#i aspire to this energy tbh

[gunsatthaphan]

kluen: *breathes* phum: so you've chosen death.

[msommers]

so the thing is that ellana/blackwall have in fact become my copium during the move from hell and actually they're v good together

[onlyjellyillputinmybelly]

I would like to thank Joe Hills for providing me with both of my senior quotes

[datura-tea]

okey dokey! i just finished the fallout show! some Thoughts under the read more

tl:dr, the (bethesda) fallout vibes were definitely there. i liked it as a show on its own merits but as a part of the series canon... i'm mad, and that anger is kind of overriding the little i liked about it. overall maybe 2.5/5 stars and im being generous

things i liked:

visually, it's stunning - i could see scenes already being made into gifsets - the color grading is pretty good; even in dark scenes i could see and understand what was happening

the sets are soooo good!! costume design was alright too

title cards were fun and cute

they did some interesting stuff with the cultures of both vault 33 and the brotherhood of steel

they used the sound effects from the games :)

i liked the wastelanders!!! big npc and random encounter energy. i kind of want a whole show of just them. for example i love the marketplace and settlement in filly; it feels very lived in

the background characters weren't just young thin able-bodied conventionally attractive white people :) there's so many elders, which i loved!! ma june and barv were cool. i love gruff old lesbians

lucy!!! she was already kind of weird and a little off-putting even in vault 33 ("what's your sperm count" as an opener to the husband she was just arranged married to is WILD) and i like that. she's sweet and bullheaded and surprisingly competent :)

maximus is kind of an ass, but is also a pathetic nerd and brotherhood dickrider who actually doesn't really know anything. kind of a girlfailure

the ghoul was pretty cool too!! i liked him, though more for his prewar story than the one he has post-apocalypse

lucy's brother norman kinda grew on me. "i lack enthusiasm for every job that i do here" so relateable. also short king <3

THE DENTIST THAT BUYS TEETH. never thought that would be a Thing but now that i think about it, it makes sense

the monsters that we have were cool!! wish there had been more of them

MATT BERRY IS IN THIS!! i just really like him so i got excited :))

maximus and lucy's "wanna have sex?" talk LMAO

vault 4's various mutations!!

those giant unwieldy fuckass duffel bags that brotherhood squires lug around hahahhahahaaha

vault 4 and its genetic experiments because its main conceit is that it was ruled by scientists who hybridized humans. it's exactly the right amount of fucked up i want in a vault

i like that the protagonists regularly get captured and eat shit

FRED ARMISEN IS ALSO HERE

haha hacking minigame :) also chatting via terminals (and im assuming pipboys?) is canon now

they're growing crops in the wasteland + bustling trade + livestock + pets yay

robobrain was cute

things i was just ok with:

dane, the they/them brotherhood of steel aspirant who was fucked over so maximus can get their spot as a squire LMAO what a waste of a potentially cool character

IT'S SO FUNNY that there's yodelling whenever the ghoul comes into the scene ????? WHY

fight scenes.... pretty good but someone definitely had the bloody mess perk (i don't do well with gore so ew yucky). also lots of [VATS NOISE]

pipboy was not used as much as i thought it would be

cousin stuff... i get it, i guess in a vault you'd have a lot of cousins and not a lot of choice, so some incest would probably happen

the ghoul being vault boy's inspiration?? not sure what to feel about that tbh

the casual dismemberments... and equally casual attaching of limbs... not even prosthetic limbs.....

the vaulties eating good healthy well-balanced meals. giving out caviar in the welcome basket. kinda 50/50 on it

the vault 31 - 32 - 33 subplot couldve been more fucked up

have brotherhood knights always been celibate or did i miss the memo

there are regular chickens and... deer? for some reason?

the ghoul's design. it's fine in action but mostly it's meh

the vault 4 cult for moldaver

vault 4 as a refuge for shady sands survivors. im mad about it but like. i get it

that guys "elixir" (some altered jet??) fixing everything about thaddeus' foot instantenously AND GIVING HIM HEALING POWERS???

things i did not like:

lucy's plot premise is very much fallout 3 redux

lucy and maximus as a ship is very meh and kind of forced and not compelling. go give us nothing!!!

wilzig's head as a macguffin that everyone is after... ehh kind of just okay as a plot device

also the ghoul randomly eating that other ghoul???

the squire who bullied maximus calls himself fat but he isn't fat?? not even chubby??? hello????? just got a soft face

water chip being fucked feels very fallout 3 also but they kind of dropped it?

they definitely named cooper howard after todd. as tribute probably, which he doesn't deserve

fiend = cannibal now?????

maximus recognizing vault 4 as a cult but not recognizing the brotherhood as one lol

vault tec evil capitalism vs hollywood communists storyline was kind of basic. and bland. and weak

the enclave could've been established + explored better

no geckos or any other west coast-specific monsters

showing me ncr ranger armor when the ncr is gone

ghouls have healing powers?? WITHOUT RADIATION??

things i hated hated hated:

the ghoul needing drugs to combat the Disease That Turns Ghouls Feral

feral ghouls being basically zombies :/

IN EPISODE FIVE. THEY REVEAL. THAT SHADY SANDS. WAS BOMBED. THE ENTIRE NCR. WAS BOMBED. IN 2277. THE YEAR OF THE FIRST BATTLE OF HOOVER DAM

BASICALLY RETCONNED FNV?? IM PUTTING MY EARS IN MY FINGERS AND GOING LA LA LAAAAA

VAULT-TEC DROPPED THE BOMBS ???? BIG MT + MR HOUSE BEING IN ON IT????

THE BIG STUPID FUCKING REVEAL IN EPISODE EIGHT?? THAT THE OVERSEER BOMBED SHADY SANDS BECAUSE HIS WIFE DIDN'T WANT TO GO HOME WITH HIM??? FUCK THAT???

the brotherhood being the main faction of the west coast now. booo!! booo!!!!

the fucking last shot of new vegas being a burnt out husk. probably foreshadowing that hank is going to house's body but. UGH I HATE IT

to summarize: it came out strong! and stumbled hard falling face fucking first at the finish line. i would have liked it a lot more if it did not shit on the west coast as much as it did. because what the FUCK. if it was set literally anywhere else and left the ncr alone i would have liked it more, because on its own, as a self-contained story, divorced from the rest of the fallout series canon, it's not bad!!! it's fun, there's some good bits, it has the ~vibes~ but - and this is a big but - i don't know what it's trying to say. it's all very surface level and the very vague themes i picked up on are not really reiterated in the plot

it's like... the bits that make it fallout are there. vaults. the brotherhood. ghouls. a dog named dogmeat. but there's something lacking. it's like your usual sci-fi post-apocalypse show with a fallout veneer. idk. i like it for what it is but also i hate it for what it's emblematic of. that's all

[ethicaltreatmentofcowplants]

Having completed her Angling Ace aspiration, Marin got cake-d up and sent on a vacation to Granite Falls and try and complete her fish collection. This gen's quirk is that they have to flirt with everyone who they encounter at a fishing spot, until they find their long-term partner.

Yeah, I'm thrilled about it too, Marin.

The rant follows. It was going to be a longer rant but then I got tired. You need energy to rant - who would have thought it? (Turns out I lied. It was still pretty long.)

Also anyone who isn't a Simmer will likely think that I need to touch grass after this (which, fair tbh). But then if you weren't a Simmer, you likely wouldn't be here in the first place 😉

(And yeah, it's all tongue-in-cheek/not to be taken seriously. Well, mostly lol.)

I know that the term 'long-term partner' is deliberately vague and leaves room for an aro-ace relationship (orrrr even a bff who you live with and raise a kid together?) which I appreciate. I know that she doesn't have to find her partner from this selection - the wording is that she just has to keep on flirting until she does.

But even of the premade townies, no one is sparking joy? I could default to Nalani, who you'd think would be perfect (I mean, gorgeous merperson and actually interesting in spite of her blah occult) and yet for some reason I'm just not feeling the two of them together.

So then the Watcher, in all her benevolence (aaaannd admittedly her cheapness for waiting on a sale to buy Lovestruck) set up a club for Marin. It was to be a club for young adults. It was to be a club for unmarried Sims. Which - I wish there was a finer means of classification, because I know damn well the two of you are engaged, Darrel Charm and Mateo Markovic from My Wedding Stories (whose name I had to look up, that's how little you inspire me). Bland as forbidden word townie from a pack so broke that it may as well be a millennial. Aaaand also it was to be a club for people with Level 2 Fishing and above.

Thus: young adults, unmarried, some skill (and therefore, hopefully interest) in fishing. Cute, cool. Hopefully we've weeded the catfish out of the pond.

Then we pulled up the tab of potential candidates and guess which forbidden word comes up.

Lou. Fucking. Howell.

