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miraculouslbcnreactions · 25 days

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Thank you for answering my Origins Dragon!Marinette and Turtle!Adrien question! Please don’t worry about disagreeing with the idea; I asked for YOUR opinion and analysis on why it would OR wouldn’t work, and that’s what I got. 😌 It also made me consider meta and in-show stuff that I hadn’t before, which is cool. You mentioned wanting all of the Kwamis to be part of some sort of set of two or more, and I’d love to hear what those sets are in your head going down the full Chinese Miracle Box list and why you’d pair them together with consideration towards both the Kwami themselves and their Powers.

(Post this ask is referring to)

Oh good, I'm glad that you found it useful and not discouraging!

Talking about how to pair the Kwamis is a little tricky because of an issue that I've discussed before. That issue being that the "Chinese" miracle box seems to be about as Chinese as fortune cookies. That makes me uncomfortable because - as far as I'm aware - the Chinese zodiac is a major part of Chinese beliefs and traditions. As such, I personally feel like the box should reflect those beliefs and traditions, but I also don't know those beliefs and traditions, so I can't tell you how I'd effectively group the zodiac Kwamis in order to honor their cultural origins. I can't even be sure if my criticism is valid or just me being overly cautious!

In an ideal world where I had money to invest in this sort of thing, I'd hire a cultural consultant to work with me to design a Chinese miracle box that feels Chinese (or to tell me that I'm overthinking this and to just do whatever I want). Assuming that I'm not overreacting, this would probably mean redesigning a lot of the powers and looks so that they honor Chinese lore and not Western lore.

For example, one thing that I know for sure is that black cats are not unlucky in China. They're actually symbols of good luck (all cats are), so a Chinese box would not have the implied good luck/bad luck thing that we get with Ladybug and Chat Noir. My limited research has also raised some doubts about ladybugs being a go-to symbol of good luck or creation in China, but I'm a lot less confident about that one being a bad choice as the association may exist. I couldn't find anything definitive one way or the other. This leads me to think that, if the association exists, then it's probably a bit obscure, meaning that a Chinese box would probably go with a different animal if we were trying to be culturally accurate to what a Chinese-inspired box would really look like.

I can say with reasonable certainty that Creation is associated with the masculine yang and Destruction is associated with the feminine yin, so Tikki should possibly feel masculine to feminine Plagg. At the very least, their spots in the miracle box should probably be reversed with Plagg in the black and Tikki in the white since yin is black and yang is white?

[Image Description: center of the original miracle box showing that ladybug earrings are placed in the black part of the yin yang symbol while the black cat ring is in the white]

I also known that white rabbits being associated with time, watches, and umbrellas comes from Alice in Wonderland and not China. Are you starting to see why I'm doubting the cultural accuracy of the miracle box?

The alternate way to approach this is to remove the possible issue of Chinese culture being treated as "mystical" or nothing more than ornamentation by making the Chinese miracle box into the miracle box of no specified culture. Since that's kind of what the box already is in terms of deeper meanings and cultural ties, I think we can go that route for this discussion since we have taken a moment to acknowledge the potential issues with the box's existing design and why that's leading me to take this route as - to me - this seems to be the only way to stick to canon's lore while avoiding potential further insults to Chinese culture.

If we went to my ideal extremes with this approach, we'd actually massively cut down the number of miraculous in the box because I think that there are way too many miraculous! Who needs nineteen "unique" powers to arm and fight one villain? This is extra true since there's no real theme to the miraculous beyond the initial setup of Creation/Destruction + five random powers followed by the addition twelve more random powers with no clear ties to any culture or theme other than the look of the Kwamis that grant the powers.

But that's getting real extreme, so for this ask, we won't go there. Instead, I'll talk about some general ideas for grouping the powers that we already have and some ideas for how you could fix the randomness of our current powers to make them feel like they make sense.

To start, I love the fact that our two main heroes are supposed to be a pair power wise. That's a lovely way to approach your lore and is why I think that they should have grouped the other miraculous, too. Why are Creation and Destruction the only set? Why aren't the others in any sort of group? Why do these miraculous have the powers they do? What ties them to this box and not another box?

There are a few ways to approach pairing the other miraculous. You can come at it from a theme perspective such as the fact that both the snake and the rabbit are all about time. You can also look for opposites such as the turtle being all about defense and the dragon being more about offense. You can even go more broad and say that a given group of miraculous is all aspects of one type of power such as the peacock, the goat, and the ladybug all feeling like aspects of creation. There's really no clear way to go about this because the current powers are so freaking random!

When I approach this stuff, I don't just come up with powers. I come up with the lore and let that help guide the powers or I shape the lore around the powers I want to use until both things make sense. For example, it makes sense that Creation would have some magical being guiding it. It also makes sense that Creation would either create Destruction for balance or that they both popped into existence together so that there was always a balance. Once you have that, you say, "Okay, what other Forces would these two want in order to help guide the universe? What can't they do or what do they do consistently enough that they might want to hand it off?"

Going from there, you start to come up with ideas like maybe they wanted Time to have a physical embodiment so that they could get some guidance on the long term effects of the things that they were making, so that's Fluff coming online. But Time is a lot and they liked their balance, so maybe Sass was brought online too in order to balance Fluff with Fluff being focused on what was and what could be while Sass is focused on what is, thereby giving Fluff someone to ground her. Or maybe you even add in a third Kwami to be some sort of historian who remembers the past while Fluff is the future and Sass is the now.

Another thought path is that most things are not pure Creation or pure Destruction. You must destroy to create. When you make bread, yeast consumes sugar to create air bubbles. Creation and Destruction working together. So maybe Tikki and Plagg wanted to make "children" who could do what they couldn't do solo and that's how we got the peacock?

No matter how you go about this, I really don't think that there's a great way to explain/group all nineteen miraculous, especially if you add in the eagle and Fei's wacky prodigious with it's animal abilities. It's just too random! But I do think that there's a lot of potential in strong subsets of the ones we get in canon, especially if you're allowed to edit the powers or the Forces a bit to make them fit their supposed Force or granted power better. I've talked before about how I'd mess with Lucky Charm to remove the odd Luck association and focus on Creation and that's what I'd do with most of the miraculous because, right now, most of them don't make much sense.

For example, Ziggy - the goat - is supposed to be the Kwami of Passion and that somehow gives the power to create anything you want? I know creatives are passionate, but that still doesn't fit in my mind. It would make more sense for this to be an inspiration power like the pig or for the Force to change to Creation and Ziggy is just a lesser ladybug for some reason? And Stompp - the Ox - is Determination, but I'd actually label his shield power as an aspect of Protection, making him in some sort of pairing with the turtle. Self defense verses defense of others?

In short, the canon lore is a disaster that needs major work to feel solid which leads to lots of paths for fixing the mess. In my opinion, the best way to go about fixing it is to take the element that worked best - the Creation/Destruction pairing - and expand that out to make strong, logical lore for the other Kwamis and their associated powers. Lore that probably won't be rooted in any one culture because no culture seems to be a solid match for the lore that canon is using, which is only concerning because of the current obvious associations with China and that's not even touching on the whole Tibetan monks + Chinese culture issue. Go check out the post I linked at the start for my thoughts on that which basically sum up to, "I am not even remotely qualified to talk about this one, but it seems like a terrible idea."

(Once again, reminder that I'm not Chinese or otherwise deeply informed on Chinese culture. I'm just a person who tries her best to respect other cultures and the miracle box sets off a lot of warning bells for me. Those warning bells could always be a false positive, so you shouldn't take my thoughts as some sort of final say on this topic. Please feel free to look into this on your own and form your own opinions.

If you are Chinese or otherwise educated in these topics, then please feel free to reblog this or send an ask giving me some additional context as I really do love learning about this stuff, but it's near impossible to research! I spent a good hour talking to a local librarian trying to find books or articles in our library that talked about the Chinese zodiac from an academic perspective and we found nothing. I've got a few interlibrary loan requests out to academic libraries in our library network though and I'll follow up on this if those books end up having information that adds to the discussion.)

#ml writing critical #ml writing salt #anon ask #lore discussion #I kept thinking I should bite the bullet and do more serious research on this topic since the box really does bother me #So thanks for getting me to finally do that anon!#There's a good chance that this will go nowhere though #I've heard elsewhere that it's really hard to research this kind of topic in the west #Most of the good resources supposedly come from China and are not translated #If they're even available in the west

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sarahowritesostucky · 9 months

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📖"First Taste"

Rated: Explicit

Pairing: Steve Kemp x reader

Tags: doctor/patient, medical kink, body image issues, oral sex (f!rec), fingering, dub-con, pussy worship, (inference of background cannibalism (b/c it's Fresh), but nothing to do with the plot or reader)

Summary: Steve Kemp sees a new patient for a consult about a rather ... intimate procedure.

Steve gets into the office at his usual time, coffee cup in hand as he catches the elevator. He sees Cassie jogging in from across the lobby in her colorful scrubs and holds the door for her. They greet one another amicably and ask how each other’s weekend was. She tells him about her new kickboxing class, he tells her about the pâté he made on Saturday.

“Liver?” She says dubiously as the two of them enter the office. She’s wrinkling her nose and laughing at him. “You’re some kind of Chef, Kemp.”

“I prefer the term gourmand. By the way is that Barbie on your—”

“Yep.” She goes behind the nurse’s station and hands him a clipboard. “Your morning appointments. Dr. Hickory went into early labor at like four am, so you’ve got some of hers.”

Steve’s eyebrows raise as he takes the clipboard and gives it a look. “What is she, thirty-eight weeks?”

“Thirty-seven.”

“Should be fine,” he mumbles. He frowns at one of the patient slots on his clipboard. “I see I have an FGM consult at eleven,” he says, eyes flicking peevishly back up to Cassie.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” she says, checking on her computer. “Yeah, Ms. Moreau. Be nice, she’s new.”

Steve narrows his eyes at the info. “You know I’ve tried to get away from doing those anymore,” he says, giving Cassie a look. Everybody in the office knows how he has a problem with the fact that Hickory’s turned their office into such a chop shop. Steve would’ve thought a woman would know better. Female solidarity, progressiveness, autonomy, kumbaya, whatever.

Cassie rolls her eyes at him. “Yeah yeah. Dr. Brendan the activist.”

“Hey, I told you, it’s—”

“‘Pathologizing the pussy’,” she recites with finger quotes. “We know.”

“Mm,” Steve grunts, assumes the ‘we’ is in reference to all the nurses at the practice. Those girls share a level of groupthink that is frankly eerie.

Steve works in plastics. He’s a vain man himself, so he knows he shouldn’t have gotten involved in a career field like this if he wasn’t prepared to be surrounded by other people’s body insecurities 24/7. It’s just… not how he pictured it.

Good thing he’s got this new side business venture going. He’s hopeful about it. Just last month he’d been able to send in the final payment for his student loans. Pretty soon he’ll have enough to get a house. He's entertaining the idea of a custom build, still scouting properties south of Portland. “I’ll see you later,” he tells Cassie. “Send my nine o’clock to exam three when they get here.”

“You got it.”

You arrive early for your appointment, plunking yourself down in the waiting room chair after the long walk from the train. You feel unpleasantly sticky underneath the cotton of your sundress. The office is cool, but it’d been hot outside. The near-boiling summer temperatures made you work up a sweat as you made your way across the city for this appointment.

Now, sitting in the chair, you can feel the sweat that’s formed on your body. It’s at your hairline, between your breasts and at the creases of your inner thighs. You worry about it, because soon you’ll be baring yourself to the doctor and you had specifically showered right before leaving for your apartment, used a pH balanced feminine hygiene product, just in case you were somehow scent blind to your own body. You didn’t want to be sweaty and gross when Dr. Hickory was going to be looking down there.

“Miss?” The receptionist smiles at you, holding out a clipboard from over the desk. “You need to fill this out, please.”

