. he'd cause problems at almost every big family gathering, he sold real estate in town for a while until literally no one was willing to deal with him because he'd do the same there, he had pretty much only one friend from college who was still willing to stick by him, and even then he was constantly trying to rein him in. couldn't keep a woman around obviously, until about fifteen years ago he finally got one to marry him, god knows how they pulled that off

but, up until the incident a decade ago, i'd always have mixed feelings. he was very fond of me - he's my godfather - and we'd have a pretty good time when it was just us, or like us and my grandma or something, you know, a small group with someone he actually respected, which is very few people. he and my mom are the only people in the family with higher education (and now there's one more, me), and he was the only one who cared about science and things like that (he had a biology degree), so we kinda had that in common when no one else in the family did. so we'd bond and have fun sometimes. and then he'd turn around and start these dumbass fights and i'd get mad at him, but then we'd have fun again, and this was a neverending cycle

but as i said, in the last 10-15 yrs, i'd given up, started avoiding him, and after he did that to my parents, cut off contact and blocked him completely (he also provoked me by being nosy and wanting to know shit that wasn't his business) and refused to see him or speak with him. and also he was homophobic and went way down the Trump rabbit-hole. idk if he knows about my gf, but i can't imagine he has any good thoughts about trans ppl so i wanna keep him far away from that info.

but my mom and eventually even my dad came back around to him, far too easily at first, if you want my opinion. but he has by all accounts been good to them in the last two or three years or so. and he and my mom had to sort out all the shit with my grandparents' estate, since the other two siblings are even bigger dumbasses and caused all kinds of problems for everyone, so maybe there was a factor of my uncle and my mom having to be a team and deal with them.

my mom's always been too forgiving. especially to her siblings and their clans, who emphatically do not deserve it and don't even try to appreciate it, they just treat her like a punching bag. she's just the hug it out and cry type who always thinks there can be love and harmony again no matter how many times she's proven wrong. so for the last few years she's been trying to get me to come around and forgive my uncle too. and i've kind of been my own hardass, which i think at first was healthy skepticism. i had no reason to believe he wouldn't stir up shit just as soon as i turned around. but after so many years i think now it's my pride too, not wanting to give in, so i've refused contact still. he has reached out to me a few times and apparently really wants to repair our relationship (we never even had direct conflict, i voluntarily broke it off because of how he treated my parents) and i wouldn't.

but then come a year ago, my grandpa died so there was no avoiding it, i'd have to see everyone for the first time in almost a decade. and when i saw my uncle i found him suddenly very hard to hate. and he lit up a little in his way and i remembered the old affection i used to feel. and i think maybe i found him a bit pitiable. it's his own fault he's run everyone out of his life, but he lost his job and his wife left him and he started getting health problems and then the other two dumbass siblings started hating him for executing my grandparents' will and not letting them squat on my grandparents' property anymore because it needed to be sold. so my mom's right, i do kinda have to feel bad for him. certainly i feel much more inclined toward him than toward the other siblings.

but anyway my mom is pushing it way too hard, i am trying to come around and soften up and be forgiving in the best way i can. i guess she wants me to go about it like she does, all emotional and heart-to-heart and touchy-feely and all. but i can't be that way. idk if she understands that softening up my way, at a distance, is the only way i can start. my uncle's starting cancer treatment and she wanted me to call him and wish him good luck. fuck no i can't do that. but i genuinely want to extend an olive branch. or like, accept the one i've been repeatedly offered. so i think i'm gonna sew him a bear? i even got nicer fabric for it. and send it with a get well card or something. i kinda don't even want to tell my mom i'm doing it. my pride again i guess.

anyway character development. i think. i hope i don't regret this. but idk, maybe i should not be regretful if he starts acting like a jerk again. i guess i should only worry about the way things stand now and what's in my own control.

#personal #family stuff

2 notes · View notes

lateleviathan · 4 months

Text

just finished pretty cure splash star and goddamn did this show stick the landing. the whole season really just felt like the writers saying "okay we've done this twice already, we know what we're doing now"

(info dump below the cut)

basically every aspect of the show was refined from futari wa and max heart, especially the fights. the fights in futari/max could be good but they tended to have the problem of nagisa and honoka just whipping out the marble screw whenever they wanted and winning instantly, making every fight feel like this.

(there were exceptions, like the final fight against poisony where she kept dodging so they had to use her hair as conductor to finally hit her. that fight impressed me so much its permanently burned into my brain).

splash star sidesteps this question almost completely by always having saki and mai be winning BEFORE they use their finisher. they have to create an opening or the splash blast wont hit, which makes each episode's monster of the week fight that much more interesting. (though in the second half of the show they do have a similar problem with their super forms, where moop and foop sometimes just forget they exist to be power ups until the writer decides pretty cure is done getting their asses kicked, making every other fight feel like this)

the villain minions were also consistently interesting, as opposed to futari wa where the first set of villains were interesting but the set in the second half were boring as hell, or max heart where the villains were better than the second half of its predecessor but still pretty boring for the most part. it also helped that the villains were rolled out one at a time and were the only threat until they were killed, at which point the heroes could restore one of the fountains. this really helped to give the series a sense of progression because something tangible was being accomplished every 7 or so episodes. futari wa had this in the first half with the prism stones, but completely lacked that in the second half. max heart tried to do this with the heartiels but they were so disconnected from the villains that they felt more like a side plot as opposed to like the point of the show. it also made it fun when the last batch of episodes had them all revive and team up and we finally got to see how they played off of each other as teammates. that bossrush finale really let splash star have its cake and eat it too in that regard.