For context, I have history with Lou Howell. I have beef with Lou Howell. Nothing particularly wrong with the guy, apart from a certain lightfingeredness (klepto trait) and a slight body hair problem around particular times of the month. But this motherfucker is like an universal adapter when it comes to all my Sims and I have to consciously make a decision to stay away from him in saves. In other words, Lou Howell is unwelcome here.

(I also don't really know yet what I'm doing with the fourth/next gen. Yeah, the rules say using music to make money. This Watcher however is this forbidden word tired of celebrity Sims popping up around the most random and out-of-way places that she's about to eject Get Famous into the sun, however, and it's taking every last once of willpower not to deactivate it right now. Sooo if I had an idea of what the fourth gen looked like, then I may have a less vague idea of what the baby daddy/mommy/gender neutral genetic donor should look like.)

Wait - what's happening now? Who moved my cursor?

NO, LOU. NO. IT IS NOT YOUR TIME. GO AWAY.

So I don't know what to do! Lou Howell Does anyone have gallery Sims to donate to this cause? Lou Howell Are there previously untapped mines of eligible townies who I haven't thought of? Lou Howell For the record, Akira Kibo and Paolo Rocca are granddad and dad respectively. In spite of the incest glitch making a comeback elsewhere (maybe it's heard the Targaryens have returned to the telly?), they are therefore out of the picture.

Play the Sims, they said. It will be fun, they said. A casual game, they said...

I need a lie down.

odd money legacy rules here. come join me. it will be fun...

[spookytuesdaypod]

this is the energy i aspire to bring every day tbh

[raleighrador]

Most fics I have read - even/especially the very good ones - that include Anakin having a relationship with Obi-Wan after Mustafar (or AUs where something similar to Mustafar occurred) are almost always frustrating to me. At least unsatisfying.

Anakin having any kind of positive relationship with Obi-Wan post Mustafar always seems to rely on a level of introspection and self awareness that frankly my head canon of Anakin is totally incapable of.

Anakin is not a forgiving person, even at his best. He is kind and generous but not forgiving. He remembers every slight (real or imagined). He holds onto those memories and lets them fester.

He also remembers all the good. He never forgets them. He cherishes them and polishes them and places them on a pedestal.

It's why (and a symptom of) he's so fucked in the head when it comes to his most important relationships.

He has no synthesised view of Obi-Wan or Padme or Palpatine or Luke. They are all of the things they have ever done to or been to Anakin.

What changes is the weighting Anakin gives to each of these things, with a massive recency bias.

I don't see how Anakin, in the full knowledge that Obi-Wan is the man who cut off his limbs, set him on fire, left him to burn, left him for Sidious to find, and then stole and separated his children before Padme's body was cold...

Could ever forgive him.

The why's and the intentions and who deserved what just wouldn't matter to (my head canon) of Anakin.

In lieu of self-awareness many fics give Anakin basically limitless self loathing. So instead of dealing with Obi-Wan or Padme or whatever he just hates himself so much that he doesn't have time to hate Obi-Wan anymore.

There is a lot I like about this (narratively/as entertainment) but I think the thing it misses is that is how Anakin worked prior to Mustafar anyway. He already hated himself almost limitlessly and he still found the time and energy to hate Obi-Wan.

After Mustafar he would have so much more justification for that hatred and resentment. So why would his self loathing get in the way?

The longer the timeline of these stories aligns to canon the more true this becomes.

I think by the time you get to Ghost Anakin at the end of ROTJ the things he would regret most are (in no particular order): choking Padme, handing Luke to the Emperor, torturing Leia, chopping off Luke's hand. MAYBE he regrets Alderaan but only in as much as it made Leia sad and means she hates him.

And he would likely blame everyone and anyone but especially Obi-Wan for this.

If Leia's surname was Skywalker, if they weren't separated, if Luke wasn't lied to about who Vader/Anakin was, if the Jedi hadn't filled Luke's head with lies and trained him as a weapon etc.

The rest of it? I just don't know that Anakin would really regret that much of it. I don't think he would see much difference - even with hindsight - between what he did as Vader in service of the Empire and what he did as Anakin in service of the Republic.

Killing the Jedi younglings probably sits in its own category. However, I maintain that Anakin would believe this was an acceptable price to save Padem IF it worked.

That might be his biggest regret - that none of it worked, that he lost Padme and his children anyway.

But any time travel force shenanigans where Vader uses the dark side to yeet himself into the past such that he can save Padme etc.

He would think that was a good deal.

There is the final (meta) element to all of this which is that Anakin's eventual forgiveness of Obi-Wan seems to generally function more as a narrative tool to assuage Obi-Wan's guilt, rather than some kind of real character development for Anakin.

And TBH I just want Obi-Wan to suffer/don't cate about him but that is another post.

I do however have sympathy for this - because I think Anakin is really, really hard to write.

A "redeemed" Anakin in my mind isn't one who suddenly becomes some kind of virtuous rules based utilitarian like the Jedi aspire to be, like Obi-Wan is.

A redeemed Anakin is one who chose his son, chose his family. A redeemed Anakin is one who was finally put in a position where choosing his family WAS the greater good. Anakin chose to save Luke - and kill Sidious - for the exact same reason and applying the exact same logic he applied to every other major choice he ever made.

And I don't see that Anakin as ever getting over what Obi-Wan did to him and his family. At best I see him not killing Obi-Wan because it would make Luke sad.

[plzu]

Just Water, Thanks - (Adrian Chase x Reader)

part four☕️

a/n: tbh if my 13 y/o self saw me updating a multi-chapter fic [redacted] months after the last update, she'd be impressed. this is shorter than i wanted it to be bc i had to cut it off. consider this an in-between chapter as we navigate (negative) emotions and such. anyway, hope y'all don't mind as i steer this story into angst territory! Summary: Adrian takes care of you while you are drunk and miserable in his home. Warnings: 18+, no Y/N, ANGST (reader is going thru it), mentions of assault, mentions of gore and blood and nightmares, a reference to one of the Saw movies (idk which, sorry), not beta read, if i missed anything lmk pls!! Word Count: 3.3k+

Revelations are dizzying. Revelations taste like vomit in the back of your mouth, and the backs of your teeth. Revelations leave you sore all over, more sore than you think you’ve ever been. Revelations are exhausting. They leave you parched as shit.

Or maybe that’s just the alcohol.

The night wasn’t supposed to go like this. 

It was supposed to be some girls from high school. Old friends. Best friends. The people that were your anchor in Evergreen, who made everything bearable. Late night talks and laughing over the dumbest things and whisperings about crushes and aspirations.

People you slowly stopped talking to once you moved across the country, to some city that could swallow you whole.

People that decided to return the favor. Two last minute ditches, and one that completely ghosted you. They’re just busy, you thought, a dirty martini and a half in. They have real jobs, and spouses, and… kids? Maybe?

Pouty and miserable at the sleek bar, drowning your insecurities in alcohol, picking at the olives at the bottom of empty glasses. They’re too- too good for me, anyway. 

Having found some semblance of happiness in an unlikely friendship with Adrian Chase, you thought you’d finally venture out, expand your social circle again. Feel like you have everything together, finally.

Learn to experience snatches of happiness elsewhere, outside of time spent with Adrian. Because, face it: there is something that feels slippery about him. Evanescent. Like one day he’s going to disappear, or get bored of you.

Or reveal whatever secrets he’s been clearly harboring, something neither of you could return from, and the wedge that it would drive between you would leave you right back to where you started: a ghost that didn’t even have the good grace to properly die. 

You walk -- stagger, really -- down the empty street, most of your weight supported by the masked Vigilante. Adrian is supposedly under that mask. You cannot wrap your head around this fact, even after watching Vigilante answer Adrian’s phone, and say some bullshit excuse only Adrian could come up with. 

“Alright, here we are!” Vigilante (Adrian?) declares. “The Vigilante-mobile.”

You both come to a stop. You squint bleary-eyed at the 4-door sedan, glance at the masked face beside you, then back to the car. 

“It’s just your regular car.”

Vigilante -- no, Adrian, definitely Adrian -- snorts. “Well, yeah. I can’t exactly afford a second car with a busboy salary.”

This almost makes you laugh, because Adrian is good at that, really. Effortless. But nausea stirs in your gut, so you decide against it. Grumble a wordless response instead. 

Adrian attempts to ease you into the passenger seat, asking if you’re hurt anywhere else. If they hurt you in any worse ways other than the obvious. You can only shake your head noncommittally, fighting back the urge to vomit again. There will definitely be bruises and sore spots on your aching body from the rough way they had handled you, but you know what he’s really asking.

Head slumped back against the headrest, you close your eyes for a few minutes. You have to buckle up, Adrian urges, but you cannot find the strength or the energy to pull the seat belt around your body. A pathetic little huff is all you can really muster before Adrian, patient and gentle, pulls the seat belt around your torso and fastens you in place. 