You stand, hurrying to go get it and the pen that she offers you as well. “Sorry,” you murmur. They’d told you that you would need to be there fifteen minutes early for paperwork. You return to your chair, feeling like such a hot sweaty mess, whereas the receptionist lady is so pretty and poised. You tuck some of your blonde hair back behind your ears and cross your ankles in an attempt to be even a fraction as put together as she is, you powder blue espadrilles knocking together as you prop the clipboard on your lap.

The office’s air conditioning is making the perspiration cool to your skin now, clammy and unpleasant. You read over the intake forms and fill them out. The second page has a line drawing of a naked woman’s body, front and back. It asks you to circle the areas you’re there to address. You bite your lip and circle the drawing’s pelvis. The anxiety you tend to get creeps back up on you, but you take a deep breath and let it out. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Dr. Hickory does this all the time. It’s her speciality. She will have seen it all, and you’ll be nothing new to her.

The door to the waiting room opens and a younger woman in hot pink scrubs peeks her head through. “Ms. Moreau?” she says brightly. She has café au lait skin, wild curly hair, and a genuine smile that helps put you at ease.

“That’s me.” You stand up, the only person in the waiting room. “Obviously,” you chuckle, grabbing your purse and following after her.

“I’m Cassie,” she introduces herself. “Hop on up here and let’s get your weight.” You step on the scale backwards and open your mouth to tell her that you don’t need to know the number, but Cassie cuts you off with a wry look. “Don’t worry,” she says, thumbing at her own chest. “I know how it is, girl.”

You flush and nod, glad that you don’t have to veer into that explanation. She records your weight on her clipboard and tells you to follow her to an exam room. Inside, she hands you a painfully thin paper gown and tells you that you can change. You fidget uncomfortably. “Um, actually I wore a dress so that she could just…” you make a gesture, “ah, dive right in. Is it alright if I just stay like this?”

Cassie nods and doesn’t try to foist the paper gown on you any further. “Have a seat,” she tells you. “The doctor is just finishing up with another patient.”

“Okay,” you whisper, getting up onto the exam table. After Cassie leaves, you look around the room, taking everything in. You’ve never been in a plastic surgeon’s office before. Everything looks just like any other doctor’s office would, except that instead of posters talking about BMI and heart disease, there are advertisements for laser therapies and Botox.

You spot a tray of breast implants over on a counter and can’t stop yourself from going over to look. You pick one up and poke at it, feeling it wobble in your hand. You giggle a little, before bringing it up to hold in front of your chest. Your own breasts haven’t ever bothered you much. They’re small-ish but have a good shape. One of your exes had complimented them excessively (though other parts had received thinly-veiled criticism). You pick up another of the implants, this one bigger and more viscous, and hold the two shapes up to each of your breasts, trying to imagine what it would look like…

“I wouldn’t recommend either of those for you,” a male voice cuts in, and you nearly jump out of your skin.

You spin around. You’re still holding the implants near your chest, startled as you blink at the man who’s entered the room. He’s wearing a doctor’s coat over scrubs, and his nametag says Brendan Kemp, MD. The bigger of the two implants rolls out of your lax hand, landing with a comical ‘plop’ right by your shoe. “Oh jeez. I’m sorry!” you say in a hurry, feeling like a child who’s gotten caught doing something bad. You rush to bend down and collect the implant from the floor. “Sorry I was just—”

The man steps closer with a smirk on his lips and gleaming eyes. He seems amused at you. “Everybody wants to grab the boobies,” he says, gently taking the implants out of your hands and setting them back onto the tray on the counter. “You’re fine, Ms. Moreau.”

You blink at him, stuck in place. He knows your name. “Oh,” you say, voice hushed, still embarrassed. This doctor is very good looking. He has a commanding presence, too. Something about his eyes draws you in, makes you want to be the object of his attention. He smiles warmly at you, perfect teeth flashing for a second, and you huff at yourself and try to laugh off your foolishness. “Yeah,” you mutter, rolling your eyes. “Guess I was just curious.”

“Hey, at least you weren’t juggling them. I walked in on that, once.” He winks. “What’s your accent? French Canadian?”

“Ah, y-yeah. I’m from—” You watch as he barely listens to your answer, his eyes sliding down to the level of your chest and staying there, assessing. You flush under the scrutiny. But you don’t feel like you can move away without being rudely dismissive. You squirm, uncomfortable. “Um, I’m not—”

“I’m Dr. Kemp,” he murmurs offhandedly, still staring at your chest. You see his hands twitch, as if he’s thinking of touching, but stopping himself. “A woman with your frame wouldn’t look right with ones that big,” he says, meaning the implants you’d just been holding.

You feel the need to defend your own taste. “Oh I know that. I wasn’t—”

“These,” he says softly, taking one of the more modestly sized implants from the tray and holding it up in front of you to see. You’re caught looking more at the sight of his strong, elegant fingers than you are the implant. “These would suit you better. Though I honestly wouldn’t recommend augmentation for you.” His eyes finally return to your face. “Your breasts are lovely.”

You feel your lips part in shock. “Um…” you feel an odd combination of flattery and confusion. Is it normal for a doctor to talk to a patient like this? Maybe it’s different with plastic surgeons, you think. They are paid to focus on their patients’ looks, after all. Comments on what is and isn’t aesthetically pleasing must be par for the course, here. “Thank you?”

But then there’s his gaze, the way he stares at you. It feels like he’s not just looking at your body for his job, but also looking for himself, as well. There’s too much interest there to be purely professional. Your breath catches when you feel your nipples starting to tighten beneath your dress, and sure enough, when you glance down they’re very visible through the fabric. Shit. You see Kemp’s eyes look back down.

“Sorry,” you say in a rush, turning away from his assessing gaze. You should’ve worn a bra, you chide yourself. You try to take a deep, stabilizing breath while you have your back to him. “I’m here for… for something else.” You look down at your pebbled nipples, which aren’t softening as much as you’d like, and you sigh in defeat. No doubt Dr. Kemp has seen plenty of nipples in his day. You need to just get over it. You turn around and climb back up to sit on the exam table, the paper crinkling under your butt as you settle. “I’m just waiting for Doctor Hickory,” you explain. “For a consult. They said she’s with another patient.”

Dr. Kemp sighs and holds up his clipboard. “Actually, that’s why I’m here. I’ll be seeing you today.”

“What?” You sit up straighter, alarmed. “But…” You’d specifically sought out a woman doctor for this. The idea of a man looking critically at you, there, is mortifying. “But, but Dr. Hickory—”

“Is having a baby,” Kemp says. “She went into preterm labor this morning. But we hear everything’s going well.” He smiles at you, as if this is good news. “She’ll be out on maternity leave for at least six months.”

“...Six months,” you repeat weakly. You hadn’t even known she was pregnant. They hadn’t said a thing to you when you made the appointment. You’d been counting on her being your doctor. And now this guy, this Dr. Kemp, was stepping in? You swallow nervously, uncomfortable with a man (let alone a very, very handsome man) being your doctor. Not for this. “Um, well I…”

Dr. Kemp is already looking over your chart on his clipboard. He’s going to see what you circled, you realize, mortified. You watch helplessly as he reads all of your private details. “Dr. Kemp…” you say meekly,

“You're here for a consult for…” he reads, eyes scanning further down the page. “Oh. You’re the Labiaplasty.”

You flush bright red at the word coming from his perfect mouth. You squirm uncomfortably. “Um, well… yes.”

“Don’t worry,” he tells you, placing a hand on your knee as if in comfort. He pulls it away before you can process it. “I’m more than familiar with the procedure. I trained down in L.A.” He says this like it’s supposed to explain something, and he winks at you again. It’s… upsetting.

You swallow thickly. “The thing is, I’d been hoping for a female doctor.”

Kemp’s eyes fly to your face as he realizes how uncomfortable you are. “Oh, Honey. I see.” You blush and he gives you a tender look. “You’re shy? That’s understandable.”

“Thank you, I—”

“But I’m sorry to tell you, Sweetheart, there aren’t any other women doctors in our practice.”

“Oh.” Your heart sinks. Getting this consult appointment had taken months, and you’d wanted to go to a place where you knew they were very good, very experienced. This place had been recommended as the best. “I see.”

Dr. Kemp looks pityingly at you. “Did you want to reschedule your appointment?” he asks gently. “Dr. Hickory won’t be taking new patients until after her leave, but I can have the receptionist take a look at next year’s calendar.”

You look at him with wide eyes, disappointed. “Next… next year?”

He makes an apologetic face. “Yeah, sorry.”

Sighing, you try to put on a brave face. You’re an adult, you tell yourself. Buck the fuck up. You’ve put up with male gynos before, after all. None of them ever looked like Dr. Kemp, but you shouldn’t hold the man’s good looks against him. He’s just here to do his job, to help you. “It’s okay,” you say, trying to approximate a friendly smile. “It’s fine. You can… you can be my doctor.”

Dr. Kemp’s eyes flash in satisfaction, but there’s something about it that’s more than just professional. “Good girl,” he says, and he says it all chipper and like it’s a normal thing to say to a patient, like it isn’t supposed to make your panties feel a little bit damp (and honestly, the sweetheart’s and the honey’s and the your breasts are lovely’s has probably contributed to the situation in your panties, too). “So,” Kemp says, sitting down onto the physician’s stool and rolling over. “Why don’t you tell me what makes you want this procedure.”

He’s giving you his full attention. He’s not even holding the clipboard anymore, and you find that it’s nearly impossible to meet his gaze for long. You look down at your lap instead, at your clasped hands against the white fabric of your sundress as you tell him, “Um, well I guess I just don’t, ah, don’t really like how I look… down there.” You nearly whisper the last words, ashamed.

“What don’t you like about it?” he asks softly.

“It just doesn’t look right,” you say, echoing the things your boyfriend had told you, things that you couldn’t help but to come to see as true. “It’s too much. Too big. It looks like…” you can’t even bring yourself to say the words that he’d used. “It’s just not pretty,” you whisper, cheeks burning in shame. “I want it to be prettier. Like other girls.”

“Other girls,” he repeats. “What other girls are we talking about?”

You scoff quietly and frown at your lap. “Like… you know. Like what you see in, in—”

“Porn?” Kemp says, voice tight. When you look up you’re struck by his darkening expression. He looks pissed off. “Let me guess,” he says, jaw working. “Boyfriend?”

You gape at him. “Ahm… no. Ex-boyfriend,” you murmur. Dr. Kemp looks very displeased, and you shrink back into yourself. “Is it… isn’t this like, a common procedure?” you ask meekly, wary of the man’s expression. “I looked at the website. There were lots of before and after pictures.” When you don’t get a response, you prod, “Doctor?”

“Steve,” he says, his expression lightening up somewhat. “You can call me Steve.”

You glance at his name tag that says Brendan Kemp, MD. “But—”

He scoots forward and puts his hands on your knees, rubbing over them. It pushes the hem of your dress up by the barest degree, but you ignore it. He’s looking you closely in the eyes. He looks sweet, and kind. And because of how handsome he is, how sure of himself too, it’s intimidating as hell. “Why don’t I have a look first, hm?” he says. “Give you my professional opinion, before you go deciding what needs fixing.”

You gulp and manage a tiny nod. “O-okay.” This is the part you’ve dreaded. Dr. Kemp (Steve, he’d told you to call him, but that just makes this whole experience feel more uncomfortable, more personal) scrutinizing your most private place.

He pulls out the stirrups from the end of the table and instructs you to put your legs up. “Take your shoes and underwear off and get comfy,” he says, smiling nicely at you as he says it, as if “comfy” is something you could possibly be while doing this.

He scoots away on his rolling stool to go over to the room’s counter and don latex gloves, giving you an illusion of privacy as you untie the laces of your shoes and slip them off your feet. They land on the floor with a muted ‘clunk’, and you slide your panties down your legs and tuck them under your lower back. They have a little wet spot on them that you don’t want Dr. Kemp to see. You slide down the table and put your feet into the stirrups, getting into the familiar, yet never-not-humiliating, position. You feel impossibly exposed, the cool air hitting between your legs and making you want to close them. As a useless, last-ditch effort, you straighten out the fabric of your dress so that it covers you to your knees, serving as a sort of barrier between you and him. “...Ready,” you say quietly, when it seems that he’s not going to return without your say-so.