also michiru and kaoru are just a way better version of kiriya, like that whole plot was just so much more thought out and satisfying. i still have no idea whats going on with kiriya after his "death" but michiru and kaoru had me crying in the last episode. their addition to the team in the last 8 episodes really felt like practice for the bigger group fight the franchise would focus on going forward, and you can tell from the choreography that they didn't really know what to do with double the heroes. thankfully they figured it out for the final battle. (awkward team choreography pictured below)

speaking of, goddamn those last 2 episodes really were just dragon ball z with magical girls, down to the big bad growing super muscley when he powers up to 100%. this is not a complaint, in fact its high praise that they did this while still feeling congruent with the rest of the show. honestly, i was on the edge of my seat the whole time. like max heart's finale blew me away and i think this was at least on par with that.

all that said, i do think saki and mai are weaker characters than nagisa and honoka. i dont hate them, in fact i grew to love them and am sad to see them go, but they still didnt quite measure up.

for mai it doesn't feel like she gets a lot to do outside of being saki's friend. like she joins the art club but thats only relevant in two maybe three episodes, as opposed to honoka's science club which probably had 6 or more episodes per show (though maybe im misremembering). i thought her being an artsy girl as opposed to honoka's stem girl swag would help differentiate the two, and her art in general does come up often enough, but she still plays the smarter, quieter one next to saki so it doesn't really change much of the protag pair's dynamic.

saki feels even more like nagisa, basically all their personality traits are identical. sporty, big eaters, has the obligatory straight crush, kinda dumb but social and fun. really the biggest difference is that saki isnt as good at her chosen sport (and i love that her team loses the championship, great episode, but even getting to the championship makes this distinction smaller). i like her obligatory hetero crush slightly more if only because it gets less attention than nagisa's, with i think only three dedicated episodes (that said, he should have had a girlfriend instead of it being a fakeout. they dont actually get together anyway and it would have made a good pair with the championship episode for the theme of "you dont always get what you want but thats okay").

still i think splash star was a stronger show overall than futari wa or max heart. i think those first two had a few higher highs, but splash star had less lows. its more consistently good.

so if you for some reason read all this but haven't watched Pretty Cure Splash Star, i definitely recommend it if you enjoy kids' shows. honestly its probably even better if you haven't watched the original futari wa pretty cure, since my main complaints were it not differentiating itself enough from its predecessors.

now to see how yes precure 5 stacks up

#precure #splash star #futari wa pretty cure splash star #pretty cure #i wouldve added more gifs and videos but theres a per post limit

6 notes · View notes

lgbtlunaverse · 1 year

Note

favorite rarepair? (doesn't matter what fandom)

Oh my fucking god anon this is such a loaded question. You might as well have asked for my favorite ship because I pretty much exclusively do rarepairs. No straightforward answer for you you're going to get an essay.

Right now the brainrot is fully on nieyao. I cannot stress the amount of time i spend thinking about these two every day it's not healthy. Togachako only has 1.3K works in a fandom with almost 300K fics on ao3 so they are by all accounts a rarepair but it feels wrong to say that. They're not a rarepair TO ME they're canon. I think the rarepair I've had the most longstanding investment in would be, like, ushioi/ushiiwaoi. If you want my favorite ACTUALLY rare rarepair (1k+ works is still a healthy amount of content, real rarepairs fight for CRUMBS) it's either going to be jinkei or dabitwicehawks, or Vanja/Gisele from the 2021 novel Little Thieves (ZERO works on ao3 i'm gonna have to birth this ship myself) or one of the bajillion haikyuu rarepairs I made up for fun every day back in 2020. (atsuken? kurokenhina? kiyoyui? iwakita? kanoyachi?)

Do you see how hard this is for me? I can't do this. I'm going to choose togachako because i'm pretty sure i'm gonna remain in hell for those two even if I ever move on from bnha and it's also the one I'm most offended isn't a bigger ship. Every single other ship mentioned I'm good with staying a rarepair but I want togachako to graduate from rarepairdom like kpop groups graduate from nugupromoter, you get me? (<- unintelligible nonsense)

#asks #what's the vanja/gisele shipname? vanele?#let's call it that #vanele #togachako #i'm not gonna tag every ship here that's a bit too much

11 notes · View notes

astralartefact · 6 months

Text

Placeholder Name for Atarase's Media Diary

Entry 002 - Dragon's Dogma 2 <<Prev: 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Synopsis

A prolonged camping adventure with the loyalest boys and a mage prodigy who gives me sass only often enough to make me paranoid she has the evil guy disease that kills everybody (might just be puberty)

Special Shoutout to whoever I stole Zoe the Beastren Healer Girl from (Your character name is/was Melina), she was a regular fixture of my party and is mine now.

How much did I know before playing?