Unfortunately, the gentle action is buffeted by the coppery scent that washes over you, the roughness of his gloves and suit briefly scraping your skin; this doesn’t smell like Adrian. Not like the familiar Irish Spring soap, or coffee and caramel after visiting you at the cafe. This makes you whine. Whimper, really, dissatisfied and uncomfortable and very momentarily scared. 

Misunderstanding, he tells you you’re going to be okay, in a voice that’s a touch too animated for the general mood of the night.

When the door is shut, you try not to suffocate in the brief silence that follows. Keep your eyes closed as the muffled thud of the trunk jolts the car a bit, willing the queasiness away. Desperately wishing for water, or sleep, or death. 

You do not open your eyes when Adrian finally gets in the car, and starts driving, until he mentions something about taking you home. At that point, your eyes fly open.

“No,” you beg. “No, Adrian, please. I can’t go home like this. I don’t want them to see me like this.”

There’s a quiver in your voice. Nervousness builds in your chest, a rapid flutter in your ribs that makes you feel like crying. Adrian stares, eyes flicking from your face to the quickening rise and fall of your chest, and you realize it’s just Adrian sitting next to you, now. Wearing normal clothes. No blood-splattered suit or eerie red visor. Just the familiar--if slightly disheveled--curly hair and glasses, lips parted in confusion or concern. Seeing his bare face is almost a comfort, especially when he nods, and faces the road again. 

The trip to Adrian’s apartment becomes a hazy memory. He walks you through the corridors of some small apartment complex until you’re trudging through the threshold of his home, where he guides you through the dark into his bedroom. You sag into the edge of his bed once he turns on the light. 

“Gotta get you cleaned up, but… do you need water?” Adrian asks. You only stare back up at him before he goes, “right, yeah, no, you definitely need water. Wait right here.”

When he comes back, Adrian is juggling a couple of bottles of water and a first-aid kit to dress your wound. He sets everything down, handing you a chilled water bottle which you gratefully accept. You cannot unscrew the cap of the bottle fast enough to immediately quench the discomfort of your sandpaper tongue. 

“Slow sips,” Adrian says, after some reckless guzzling causes you to choke and dribble water all over your chin. 

Setting the bottle aside, you notice stands with his back to you on the other side of the room. You realize this is him giving you privacy so you can begin the struggle of taking off the stockings. They get halfway down your thighs, dress rucked up around your hips, before the effort of it unlocks a well of tears; a flash of a memory of being six years old and left to fend for yourself for the first time in a fight to tug on tights for school.

It’s not that you’re so inebriated that you can’t take off your stockings, though it certainly doesn’t help. It’s that once you get the fabric rolled down to your skinned knee, a new wave of nausea overcomes you. You can feel the mesh of the tear sticking to the gooey wet parts of the wound, and your mind reels with the dizzying thought that if you tug anymore, you’re going to make it worse. Take more skin off. Bleed all over Adrian’s bedsheets. Throw up again, probably.

It’s just for a brief second, you don’t let the feeling last too long, but-- the quick snatch and tug of the nylon on the tattered skin of your knee reminds you of one of the Saw movies, and how one of the traps involved gluing some poor fuck’s bare back to the driver’s seat of a car. And the way he had to peel off the seat, screaming and sweating, struggling to reach the -- the brakes? The gas? -- just to try to save some girl’s life. The stretch of skin, the vivid gleam of blood, your memory no doubt enhancing the gore of the scene in a new wave of despair.

When Adrian turns around, he finds you with your face hidden in the cusp of your palms, stockings only rolled down to the tops of your knees. Your dress is still bunched up around your hips, and maybe you should feel exposed, sitting on Adrian’s bed with your thighs bared. Embarrassed, even. But between the ick in your stomach and the sour taste at the back of your throat and the headache that begins to pulse behind your eyes like remnants of the bassline from the club, you don’t have any room to care. 

(And, admittedly. You don’t think you’d mind Adrian seeing this much of you. Under different circumstances, at least.)

You sense him hovering closer, probably paused at the sight of you all pathetic on his bed. Or the bare flesh of your thighs, more likely. Something unintelligible is mumbled into your hands in an attempt to draw his attention. Let him know you’re aware of his presence, and that you’re lucid, at the very least.

“Sorry- what?”

You sniffle, before mustering up the strength to raise your head up. But only enough to stare at his feet. “I can’t- My tights. I can’t… take them off.”

You watch as his scuffed up shoes approach you. Absently, you think about how Adrian hasn’t worn these before, even though it’s gotten cold. And, oh, they’re probably just part of his Vigilante costume. 

Ah. Vigilante. Adrian. 

“Whoa… what do you mean?” Adrian crouches down, his bespectacled gaze in your sight, and you realize the quick, short breaths you hear are your own. “Are you going to cry again? I have tissues here on my nightstand- for, like, normal reasons. Nothing gross. Ignore the lotion.”

There’s a very small part of you that knows this would have -- should have -- made you laugh. It’s the part of you that feels detached from this whole experience, as if watching from outside of your body. Like a muted, sober-ish ghost that can’t do anything but observe. Helpless. Unable to keep you safe.

You can’t even take off your fucking tights by yourself.

“The- the cut on my knee,” you attempt to warble through your explanation. “It’s, um- it feels weird. I don’t think I can take off my tights…”

“Well, we have to dress the wound otherwise it might get infected.” Adrian pauses, raises his hands so they hover over your lap. “Is it okay if I..?”

When you nod -- shakily, fearfully, desperately -- his hands continue their journey to your right thigh. His middle and forefingers, surprisingly gentle, slip into the scrunched up fabric at the base of your knee, and a shiver runs down your spine at the feel of his hands there. There is a feeling that slowly blooms in your chest at the sight of Adrian on his knees for you, taking care of you. But it’s being overshadowed by the anxiety gripping your throat and making your head spin in anticipation of the potential pain to come from your tights being ripped from your bloody knee.

No longer able to keep upright, you gracelessly plop back into the soft sheets, ceiling swaying in your vision. You make no effort to get back up; not like you wanted to watch the horror of Adrian potentially ripping the skin off your knee.

His voice, with a touch of anger that’s still unusual to hear, cuts through the haze of worry. “I hate those motherfuckers for doing this to you.”

A humorless, breathy snort escapes at that, shame sapping the energy out of you. “That wasn’t their fault,” you mumble. “‘M not tryin’ to defend them or anything, but it was my stupid, drunk ass that tripped and got myself into this whole mess…”

Because the truth is, if you hadn’t drunkenly stumbled down the wrong street when trying to find your Uber, if you hadn’t worn heels that don’t feel natural on your feet anymore, if you hadn’t felt so anguished and lonely that you sought solace in a few too many cocktails-

If you had just been a better friend to the people that made your high school years bearable, you wouldn’t have been crowded and overpowered by strange men with horrifying intentions. 

“Were you… by yourself?” Adrian’s voice carries over you while he’s still somewhere at your knees. “Where were those friends of yours? The ones you were meeting up with?”

The heels of your palms dig furiously into your closed eyes until you’re seeing black and red and you’re sure your eyeballs are just about to successfully squish into your skull. “They never showed up,” you admit, hoarsely, dejectedly.

Moments pass. There’s this light, almost lulling feeling, the tug and pull of your right leg. If you weren’t drowning in the barrage of negative thoughts and guilt and the kind of worthlessness that only creeps up on you in your own bedroom, you’d find Adrian’s ministrations comforting. 

“Don’t get mad, but it doesn’t sound like they were very good friends if they abandoned you to drink alone at club a in a sketchy neighborhood.”

But isn’t that what I deserve?

See- 

You left. Most people did after high school, but you made it a staunch point to never come back. 

You didn’t mean to abandon the friends you made in Evergreen. But life went on, and time passed quicker than you could make sense of, and fuck if you didn’t find any excuse to not come back home during breaks -- internships, supposedly important trips for school, job-hunting, moving in with your first love -- all so you could prolong seeing your family again.

What’s so bad about them, anyway?

They make me feel-

A sharp sting of pain rips you out of dark muddled thoughts, hissing through clenched teeth as you shoot into an upright position, lurching forward. 

“Sorry, sorry! But I did warn you.”

Oh, right. Adrian. You’re in Adrian’s bedroom, and he’s currently at your knees, hair still rumpled and eyes shining bright and concerned behind his glasses. And… he’s holding an alcohol pad. And your knee is…

“You got the tights off?” you ask in breathless disbelief.

“Yeah. I had to cut it up, though.” He grimaces. “Sorry. But it was already torn, so…”

Sure enough, the area around your knee is now fully exposed and free of any sticky mesh. The cut was beginning to scab over, but the alcohol pad made it newly shiny. It stings, but at least it doesn’t look like whatever nightmare scenario you’d been afraid of.