He sits on the stool and rolls up close between your legs. You start trembling a little and you shut your eyes to try and calm down. “...Hey,” Kemp says, getting your attention. When you open your eyes again you see him standing over you, looking at your face instead of between your legs. “Honey,” he says gently. “You seem really nervous.”

You wince. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He looks kindly at you. “I just wanted to double check. You didn’t indicate any history of sexual assault on your intake form.”

You blanch. “Oh! N-no I— nothing like that.”

“Okay,” he says gently, patting your knee again. “Just wanted to make sure.”

You’re struck by how sweet that is of him, and you try to relax to show him you’re grateful for his care. “It’s okay, it’s fine,” you tell him as he sits back down on the stool. “This just… sucks, you know?”

“Mm.” You gasp as his gloved hands appear on your ankles and give an indicative tug. “Scoot down closer to the end of the table, Sweetheart.”

Heat floods you as you do as you’re told, putting your ass right to the edge of the table like he wants. It’s so humiliating. You want to cover your face with your hands, only refraining by gripping the edges of the padded table instead.

“Shh. Good girl,” he praises you, and you feel your belly clench at the words. Below you, he chuckles and self consciousness floods you as you think of what he must be seeing. You’re suddenly, horribly curious if you’re at all wet. Good God, you hope not. But your panties had been damp, that one little wet spot on the crotch… You tense again as Kemp’s hands appear on the inside edges of your knees, pushing them apart. “Open up for me now.”

You realize you’d been closing your legs together somewhat. “S-sorry,” you whisper.

He rubs your inner thigh—close to the knee but still shocking. “It’s okay. I know this is hard. I can tell you’re a woman who doesn’t spread her legs for many men.”

Your lips part as your mind reels, offended and horrified that he’d say that. Nevermind that it’s true, or that it sounds like he’s praising you, like he’s just calling you a ‘good girl’ in a different way. You seal your lips shut to keep yourself from scolding him.

The next thing you feel is him leaning closer. You swear you can feel his breath down there, but surely he wouldn’t be getting so close. You grit your teeth and try not to let your mind run away with itself. “So,” you say to try and make conversation, to try and prove to him and yourself that you’re a mature woman who can handle this. “So y-you can see. See what I mean.”

“Mm, still looking,” he says thoughtfully. You inhale sharply when he touches you, but you quickly slam your eyes shut and try to take calming breaths. You knew going into this that you’d need to be examined. He drags his fingers over your mons and down the puffy outer lips of your pussy. It’s extra sensitive to you because you’d shaved yourself completely bare before this appointment. Silly, maybe, but you’ve always thought that hair down there was unsightly, gross, and you didn’t want Dr. Hickory to have to deal with it.

Not that she’s dealing with you at all, now.

You bite your lip as you feel him exploring you slowly, with the barest of touches. He’s touching you in a way that feels more like a lover than a doctor. His thumbs gently dip into the crease of your outer lips and pull them apart, baring everything between. “Look at that,” he whispers, and you nearly cry out in mortification. You must whimper or something, because Dr. Kemp pauses and checks, “Still okay?”

You nod, eyes squeezed shut tightly. “Fine,” you say breathily. Deep breaths. He does this all the time. It’s no big deal to him. Just take deep— “Oh!”

He’s stroking the hood of your clit with the pad of a finger, just the barest, gliding touch. It’s slippery with something, and you feel halfway sick as you have to wonder if it’s a medical lubricant he’s somehow fetched, or your own arousal that he’s gathered up and is using to explore you. No, you think, it couldn’t be. He wouldn’t…

“You have a gorgeous pussy,” he breathes from between your legs.

“I… ex-excuse me?” you stutter. This time you can feel it when you clench and slick comes out of you. Dr. Kemp groans as if he’s seen it happen, and you feel your face flame. “I’m sorry,” you apologize, humiliated that you’re getting wet from this. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Shh sh sh,” he hushes you, one of his gloved hands smoothing over your inner thigh, this time much further up. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Your body’s just reacting naturally to being stimulated.” His gentle explanation does absolutely nothing to help with your situation, and you feel your belly tighten again in arousal. You whimper helplessly, somehow wanting him to comfort you. And he does. “Honey,” he breathes, going back to tracing the hood of your clit. His fingers move down, following the line of your inner lips, spreading them out and gliding over the thickest parts of them. Shame curls in your gut as you remember the words you ex had used:

“Fucking luscious,”

You blink at the ceiling tiles, shocked. Those had most certainly not been the words he’d used. “Um,” you start to say, but he interrupts you in a firm tone,

“Baby, listen to me, okay?” You’re frozen, unable to respond so he takes your silence for compliance. Between your legs, his fingers trace up and down the wet folds of your cunt. There’s no interpreting it any other way now—he’s caressing you. “This?” he says, whispering the words what feels like only inches from your skin. “This is your labia minora.”

You exhale shakily. “I—I know that.”

“Mm.” He keeps tracing them, keeps gliding around in the wetness that’s now becoming obscene. “It’s natural for you to look like this.”

“I just…” you stammer, still trying to bring this examination back into the realm of productive. “I th-think they’re too big. There’s too much…” you tense up at another wet stroke over your clit. “Too much...meat,” you grit out.

Between your legs, Steve makes a displeased sound. “That’s what the ex told you, huh?” He doesn't wait for you to answer, one of his thumbs sliding down, down, until it starts rubbing down at your taint, pushing right up against the edge of your pussy. You gasp and he shushes you. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong, here,” he murmurs, his breath a hot whoosh against you.

You whimper at the realization of how close he is to you now. “Please,” you whisper, “Dr. Kemp—”

“Steve,” he corrects gently, still thumbing circles of pressure into the thin skin at the edge of your hole, almost teasing, almost threatening with how close it is and how with only a little bit more pressure, a different angle, he could slide it right in. “I told you to call me Steve.” His other hand splays out over your mons, the thumb dipping down to swipe up and down over the hood of your clit. It’s a slick, gliding, barely-there touch. He’s hardly applying any pressure but that’s how you like it. You’re so sensitive there, and you can’t hold in the pitiful little moan that leaves your lips. Steve hums in approval. “Yeah,” he says, voice low and quiet. “You’ve got a prominent clitoral hood.”

You toss your head on the table, a whine building in your throat at his bold, clinical language. It doesn’t match his tone of voice or the way he’s touching you. This is so wrong. But you can’t stop it. You like it. He intimidates you horribly, and you like that, too.

He’s still stroking you there as he says, “What was that word you used, hm? ‘Meat’?”

You cringe.

“Well it is,” Steve says lowly. “Very meaty.” He traces your folds again, this time holding your labia delicately between his fingertips and rubbing the sensitive flesh. You just about die.

“St-steve, please,”

“And these lips,” he says, ignoring your pleas. “These gorgeous …juicy fucking folds.” he says, nearly growling the words. “Makes a man wanna lick, and suck…”

You go rigid at the first touch of his tongue. “Ohmygod,” you whisper, hips jolting up against his mouth without your permission. You’re about to apologize, but before you can, Dr. Kemp is loosing the filthiest, most appreciative groan, the tail end of the sound becoming muffled as he mashes his whole mouth against your pussy. “Holy—” Shit, you finish in your mind, unable to force words past your throat anymore. Steve mouths at you like he can’t wait, like he’s desperate, and you feel it as his tongue swipes broadly over your entire cunt. Your fingers spasm, digging painfully into the edges of the exam table as your whole body tenses up. “Oh, god,” you moan, hips jerking against his mouth.

He makes a muffled sound of pleasure and sucks everything he can into his mouth; your clit, your lips. He sucks, hard and sloppy, releasing it all with a loud, wet sound. “Fuck, honey,” he pants. “Never wanted to suck on a pussy so bad.” His hand returns to your mound, his thumb taking up the same swiping motion over your clit, only now you’re drenched and swollen, throbbing with sensitivity.

“Shit,” you whine, pressing up against his hand without realizing it at first.

He holds you down easily and flicks his thumb a little rougher, a little faster. “Yeah? He breathes, kissing at the edge of your sex, near your thigh in a move that is surprisingly sweet. “That feel good for you, Sweetheart?” You make an unplanned noise of assent, and he hums darkly. He’s pleased. “Good girl,” he says again, and flicks his thumb. “Such a big fat clit, and these pretty pink lips. Mmhm, so fucking plump. I could play with it all day, looove it.”

You toss your head, unable to take the words he’s saying. And he’s growling it all at you like it’s a good thing, like your pussy’s the best thing he’s ever seen. You can’t doubt for a second that he means it, but you’re just so overwhelmed by what he’s saying…

You make an embarrassingly high pitched sound when he presses a finger into you. “Oh!”

“Shsh,” he warns you, smoothing his other hand up the apex of your thigh, up under the fabric of your dress, over your belly. “Shh, honey. Don’t want the nurse to walk in, do you?”

You gasp, suddenly afraid of that possibility. He feels you get still and silent and soothes you with a heavy lick over your lips, the finger that’s inside of you curling. “You’re okay,” he promises, kissing your clit, sucking it and letting it pop from his mouth. You sob. “Shh. You’re okay.” He moves his finger shallowly, stroking you from the inside. It feels nice, and you exhale shakily, trying to calm yourself down.

“Steve,” you breathe. “You shouldn’t. We… I shouldn’t….”

All of a sudden he rises from the stool, standing to his full height and moving to the side of the table as he keeps his hand on you, in you. He stares down at you, his expression rapt but tender. It’s so much worse with him looking at you like this. It’s almost harder than when he had his face mashed against you and half your sex inside his mouth. It’s even more serious like this, you think as you blink up at him with parted lips. It’s more personal. He looks you right in the eyes, unfaltering, as he slips in another finger. You keen, and your hips press up into it, seeking. His lips curl, pleased. He moves his hand in such a firm, practiced way. He’s not pulling out very much at all. Not thrusting so much as he is rocking, grinding.

Inside, something starts to feel tight and desperate. You watch him watching you, watching it happen. He’s smiling, smug, he knows what he’s making you feel. “You’re soaking my hand, honey,” he murmurs, and you feel your cheeks flood hot with shame. “Uh uh,” he corrects you, stern. “No, it’s beautiful.”

He changes it, starts rocking deeper, curling against your walls and jabbing harder at that spot. It’s not an orgasm you feel so much as an urgency, and you squeak as the pressure builds. “S-something,” you try to say, try to tell him that something’s going to happen. But his eyes gleam in pleasure, like he already knows. Above your clit, the thumb of his hand starts rubbing in downward strokes: down down down. Holy fuck does it feel good. Your eyes slam shut as you feel it building, building and tightening. Oh—

“I want you to promise me,” Kemp says, and you’re shocked at how close his voice is. You open your eyes. He’s bent over, his face mere inches from yours as his hand keeps working. “Before I make you cum, I want you to promise me,” he growls. “Promise me that you’ll never let anybody cut on this fucking perfect pussy.”

You gasp, his words jabbing at the core of you almost as much as his fingers inside do, “Ahh-oh!”

“Promise me, Angel,” he says, rocking his hand harder, faster, harder. “Promise me now.”

“I… I…ha-oh! I pra–hom–mi–ssss!” Your eyes slam shut and your hips jerk against him as it happens. You cum, you cum hard. You hear him curse and know that he’s moving back down between your legs to look at your clenching cunt. He never stops jerking his hand into you, drawing the pleasure out. You’re loud. You squeal and shriek and jerk wildly through the whole thing, unable to control your body. It’s never felt this; this urgent, this out of control. You buck against his hand, feeling the wetness soaking everything beneath you, until finally it comes to an end.