I didn't play the first one, but I kept up with the marketing somewhat, and I was hyped to finally play it.

Did I like it more than I expected?

I fully expected to like it and I did. From what I've seen from the game before I bought it I knew its approach to an Open World would be my kind of game - and it was.

But seeing the discourse (and we will get to the discourse) this feels like a daring statement to make lol

Since I liked it, here's what I hated about it

Okay, this is the weirdest criticism to have about a game I completed in 113 hours, but it wasn't big enough. When I unknowingly made my way to Battahl and realized it wasn't as big as the other biome my reaction was a sad o: face and that feeling stuck around until the end, everything was just "I wouldn't mind if this was bigger :/" and it did impact my enjoyment of Battahl as a whole (Agamen not as much).

The game as a whole is really cool - I really loved it, I'm having to stop myself from starting a NG+ right now, and I think given an endless stream of new content I could literally play this game forever - and to some degree I feel like its size was calculated pretty well by the devs and shouldn't be bigger (if it was a lot of other minor details would suddenly become much bigger problems) but I guess it feels unexhausted.

I disagree when people say the open world is empty and one note - I personally had a great time exploring the entire map and I think the variety inside of the biomes is realistic and nuanced, I think if they just rethemed what's there into more different, but smaller biomes that wouldn't have done it for me either. The world might not be "new and exciting" everywhere you go, but every space in a given biome has some nuance in its topology and context that makes it stand out from the rest and it really feels like this world could be a real place exactly the way it is.

And since being grounded and 'realistic' is kind of this game's entire deal, having beef with that is to me kind of pointless, that just means you should have researched better what you're buying into (and we'll get to that!)

But I guess it feels like they could have done more, that all of these systems slotting in with each other would have benefitted from more stuff. Take the pawn specializations and classes for example, I think all of them are pretty neat but there aren't that many so running into 'one of that type' doesn't really change anything, especially since situational ones like the Elvish Speakers are coded to appear where you need them and you only "need" them in one specific place so you don't ever really have to think who you take with you. Same with environmental hazards like those water dams.

I guess that's the good thing of being able to expect Capcom to overdo it on DLC - I think adding more stuff like that in for example an expansion would really benefit this game, even though I will say that I think for the game that we have right now, the stuff that is there is enough.

Because in a fit of madness I don't even mean stuff like the enemy variety with that? I thought for the size of the game world the enemy variety was fine, not great but fine, even if it was on the smaller side at least the variety of their placement was really well thought through so I didn't really fight two of the same enemy groups in a row (the only problem i had with the enemies was that the enemy groups spawn way too densely and too frequently, you can't move an inch without aggroing another hassle of a fight and it also happens with paths you just cleared half an hour ago so map movement starts to become a chore at some point)

Finally: Men. But we'll talk about that.

What did this game make me think about?

We can only change the world by wanting to change it :) I love that as a theme, I'm really glad this is becoming a contemporary staple

Specific Impressions that will stick with me

THE TITLE SCREEN BEING DRAGONS DOGMA (NOT 2!) UNTIL THE THING HAPPENS i noticed that and it made me fall in love with the game so much more, it being a stealth remake and how it plays with that is so fcking cool i love that (again, I haven't even played the first one)

The coastal path to Bakbattahl. As I was randomly exploring I was wondering what the red waymarkers along this cave path were, so of course I followed them until at the end of this seemingly endless pilgrimage I finally realised what they were leading to. The entire experience of travelling along the cliffs and having to watch out for the harpies and the griffon was just really beautifully crafted. That whole journey will defo stick with me for a long time.

CHARACTER CREATOR OPEN WORLD RPGS ARE THE BEST Character Creators are my VisualNovel where the general audience seems to think they're cheesy but no, you don't get it, it's just that devs don't use them right because barely anyone has thought about their artistic merit yet. i can add so much visceral character development to my journey by changing hairstyles, adding scars, making my pc more muscular after training a new class, etc.

the day one of these games shaves a pc's head when they're imprisoned or adds scars when losing to a monster instead of a Game Over (all optional ofc people would scream if they forced that on their waifu) without me having to do that on my own is the day i will die happy

Outstanding Audio

The boss themes were cool? I did like the music and didn't just feel ambivalent about it but I couldn't tell you any specific piece :(

Favorite Character

Well, my character and my sweet pawns of course.

Aside from that I really liked Nadinia, even if she didn't get to do all that much, I just really love characters like her.

Also I guess the Smith Girl in Battahl, I liked her :)

Favorite Arc/Story Line

I liked Sven and Ser Menella's quests, but more than anything I loved seeing how doing quests impacted evacuating the cities after being baffled that the quests just ended without a conclusion. So I guess the entire final arc? (btw get good guys, i did the colossus quick kill without the arrow and seeing that pay off afterwards was amazing)

Favorite Set Piece

Travelling to Battahl along the coast

Watching my Pawn fight as the colossus

Everything that had to do with the capital-D Dragon

also having a healer with a child-like voice around and being paranoid about the dragon plague any time she gave me sass (she has like two or three lines out of nowhere that felt very pointed and i was so scared)

Favorite Scene

The ending scene with your pawn turning into the plague dragon. something about that did it for me.