Adrian continues cleaning up and bandaging your wound as you look away, too light-headed to watch him work. It’s not until he’s gently pressing a bandage to your knee that you finally let out a breath you didn’t realize you were even holding. 

“There, all done.” Adrian stands, gathering everything up with careful, unrushed movements. “Let me get you something to sleep in.”

“Huh?” You blink up at him, confused. 

He’s rummaging through a dresser drawer, back turned to you when he responds. “Trust me, you’re not going to want to fall asleep in ripped clothes.” Turning around with some folded clothes in his hands, he continues, “I don’t imagine it’d be very comfortable. Plus, what if you wake up, not remembering what happened--you know, because of the drinking-- and you’re in my bed with a ripped dress? How does that make me look? It’d be pretty hard to convince you I didn’t do anything to you.”

He hands you the clothes--a big soft tee-shirt and sweatpants--and turns to leave. There is a cacophony of feelings clamoring around in your head and in your heart, and you find yourself helplessly overwhelmed once again but also, endlessly grateful for this man that saved your life. Not just tonight, but the night he stepped into your cafe painfully close to closing and made things feel silly and good again. 

“Adrian?” you softly call out as he turns to leave you to change.

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re my best friend.”

Something expands in his chest when Adrian hears those words come out of your mouth. Like a frog puffing up with a croak, or a balloon that’s filled to bursting but doesn’t want to pop. He thinks he was a kid the last time he actually heard someone tell him, to his face, that he’s their best friend.

Sure, the admittance wavered out in an alcohol-infused breath, and he’s not sure how much you had to drink tonight but it may be enough to forget this moment.

But he wasn’t drinking. He’ll hold onto this moment forever.

A smile grows crooked on his face as he hovers by the door, meeting your gaze. “Yeah?”

You nod, holding the clothes handed to you lamely in your lap. There’s something glum about the sag of your shoulders, but he can’t think about that too much in his rush to assure you that you’re his best friend, too. Top 3, definitely.

This makes you snort, which he counts as another win for the night since it’s the first sound of laughter he’s heard since finding you in the alley.

He finally leaves you to change, and to get some much needed rest, and grins from ear to ear at the knowledge that the person he’s liked since high school is in his bed tonight.

Despite the comfort of Adrian’s tee-shirt, the smell of him in his clothes and sheets, the softness of it all wrapped around you, you do not sleep well.

You dream of dark alleyways and even darker figures crowding you, overpowering you. Limbs boneless, unable to fight back. When you scream, it’s not loud enough. There’s a thumping bass reverberating off brick walls that drowns out your cries for help. 

It’s frustrating. This powerlessness. The feeling of utter uselessness, frightening to your core. 

Then, the dream shifts. You are no longer being crowded and pinned by the shadowed figures, yet fear still grips you, clings to your skin, hot and wet- when you look down, the sticky wet feeling isn’t fear but blood, splattered all over your clothes and dripping from your arms. You want to feel triumph, search for the feeling in the recesses of your brain, you want so badly for that to replace the anxiousness gripping your lungs now that you’re free.

But when you look back up, you see viscera-laden bricks. Bodies with holes where they shouldn’t be, missing pieces. This is still a nightmare.  A familiar voice, tainted by something dark and unrecognizably sinister, laughs at the mouth of the alley. It’s another shadowy figure, red visor glowing in your direction. “You’re okay now,” he says, tone unsettling, too-chipper. “They’re all dead!”

taglist: @whatevermonkey @nobodys-baby-now @hiddlebatchedloki @pokoyolfhw

[chocotonez]

skz reacting to their s/o using their head as a drum

a/n: love it when you guys get creative because literally how would I have ever thought of this

warnings/genre: fluff, banter, uhhh using a head as a drum?? lmk if anything else should be tagged!

chan

-the awkward “haha babe ur so silly”

-slightly worried but slightly into the beat ur making tbh

-offers a worried :] smile, and thinks you’re adorable but also what even prompted this response??

-sorta overthinks it and is like “is everything okay?? are you bored? do you need my attention?”

-honestly doesn’t mind it very much unless he’s working hehe

-“ohhh wait, do that again it sounded good” “will you credit me in your next album??” **sigh**

lee know

-looks back up at you with a disgruntled expression as if you just insulted him

-“wtf are you doing” “why do you hate my music career” “because it sucks, get off my head”

-mostly joking, doesn’t care but he’d prefer you go explore your musical interests somewhere else

-tries so hard not to giggle if you hum along to a beat your making, will never admit how much it amuses him

-just lets you at it, maybe if he’s in a bad mood he would just gently swat your hand away but most of the time he just rolls his eyes and lets you…drum on his head

changbin

-turns it around and reaches up to drum on your head while laughing

-“haha how does it feel?? >:)”

-most of the time just takes it as a prompt to mess with you and pat your head to a beat

-first time he was definitely more ???, but if it becomes a habit he’ll just laugh it off

-genuinely doesn’t mind it compared to others, he thinks it’s kinda cute especially when you stand over him to just drum on his head or mess around

-looks up at you with a dumb smile and is sJWNDOWSJJS sorry anyways yeah he just loves you

hyunjin

-the one to grab your wrist, and then hold your hand to get you to stop

-he reaches up to hold your hand and he just gives you a squeeze to let you know he’s not like…mad, you’re just being silly

-“what? is my baby bored?” and he always laughs at your response, whether it be in agreement or a roll of your eyes

-doesn’t care as much if he’s tired, because he doesn’t have the energy to care and he’s also kinda lulling off because of the rhythmic tapping

-he doesn’t hate it, because it’s always a good excuse to hold your hand <3

han

-the more confused one, but doesn’t go out of his way to stop you LMAO

-every time he just looks at you like ??? because do you want something?? is this a torture method?? are you trying to mind control him or smth??

-spends his time just contemplating your possible hierarchy of needs while you’re dropping the sickest beat of 2023 on his head

-poor boy just doesn’t know what to do and just lets you go at it

-thinks it’s kinda cute anyways, if not strange, but still cute

felix

-gives a :> and just lets you have fun

-“what? trying to take my job?” “you know how much people would pay for a single that’s just someone using your head as a drum??” and he’s just giggling and he’s so cute I’m sobbing

-likes to randomly move his head so you miss and laughs because you stumble a bit and he thinks he’s so funny

-leans back so you can hold his face in your hands

-it’s not that he dislikes it, but he doesn’t like it either. there’s way better ways to entertain yourself, including just spooning him or giving him a kiss </3

seungmin

-another ??? wtf are you doing type

-probably starts knocking on his own head to see what the appeal is all about

-“shhh minnie i’m making music!!” “let me knock on your head to make sure it’s not hollow, because what in the world are you doing??”

-gives you a fake look of disgust but immediately bursts out laughing when he holds your gaze for too long, and just lets you at it

ot the biggest fan but when he looks up to see your smile, he has to fight the need to run laps and giggle n squeal about how cute u are

jeongin

-“wtf stop you’re gonna mess up my hair” “so you just hate my aspirations or being a musician??” “y/n.”

-leans on disliking it, another one who just reaches up to hold your hand to get you to stop

-“if you’re that bored do you wanna help me clean the dorm?” and you’re immediately o-O

-laughs when you drum his head because it’s just so?? stupid?? but it’s so funny and you’re also so cute?? it’s the most conflicting thing ever

-like how is he supposed to dislike this when you laugh all prettily and you’re smiling down on him like that :((

-unfair tbh

[just-an-enby-lemon]

I unfortunally don't have The Sims 4 anymore (I had the og paired with totally legal not even a lil bit OFMD inspired DLCs but the DLCs bugged for ocean reasons and it broke the og and now I don't have it but can't redowload it because it acts as if it's still on my PC) but I was looking at my phone's note to delete some and I found a detailed traits plan for a bunch of TMA characthers. So I'm posting it here in case someone finds it usefull or a fun thing to discuss (or tells me how to fix my game so I can add new totally legal DLCs and play as my beloved blorbos).

-

The traits change as seasons go because CHARACTHER DEVELO0MENT, my beloved.