He pulls out of you and uses both hands to spread your lips apart, staring. You whine and squirm, and then you really feel the extent of the wetness down there, and you blanch. “I—Oh no.” You try to sit up, try to pull away from him and get his hands off you, panicking. “I… I peed.” You struggle, mortified, pulling your feet from the stirrups and swinging them to the side of the table, trying to close yourself to him, trying to get off the table and—

“Heyheyhey, no. Hang on baby, calm down.” Steve stops you, his hands at your waist, keeping you seated on the table. He crowds you, holding you in place. “You didn’t honey, you didn’t. You’re okay.” He laughs. He’s laughing. You can’t believe it as you watch him. You begin to scowl, ready to be hurt and mad, but he hushes you with a kiss to your mouth.

You gasp and go silent, somehow more taken aback by this than anything he’s done yet. His mouth is so sure and confident over yours, his lips pillow soft but commanding. He pulls back from the kiss and looks at you. “You squirted, honey,” he explains, amusement still clear in his eyes, only now you’re calm enough that you can see the affection there, too. The satisfaction, the desire. He’s not making fun of you.

“What?” You look down to the end of the table, where you’d been splayed open for him. The paper covering and the vinyl padding of the table are soaked with a clear liquid. You look down to your lap, which is barely covered by the material of your bunched up sundress now. Between your thighs, it feels wet too. “I… I did?” you nearly whisper, astounded.

He laughs affectionately and leans in to kiss your forehead. “Yeah, Angel, you did. It was amazing.”

You flush and tuck your head down, feeling tingly from his obvious approval. The things he’d said about your body… “You really meant it?” you ask. “All the—”

“Yes,” he says firmly. He tips your chin up, forcing you to look at him. “Hey,” he says gently. “Remember what you promised me.”

You squirm uncomfortably. Maybe he finds you attractive, but you can’t help but to worry about other guys, about the future partners you’ll have. Steve might like it, but he’s just one man. The fact remains that down between your legs, you still look like most of the before halves of the before and after pictures. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, apologetic to dismiss his opinion of you. “But I just… I want my next boyfriend to think I’m pretty, there,” you say reluctantly, glancing up at him.

He has a fierce gleam in his eyes as he boldly tells you, “He already does,” and then surges down to kiss you again.

It’s been a long day. With both his own patients and a bunch of Hickory’s to see to as well, Steve is pretty tired by the time 5:00 rolls around and the office staff is closing up. He changes out of his scrubs and lab coat, back into his gym shorts and sneakers that he’ll jog home in. That’s how Cassie finds him. “Brendan, check it out!” She holds up her phone for him to see the picture of a wet, vaguely purple-colored newborn. “Boy,” she tells him. “Five pounds, whatever ounces. Small but healthy. She says they’re naming him Grady Harrison.”

Steve grins. “Awww.” What a horrible name.

Cassie puts her phone away and tilts her head at him. “A bunch of us are going for drinks. You want to come?”

Steve shakes his head. “I’m beat. Gonna head home soon.”

“Mm. You know your nickname is Boring Brendan,” she teases, grabbing up her purse and heading for the exit.

“It is not,” he laughs, waving her out the door. “I’m just gonna finish up with a few notes. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She waves goodbye and the office door falls shut, locking behind her because he’s the last one there and the office manager already left. Steve walks behind the partition of the nurse’s station and sits down, booting up one of the computers. He clicks the mouse over a few folders, typing in his password when it prompts him for entry into the patient data files. There’s one in particular whom he wants to learn everything he can about.

He finds the folder marked with her name:

Moreau, Ann J.

The corner of his mouth ticks up and he clicks to open the file. “Ann,” he murmurs the name, remembering the taste of her cunt against his tongue, filling his mouth, his senses. Mmm. She’d been delicious, exquisite. Not taking his eyes away from the computer screen, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the tiny scrap of lace she'd left behind in her hurry to escape him. He holds the panties under his nose, inhaling. Fuck, he thinks, remembering her delicate body in that delicate cotton dress, how she'd cried out and creamed herself for him. So sweet.

He wants to learn more about her, fully plans on tracking her down and taking her on a date. On many dates, if he can.

Because he’s never been the type to be satisfied by just one taste.

Masterlist

If you liked what you read and feel so inclined, please consider dropping a tip in the Kofi🍵 cup!

#sebastian stan #sebastian stan characters #fresh 2022 #fresh movie #steve kemp #steve kemp x ofc #steve kemp x you #steve kemp x reader #au fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #sebastian stan fanfiction #fic writing #reader insert #reader fanfiction #reader fic

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semi-good-artist · 2 months

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Possible candidates for the sixth weapon in hades 2 [Spoilers!]

didnt see anyone really talk about this on here, but i want to hear the tumblr thoughts on this

Part one: the patterns

first i have to start with the pattern i have seen in this game's roster so far: so far the weapons can be seperated into three categories, those with a short attack and ranged special (s/l), those with either long or short ranges (but not the other)(s/s and l/l), and those with long attack and short special (l/s). remember that im not factoring the omega options, since those vary to much. in the silver pool, they are ordered like this

you might also note, that each category has one faster and one slower option (at least by game feel, i didnt run tests) so the last weapon is probably a l/s slow weapon

the next point i realised was another split in the weaponry, illustrated here:

One might argue on my placement of Descura (the staff) in the magic category, but since its attack patterns drawing spell circles instead of clobbering foes, i hope i can dissuade these grievances. Of course this order could change in later updates.

so a martial ranged option would fit these findings

but there is another thing which places this into conjecture (maybe the skull is martial after all, since it physically hits things); when observed top to bottom, you may find this pattern

So a long attack, martial (?), floaty weapon according to the patterns drawn in the silver pool.

Part 2 cool concepts, which could fit these patterns

unfortunatly i cant think of a weapon that fits this bill, so lets ignore it and just imagine some that fits at least some of them

For this i consulted reddit threads, as mentioned above, who had some interesting ideas, like a whip or lyre, but im unsure about

first lets discuss the whip; this being a physical option with some range to it, fits 2 of my patterns, but i dont know if it can differentiate itself from the axe and staff enough. the axe has some range with sweeping attacks, while the staff has kinda single point damage (which i imagine the whip to have aswell). also what would the special be?

now to the lyre; while having some clear connections to already present figures (Apollo, Orpheus and Hermes) which could be great aspect choices; i dont think, if they are going for an instrument it would be the lyre, since zagreus already has one. for attacks maybe its a range of homing bullets/notes that Melinoe has to sit down for to play (kinda like one of Scyllas attacks), thereby creating a slower attack speed. but homing bullets might not have the heft known from slow weapons. for a special it could be a danse macabre type of deal, where Melinoe summons shades or the recently fallen foes to fight for her, or after a foe dies, the weapon spawns a mote that can be erupted by the special, kind of like mines

if theres a instrument based weapon i personally hope its based after Athena's/Marsyas' flute, since i dont hear that myth brought up a lot. (this can also fit the theme of divine punishment, since Marsyas got it bad after playing it). if we get Pan (since hes mentioned in the aspects), this flute could spark a conversation about his own. also with the danse macabre special, it could also reference the Piper of Hameln.

Another idea i heard was a spell tome, since the apparent witch theme; but im unsure since we already got the staff which is quite witchy with its sigils already. it could float so theres that

A lot of people also wanted another gun or other weapon type to return from the first game; but this is a boring option. cant you think of literally anything else?

if you can think of anything else i would love to hear it!!

#hades 2 #hades ii #hades spoilers #hades supergiant #long post #cant believe this got sparked when i thought about what the hidden aspects could be #anyway send post

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janus-cadet · 11 months

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New tarot card! This time, it's for a show that just reached 17 seasons, if you can believe that- Murdoch Mysteries!

And here is Llewellyn Watts, as the Page of Wands.

Now- the obligatory explanation (in broken english, yay, how lucky!) for those who are interested!

Upright, this card is the symbol of a free spirit, guided by their inspirations and ideas. I do feel like it fits our one and only Watts- never really fitting the mould of societal conveniences, but always following his inner self. It's also a card for limitless potential, often in the form of creative restlessness, which again- he does have, and the show should ~really~ explore that more. Overall, it means you embrace the opportunity to start out a new journey, without necessarily having a solid plan in place or even knowing where you are headed- but you are excited and intrigued about the possibilities. For a character always searching for himself, well-

All of that, with the advice to try and filter your thoughts, sometimes. Especially when you're talking. Even if we all love Detective Your-Wife-Is-Not-Pretty Watts.

Reversed, the card can mean that the consultant is being held back by limiting beliefs- such as, well, for Watts, the rules of the society he lives in. Which is why the card is ponctuated with references to current or future instance of homophobia and antisemitism in Canada. On the other side, Llewellyn can also represent (as would William and many other characters of the show!) someone carrying newly-formed ideas, that can have been tampered by obstacles and opposition. The card can also mean that you tried many new projects, which did not worked as you had hoped... and isn't that the story of his life?

Overall, this is a card deeply linked with someone engaging or trying to engage in a spiritual journey to discover themself. A free spirit who can't, and who should not submit the the limiting beliefs of the society around.

It was so fun to do, eh! The wand is not really supposed to be a wand, sure, but I feel like Llewellyn is less a wooden-staff-guy than a magic-wand-guy. And sure, the book on Wine and Philosophy or the Pretzel in the background where not *necessary*, per se, but that's just so- him, and those cards are always about representing the character in the best possible way.

Hope you'll like it!

#my art #tarot card #tarot project #page of wands #murdoch mysteries llewellyn watts #llewellyn watts #murdoch mysteries #detective watts #detective llewellyn watts #watts up #daniel maslany #tw homophobia #tw antisemitism

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uzlolzu · 6 months

Note

Every characters of yours feels so believable and real in the way the look

How do you go about creating them do you collect references first or do it entirely from imagination?

First off: Thank you!

I have far too much to say about character design, but I’ll try to keep it brief-ish and not answer ten other things in addition to your question.

It’s nearly always from imagination these days. Sometimes I look for photos if I’ve decided to draw a type of person I’m unfamiliar with and feel specifics are important, but I constantly try to expand my mental library so that I won’t have to find references. I pretty much live for character design and I have spent the last twenty-five years or so developing the skills I find useful for it. Perhaps my efforts weren’t very focused when I was nine, but the ambition to “make a better heroine” was there. So, I’ve read a large number of anatomy books and keep on reading new ones, I do studies, and I continuously question my tastes, experiences and go-tos to be able to grow past them – little by little. Still, I absolutely use references sometimes, just generally not for design purposes or to a particularly large extent when I work on illustrations. I mainly use them when I struggle with an angle (in which case I usually find a mirror or take a photo of myself) or when studying. I often consult my anatomy books, however, and the two anatomical models on my desk, Mr. Skeleton and Mr. Half skin-half exposed superficial muscles. (I won't show a picture, since I know many people find them nasty and I don't want to tag this post as nasty. But they're beautiful friends.)

Anyway. How do I actually go about it… When drawing? Well, I usually have a pretty good idea of a character’s personality before I pick up a pen. That’s important to me. If I don't have one already, I mostly start with a written description rather than anything visual. Just a few words, to get an idea. Those texts aren’t based on anything and usually not very detailed, but they have the essentials. Being able to describe someone for myself and work from there, instead of from a vague thought, helps me to start. After I have a clear picture in my head, I usually make either a painterly portrait or a number of small head sketches.

For example, this is my first picture of Tege:

And these are my first pictures of Liam:

...When that’s done and I’m happy with the restult, I’ll have a perfect reference for later pictures. Eventually I’ll have a bunch of pictures of a character that I can start second-guessing and slowly change to perfection. Maybe I’ll get there one day.

#uzloreplies #I spent five hours trying to answer this #Character design is so important #Tege #Liam

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valiantstarlights · 1 year

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[Wedding Planner AU] Part 2: On the Restaurant's Balcony Area.