Best Performance (I played with JP voices)

Kakuma Ai of Edelgard fame gave Nadinia such an edge that I really appreciate, she really made that character for me. For some reason I thought she was going to be a well-meaning but helpless pacifist priestess type character and thankfully she was not just that, she knew full well what she was doing while still also kind of being that pacifist priestess.

German Localization Notes

I thought the Localization was great! It fit the setting (I think Vasall is a better term than Pawn, fight me) and there were barely any blatant mistakes (I remember one spelling error and one time I was referred to as female, but that might be a programming error instead)

From what I did understand from the JP Pawn Dialogue I think they changed a bunch from the "original Japanese" though (might be an EN issue though, we don't have our own DE Voice Over so it would make more sense to keep with the 'default' language's text instead of JP) but also I don't really care since 90% of the dialogue is just Pawn Chatter where the phrasing of the content isn't particularly narratively important

--- ENTERING THE PRETENTIOUS SECTION OF THIS ENTRY ---

What about this game gives me Hope for the future of gaming?

This game is so fucking cool. I love this game for how weird it is. The stuff people complain about? Glorious. I love every single thing.

I loved having to have a physical fist fight with the save feature every time I was scared of making the wrong narrative choice. Yeah, it's kind of dumb and annoying, but from the devs' perspective, from the game they wanted to make and the overall vibe they were clearly going for it just makes sense. You're suppossed to roll with your wins and your failings - and if you can just always win then what's the point. You're not supposed to save scum as "un-quality of life" that may be and this is one way to kind of limit it to preserve the vibe they were going for.

Only having one save state and limiting character makeovers (they already fixed this one) makes sense because you're not supposed to play this game 'in parallel', you're supposed to play this game in succession - in a cycle, even. Your character isn't supposed to suddenly be an entirely different character, you're supposed to connect with the story through this character that is yours and to that goal, continually letting you change them completely would hinder that.

And since clearly this is actually a stealth remake of the first one I also really respect them not changing the shitty Beloved system? For some reason it's much more interesting to me that they kept it exactly the way it was, despite being stupid.

I guess I love stuff like this because it forces you to interact with the game as a piece of software engineering to make your own goals in this game come true. And yes, to me that's a good thing, because Video Games are pieces of software engineering - They're pretty much the only type of media that can do this.

Let me, the person who needs to make Self-Inserts for Maximum Escapism, be the one to tell you that I'm with Brecht when I say that in all sincerity, Immersion is a skill issue. Fuck Immersion as an aspirational trait of a piece of art. Especially capital-G Gamers have no clue what they're talking about when they use the word Immersion - and I get to say that, because I know that Presence exists beside the two popular buzzwords Immersion and Suspension of Disbelief - and this shit gives me so much Presence, I can't even begin to tell you.

I had to read the phrase "This game not maintaining 30FPS is breaking my immersion" about a game that made me pick up a child that had developed a crush on me, run in circles until my stamina ran out in order to drop it in a way that makes it crash into the stone floor, spraying blood everywhere because it was the only way I could make the child like me less - and I had to do that multiple times all so I could ensure I wouldn't end up kissing a child in the ending.

And while doing that, I did think "It's stupid the game works like this", I did feel fucking bad for the child I was abusing all so I could romance... well I romanced a random guy off the street because the men in this game were kind of boring - and yet in hindsight I was completely immersed into what I was doing because I was unironically engaging, grasping for agency in the systems put in place by the game's developers. I am rummaging through the rules of this universe all to spite god by making a child hate me a little bit more - and if that's not in the spirit of Dragon's Dogma II then I don't know what is. (this is only like 20% sarcasm btw)

To say it like this: Video Games aren't just to immerse you into a story better. Arguments about Immersion also always make me wonder what people think books are doing. But Dragon's Dogma 2 certainly is first and foremost a video game.

It feels like the people working on this game thought about what they were doing and during my journey through this world I got the feeling of understanding what exactly the devs went for in all aspects of this piece of software engineering - It's not trying to be a movie, it's not trying to be a book. It's trying and succeeding to be what it is and I really appreciate that.

I just wish there was EVEN MORE of it!!!

What about this game makes me scared for the future of gaming?

It grinds my gears that this keeps coming up so here it is, another round of idiot Gamers making me defend capitalism for something it didn't cause:

It's great that you all have awakened to corporations squeezing you out of your money, that's very anti-capitalist of you and I applaud that communist thinking (i'm not a communist but a lot of angry Gamers aren't either so let's make them mad by calling them that)

And yet I'm so sorry to inform you that even in Utopia people would still try to scam you.

It's not a Video Game Company's fault that you believed what they told you. I'm empathetic that it's hard, annoying and most of all stupid that we have to interact with a media landscape that is constantly trying to scam us for our money and attention, but even a genuine and well-intended artist is going to sugarcoat their product - so why would you ever believe what CAPCOM of all people is telling you without seeing physical proof first?

And even if they're point blank lying - which, straight up, for the most part Itsuno wasn't - if someone tells you they will sell you a green mug and the mug they hand you is red and you ask "but this is red" and they say "no it's green" and then you still buy it and at home you're upset that it is indeed red then you're the idiot!!! Yes, why did that person tell you that? Did they think you`re stupid? Why is Capitalism uniquely rewarding scamming people like this? All valid questions to seek answers for! But you can fall to the ground crying capitalism all you want, it's still your own foolishness that caused this!!! Don't buy shit if you're not adequately sure that you will enjoy the product!!