P.S: no season 5 because the literal end of the world brings more than 3 traits on it's victims/survivors

Jon - S1: Snob, Perfecionist, Bookworm

S2: Paranoid, Perfecionist, Bookworm

S3: Cat Lover, Gloomy, Paranoid

S4: Gloomy, Cat Lover, Bookworm

Scotland: Socialy Akward, Cat Lover, Bookworm

Aspiration: Reinassanse Sim (nerd) (he can also be a wizard and have Spellcraft and Sorcery or play as uni Jon and have Academic, uni Jon's traits are more open to interpretation I would suggest Perfectionist, Cat Lover and Bookworm but rly up to player)

Martin - S1: Creative, Socialy Akward, Clumsy

S2/S3: Creative, Socialy Akward, Loyal

S4: Gloomy, Loner, Loyal

Scotland: Creative, Jealous, Loyal

Aspiration: Best-Selling Author (when concluded there is also Country Caretaker for the good countryside good cow life, let's pretend the Eyepocalipse never happens and no one is likely a compurter program)

Sasha - Genius, Good, Geek

Aspiration: Nerdy Brain

Not-Sasha - Evil, Mean, Kleptomaniac (stoled some tapes)

Aspiration: Chief of Mischief (I hear you Public Enemy fans but Chief of Mischief has Tormentor as a bonus trait so...)

Tim - S1/S2: Bro, Outgoing, Adventurous

S2/s3: Hot Headed, Gloomy, Adventurous

Aspiration: Extreme Sport Enthusiast (for all the kayaking; other sugestion is Serial Romantic, for all the cop seduction as unfortunally revenge isn't a sims 4 aspiration but maybe there is a mod? Would sugest looking for it)

Basira - S3: Bookworm, Dog Lover, Loyal

S4: Dog Lover, Ambitious, Genius

Aspiration: Nerdy Brain (baby just wants to read and chill)(I'm unsure of her traits cause I actually think she just has all 5 and picking the more evident per season was hard. I feel very proud of Dog Lover for her tho, she loves her werewolf wife)

Daisy - Hunt: Mean, Hot-Headed, Loyal

Post Hunt: Dog Lover, Loyal, Active

Aspiration: Lone Wolf/ Inner Peace (she changes aspiration, also sugestion werewolf, the lone one is cause Basira is all the pack she needs)

Georgie - Foddie, Outgoing, Catlover

Aspiration: Computer Whizz (unsure what do with aspirations for her, I also considered Neighboorhood Confidant for the cult and also how protective she is of her people and Master Actress for the matress add, on the other hand is fundamental you buy the brave bonus trait for her)

Melanie - Slaughter: Hot Headed, Mean, Erratic

No Slaughter: Hot Headed, Geek, Romantic

Aspiration: World Famous Celebrity (with her yt channel)/ Archeology Schoolar (is the closest to non moded paranormal specialist sorry)

Elias- Actually Jonah (that bitch): Evil, Self-Absorved, Genius

Aspiration: Public Enemy (it's the cloest to king of the broken world and it's trait is mastermind, would also recomend Seeker of Secrets for it's beholding energy, tbh he should have both)

OG Nepo Baby: Bro, Lazy, Slob

Aspiration: Fabulosly Welthy (he already is but wants to keep being without having to rly work for it)

Peter: Loner, Evil, Child of the Ocean

Aspiration: Sucefull Lineage (hear me out: that's the whole Lukas thing ok? Also isolating people is not a valid option)

Gertrude: Genius, Ambitious, Self-Assured

Aspiration: The Positivity Challenge (?) (Is the closest to stopping rituals ig, if you find smt better please please tell me)

Gerry (my son): Bookworm, Gloomy, Music Lover

Aspiration: The Positivity Challenge (?) (again burning Leitners, stopping rituals, other better ideias would be appreciated)/ Painter Extraordinary (this one was added rn while formating the list for Tumblr and is inspired by happy Gerry from TMAGP : ) )

Michael Shelley- Assistant: Loyal, Good, Clumsy

Aspiration: Friend of the World

Distortion: Eratic, Evil, Insider

Helen Richardson: Non-Comital, Ambitious, Self-Assured

Aspiration: Mansion Baron

Distortion: Eratic, Evil, Cheerfull

(Unsure what the distortion really wants, so my sugestion for aspiration is either whatever the players wants or just keep changing it at random lol)

Agnes (my gal): Romantic, Gloomy, Self-Assured

Aspiration: City Life (because she scaped the cult)/ Soulmate (be it that guy or Gertrude)

Annabelle (my problematic fave): Ambitious, Perfecionist, Genius

Aspiration: I'm unsure maybe Public Enemy for the evil plot + mastermind trait or Friend of the Wolrd but friend is in quotation marks for her.

[lucidfairies]

hi 🫡

. yes that is me embarrassing the shit outta myself (I actually sent that to a handful of girls)

i. for those of you who may not know, i'm maya. i'm 18, i'm typically a masculine presenting lesbian and I happen to be a she/her. I also am unfortunately asexual

• everyone meat riding rn about why I read and write so much smut as an asexual, I would love for you to know that I'm fighting a losing battle with hypersexuality! that is all I will be sharing on that matter thank you. •

ii. I'm proficient at finding people's instas whether they wanna be found or not!! if this relates to you, you may want to hmu.

iii. um I'm single if that wasn't clear from the kicker.

iv. I have severe Audhd and I have OCD but I don't really count that because you can't really tell it's there. I'm a POTS and scoliosis survivor

(can u tell idk what the hell I'm doing)

v. I will drop my socials if you so want them but I would prefer u DM me cuz I don't need my public insta in tumblr comments tbh (I have insta, tiktok, discord, snap, so on so forth)

vi. I'm still in high school LMAOOO pls I'm not less than eighteen guys don't worry but I aspire to be in the military but I'm taking a gap year

vii. I've been writing since like third grade but over quarantine my parents kinda banished me to our basement and I was doing a lot of things I shouldn't have been doing but now I'm sorta good at writing !!

viii. fics are kinda a side gig, I do write real shit here and there but there's genuinely no point so idk why I do it

ix. I'm what people like to call a whore except I don't fuck around I just talk to like nine people at once (hop off my dick rn)

x. I'm hilariously funny if you ever wanna strike up a conversation

xi. I'm down for ANY conversations. you wanna talk about what kinks some random bitch has based on their appearance? let's talk about it. wanna tell me about the sex you had last night? I'll go get a snack. I don't get triggered by really anything so if u need an outlet, I'm right here bb

xii. I actually have a massive gyatt

xiii. I can curl a lot of lbs and um I can bench some too and I guess do leg stuff (gym girlies rise)

xiv. I'm Jewish but not like Jewish my fam just is, I am probably one of the furthest things from religion and I don't hugely support organized religion (my fav way to describe it is being Jew-ish)

xv. I am a leftist through and through (pro choice, pro science, pro gays, Black lives matter, stop Asian hate, in case you needed clarification on that one) and I avoid knowingly being friends with Republicans at all costs

xvi. I am pro Palestine, nothing anyone will say or do could change my stance on that one.

xvii. I have a cat + dog

xviii. I don't get cold like ever cuz I ski in like 10° weather all winter

xix. I have Duolingo and if u wanna beef it out w a quest then I am definitely down for that because I will beat you (I'm learning Hawaiian and Hebrew)

xx. I'm fluent in German and speak it at home w the fam and I know some Spanish + French

xxi. juice boxes > anything

xxii. some more pics of me will follow whenever I stfu

xxiii. I stand at a whopping six feet tall but I swear I have short person energy

xxv. in my personal opinion I have huge dick energy but you're welcome to put me in my place (I'm a switch and I'll cook for you)

xxiv. if your snap score is more that 300k we can't be friends I'm sorry (mine is 100k suck my c o c k)

xxvi. best position is doggy but I can be persuaded into something different

xxvii. CUNT

xxviii. uhhhh I'm from the East Coast of America so l operate in EST time

anyway it was nice getting to talk about myself for a long time 🫡 feel free to make numerous comments about my life in the comments

anyway y'all here are some for faceless pics that are guaranteed to make u cream (see, hilarious)

sayonara sistas

[zzencat]

Hello! Just dropping by to say that you seem such a good person, and I love how eloquent you are. Whenever your posts reach my dash, I can't help but read the content even if it isn't connected to me whatsoever. I aspire to be as good with words as you are. 🤍 Also, I love the energy you pour into each reading. I can tell you're a fun person to be around!

Have a great rest of your day! And I wish you the best in your academic pursuits. 🌟 You stay cool and hydrated!

Oh to be called eloquent…that’s…one of the kindest things I’ve ever heard tbh 🥹 thank you so much fam for the high praise I honestly have no words 😮‍💨😮‍💨 you actually knocked the wind of me with that

For someone who struggles a lot with adhd, being called eloquent is one of the last things that I’d expect to be praised for (not that adhd people can’t be eloquent, I just know it’s not a specialty of mine hahaha) so I really appreciate hearing this — all of your ask — more than you know.