Tagging: @unfortunatelyevent @usernamesareoverratedseriously and @mademoisellemacabre , all of whom have expressed wanting to read more of this AU. I hope you like it. 🖤

"I was thinking the wedding should take place just as the sun starts to dip into the horizon, and the reception be held right after," Mrs. Nyx Endless says, then titters. "Of course, the reception would last until morning. We have to make sure that all our hundreds of guests are happy until they leave, and that would be whatever time they decide to leave. I'm thinking an open bar and two dozen new hors d'oeuvres every half an hour. We'd absolutely hate to bore anyone."

Hob nods and notes all of those down, saying nothing but already cursing internally. A sunset wedding alone is going to be hell to arrange. He'd have to consult actual meteorologists for it, and then pray to a hundred different gods to make sure it's not going to be rainy, cloudy, or whatever the hell England's weather is planning to do on that date. And two dozen new hors d'oeuvres every half an hour? Christ.

"A sunset wedding sounds marvellous, Nyx," Mrs. Muse agrees. "The golden hues of the sun would complement the golden theme of the wedding. And, of course, Calliope must look like Midas's daughter herself."

Hob nods dutifully again and notes that down, careful to keep his face blank, then bites the insides of his cheeks so he doesn't laugh in Mrs. Muse's face at that unfortunate reference.

Were Ms. Calliope to look like Midas's daughter herself, then Dream would be marrying a silent, golden statue. But then again, maybe he would prefer that. Lord knows he'd want someone as different from Hob as he could get, who everyone and their 3rd butler knows is just one dirty, stinking, unworthy, flea-bitten mongrel.

"I..." Calliope hesitates, then looks around for support. Hob pointedly does not notice how she toys with Dream's fingers, and how Dream squeezes her hand back. It looked like an automatic, intimate gesture. A silent conversation where meanings are translated almost instantaneously because of how well one understands the other. Hob looks steadfastly down at his notes and wills his own hands not to shake. "I would just like to have a simple garden wedding, actually."

Mrs. Muse tuts at her. "Nonsense, darling. A 'simple garden wedding' will not be the most talked-about event of the season. No, we'll have to have your wedding on a beach, somewhere lovely with white sand, and you'll be bedecked in topaz and sapphires like a goddess."

Mrs. Endless gasps in excitement. "Oh, Mnemosyne, that's such a brilliant idea! Sweet Calliope would look absolutely stunning in topaz and sapphire jewelry, while Dream could wear some matching blue and yellow roses pinned on his lapel."

Hob, again, says nothing to that and only notes everything down. In Calliope's previously empty column, he writes down '(simple) garden wedding.' In Mrs. Muse's column, he adds 'white sand beach wedding, sapphire and topaz jewelry (lots).' In Mrs. Endless's column, he adds 'blue and yellow roses pinned on groom's lapel.'

(Hob doesn't think he can write Dream's name yet. He thinks even that will hurt him.)

Dream has yet to say anything, and his column is as empty as the promises he once made to Hob. "And you, Mr. Endless?" Hob asks his notes. "Do you have any preferences?"

Dream takes a moment to even acknowledge that he has been asked a question. Hob thinks this is because Dream's father, that old curmudgeonly bastard, just died a year ago, and Dream is probably used to others saying, 'Mr. Endless' and the title referring only to his father. Well tough luck, because Hob isn't about to call him Young Master Dream or whatever their staff calls the Endless children.

"Anything Calliope wants," is what he finally says, voice still sounding the same, so hypnotizing and deep, if a bit hoarse, like he wasn't used to talking anymore. His eyes remain on the mostly full plate in front of him. He has barely eaten the previous courses, and his small square of chocolate cake with raspberry filling (decorated with gold leaf and a small gravity-defying chocolate sculpture of a bird in flight) had only been played with to create the illusion that he took a bite.

Hob hates that he still notices these things. Notices these things and worry. That it still makes him want to drag Dream to the nearest hole-in-the-wall restaurant he knows where they serve cheap but hearty meals that fill your stomach as the cozy atmosphere fills your soul.

"Dream," Mrs. Endless scolds. "Will it kill you to sound enthusiastic? This is your wedding, too, you know!"

Mrs. Muse hushes her friend and coos at Dream. "Oh, Nyx, please, it's fine." To her daughter, she says, "Did you hear that, Calliope? Dream says, 'Anything you want,' so you better want something truly spectacular! My, what a good man your son is, Nyx," she continues, seemingly not noticing how Mrs. Endless is continuing to scold Dream through her eyes. "So sweet and accommodating."

Mrs. Muse then turns to Hob like he is just another lady in her court during rich-people tea time. Like they were close and she isn't thinking about how his mere presence is polluting the very air she breathes. "Isn't he just the sweetest, Mr. Gadling?"

Hob thinks about his boyfriend Dream from years ago and how he is in the mornings, wearing nothing but Hob's ratty jumpers, his messy hair that looks like a bird's nest, his eyes soft and blinking sleep away, smiling at Hob like he's the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. He thinks about Dream's gentle, addicting little kisses that Hob only token protests at because finals week is coming up and they need to study and not fuck like rabbits again. He thinks of Dream saying, 'yes,' saying, 'I love you, Hob,' saying, 'I'll love you forever.'

Hob nods politely, showing Mrs. Muse his most impersonal smile and speaking in his most professional voice. "I'm sure he is."

#wedding planner au #CW: overbearing mothers #CW: discrimination based on social class #to the tune of 12 Days of Christmas: On the current date todaaay I give to all of you 😊#28 STAB WOUNDS #lmao sorry #CW: pain?#dreamling #the sandman #my writing #good job my thumbs

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intervex · 8 days

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Poll: what model of disability would you associate with the colour green?

[Poll at bottom of post]

A a few months back, I proposed new meanings for the Disability Pride Flag that was designed by @capricorn-0mnikorn in consultation with a bunch of disabled folks. For those unfamiliar, it's this rockin' flag:

I proposed instead of having the coloured stripes being associated with categories of impairment (red for physical disability, yellow for neurodivergence, etc), we could instead have the different colours refer to different models of disability. I proposed:

Red: disability due to injury / the debility model of disability - e.g. injury due to armed conflicts caused by colonialism, injury due to gun violence in a country which fails to regulate gun safety, preventable illness due to sociopolitical neglect 😡🩸

Yellow: disability due to natural (beneficial) differences / affirmative models of disability - e.g. autistic people who lead lives that take advantage of their autistic traits, DSPS folks who are able to work night shifts and take pride in doing so 😄🌟

Blue: situational disabilities / critical models like the social model, e.g. a Deaf person who feels their only disability is that people don’t speak their signed language and don’t provide captions/etc 🗣️♿️

Green: disability due to illness / biomedical models of disability - e.g. people with conditions like ME/CFS and Long Covid who actually do want to be treated/cured 🤢🦠

White: disability caused by unknown or other factors / other models

I'm pretty happy with all of the colour-model associations except green, and would like input on if there's a more suitable colour to use instead.

👍️ Advantages of green for medical model: - green is associated with disease, sickness, poison, etc - it is a major model of disability, even if it is one that disability organizing tends to be organizing against

👎️ Disadvantages of green for medical model: - the original meanings had green down as meaning sensory disability, and a lot of folks with sensory disabilities like the Deaf community reject the medical model quite strongly - from what I've since seen of other disability-specific flags, green is the most common colour used for neurodiversity (e.g. this autigender flag), another group that strongly rejects the medical model - there are almost no flags that embrace the medical model, and the only two I'm familiar with - the Crohn's flag and the transmedicalist flag - both use *white* as the colour of medicine. Lab coats etc. - rolling the medical model into the white stripe ("other models") would fit both the medicine-as-white association and how invisibly disabled people are often those fighting for care

Some weeks back I posted asking for alternative ideas for a model of disability for green. These are the options sent my way:

⚖️

Option 1: human rights model. Disability is viewed as a natural part of being human, and humans should have basic civil rights. This is a legalistic framework. It's used for advancing legal protections, gaining workplace accomodations, etc. Unlike the social model it can be kind of (but not entirely) individualistic: a given individual has their rights infringed, so laws need to be created and enforced to protect them.

Green is a colour used sometimes to represent humanity (though teal/cyan I think is a bit more common.) It's a model compatible with the neurodiversity movement and Deaf pride. People who are sick and want to be treated are also compatible in that they deserve a right to medical care.

🧬

Option 2: biodiversity model. Disability is beneficial for the gene pool because genetic variety makes for more resilient populations. Unlike the affirmation model, this doesn't see every disability as actually good to have - for example, sickle cell disease sucks for those who have it, but the heterozygosity advantage it provides for the population makes it a net asset.

Green is a colour associated with nature. I'd say this is also compatible with neurodiversity & Deaf pride + sick people.

✊️

Option 3: radical model. Disability is entirely a social construct. There is nothing wrong with any of us (Withersaj, 2012). The social construction of disability was created in order to marginalize segments of society - such as how IQ testing and the idea of "intelligence" was created by eugenics to rationalize slavery. This model is strongly connected with mad pride (Ralph, 2018)

This one probably isn't compatible with sick people who want care. Many neurodivergent & Deaf people would resonate with it, but I suspect some folks who feel their neurodivergence can be at times legitimately disabling may push back on this.

🕸️

Option 4: political/relational model. Any discussion of disability is inherently political. Rather than disability being an individual problem or a macro-societal problem, this is a hybrid: "disablement as something that occurs because of ideological systems that disenfranchise disabled people, not individual needs or choices." (Price, 2021). This model pushes back on the disability/impairment dichotomy from the social model: "This model recognizes that it is not the environment that disables us, but our own bodies and minds (e.g. chronic fatigue or pain)." (Accessible Academia)

Green is a colour often used for symbolizing relationships. I think this is compatible with neurodiversity & Deaf pride, while also being open to sick people who want treatment.

🍃

Option 5: eco-crip model. This is in some ways the opposite of the political/relational: the environment is disabling. For example, many environmental toxins are known to cause disabilities. Many disabled people are particularly vulnerable to changes in the physical environment, especially climate change: smoggy air, power outages, evacuations from disasters, are all things that hurt disabled people much harder.

Unlike the radical model, this model views disability as not (only) a social phenomenon: even in a world with universal design everywhere and accommodations in place, a paraplegic still can't hike most trails.

📊

This brings us to six options for models of disability for green. Tumblr lets you only vote for one, but if you like multiple (or you're AGAINST one or more) let me know in the replies/reblogs. 💚

#disability #disabled #sorry this was a long post but I wanted to make sure every proposed model was explained #disability pride #disabled pride #disability pride flag #disability rights #disability justice #models of disability #disability studies #crip theory

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val-of-the-north · 4 months

Text

Interesting find regarding the Church of the Deep

While trying to build an argument for Caitha possibly being a wife of Gwyn, I accidentally stumbled upon a little detail that I was not really expecting, but that puts a few things into perspective.

The description of Caitha's Chime claims that the Archbishop concealed its existence because it was considered anathema... however, that didn't seem to make much sense to me, as the one Archbishop mentioned in item descriptions is that of Carim, whom Morne became an apostle of. The thing is, Morne was first a follower of Caitha, and the clergy of Carim (which is part of the Way of White) was taught her miracles from him with little to no problem, so her chime being hidden seemed strange.

So I did something I've grown accustomed to doing because of my time trying to read into the lore of these games: consult the original text and see if there had been an oversight. I used this resource here to do it [x]. It features the Chinese (left), Japanese (middle), and English text from all three games, I recommend checking it out if you are curious about this stuff. Anyways...

In Japanese, the kanji used for the Archbishop of Carim is 大司教 (Daishikyō), which makes sense.

On the other hand, the Archbishop mentioned in the description of Caitha's Chime is 大主教 (Dai shukyō), which is the same kanji used every time the Archdeacons of the Deep are mentioned.

So that explains the apparent discrepancy! The one who concealed Caitha's Chime is one of the three Archdeacons of the Deep, not the Archbishop of Carim. This lines up with stuff we can see in-game as well. The Cathedral of the Deep seems to have been dedicated to Caitha at some point, as it prominently features statues of a weeping woman, with many of the ones found inside the building itself having been covered up by red cloth. One of them, found in the Chapel of Cleansing, was even hidden behind an altar that depicts the Deacons of the Deep, which clearly wasn't there before.