You have to - and will always have to - make your own informed decisions about what you invest both your money and your time into. 95% of problems that not only this but pretty much any video game discourse these days is critizising could be solved by simply researching what kind of game you would be buying into before buying it. And in this case, you have luck, this game existed before and you can try that game out for literally 5€! You know how I knew that? Because I fucking googled it.

And you can too! Thanks to YouTube, Twitch, some shitty wikis and some good ones it has never been easier to identify if a game is up to your standards before buying it - you just can't do that before the game is even out, which is why Pre-Orders are such a big problem to some people (I personally don't care, because I have to think about what I'm doing with my money anyways)

So just. Think about what you're spending money on before spending money on it! Maybe try being poor and having just enough money to buy one game every three months - that taught me to do that!

But with that out of my system let me get to the other problem this game has, one I think is really fucking annoying and stupid and really the core of my grievances with the game and not just the audience....

The Ramble Section where I get to actually talk about what I thought about

To introduce the second? third? Ramble topic of the day, here are a few moments from my playthrough that we will use to illustrate my main "problem" with this game:

I, a gay man, was forced to kiss the Sexy BrothelLady for literally no reason.

When daring to have a full male party, my main pawn mentioned that he hoped I wouldn't make not having women in the party a habit. (paraphrased)

You can buy a very revealling Mage Armor in Battahl. Naturally, after reaching Battahl around 75% of Pawns I encountered were barely dressed women.

I guess to add to that, the only black skinned Pawn I ever saw was one that Capcom made. Isn't that heart-warming.

I don't even know if there are romanceable men on the level of BrothelLady (I'm too lazy to look her name up, that's what she gets for sexual assault) or Ulrika

The Yeti Monkey Ogre gets horny for female pawns which felt very weird. I don't think there's an equivalent mechanic for male characters.

The Beloved Animations are all expressedly feminine. And I love me femininity, but it says a lot about who the devs thought would more likely be beloved and who would do the loving.

There's a summoning stone that only shows you petite women (which isn't necesarily bad, but it did raise my eyebrows)

imagine FPS being the only thing between you and that oh so hallowed immersion.

I guess to put it this way: For most of its runtime, the game gets away with pretending to be Gender Agnostic. Your Beloved can be Everyone even children! There's almost no mechanical difference between genders! You could argue that there is no intended demographic in mind for this game - that everybody can play it and therefore it's made for everyone.

Until, of course, one of those things I mentioned above pops up and serves as a harsh reminder that No! At some point in development, the devs came down hard on "This game was made for heterosexual men and everyone else can just also play it."

And with some of this shit I felt gross about having to witness it and that's really the gist of it.

I remember vividly when my main pawn no homo-ed me about my All Male Party and how just utterly ugly that felt. And I know it was phrased weirdly (at least in german) so maybe it's just me, but it was vague enough that I could interpret it as him saying he needs women in the party so he had something to look at and that's an extremely wild and frankly inappropriate thing to have your blank canvas NPC Follower say out of fucking nowhere. Like, Imagine being a woman liking men and hearing that.

It's in moments like Wilhelmina's forced kiss (i remembered her name are you proud) where the only reason it happened was that the presumed player would find that shit hot. It's in Ulrika being clearly just romance option Nr.1 and I couldn't just tell her no and continue to do her quests, I had to throw her into a wall every time I saw her to the point I completely avoided her instead of talking to her. I'm pretty sure I missed quests because of that. Like, Imagine being a woman liking men trying to do these quests.

Related, there's also something in them trying to circumvent Depicting Real Racism by transposing it onto the Beastren - which I guess didn't not work, I don't have any big feelings either way, especially since the devs at least tried to keep the cast somewhat diverse; I certainly didn't find it as appalling as whatever FF16 did. But it also makes stuff like Nadinia not being an equivalent Romance option despite being on the cover of the game questionable, because now it's like... Yeah, that was a decision you made for a reason. You didn't think your presumed audience would find the cat lady hot, right? (I certainly did and I'm gay)

I also mentioned before having strong feelings about Character Creators - because I do feel they are a very, very strong tool to make your own story telling part of the game in a tangible way. And sure, I use them mainly for self-inserts, sue me, but what I'm trying to say is:

It feels crazy to have 75% of Pawns I run into be someone's waifu and they all look one certain way. Other than that people either make some joke pawn or a bad version of a popular character - but from what I've seen the waifu they can presumably goon over was certainly the biggest pawn demographic by far.

And I know that gets into "Let people have fun!" territory, but it definitely lessened mine and I'm not even one of the people this is about. It was less fun for me not just meeting somebody's unique pawn, but - well. An Army of Women Objects. Not even objectified women - these are Women born as Objects. (and yes while these women aren't real, the treatment of fictional women is still indicative of and impactful on real women - so yeah, you can objectify women even if they're fictional) A world supposed to be filled with myriad unique pawns is uniquely filled with Women Objects - and given what the Pawns are in universe, that's kind of massively fucked up and every time the Game acknowledges that - by including very revealing armor, making it easier to filter certain types of women and by telling me to recruit more women because why would you ever have an all male party??? - it just feels gross.