But you’ll find your own way of speaking!! Something that’s natural to you, effortless 😎👍 I’m no god with words fam you already have that power inside of you :)

Damn I…I honestly don’t know what else to say aside from a big fat THANK YOU to you!!! It needs to be framed on a neon sign haha. From the bottom of my heart, soul, and whole being! I hope your week goes smoothly and you stay hydrated yourself aight??? Take your breaks and eat sum snacks 😎

[suzannahnatters]

My final Love Like the Galaxy reaccs!!! the tl;dr:  I loved it and it's the sort of show that probably demands to be seen twice because TWISTS and HINDSIGHT so IDK, one day maybe! Anyway it's either on Viki or on YouTube for anyone who wants to see what happens when Jane Austen comedy of manners meets The Count of Monte Cristo, but, like, in Ancient China, featuring an epic romance between a naive sledgehammer engineer girl and the terrifying murder general who cannot help looking utterly besotted with her every time she drifts past: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZZZLpfFwcBprNI6msl3NWt3pdX6F-eGs And now: for the reaccs for episodes 43-56, including the famous Murder Party (TM), check under the cut!!!

If Yang Yang ends up with Smug Scholar instead of her sweet little marquis I WILL throw things (thankfully, the sweet little marquis is getting actual screentime with her)

oh I LOVE this: the Empress apologises to Consort Yue for stealing her husband, and Consort Yue points out that if it's anyone's fault it's the Emperor's, and why should the Empress apologise? it's the little things, you know?!

I love that in amongst all this scowly strategising and betrayal and people's families in mortal danger…there's a whole running joke about whether the armour Niao Niao made her beloved makes him look more like a chicken or a mandarin duck

cdramas asking the real questions

wow they really kept like 90% of the action budget for this episode and money well spent say I

once again murder general is rushing off to save our girl, only this time he guesses precisely where she is and what she's doing, and knows she's probably doing a great job of it :')

GASP we are suspicious of Elder Brother Snacks now???

I've got a bad feeling about him and the crown princess turning out to be bad eggs - almost as though we're building up to a BIG BETRAYAL between our babies

Wan QiQi swaggering into prison in a wedding dress is the energy I aspire to

Hmm… Lou Ben feels very very foreshadowy of an obsessive man making a self destructive choice to grab what he wants no matter how it hurts the woman he loves

All the foreshadowing is REALLY mounting up now - Snacks still caring about NN but not wanting to see her after what she's done, NN observing of another couple that they were birds on the same tree but flew apart when trouble came

Anyway we are all headed for a heck of a third act breakup aren't we

is zisheng,,, allergic to almonds

what an absolutely bonkers twist

poor little Wang Ling! how terrible does her family have to be that she is trying to save her murderous traitor of an elderly husband, just because he treated her better than anyone else in her life?

"he even had a flower garden planted in my courtyard to please me, although he has life-threatening asthma! which means that he can't visit me very often! he's the best husband, Niao Niao!" okay Mrs Charlotte Collins

"Cheng Shaoshang, it seems you really don't know anything about Ling Zisheng" OOOOOOHH

Smug Scholar: a voice of reason. a stickler by the rules. an indefatigable drama queen who is quite ready to beg murder general to go right ahead, be his guest, do crime, because then Smug might get to marry Niao Niao instead

torture is always wrong, revenge kids! that said, it's very funny that murder general has been busy with hot iron and boiling oil all night and found out nothing, while NN has put herself fully abreast of the situation armed with nothing more than…a conversation with a female acquaintance

"wait - all that stuff you did in my name was ALSO in pursuit of your revenge plot? who are you really?" this show keeps serving the best stuff

matching bite marks on the arm is a way cooler idea than matching tattoos tbh

why are you not telling her, zisheng, she already knows!!!

she's sworn up and down (with bitten arms!) that she won't mind, it's keeping this from her that she can't forgive, get a clue!!!!!

ooooo - we have been cordially invited to a MURDER PARTY love the gearchange from Jane Austen Romcom to Jacobean Revenge Tragedy

OK LET'S GO, WHERE'S THAT MURDER PARTY I WAS PROMISED

Glad that we were given this scene of Marquis Chengyang being delusional and Chunyu being Justly Terrified that the young man obsessed with revenge has finally agreed to come to his father's birthday party, it doesn't quite explain how nobody realises this is Very Bad News but at least lampshades it

Since filial piety is the norm in this society, I guess it's hard for the elders to realise just how at risk they are from someone unfilial!

I LOVE that Chunyu (sp? the stepmother) gets a whole speech to point out the hypocrisy of HER continually bearing the blame of "climbing into the master's bed" after so many ppl in the show have ridiculed her for it as though it wasn't a decision made by the marquis

oooooooooooohhh this is amazing: Yang Yang is disturbed that NN's farewell before the wedding sounds like she doesn't ever intend to return home. and from NN's response, she KNOWS murder general is about to do something crazy and is fully prepared to suffer the consequences alongside him

it's…really amazing that during the stretch of the cdrama when the male lead traditionally starts Machinating and Scheming and lying to the female lead about it, THIS show keeps the heroine's agency intact, she sees right through his lies, she is still front and centre. Chef's kiss.

she knows where it's happening; she knowns when it's happening; she's sending someone for news. she's amazing and so are these writers.

meanwhile: murder general refusing to enlighten the marquis as to his true identity is Irene of Athens-level pettiness and I love it

the way this show keeps this whole episode focused on the story's main character even though she has little to do with -

oh wait never mind she has decided to involve herself anyway!!! now we get the entire Cheng family charging into battle? with NN at their head on a black horse? EPIC?????

well THAT was the best of Jacobean revenge tragedy

shocked to discover that Zisheng has Always Known who was really behind the fall of the lone city - he's just been quietly, methodically working through the destruction of all the perpetrators, COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO style

I love a protagonist who holds cards so close to his chest that not even the audience knows what's going on

more than that, it really adds nuance to the show's themes about revenge. Sometimes the system is broken, & even in a good system people will sometimes get away with murder. What to do then?

I can't support the vindictiveness of the leads (& I'm not sure I'm meant to) but as revenge plots go, I like the weightiness of the themes - how to fight for yourself in a world where laws and manners tell you you shouldn't? - better than Dumas' more superficial take.

where did these two henchmen come from, because they are NOT being paid enough to be part of this absolute disaster

also WHEE Niao Niao gets to swoop in and save HIM for once! Well done our girl!

oh what an idiot. what an absolute peanut.

I was pulling for you, murder general, but I'm not sure how you'll manage to come back from doing the One Thing (abandoning her) she asked you not to do

she's still calling him by his false name T_T

something something she only ever knew him by his false name and identity not his true one

moment of silence, please, I'm experiencing an emotion

well, duh - of COURSE Third Prince is here to collect NN to go help him plead for murder general, who has obviously been quietly helping him all along. even better: we don't know if NN is just figuring this out now or has known it for months but she understands it perfectly, just like we do, the moment she sees Third Prince's face

!!! murder general has been deceiving everyone in so many other ways too???????

it's not just that he knew all along who was responsible for the lone city's fall and has just been working silently to gather evidence on them: he ALSO has been playing four dimensional speed chess with palace politics, supporting a totally different faction to the one he was supposed to be aligned with?

IT WAS HIM IN THE PAGODA ALL ALONG????

I just love the sort of character who plays certain things SO close to the chest while also being utterly open and vulnerable about certain other things. like, as long as we trust their judgement for hiding the certain things and know it's not for purposes of control. and while NN does interpret his secretiveness as control, due to her upbringing, it's also easy in hindsight to see things from zisheng's POV: he is playing not one but several high stakes political games, treading a tightrope between the prince he is supposed to be supporting versus the prince who would clearly be a better choice, and now suddenly thrown into the middle of all this is a naive and well-meaning sledgehammer fiancee who is an absolute force of nature but who is not yet quite insightful enough to see and understand where the deep waters run; she's simply driven by personal loyalty to protect her empress' son. and she keeps forcing choices on him: protect her, or serve the Third Prince? and he makes tremendous sacrifices, as with the Tiger Tally, to save both of them. so is he going to take the risk and tell her and trust in her, or is he going to keep her in the dark just about this, until the game is over (it's so close to being over) and he can be as candid about these things as he can be about everything else?

but at the same time, he was so frustrated with her for not being candid with him, for not telling him when the mean girls tried to KILL her, for lying to him about choosing to help the crown prince - he should have known better than to reproach her about this when he was doing exactly the same things to her all along.

I love that the show just doesn't support him in this. for two people who both say they want to work as a team, these two both spend an awful lot of time keeping things from each other. and it's only after going away and thinking about it that I start to see his side of the story at all, because she is so totally front-and-centred in the way the story is told.

oh wow - now she gets a whole speech and thesis statement about how just because she's a woman she shouldn't be shut out of her husband's confidence, and ends: "Ling Buyi is my most beloved person in the world. But I am still me."

I love this show so much

It's really wild that murder general, who everyone knows went on a murderous rampage to kill the entire Ling clan, goes from being condemned to death to the apple of the emperor's eye based on his surname changing

no doubt it's historically accurate and murder uncle, at least, deserved it - but for me it's just another sign of how irretrievably this system is broken, that bloodline so clearly outweighs right and wrong.