But then, how did the localizers miss this bit? Well, you see, both of those kanjis are extremely similar as you might have noticed... and that's because they both mean Archbishop! And here lies the discovery: 大司教, used for the Archbishop of Carim, refers to an Archbishop of the Catholic Church.

Meanwhile, 大主教, used for the Archdeacons of the Deep, refers to an Archbishop of other denominations, but mainly those of the Orthodox Church.

This revelation explains a few things about the Church of the Deep, like how it's both connected and separate from the Way of White, which according to the way its Archbishop is identified, is inspired by the Catholic Church... and I mean, the fact that Sulyvahn is literally the pope seals the deal for me. It might also help explain Aldrich potentially having a wife in Rosaria, and how he was allowed to have as many children as he did. From what I was told, Orthodox Priests can get married and have children after all.

Archdeacon Royce also genuinely looks the part. The Orthodox clergy is encouraged to grow out their beards, unlike most of the other Christian faiths.

Does this imply Aldrich had a big beard as well? Or perhaps, being the... messy eater that he is, it benefitted him to be shaved clean? I'll leave the pondering to you...

When I first shared this discovery with my friend @katyspersonal, who lives in an Orthodox country, she was quite surprised, but she almost immediately came around to the idea and even told me it fit Aldrich's vibe quite well... so yeah, I'm trusting her judgment on this one lol.

And there it is, a little detail that was understandably lost in translation, but that could shape our understanding of the Church of the Deep a little better.

#dark souls #dark souls 3 #aldrich devourer of gods #caitha goddess of tears #it was quite fun to discover to be honest #love it when I find out stuff like this while researching a completely different topic #so yeah orthodox aldrich real?#maybe anglican aldrich?#I like orthodox a little better #but really who knows for sure...#but dang what's their beef with caitha!!!#poor(?) lady only wants to help (and cry)#val-post

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beemovieerotica · 6 months

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Same anon who thought basically anything other than, wanna fuck is kinky.

I don't have a problem with the thinking the Catholic church is kinky. Maybe they are? But I also think their argument is about what they believe about society and not based on horniness? But if it is based in horniness, plus all the celibate denial stuff, yeah. Maybe Catholicism is kinky.

Also I don't have any connection to Catholicism so, who knows.

we should definitely consult a sexologist because this is such an interesting philosophical discussion...like all i ever remember learning about was that when the term "fetish" morphed from its initial use of describing religious behavior, it referred to arousal/sexual fixation on anything other than genitals. that was it. just non-genital interest. like you could have a breast fetish, or an ass fetish, because those aren't genitals, and it literally just meant that you thought breasts and ass were hot.

and then we started limiting the definition based on vibes, so you could have a foot fetish if you found feet hot, because that falls outside some elusively normative rule on behavior, but you could no longer have a breast fetish just by finding breasts hot, because straight dudes are *supposed* to find breasts hot

and when "fetish" was replaced by "kink" linguistically we kept those cultural distinctions...but then "kink" morphed further into denoting explicitly counter-culture sex, like it wasn't just a word for something atypical that happened in bed, but it was specifically rooted in a political space through the formation of actual communities of people came together and who were interested in defying normative notions of heterosexual, purely procreative sex

which comes back to the question...can you really call a conservative religious group's ideas on sex a "kink" if they're enforcing a thousands-year old status quo? is that what kink is?

#ask

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saffronapplemanga · 2 years

Text

Tenmaku no Jadoogar: A Witch’s Life in Mongol - 天幕のジャードゥーガル

HISTORICAL, DRAMA

Tenmaku no Jadoogar: A Witch's Life in Mongol by Tomato Soup

(1 volume, ongoing)

JP only. Hopefully, it gets licensed! Please hire me to translate this, publishing companies. The first 5 chapters are up for free in JP here.

Links to my other manga posts here

An Irani girl named Fatima who’s a captive of the Mongol Empire and uses her education to her advantage???

Hello, my name is Fatimah, I’m half Irani, and it’s finally my time >:)

I hope you guys are ready for history and cultural lessons! I worked really hard on this post and she’s a long one... I literally just came back from an Iran trip and got some books, took pictures, and consulted people who know more than me for this post (the trip wasn't for the post, that was a coincidence lolllll).

This series won first place in the オンナ編 (Female Category) for the このマンガがすごい！2023 / Kono Manga ga Sugoi 2023 / “This Manga is Amazing! 2023″ which is a rather prestigious award. I’ve talked about the Male Category’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd place winners (2nd place will have a dedicated post one day), and plan to talk about the Female Category’s 4th and 6th place winners eventually. I guess I have good taste, what can I say? Jk, jk, but check the links if you’re interested :)

This post will be broken up into the following sections - What's It About? - Some Background - Representation - My Localization Choices - Story - Art - Culture Time! - Let's Talk Religion - The First Word From God, "Read".

Enjoy!

What's It About?

I usually don't like to go into plot details too much so you can discover the story for yourself. But since it isn't currently accessible in English at all, I figured I’d summarize the first chapter so you at least know what it’s about. Then I’ll summarize the rest of the chapters in a spoiler section for those who are interested. That way, we can all be informed enough to discuss it. I might touch on themes or other things outside the first chapter in the discussion, but I’ll try to do it in a way that doesn’t spoil for those of you who want to wait and read it for yourselves.

Chapter 1

We kick off with a rather poetic reference to scholars using geometry to measure the earth and the idea of trying to quantify fate. In 13th-century Iran/Persia, in the city of Tous, we meet a family looking for a domestic worker. The family is a woman, Fatima, who is newly widowed, her son, Mohamed, and her brother. A slave trader offers her some options, but they are rather pricey. So he suggests she take a little girl, Sitara, for a heavily discounted price. The slave trader asks Fatima to educate Sitara since they are a scholarly family, so she does.

However, Sitara plays dumb to ensure her value as a slave stays low. That way, no one would bother taking her to faraway lands to sell her for higher prices as she wants to stay close to her home to try and go back. Sitara tries to sneak out and runs into Mohamed, who talks to her about why he thinks learning is so great. He inspires her to pursue an education so she can have the tools to handle whatever life throws at her. Mohamed wants to travel and learn from others to find the "truth" for himself. He promises Sitara that he'll write letters to her and his mother, which further inspires her to learn to read.

The chapter ends with Mohamed leaving Tous, and the narrator tells us it was the last time Mohamed and Sitara ever saw each other.

Chapters 2-5

I'm going to speed through the rest now that we got the setup out of the way.

***SPOILERS FOR CHAPTERS 2-5***

8 years have passed since Mohamed left and Sitara has been pursuing an education under the direction of Fatima and her brother. While the Tous army is investigating strange activity near their borders, Fatima shows Sitara some things her late husband left behind such as books and astrology tools.

As the Mongols are closing in on Tous, Fatima and Sitara hunker down in a cellar to wait the threat out. Unfortunately, they're found, and one of the Mongol princes takes a book that belonged to Fatima's late husband. Sitara tries to stand up to him, causing her to be attacked. Fatima takes the blow, saying, "Don't touch my daughter," before passing away.

Tous is razed to the ground, and its citizens killed or driven out and forced to march to the Mongol camp. Sitara finds out that the city of Neyshabur, the city Mohamed is studying at, was also attacked. His whereabouts are unknown.

Interestingly, the Mongol prince was specifically looking for the book he took since his fiance had asked him for it. However, the book is in Persian and they are unable to read it. Sitara meets a boy who is interpreting for the Mongols in an effort to make himself more useful to avoid becoming a meat shield in battles for them. While he can speak Mongolian and Persian, he can't read. But, Sitara can. He asks her to team up with him to help each other become more valuable to their capturers. Sitara will read the stolen book, and the boy will translate. He suggests she come up with a more "elegant" or "majestic" name before presenting herself to the Mongol princes. She steps into their tent and introduces herself as "Fatima".

***END OF SPOILERS FOR CHAPTERS 2-5***

Some Background

Quick disclaimer, I'm by no means an expert. A lot of this is what I know and what I've experienced. I might have to make some generalizations or else we're gonna be here all day.

I feel like I’m about to overshare but I want to offer my perspective on this series. I don’t get to do this often so indulge me please lol. This background is so you have an idea of some things that influenced my perspective on this story.

For those of you new around here, I'm a Kuwaiti/Irani-American, Japanese to English translator (I speak English, Arabic, and Japanese).

What that means more specifically is that I've grown up/lived in America my whole life, visiting Kuwait when we could, until I moved to Japan after college. My parents are both Kuwaiti with Kuwaiti fathers, born and raised, but both of their mothers are Irani. They know Farsi to varying degrees of fluency as a second language. I never learned it since their first language is Arabic and that was the language they focused on teaching me while living in America. They usually spoke Farsi if they wanted to keep me and my brother out of a conversation between adults, rude. But I can sometimes pick up on some things being said. One of my best friends is Irani-American (Her name is also Fatimah! It's a ridiculously popular name) and our experiences are quite different, but there's overlap as well!

For those of you who don't know where Kuwait is. It's a tiny little country in the northern end of the Persian Gulf in Western Asia. FYI "Mina" in "Mina Al Ahmadi," which you can see on the map, means "port".

Most of our Kuwaiti relatives have Irani roots and some Turkish. There are a lot of ethnic groups in Kuwait because it started out as a port city that was a part of the Silk Road network. (I actually wanna study the Silk Road more!) So lots of people from all over gathered there. There are black Kuwaitis, those with blonde hair and blue eyes (my mom's relatives are like this), those with more East Asian features (my cousins), those with darker features (my dad's side), etc.

The Silk Road in the 1st century, courtesy of Wikipedia. You can see the route going through Kuwait. It was specifically part of the Maritime Silk Road route.

Because of all the trade, you can see the influences of many other regions in the food, clothes, language, culture, and so on.

But, yeah! History is cool.

Representation

I am indeed one of those people who is annoyingly passionate about representation. Like, I could write a whole Master’s dissertation on why it’s so important, but I’ll spare you… for now. More eloquent people have already done so anyways.

As you can imagine, I’m not used to seeing myself represented in media. And any representation I did get, was… well, how do I put this… not great? Bad™ actually. Beyond racist tbh. So can you blame me for being excited? I’m still mad about that one episode of Grey’s Anatomy when that girl whipped off her scarf/hijab to save a patient IN A FULLY STOCKED HOSPITAL!!! That would never fucking happen ;_; like imagine if you pulled your pants off to put pressure on a wound when the gauze is literally right there. I CAN’T, where do I even begin??? But I digress.

And even if I wasn’t a person from this culture, it’s just cool to see rep we don’t usually get! For example, Requiem of the Rose King is fresh in my mind right now, but having an intersex main character is not something I recall seeing. While not intersex myself, nor a noble from ye olde times, I related to Richard a lot and appreciate what the story did. I can see people from other cultures relating to Tenmaku no Jadoogar, or simply just learning new things about a culture we don’t get to see a lot of rep about. (I plan to write a follow-up post after I finish the series and talk about the rep in Rose King a bit more.)

My Localization Choices

There are no official spellings for this manga, so some explanations as to why I wrote things the way I did. Thankfully, these are all real-world names with context, so I'm not pulling nonsense out of thin air. Localizing uncommon/made-up names is... hard... traumatic flashbacks to when I had to look up official spellings for Gundam and Kamen Rider and the client didn't give me glossaries... Literally did research about Sypha Belnandes' name localization being all over the place for this blog post. Spoiler, I don’t think it was supposed to be Belnandes.

It really be like that...

Sitara - シタラ "Shitara". This isn't a name I was familiar with, so I asked my mom and Irani-American friend if it sounded like a name they knew. I wanted to say "Sitra" sounds like something that has a more "West Asian pronunciation" than the Japanese pronunciation in the manga. I was wrong and it's "Sitara" which means "star" just like what they said in the story.