Again. Try imagining being a woman that dares to like men. I keep repeating it because it feels like nobody thought about this niche group of people that's just about 50% of the entire population on earth.

And I guess I can't fault the devs too much about it, for the most part I actually really like the female characters in this game (nadiniaaaaaa) and the Pawns they themselves made are pretty diverse so clearly they cared at least a little about it; I certainly didn't find what they did as appalling as whatever FF16 did. I can only side eye them for knowing that all of this would happen and kind of enabling their players to do that.

It's just sad. It's sad and it's gross and an active reminder that despite it all a majority of people still treats women, 50% of humanity, like property, deliberately or not. It stains a really enjoyable video game with interesting mechanics to think about that I really connected with - and all because capital-G Gamers and "standard" masculinity is fucking gross and yet the devs either didn't think that far or think that's fine and good and dandy.

#atarasegamediary #dragons dogma 2 #for your interest and i know you care very much #cyan is actually possessed by a dullahan (bc i lost against them so many times it's _character development_)#giving him a weird blue eye to signify possession stuff like that is what i'm talking about #also a great excuse to give him the lance job bc the magic looks similar #that's the kind of shit character creators let you pretend is a real part of the story #it's more than just a one off tool to make a character that looks like x or y #it's a tool to insert your own creativity onto the entire game

4 notes · View notes

safely-in-vhagars-belly · 1 year

Text

Fire and blood-Chapter 14: Kinslayer

CONCEPT: You are now slowly adjusting to life in your new cage and try to keep from breaking but it is not a small task. Aemond ''slays'' luc and you are invited to his celebration feast as his meal.

Warnings: Kidnapping, abuse, non-con, dub-con, dom-sub, aegon having a addiction at this point.

The next day you wake up when a guard brings you breakfast. It is plain soup with a plain bread. You look at it, confused. 'Can't I speak with Aemond or Aegon?' You assumed this cage. This life was punishment enough.

The guard is the same asshole who made inappropriate comments about your relationship with the king. And he is not done with you just yet. 'King Aegon, and Prince Aemond to you. And no. They specifically said they did not have time for you.' You know you should feel relief, but you hate that.

You do not believe either of them as well. You just know that Aegon does not rule his kingdom, that Aemond has every moment of every day to do what he wants as well, and that they both want to punish you by isolating you like this.

Your teeth grit, and you grab hold of one of the bars of your cell. You must look like so wild beast with your hair not brushed and your clothing from 2 days prior. 'Why not?' You ignore the pain.

He steps closer but is still careful not to come near you. 'Didn't you hear? It is a joyous occasion. Last night, Prince Aemond slew his nephew.' Unlike that guard, your heart is not made of stone.

On paper, this guard might think that this is a good thing for house of Aegon and his reign. You know better. You know the Greens. You know the Blacks. You know Rhaenyra, and you know what any mother would do for a child. 'He what?' You try to keep your voice neutral and careless, but if Aemond was in your cell right now, you would smack him so hard with a book that there might be some pernament damage.

And there is the final question that remains. Was it the boy that was dancing with you, that Aemond killed or the boy who was still finding out who he really was? The guard has no respect for you or your thoughts. 'He killed Lucerys. That bastard born boy.' That would get his tongue removed merely months ago when Viserys was still alive. Now, it does nothing.

A maid comes downstairs as well leading a whole group of other maids. You first think that you recognize a few from your former group of attendees, but that is not true after all, and it breaks your heart. You do not know what those monsters did with your innocent girls, but you can guess, and you just know that whatever they picked, they don't deserve to be punished for your mistakes.

The girl in front glances at your breasts. 'You're not as pretty as I was led to believe you were.' She spats out randomly. You roll your eyes at her insult.

You, in fact, do not care, but the past days have been hell. 'I am sorry to disappoint you. How about you open my cage and I'll show you why they say that bees stings can be deadly?' You do not have any weapon, so breaking her neck will have to do.

She smirks smugly. 'Do that, and your prince and king will punish you. The king allows you out for tonight as we celebrate the achievements of His Highness Aemond Targaryen.' His achievements? You saw Aemond fight in courtyards in mock battles. You saw that time and time again. Criston got beaten. You do not want to know how scared Luc must have been.

Your eyes scan the room. The maid unlocks your cell with a familair heart-shaped key and takes you with her under the protection of the guard.

You are brought to the royal bathrooms this time as they are closer than your old bathroom. The tub is much bigger and is made with large golden dragon shaped details. You are stripped and pushed inside the hot water that nearly burns your skin. Two maids each grab an arm of you when two others hold you down and begin scrubbing your skin with brushes and other.

They apply painful wax on your bodyparts and use it to get rid of some hairs that have grown during your imprisonment. You bite your lips and growl when they remove it. 'What is this for? I do not want to see either of them.' You Growl.

The maid chuckles. 'Shut up, whore. Be glad they take liking to you.' The head maid grins and picks a cotton wash cloth before dipping it in a weird scrub with plants mixed in it. She applies it to your face before gently scrubbing it almost into your skin. It is like she wants to remove your skin.