I'll be chewing over the question of whether this last-minute aversion of filial impiety ("it's ok! he was doing it to avenge his REAL father!") undermines NN's previous point about the right to filial reverence depends on a parent's conduct, or whether it's an author's saving throw to secure a HEA

"but I can never forgive him for abandoning me - he even swore it was for my sake" aha! How To Critique The Break Her Heart To Save Her Trope (Without Actually Using The Trope??????) this show didn't HAVE to hunt down and kill every bad Asian drama romance trope like this but is that stopping it? no

Empress telling NN that whatever decision she makes, she will support her in - hits like a punch because the only person who's told her this till now is murder general. On the other hand it is comforting, and underlines the themes of NN being a whole person without him, bc she still has love and support!

as an aside, I also like how the show has handled NN's terrible parents. by the end of the show, she's fought for, and won, their respect and support, & has come to understand the pressures they are under. but she will never love them the way she loves the Empress, bc they haven't earned that love. I feel this consolidates the filial piety critique.

we finally get to hear murder general's side of the story - and it's fascinating to hear him say that he failed. he did everything to bring ling yi to justice - and couldn't. the murder party was his failure.

I'm finding the murder party less problematic at this point than the Censorate beating

whoah, the empress is sailing in to admit that she spoiled her children until they were useless, so she's not upset about the crown prince being demoted? seems a rather unfortunate theme if children are only ever bad because of bad parenting

NN still taking absolutely no prisoners in the romance, though: "oh, I understand you perfectly. the problem is that you never understood ME" that's quite a burn

The Empress is now requesting to be deposed, and it's a complicated scene - is she blaming herself, or voicing regrets? I think she's regretting not fighting for herself: as she points out, her accepting a menage a trois has not spoiled Consort Yue's life so much as it has spoiled her own chance at love.

while the show has sometimes been finger-wagging, it's saved here bc she also blames the Emperor for going along with the flow, too, and tamely accepting a three-way marriage.

meanwhile at home, everyone's like "Niao Niao is so mature now!" and I'm sitting here like NO SHE'S NOT, SHE'S HAD ALL THE HAPPINESS CRUSHED OUT OF HER and…….along comes Not-Quite-So-Bad-Mum to say that precise thing, and confess to having been wrong all along???? This show just keeps hitting.

Love that NN's 3rd brother is completely on her side at this moment. he understands the assignment ("break up with murder general and send him away with a flea in his ear") and executes it with prejudice.

oh…mum has repented too late. I'm not sorry for her, but I AM sorry for the way NN chooses to spend the next forever - when there were so many things she wanted to see and do!

and now: five years' worth of mutual pining in excruciatingly aesthetic slomo, thank you

meanwhile everyone in the Cheng family is getting married? Yang Yang is getting married? Mum's warrior maid is getting married? Good for you warrior maid!

Smug Scholar, otoh, has remained UNmarried for our girl, and I actually love the choice he's presenting her - NN doesn't much care who she marries if it's a business arrangement; she just won't marry the man she loves knowing he was willing to lie to her and abandon her

is it really weird that I suddenly want to write the story about the coldly pragmatic fake marriage of convenience between NN and Smug Scholar

!!!! she IS going to get engaged to him??? murder general is going to come back from five years of picturesquely scruffy suffering to find her engaged to Smug Scholar??!?!?!!!??!

oh this will be GOOD

"thanks, but I can ride without stirrups these days" I love that this show is allowing the heroine to establish a life of her own apart from the hero - they have to be complete on their own before they can be good for each other.

and now: a break from reality for an absolutely bonkers carriage chase, which, because this is a cdrama, comes complete with one of the parties trying to extort a proposal of marriage from the person chasing them

I swear this is the third time this exact same cliff has cropped up in this show, one would think that people would know better than to gallop madly down the DEAD END CLIFF ROAD

Empress pays her last respects to the emperor: "I know that if it wasn't for Emperor Li's tyranny you would have asked nothing more than to live a simple life" LIESSSS this man requires a constant stream of drama to live, how would he have survived as a gentleman farmer?

"if you are truly filial, don't exchange your life for mine. Live well." while this show has come down in the end in favour of filial piety, I think that for the most part it keeps filial piety where it belongs: subordinate to ethics - and that's something I can get behind.

With NN decided that murder general is not the man for her and murder general determined to accept her decision, I really don't see how this will get believably sorted out in the next…3 eps. Bc she's absolutely right, he had his chance and he blew it. That said, I was really worried the show would blame her for being unreasonable, but only the recent antagonist has done that

even NN's mother is now telling him: we don't need you to perform guilt for us, we also had our chance with NN and blew it, now we can only defer to her conscience AND YOU SHOULD TOO

so, I guess we're headed for an "undeserved grace" ending, and I hope they make it a convincing one and not cheap, bc it's too late to show him doing any work to prove his repentance.

oh I love this scene: she tells him she forgives him but cannot trust him, and he without defending himself, vows to live well and take care of himself (because quietly protecting the people she cares about is the one last thing he can do for her)

and he won't ever tell her that he's been doing this because he knows it would only make her despise him more!!!

time for the bad family to apologise, the grandmother in particular for trying to control her children, and Niao Niao to decide no longer to carry resentment, but to dwell on the people who love her instead

I love that the themes have largely to do with resisting control, even when it's from family members, and fighting for yourself. Even more, I love that the highest expression of this theme comes in the trust there's supposed to be between husband and wife. Sometimes, lack of communication IS an attempt at control - although on thinking it over I'm not sure it always has been that on murder general's side. but if there's one thing the past five years must have taught him, it's that he's going to have to be be particularly open with this particular woman, because her family HAS tried so hard to be controlling in the past, and she can't take even the appearance of it from him.

somehow, yet another of NN's old enemies has an overly complicated plan to kill her sigh

loving how murder general jumps into this trap and promptly becomes useless and it's time for the lil henchmen to save the day

stop shouting his name and figure out how to open the trapdoors Niao Niao, smoke inhalation is no joke

murder general looks amazing for someone who was just blown up

TEARFUL RECONCILIATION SCENE

ahaha Snacks has fallen in love with his wife, we love to see it

Smug Scholar, meanwhile (exact words): are you all done flaunting your love?

EXPLODING PICKLES

flailing I love it NN is deploying her secret weapon….the family Cheng

"you can't be in two places at once, General!"

maybe not, but wifey and he can

"i'd like to see who interferes with my best granddaughter's marriage!"

*smash cut to the emperor having a hissyfit because he can't interfere with the marriage *

it's over? pokes couch cushions for spare episodes

OK I LOVED that murder general's grand gesture in the final ep comes in the form of a dilemma. should he go rescue his beloved as everyone is telling him - or should he stay on task, submit to everyone's ridicule for not protecting his woman, and risk her thinking he's abandoned her again?

his answer shows that at last, he has come to truly understand her (five years after she told him he'd never understood her). it's not physical abandonment she truly fears. what she fears is not being trusted & allowed to act as his equal. So he leaves her to protect Guo village while he stays on HIS task. His grand gesture, after so many rescues, is not to rescue her at all.

SCREAMING at that moment when Third Prince is like, seriously, mate, you'd better not abandon her! she needs help!!! go on I'll be fine!! and Zisheng VISIBLY WAVERS and then pulls himself together and shouts GUO VILLAGE HAS NIAO NIAO! GUO VILLAGE WILL BE FINE!!!

since the root of the contention between them was always him not treating her as an equal, this is probably the best proof of change we could get in the screentime. and the show is very insistent to tell us that if NN bends to take him back, it's because it's what SHE wants, not bc she can't survive without him.

the show does give her that moment of fright during the explosion to rush her past her abandonment issues, but since the real issue was always about control, I can make my peace with it. Similarly, she taught him a 5-year lesson about not consulting her. He knows - & her family makes it explicit - that he can never pull something like this again.

final overall thoughts: I have rarely seen such a well done romance in Asian drama, especially cdrama. The show was long & got repetitive, especially in the 2nd half, even though it had some of my favourite stretches as NN starts fighting for respect & equality within her marriage.

The themes about family, state, and fighting for oneself got fingerwaggy at a lot of points, many side characters were brutally humiliated and many of the numerous female characters became nonsensically villainous just to give NN antagonists. So, I would say the show is quite flawed.

that said, what this show does well, it does SO WELL. I was absolutely invested in this romance to an extent that is very rare for me. I was delighted by the way the show critiques asian romance tropes, there's a wonderful Dumas-level revenge plot, the fight scenes while rare are terrific, the show remains laser focused on its female protagonist all the way to the end, and if you are not delighted by the utterly besotted looks murder general serves up five times per episode, I don't know what to do with you.