Fatima - ファーティマ "Fātima". Same as my name! It's a super popular name. I katakana-fied my name as ファティーマ, which is the same, I just put the dash that elongates the sound in a different place. Why? Fatima is an Arabic name فَاطِمَة. In classical Arabic, it's pronounced like Fā-dtee-ma or Fadt-ma in Kuwaiti Arabic (the letter طِ doesn't exist in EN/JP and the best way I can describe it is it's like D+T sound.) An Irani pronunciation is more like Fā-teh-meh, which is what my grandma and Irani-American friends call me. In English, I personally pronounce my name like Fa-tee-ma, but people have various preferences. So basically, I took the Arabic and English pronunciations and katakana-fied it how I thought it would sound best in Japanese. And no one has ever pronounced my name wrong in Japan since katakana is phonetic and is actually pronounced how it's spelled. Wild I know. Meanwhile in America... *cries* I have a half-Irani-half-Japanese acquaintance who doesn't put any elongated sound in her name like ファティマ, and it's all just preference tbh. There are also different ways you can spell it in English, but "Fatima" is the most common way.

Mohamed - モハンマド "Mohanmado". This one is pretty straightforward. I think most people are familiar with this name. Also super popular. There are various English spellings as well, so I just went with a common, shorter spelling.

The title, 天幕のジャードゥーガル Tenmaku no Jadougal (this is how it's romanized on anilist), also doesn't have an official translation. It basically translates to Witch of the Marquee. Tenmaku="tent/marquee" in Japanese. ジャードゥーガル comes from جادوگر "jadoogar" meaning "witch" in Farsi. The romanization of the title should actually be Tenmaku no Jadoogar. There is no "L" in Japanese, so it often becomes "R". In Japanese, ジャードゥーガル is "Jādoogaru". Without context, it's often hard to tell if it's supposed to be "L" or "R" so I don't blame them for the mistake. But yeah, that's why I wrote it as Tenmaku no Jadoogar for the title at the top of the post. How do I contact the anilist admins about correcting that? Lol. The way my brain is short-circuiting trying to combine Japanese, English, my nonexistent Arabic reading skills since Farsi uses basically the same alphabet, and consulting my Farsi "sources"... my brain can only handle two of the three languages I speak at the same time...

1/7/23 EDIT: I asked anilist to fix the spelling of the title and it's been changed!

Shout out to Fatimah #2 for putting up with all my questions <3 Farsi has some extra letters that aren't in Arabic and I didn't know about that one...

Story

I’m starting to realize that I really dig historical fiction. Things like Requiem of the Rose King (current read, I'm obsessed), Vinland Saga, Bride’s Story (a priority TBR of mine), and Ertugrul (this one is a Turkish drama, highly recommend!) are so fascinating because we get to take a peek at what life used to be like, especially if the author did their homework. This story reminds me of Ertugrul at times since they both take place in West Asia during the 13th century, and the characters in both had run-ins with the Mongols.

This baddie took out three Mongolian soldiers on her own!!! Well, her horse helped. Horses are great. I'm a horse girl, literally took riding lessons for ~4 years.

I found out while researching for this post that this story is in fact based on a real person in history! Here's the Wikipedia page, more info here by Dr. Jack Weatherford who wrote a book that I'm totally going to read once I can get my hands on it. I think this manga is going in a similar vein as Vinland Saga where the events are real historical events, and some characters were actual people in history, but the author is going to take creative liberties. (Check out Merphy Napier and Philip Chase's Vinland Saga discussions. They're great and Philip has a lot of historical knowledge relevant to that series that's super informative!)

The characters are lovable and interesting. I like Sitara's spunk, Mohamed's thoughtfulness, and Fatima's gentle nature, just to name a few. The relationship Sitara has with Mohamed and Fatima was very sweet. I'm interested to see how the relationship that I mentioned at the end of chapter 5 goes. Also intrigued by the bits of relationship dynamics with the Mongolian characters we have so far.

I got super excited when the theme of "learning/education" came up. Seeing how that looked back in 13th-century Persia, which was a hotspot for advances in many fields, is so cool! This story led me to do some research and asking around on topics I was familiar with, but not an expert on, and I learned things about my own culture/religion. More on learning and education later. But overall, a strong start and I can't wait to read more!

Art

My twitter reading thread for this series

The art is very stylized, like a chibi-esque style with Persian art influences. I like the contrast between the simplified shapes and the detailed bits. I’m a big fan of inky blacks and white whites. I know all manga is black and white but this one feels like it has more contrast due to the simplified shapes. It's got tons of charm!

The shoujo-esque flowery background, but make it Irani-flavored✨ It looks like the rug we got in Iran!

Some pictures I took at historical sites in Tehran with more examples of flowery imagery. Sorry if the image quality sucks, I didn't have my good camera :(

Culture Time!

As soon as I saw this cover, I felt a sense of familiarity. Particularly, the style of henna on her hands made me go, “Hey! That’s similar to how we do our henna!” While we also do the mehndi style henna (Is that the right term? Help) in Kuwait because of Indian influences due to longtime trade, we have another kind as well. You take the paste and hold it in your hands while curling your fingertips into it.

I had such a hard time finding pics that weren’t the intricate mehndi design ones. I would’ve just put henna on my own hands and taken a pic to show what I’m talking about, but it’s winter and it’s not good to use henna in winter because it has a cooling effect. I put henna on in winter once, and it made me so much colder. But makes you feel nice and cool in the summer! That’s why it’s traditionally applied to the head, hands, and feet, which are places you have a lot of heat dissipate from and it saps the heat away. I remember my mom doing that for me and my brother all the time when we were little during summer.

But! With the help of my mom, she helped me narrow it down. I didn't know the actual name of this style of henna. I just called it Kuwaiti-style henna lol. Apparently, it's حنه قصعة henna gasa'a, and bingo!

It doesn't show super well here, but the tops of the fingertips are also dyed like on the cover of the manga. Love that nazar ring though, so cute! 🧿

This is the mehndi style henna that people are most familiar with.

When I was little, I assumed that henna was made from soil because there are soils that can dye things a reddish color. But it's actually from a plant! The leaves are ground into a powder and then made into a paste when you want to use it.

Health, cleanliness, and hygiene are big deals in Islam. Other than being used for beauty and it’s cooling effect, henna is also used to keep oneself clean and smelling nice. It’s said that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) utilized henna as well.

I actually didn't know much about Iran's henna culture. When I asked my Irani-American friend whose family is from Tehran (northern Iran), she said she wasn't familiar with any. But like Kuwait, Iran has a lot of ethnic groups. It's also a large region (it used to be a whole empire and all that, too), so there are definitely people who do use it!

Turkmen Iranis, dying their fingertips with henna, exactly like in the manga! My family are Turk, too! (From a book I picked up a few days ago in Iran, "Nomads: Migrating with Swallows". What a pretty title...)

The clothing of the characters also felt very familiar. The cover of volume one reminded me of this picture:

Maku Kurd girl ("Nomads: Migrating with Swallows")

Iran grows tons of fruit, herbs, and flowers, famously roses! Rose water is a staple we pretty much always had at home.

Rose water is used for medicinal purposes and has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory qualities. People often wash up with it since it has a lovely fragrance and makes you smell nice. It's also used in foods and desserts or added to drinking water for flavor and health benefits.

Sitara bringing Fatima rose water. It looks just like this 12th-century rose water container. We still have containers like this nowadays and I actually used one to wash my hands recently.

Faloodeh (Persian Lime and Rose Water Granita With Rice Noodles), Bastani Sonati (Saffron and Rose Water Ice Cream), in Kuwait we say Sharbat Nimil but apparently, it's Tokhm-e Sharbatie in Iran (Rose Water and Basil Seed Drink) Fun fact: Sharbat Nimil means "ant drink" because the seeds look like... ants... and the thought freaked me out as a kid, I never wanted to drink it. I thought my aunt was messing with me but my parents said, "Yeah, no, that's actually what it's called."

Dates! Another staple. Always have some in the house.

These are ripe dates. We call them "tamar". Sweet, delicious, amazing.

These are fresh dates! We call them "khalal". Sweet, crunchy, amazing.

The architecture was also, you guessed it, familiar as well. Particularly the courtyards! It really took me back.

Courtyards! My Irani grandma (also Fatima, I told you it was a popular name...) had a courtyard home in Kuwait too, but less fancy, and she had a huge date tree instead of a fountain. We would play there all the time when we visited. Also reminds me of the houses in some of the Irani movies I've seen.

Let's Talk Religion

I know religion is historically always a fun and totally not divisive topic, but we're all going to be civil and discuss stuff like adults. I'm not trying to convert anyone, I swear. Chasing after people and forcing religion down their throats is actually frowned upon in Islam believe it or not. I’m also not saying it’s a better religion than others or anything of the sort so don’t come for me. It's just relevant to the story and I'm hoping we can interact in good faith, so let's talk.

I am NOT a scholar, this is just what I know and my understanding so please don't quote me. I probably have to gloss over and simplify a lot because there's... too much.

There are various interpretations of Islam. The Quran, to my understanding, is meant to have its interpretations evolve over time to address the issues of people no matter the time or place. Issues faced centuries ago might not be as pressing now, or we might have new issues today that weren't a thing back in the day. Iranians mainly practice Shia Islam, which is also the sect I know most about so that's what we're focusing on.

Islam is the fastest-growing religion. It's also quite misunderstood due to hate/misinformation, AND — I'm gonna just say it, there are Muslims who have skewed interpretations of Islam's teachings. Am I the perfect Muslim and my interpretations are law? I didn't say that, obviously not. But I'm going to call it how I see it. I don't take sides and I'm not going to defend someone just because they identify as Muslim if they're doing stuff that doesn't make sense (that would be un-Islamic and just... dumb imo). But anyways, there are a few points I’d like to touch on so we all have a base understanding.

Many people think that Allah (SWT) is “the Muslim god” but actually, he’s the same god that brought down the Bible and Torah. He's just... God. This is why you’ll see a lot of crossover between these religions. And Christian Arabs, for example, say Allah because that’s just God in Arabic.

Why did God come up with different religions? It’s my understanding each religion was what the people needed at the time. (Also because of the next point)

Muslims DO believe in the original Bible and Torah, but historically there's evidence that these books have been altered by people over the years. (Again, I'm not saying your religion is wrong if you're Christian or Jewish. You do you.) Then what about the Quran? I’ll actually address that later.

Muslims DO believe in Jesus. We just think he's a prophet instead of the son of God or God.

Cool? Cool.

Now to address some religion-related things that came up in the story.

The part where there is the selling of slaves made me raise an eyebrow since slavery is not allowed in Islam, because, duh.

I did some research and asked around. I was able to talk to my Irani-American friend's aunt when I visited them during my Iran trip last week since she's studied this kind of stuff. She joked that I should save myself the trouble and not touch the slavery topic, especially with Americans since it's... like... a super touchy topic. But this is an important topic and we should talk about important topics instead of shying away from them — respectfully, of course. And maybe we can all learn something. It was a perspective on slavery that was very different from what I'm used to hearing about in America. She essentially confirmed what I was thinking.

The Quran envisions the ideal society as one in which slavery no longer exists. Since slavery was such a widespread issue around the whole world back in the olden days, (it still is an issue today, but I'm assuming it was worse back then) it was unfortunately unrealistic to try and abolish it in one fell swoop. Again, this isn’t just abolishing in one country or region, but tackling the issue worldwide. So, in Islam, the idea is that there are steps in place to phase it out. For example:

No free people can be enslaved, duh.

People cannot be enslaved due to debt or crime.

You are encouraged to help slaves buy their way to freedom by giving them money to do so or buying them to free them.

If you are in possession of a slave, you should free them.

If you house a slave, you must treat them well.

This last one is just an interesting thing I didn’t know about that I saw in my research and it came up in the story — Slaves get half the punishment for a sin than if the same sin was committed by a free person.