By the time you are done, the bath water is cold like ice. ---

You are escorted to the dinner hall. You had your first dinner here with Aemond and Aegon. You used to dance with Jace in this very room. You shiver by the memory of his hands on your body.

The guard opens the door and waits outside. You wait for them to announce you. But they never do. It hits you that they never will. You are a nameless titleless thing now. You will never hear your House name again. You consider running back to your cage. You consider jumping out a window. You do not want to go in there.

Your hand is grabbed by the maid and she drags you inside, proudly showing off her work to the prince and the King.

Your breath catches in your throat when you see how beautiful Aemond looks. His silver hairs are still the same, but he wears a golden green Targaryen uniform with a suiting dark sapphire in the middle of the Crest.

Aegon, on the other hand.. Aegon has dark circles under his eyes and hangs half in his chair with his feet on the table. He grins when drinking directly from a pitcher, not just a cup, and smirks when he notices you entering. You walk cautious and careful.

Aemond uses his fingers to lick away some sweet whipped cream from the bowl where once strawberries were waiting for him. He licks it off and watches you entraced with his finger still in his mouth. You turn your head around quickly, looking for any other person of the royal family. It is just them.

Aegon gets up from his chair and walks over to you, waggling on his legs. You worry he might fall flat on his face and grab hold of his arms to stablize him. 'Aegon,' you worriedly start but you stop yourself. 'I mean, my king.'

You are suddenly grabbed by your arms and pulled closer to him. 'Did I ever tell you how much I hate your house colours? Green makes you so fuckable, Lady Beesbury.' He whispers when brushing his lips against your neck. You shiver unintended. 'Much better than that ugly yellow and black.'

You ignore it. He is drunk. 'Yes, my king.' You say obedient. He grins and grabs your arms before dragging you off to Aemond.

He nearly sings when presenting you to his brother. 'O, Aemond! I got you a present.' You.

Aemond stops fingering the whipped cream out of the bowl and eyes you confused. 'What is she doing out of her cage?' He says but you notice he has effort to keep his one eye from staring at your very inviting neckline.

The king slaps your behind and you yelp a little helpless. He grins before kissing your hair lovingly. Like he used to. 'She is here for you.'

The prince's lips curl together in a smirk. He sits back for this and eagerly waits for his prize to be handed to him. Your legs are shaking. Aegon touches the bodice of your dress, making you shiver. 'Do you like how I made her dress? The maids spend hours on her.' He says, torturing both you and Aemond with his lengthy talk.

His brother nod eagerly. He clears his throat before speaking. 'They did a amazing job with her. We should let her be dressed more often.' You do not like how rough they were with washing and dressing you.

Aegon grins before kissing your cheeks. 'I am boring him. Look at that man. He is so eager to be inside of you. You'll make him happy, understand? He earns a reward for being a hero to our kingdom.'

Our Kingdom. If only you were born a Targaryen. If only you were good enough for him to be considered as his wife. You picture yourself sitting the throne, next to him when holding his hand. You shake your vision away with eyes that sting from tears and walk to his brother.

Aemond greets you with a kiss on your hand like you are still a lady. 'You'll always be Lady Beesbury to me, little bee.' He says with a cruel grin. 'But just so you know: I am not in the mood for any rebellion or funny things today. I want my prize.' He ends that sentence with a low cruel purr before grabbing hold of your hips and pushing you in his lap. You squirm there helplessly for a moment until Aemond's lips are pushed on your own. You feel him lead the kiss and softly kiss him back, still on his lips. You taste the strawberries he had early, along with wine and other delicious goods. Your belly who only got bread hurts.

The green with golden robe that covers your body is ripped open, exposing your body to the prince. He grabs your wrists and holds you down, forcing you to lay down on the table between empty plates. Aegon walks around the table and takes a good look at you before talking to his brother, a smile on his lips. 'She is yours tonight. She'll be good.' There is a hidden warning there for you.

He briefly touches your nippels before stepping away. Aemond gets up and hangs over you before stripping himself of his pants. He grins when forcing your chin into his hands and leaving a trail of kisses on your neck. You feel shivers run over your spine.

With a grunt, Aemond enters you. You are wet, but it does not feel right. Aegon sits in a chair and patiently watches you get fucked by his brother. Aemond groans as if he is an animal, and the grunts do you more good than bad. You are turned on by the idea of Aegon watching you go at it with his brother. Aegon keeps drinking as Aemond fucks you sore on the table. You feel already tired. Aemond collects you from the table and throws you over his shoulders. You protest with a soft yelp but it no use. He uses the secret passaway to go his rooms. You end up on the hard desk. 'Can't we make love gently on your bed? I prefer your bed.' You say. He chuckles before kissing you. 'I'll fuck you how I want.' He says before becoming himself again. He glares at you and kisses your mouth again this time with his tongue.

You hear him open a drawer and search through pencils and quils. He sighs before standing up and walking to his nightstand. He opens the drawer of that one as well. 'What are you looking for, Aemond?' Maybe you can help.