[thesweetestdevotion]

Celeb Reading:

Hello. I was wondering if you could do a reading on Charles Leclerc's future spouse? He's an F1 race car driver.

The one you did for Jackson Wang was very insightful and I'd love to read on Charles'

Thank you.

Hello! Never thought I’d get an F1 request! I also don’t know much about him 😭 seems to be a pattern for me lol, lets get into it!

Charles Leclerc’s Future Spouse

Dice: 7th House, Gemini, Sun

Tarot:

Personality: Nine of Coins, The Lovers, The World, King of Swords, The Star, The Empress, Knight of Coins Reversed, Page of Cups, Ten of Swords Reversed

As i begin this reading i heard the song “pretty woman, walking down the street…” don’t know what that’s about

This person seems to have it all. They feel very blessed, like they have all they need in this world. Im hearing comeback, “I just had a comeback, Im gonna get back up”, with the ten of swords reversed i can totally see that. Maybe they’ve seen some downfall in their life, but at this point they feel great and are already overcoming this situation. They feel nurturing and sweet, also very airy, they could be an air sign. I think they move fast! I just keep seeing them move so quickly, like a cat with zoomies hehe. I heard the song lyrics “are we going up, or just going down, it’s just a matter of time until we’re all found out” by fall out boy. They’re romantic and youthful, and yet I’m getting they might be slightly older than Charles. They’re very relationship oriented. I see that if/when they come together with Charles they’d work together very well. This person is also in the public eye here with the star, it feels they also have aspirations they haven’t reached just yet, but for now they feel fulfilled. They’re like a guiding star? Or Maybe Charles will see them this way. Easily bored, they hate stagnancy. The letter P could be significant here. I just heard olive-complexion, maybe they have that.

Career: The High Priestess, Knight of Swords, Five of Swords, The Magician, Page of Swords Reversed, Six of Swords

For their possible career I’m getting they have to travel, and very often. It’s a career where their intuitive senses are important, and they have to make fast decisions with high stakes. This is probably what has caused their past slump, and I’m also getting it’s not the only one they’ve had. It’s like they’re used to ups and downs in their career. I did say they are also in the public eye, I’m feeling they regularly experience the downsides of this. especially on social media with the page of swords reversed. The magician tells me they’re mostly in charge of their career, they seem in control of a big part of it. i did say they constantly make decisions, and i think they like this, they enjoy the stress a little. But i do see that they are often disappointed in their career. they seem to have to compete for greatness, or they just feel that way. It’s a fast paced career, one which demands their power of creation to be put to work constantly. Now, I’m not getting a specific career though, i think spirit is hiding it from me. Couldn’t tell you why tbh.

Their relationship: The Sun, Queen of Cups Reversed, Five of Coins Reversed, The Hanged Man, Knight of Cups, Queen of Wands Reversed, The Devil, Eight of Wands

The FS is very, very emotional, to the point its kind of a lot. But they’re also quick to move on from it, I get lunar energy from them. The moon changes signs every two-ish days so it goes through a lot of changes in one cycle. This tells me they’re moody, prone to lows as much as highs, but also ever changing in their energy. Charles will have to be aware of this when dealing with them hehe. Idk why but Charles feels more grounded here, so they’re a good mix. There is mutual obsession here, they will always want to be together. A lot of chemistry, maybe they connect through the internet? Or they text a lot, hehe. I see they’re prone to fights and arguments, but they’re also quick to move on. I think their positions in life cause them a lot of stress and they might end up taking it out on each other. They understand this so while they might tussle every once in a while, they don’t take it to heart. They’re protective of each other and they are very defensive!!! They’re like each other’s guard dogs wow. I do see that their relationship will be stagnant at times, it seems like there could be some external factors that affect the progress of the relationship. They’re quick to step back and give each other space whenever they need to, even in a marriage commitment. I just see they trust each other a lot, so its not like they take breaks for other people hehe. They’re veryyyy loyal, almost fixated on each other.

How They will meet:

I just heard “not your business” so I didn’t even pull cards for it lol. I don’t wanna intrude if they don’t fell like talking about it. Again, so protective. I wonder why they feel like they have to protect it so much. But I’m not gonna pry any longer hehe.

It was an interesting reading!! Charles seems like a cool guy. Hope you guys like this! xxx

[hwnglx]

Tbh, Kim Mingyu has this tall soft baby clumsy persona on the internet, but I wonder why does every reader say something nasty abt this man.. like a cheater even. Maybe sometime when you’re not super busy, you can make Real Kim Mingyu Personality Traits (like behind the scenes) idk i just trust ur readings so much, i know energies change but I just wanna hear the opinion/insights of the best reader here 😌 anyway i love reading your posts!! Lovelots bebe ❣️🫰🏻

just found this in my inbox, you're very sweet anon ᰔᩚ actually, i was pretty intrigued to read on mingyu's actual personality in contrast to how idols perceive him, since that can obviously differ in a variety of ways, and more often than not does not reflect someone's true colors. funnily enough, i've read for mingyu more briefly once before, and i remember his energy being surprisingly mature and not necessarily "nasty" (of course these things also depend on personal perception) what i can't deny is that he does seem to enjoy sleeping and flirting around women a lot. but can't lie, at this point it's more surprising for me to read on a male idol who doesn't lmao.

the way in which we view people very often has more to do with us than it has to do with them. in my reputation readings, i can often tell that it's common for (especially male) idols to be incredibly insecure.. a lot of comparisons being made (the environment they're in kinda sets them up for that unfortunately..) so they feel easily threatened by idols they identify as someone they aspire to be. this rings true in mingyu's case too, but i remember it was fiercely similar in wonyoung's reading, as well as a reading for sakura's reputation i did recently. so much bitterness, hurt egos and jealousy taints the way idols tend to look at each other. which as a result, for sure made me curious to know how much of my reputation readings corresponds with the idols' true colors. what others see of us is obviously very surface, and definitely not a direct reflection of our inner heart and soul.

i'm sure i'll come around to read more on mingyu too. personality readings are probably my favorite, just because i find human beings to be so multi-layered and fascinating.

[just-some-guy-joust]

Just Some Guy OC Tourney - Side B: Round 2

Rules:

do NOT be mean to anyone or any characters in these polls. you MUST clarify if you are joking/teasing or you will be blocked. if you are someone who entered an oc into this and you are mean to other contestants you will be disqualified

do NOT claim a character doesn't deserve to be here. yes including your own. be nice

if you are posting propaganda you have to @ tag us, including if your propaganda is in the reblogs. it is difficult to tell when something is or isn't propaganda. anything not tagging us will likely be missed

please don't hesitate to let me know if i messed something up!

have fun, hype each other up <3 thank you

Zena | She/her/hers, it/its/its, and ze/zir/zirs, but all pronouns are acceptable | @spark-ocblog (CW: mentions of blood and murder on this blog)

Zena works a variety of retail jobs and lives in a boring, cheap, low-quality apartment. She is entirely oblivious to the various supernatural happenings in the town she's in, despite being one of the oldest supernatural creatures in the area. It likes to participate in mundane human activities for fun, such as "Lie Down On A Cushion For Eight Hours With Your Eyes Closed," and "Pet Animal." Zir biggest worries are busy shifts and managing human finances.

~

Levi | He/him | @cyikess

An unwilling chronic isekai protagonist. He can't catch a break! He keeps getting thrown to new and different fantasy/sci-fi/whatever worlds when all he wants is his normal life back. He's just a guy!

~

Full images and descriptions under the cut!

Zena is an immortal plant spirit who really wants to participate in human life. After zir move to the city, ze hops from job to job trying to sample the human experience as best ze can. She tries to keep a houseplant and care for it manually (without any magic) and it dies immediately. She's aromantic and orchidsexual, but alloplatonic. It's very awkward trying to socialize with its coworkers, especially because its first language is not a verbal one. Ze's very easily tricked and oblivious to many things... including the many witches in the area that stop by the cafe ze waitresses at. The cafe is perfectly normal, but its primary clientele is criminals and illegal magic users from the surrounding area (just because of where it's situated, locationally). She sticks out like a sore thumb because her human disguise isn't particularly stealthy, but most people politely assume her appearance is due to some sort of curse and avoid commenting on it. It likes reading corny romance novels and hanging out with people in its spare time. It's autistic and obsessed with puns, and fascinated by human languages. Zir whole entire aspiration is basically to be just some guy.

He is one of the guys ever tbh. All this crazy shit happens to him/around him and he stays normal! This crazy shit includes being sent to other worlds again, and again, and again. He does not know why this is happening. And in all these worlds there's cyborgs, and non-humans, and all sorts of people and then there's him. With his stupid glasses and failboy energy. Love him. All my friends love him too. He's even on my water bottle!