I wondered why then, did Fatima's family, not free Sitara and the other slaves? It didn’t look like they had anything stopping them from running away either. Sure, Sitara got scolded by another slave for trying to leave, but she could have tried again and run away. The other slaves in the story seemed like they wanted to/were okay with staying, even though they did wish they could go home and felt homesick. So what’s up?

It's my understanding that back then, it was common for people to take slaves into their families, offer shelter and educate them. It was a way to take them off the streets, away from the slave traders, and keep them safe.

Why not just take everyone back to their homes? Various reasons. They might be in danger if they try to go back. They might not have anywhere to go back to. Also, this was the 13th century. It's not like they could just hop on a plane and go home. There's also no law enforcement the way we have today. Hell, even with all the local and international law enforcement of today, slavery is still a major issue.

Sitara wants to go home but has no home to go back to.

Is this ideal? As I mentioned, ideally slavery wouldn't even be a thing. I’m pretty sure we can all agree slavery=bad. I'm not here to argue that. But I also think it's important to try and understand what things were like back then and why people did what they did. A lot of times I see people measure things with their standards that were developed in modern day, with their own life experience. You need to be careful when doing that. I'm sure in the future, people will look back at us like, "Damn, y'all lived like that???"

Perhaps, this was the best the average person could do. Try to protect them and offer them shelter and an education. As long as we don’t live in an ideal world, we need to consider various solutions to issues. So this was an interesting way to try and tackle the issue given the time and circumstances. It’s rather different from what I think most Americans know about this subject.

Did everyone do this? I'm going to say probably not. Terrible people always exist. Plus there are plenty of people who say they practice a religion, but cherry-pick what they want to follow, do the opposite, have distorted understandings of its teachings, or just downright weaponize religion to suit them. That's a whole other discussion though, so I'll leave it there.

I would like to read more about this topic though, so if anyone knows any sources, let me know!

The First Word From God - "Read"

"Slave or not, it is a Muslim's duty to seek knowledge, as stated in the hadiths."

What's a hadith? Here you go. Also, this is the OG Fatima, Lady Fatima (PBUH).

When God first sent the angel Gabriel down to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), his first word to him was, "read". Education and seeking knowledge are SUPER important in Islam, and should not be kept from anyone regardless of race, gender, etc. Seeking knowledge will make you a more rational, well-rounded person. Knowledge in this context is broad and all-encompassing. It doesn't only mean religion, math, and science, but philosophy, art, and so on. Literally anything. I hope I don't really need to convince anyone that education is a human right and empowering and all that stuff, so let's keep it moving.

"Isn't that what learning is all about?"

To address this earlier point:

Muslims DO believe in the original Bible and Torah, but historically there's evidence that these books have been altered by people over the years. Then what about the Quran?

Tbh, I hesitated to include this part because people might misinterpret or take offense. To reiterate for the umpteenth time, I'm not saying your religion is wrong if you're Christian or Jewish. You do you. We’re actually told to respect believers of these religions. I swear!

So, yeah. Moving on.

Another reason seeking knowledge is an obligation in Islam is so that you are able to read the Quran for yourself. When loads of people read it, memorize it, and are familiar with it, any changes will not go unnoticed. This is to stop people from weaponizing and distorting the Quran's teachings. And this is why there is only ONE Quran, and not multiple versions (I’m not talking about translated Qurans).

In general, having knowledge about things makes you less susceptible to being lied to or misled, regardless of the topic. Unfortunately, I'm in the camp where I believe not enough people do their own research and reading. And again, I don't just mean religion, but everything. That kind of thing takes effort, and effort is hard.

Go read!

You're Still Here?

Like the first-place winner for the Male Category, The Summer Hikaru Died, which I’ve been pushing on anyone who will listen since volume one hit bookstores in Japan, Tenmaku no Jadoogar: A Witch's Life in Mongol deserves to win the Female Category. From what I can see so far, it’s well researched and written with love. I'm looking forward to seeing how this story unfolds and I may add more thoughts as we go.

Volume 2 is due to come out February 16th, so I’ll be tweeting my thoughts on my reading thread. The link to this post is on Twitter here if you want to share it there. EDIT: Volume 2 post is up!

If there's anything else you'd like to see me discuss or expand on, let me know and I'll see what I can do. I'd love to hear what others think!

I await your email publishers, my resume is ready... [email protected]

🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿

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If there’s any Japanese-only manga you want me to check out, let me know! No promises, I’ll only read what I’m interested in, but I’ll take suggestions into consideration. Preferably, shorter manga or newer manga with a few volumes out since I like to take breaks from longer series I’m reading :)

#天幕のジャードゥーガル #Tenmaku no Jadougal #A Witch’s Life in Mongol #manga recs #manga #漫画 #おすすめ #Tenmaku no Jadoogar #manga recommendation #kono manga ga sugoi #このマンガがすごい #manga discussion #shoujosei #josei #josei manga

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caught-in-a-tism · 1 year

Text

Corruption

I was struck with inspiration as I lay in bed last night. I'm gonna write it as a rule for dnd 5e but the concept could be adapted to similar games easily.

The basic idea is to sometimes replace damage with Corruption Dice (spooky), which are subtracted from d20 rolls and sometimes cause surprise damage.

(plain text is rules jargon, purple text is me saying stuff)

Concept:

This mechanic is meant to emulate various forms of magical curses as an alternative to damage. In my head it's something that can be inflicted on players if you want to create a sense of impending doom without just damaging them.

It adds a numeric way to simulate indirect harm that spooky things might cause. Just damage can get boring so this is something to heighten vibes and force players out of their comfort zone. The intended effect is to make players feel like something bad is coming, or like they're being forced by some supernatural energy to accept harmful consequences.

Added bonus is that it can mitigate insane modifiers that high level players end up with.

Mechanics:

Corruption is inflicted on characters (or creatures generally) as a number of dice. These dice are not rolled but are added to a pool. For example, if a creature takes 3d6 corruption, add 3d6 to their total corruption and don't roll them (this could be a written tally or a kept as a pile of dice in front of the player). A creature with a non-zero amount of corruption is referred to as corrupted.

This pool of dice remains until spent, or until removed by the lesser restoration spell or any effect that removes curses. Whenever a corrupted creature makes an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, they can spend some of it by rolling a number of corruption dice and subtracting the total from the initial roll. When they spend corruption in this way, they cannot spend more than 3 dice on any given d20 roll.

Alternatively, a corrupted creature can spend up to 3 corruption dice during a short rest, roll them, and take damage equal to the total.

When a corrupted creature makes an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw and rolls a natural 1, they must immediately spend all of their corruption dice at once. When the dice are spent in this way, they deal necrotic damage to the corrupted creature equal to the number rolled.

Implementation:

Corruption can be quickly inserted as a replacement for damage. It can appropriately be inserted into the spells or abilities of fey, fiends, or undead. One use I would recommend would be to use it instead of damage for magical traps or include the mechanic when designing cursed magic items. For a direct conversion, consult the following table:

If this makes it more complicated than necessary, or you don't want to mix types of dice, just do 2d6 for every 5 damage.

Lair/Legendary Actions:

This is a good place on a stat block to sub in or add corruption. In addition to damage conversion, you may replace any condition caused by a special action (such as frightened or paralyzed) with a number of d12s equal to the challenge rating of the creature. If you wish to make a creature more powerful, choose one or two of these actions and add d6 corruption/CR to the existing effects (allowing a wisdom or charisma save to avoid it if you want).

Regional Effects:

Unhallowed land, the shadowfell, the territory of a cursed or undead creature, or the domain of an illegitimate ruler may all be places where corruption permeates the air and soil. Use it when it feels right or for a specific antagonist or faction if you want them to have a unique flair. When a creature finishes a long rest in a corrupted place, they must make a DC 15 Charisma saving throw. On a success, the creature feels a vague sense of unease but suffers no other effects. On a failure, the creature gains 2d6 corruption.

If the source of the corruption is a sentient creature, they can choose up to 13 creatures that they know to be within the affected area. When any of those creatures fails their saving throw, they instead gain 1d12 corruption for each night they have spent in the affected area.

Monster Traits:

Following are a few example traits that use corruption. They can be added to the statblocks of appropriate creatures. Alternatively, they can be used as identifying features of all creatures in a specific faction or from a specific place.

Aura of Evil. Any creature that starts its turn within 10 ft. of [this creature] must succeed on a DC [8 + proficiency + Cha or Con] Charisma saving throw or gain 1d12 corruption.

Corrupted Strikes. [This creature]'s weapon attacks are magical. When [this creature] hits with any weapon, the target gains 1d8 corruption. A creature immune to necrotic damage or curses is immune to this effect.

Foul Magic. Any creature that fails a saving throw against a spell cast by [this creature] also gains 1d8 corruption. A creature immune to necrotic damage or curses is immune to this effect.

Tainted Blood. A creature that touches [this creature] or hits it within a melee attack while within 5 ft. of it gains 3d6 corruption.

Items:

Below is a single example magic item, to show the way this mechanic could be used to represent curses.

I think it's neat because the ability to use corruption to your advantage encourages a player to seek out dark and dangerous situations. It makes corruption a little less scary, but it uses the meta to push the character to find opponents to inflict it on, lest they suffer the consequences of their actions.

Narrative:

In darker campaign settings, corruption can be used in roleplay to underline thematic elements. The DM may inflict 1-3d8 corruption on any character who gives in to dark desires, betrays someone's trust, does something impious or blasphemous, or witnesses something grim and horrifying.

The DM and players should decide ahead of time exactly which actions or events will lead to corruption, and how severe they have to be to incur a given number (or size) of dice. Consider which type of roleplay you all want to encourage, and which themes should be emphasized.

Player Options:

Spells and abilities that deal damage can easily be converted, either on a character by character or spell by spell basis. Spells that this change would be most appropriate for include arms of hadar, blight, chill touch, cloudkill, dissonant whispers, summon celestial, summon undead, toll the dead, etc.

You could also modify (or make up!) class features so that they inflict corruption instead of damage, or in addition to other effects. A vengeful Cleric's Channel Divinity might inflict corruption upon sinners, even a Rogue's sneak attack might inflict supernatural woe in place of additional damage.

If you, as the DM, allow players to cause enemies to gain corruption, remember that you should spend it more liberally than a player might. You can and should roleplay as that monster or enemy, but consider that a creature that will likely not survive the fight may make the players feel cheated if it never chooses to suffer the penalty.

Variants:

The damage type that corruption deals could easily be changed to highlight different themes. Change it to psychic damage for a more horror or lovecraftian setting, change it to poison damage it you are using it to represent toxic substances or diseases. Perhaps you want to use it to represent radiation poisoning, in which case it could be radiant damage (if not poison or necrotic).

Another idea I like is to make the corruption represent horrible luck. Because the damage is triggered by natural 1s, the DM can describe it as a consequence of some kind of accident and declare an appropriate damage type. For example: a character that rolls a natural 1 on an attack may fall on their sword and take piercing damage equal to their remaining corruption, or a natural 1 on the Constitution save triggered by a green dragon's breath may represent a character gasping and breathing in additional poison damage like an idiot.

Another change, for a more sword and sorcery setting, could include allowing spellcasters to accumulate corruption in exchange for more potent magic. Whenever an arcane caster casts a spell, they may gain 1d12 corruption and increase the level of the spell by one without expending a higher level slot. This could also be a mandatory feature, to make all magic a form of dark bargaining.

This has not been play tested so you may also find it necessary to balance it by including maximum corruption (perhaps dealing its damage if it reaches that threshold), limiting it to d6s or even d4s, or making it less deadly. If the potential damage seems too high, random, and/or disruptive to combat balance, it could be spread out. To do so, change it so that each time a corrupted creature takes damage, they spend one die and add it to the damage.

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #dnd 5e #homebrew #dnd homebrew #game design #ttrpg #ttrpg resources #first post #dark fantasy #fantasy

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