He is not in the mood for your help or your questions. 'My left eye.' He says full of sarcasm. 'I am not in need of help or rescue, stay where you are or you'll regret it.' He warns before sinking to his knees and laying down on the ground to look under his bed. 'Ah, there it is.' He says and returns back to you.

You finally see what he picked up from the ground and feel your mouth run dry. Aemonds slim fingers rapidly touch the chains he is holding as he smirks at your terrified face. He grabs hold of your chin and squeezes. 'Exciting, hm?' You give a weak quick nod hoping he he won't use the chains.

He grabs your hands and forces them on your back when chaining your hands together. You softly whimper. 'I don't like chains.' You softly mutter. You doubt he even heard you.

You groan and moan at the same time and whimper softly when he slides back in taking you deep and through. Your body has little cresent shaped prints of where his nails are digging inside you. Your tied up hands are grabbed. You are forced to kneel as is usual and he fucks you when standing behind you with you bended on the desk. Your cries and grunts fill the room as pleasure slowly builds up deep inside your core. You enjoy it. You want to buck back but know the risk. He whispers that you can't.

You gently fuck him back and wait for him to notice how eager and wet you are for him. The last time he had his cock slammed inside you was so long ago. Your body became accustomed to his way of fucking. You just wish he'd do you a favour and would let you finish. You need pleasure so badly.

Aemond rocks you with three rough fuckings. The desk cracks under your body as you are pushed and pulled over it. It hurts you, but you know better than to complain. 'I am so close gods...'

'Remember that I do you a favour now.' He says. He gives one two and a final trust before fucking you very quickly and shortly. It comes close. You are used to long, deep trusts, but this works better than you imagined. You think of Aegon's hands wrapped around your throat when lightly toying with you and how his cum drips down the corners of your mouth. How his cock pushes down between your legs and how he whispers in his ear that you are his and his alone. You feel it build faster and you can't hold back the scream.

You are a bit dizzy by lust. You feel him take root deep inside you before slamming himself against you. You feel his breath and his saliva on your back, and you wonder how long he can last before coming as well. You feel him tighten his grip and bow your head down, and you notice how fast he goes. You let out little cries of happiness and approval fucking him back as fast as you can. He curses in high valyrian and compliments how wet you are for him, before losing control and coming inside you. You approve of that. You like being filled up even.

You give him a grin. You get in position on his bed. He eyes you confused. 'What are you doing on my bed?'

You turn on your knees. 'I am still wet. Perhaps we can turn it into a lesson?' You suggest. He grins. 'I'm listening...' He sits down next to you on the bed.

You pin him down and climb on top. He grins lazily. You roll on his body and gently roll against it. Frustrated, you cry out. He grabs hold of your hips and flips so you are under. You feel him enter and hold back a soft moan. He slides in and out, torturing you with small, little movements. You both finish groaning.

Aemond falls asleep, satisfied. You slowly get the robe from the ground and put it on.

--- You walk back to your cage. An arm suddenly hooks itself around your body, and you scream when you are pulled into a room. You are surprised to see a long, forgotten kind face. Aegon. He eyes even more drunk and simply drags you with him to his rooms.

You enjoy the familair room. You enjoy the feeling of his sheets wrapped around your body and the smell of his scent in the air. You snuggle up to his back and wrap your arms around his body. You slowly lean in closely and touch his abs. Not to touch his body but to feel the beat of his heart. You need to be reminded that he is the same man who you fell in love with. Aegon takes your hands and touches your fingers, gently rubbing them before kissing your knuckles. You are pushed closer to him by him, and he mumbles something before falling asleep. You soon join him.

When you wake up, there is trouble. Something is wrong. You feel it right away. Your Aegon is gone. Without explanation. He is just gone. Hmm. Odd. You think to yourself.

The door is nearly kicked open and two guards enter the rooms of the king and queen. You sit up and quickly cover yourself with the sheets. 'I- I am just leaving.' You quickly say before they can punish you.

One of the two guards has dark green eyes. His voice is empty. His eyes are hollow. 'Where are the children?' He asks.

You think. 'Children? I do not know of any children.' Until you realise they must be looking for the twins. 'Did something happen with the prince and Princess? Does the king know?' This can not be good.

The guard with the scar starts searching in big chests and under beds. You realise then, and only then that these are not guards. Their uniforms are now that you've paid more attention to it, too big. Their swords are not classic knight attire, and you see blood on one of the swords. 'Make sure we have the right room.' The man with the green eyes studies you when you back away slowly. The other calmly grabs a map and starts studying it.

The Green eyed man chuckles when he sees your terrified face. 'You'll stay.' He says threatening.

He shares a glance. 'Take the girl.' You realise they are talking about you. You bolt but are not fast enough. One of the two grabs you and smacks you across your face, hitting you. You whimper out loud. 'No! Let go of me!' You beg. The one with the green eyes takes out a potion and feeds it to you. You quickly try to spit it out, but it's already too late. You feel the effect take place and can no longer move your hands or feet or speak.

'She can be moved.' The scarred one laughs before grabbing you.

The other is not so sure about this. 'What about the kid?' He asks in doubt. 'Our king was very clear. An eye for an eye. A son for a son. This is not a son.'

'We got the Queen. This is worth more to them.' You doubt it and feel something hit you on your head.

13 notes · View notes