#and watering the entire essence of what it is down to “aesthetics” | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

monstersdownthepath · 1 year

Text

Scourge Spotlight: Inkariax, the White Death

CR 26

Lawful Evil Colossal Outsider

Adventure Path: Return of the Runelords: The City Outside of Time, pg. 86-87

Surprise! Happy Holidays, everyone! I wasn’t going to wait until the end of the month to talk about this tall drink of ice water. The season of giving prompts me to give you something special, and what’s more special than a unique gift? Inkariax here is the first and, sadly, only Velstrac Demagogue to get stats, something that will likely remain true for the foreseeable future. I, for one, wish that he didn’t look like... well, just a Blue Dude with some added bits.

A 70-foot tall Blue Dude, mind, but a Blue Dude nonetheless. Yes, the ‘Colossal’ wasn’t a typo; this guy stands taller than most houses. The average human would be lucky to stand past his ankles. It’s easy for Inkariax to treat most other creatures as below him because, in a very literal sense, it’s true. It’s also true metaphorically, if you believe his origin story: it’s said than when the velstrac were first freed from Hell and migrated to the Plane of Shadow, their essence mingled with the frigid expanse of the plane to birth Inkariax, fully-formed. While other velstrac strive for perfection, he believes himself to already be perfect, and is so secure in his belief that he doesn’t even bother speaking to correct anyone else. There are few creatures in existence that can claim to have ever heard the White Death say even a single word, the titan usually communicating entirely through minor gestures or changes in his facial expression. Though he can understand any language and use telepathy if needed, he never does so except to give vague orders to his greatest minions. The most straightforward communion one can hope to get from him are the extremely rare occasions where he writes something down, which is why anyone at all knows why his desolate domain is called the Frozen Tears, and his personal frigid fortress the White Death’s Diadem.

Due to the lack of need he feels in communicating anything, his goals and desires are an utter mystery, perfectly moldable into any existing campaign a DM feels like having him show up in. However, his primary desire is easy enough to use without changing much: Inkariax desires perfection. Absolute perfection and absolute order. As a perfect being himself, the White Death is uniquely qualified to judge what is and isn’t perfect, and if there’s one thing he despises more than anything else, it’s time’s tendency to ruin perfection. He gets around time’s grinding wheel by capturing moments in amber, arranging the targets of his admiration into exact poses, then freezing them in unbreakable, glass-clear ice so he may admire their magnificence until existence itself comes to an end.

Inkariax embodies the absolute worst, most hostile form of Law there is, the dislike of even casual forms of chaos. Not moral or conceptual chaos, but physical chaos; entropy itself grates against his aesthetic, time spoiling all he deems beautiful. Were it not for his strange fondness for the Lady of Pain, Doloras, inspiring him to attempt to impress her with an ever-growing macabre gallery, Inkariax may be moved to freeze the entirety of creation in a single, exquisite moment, eradicating the possibility of imperfection altogether.

What chance does a party have of stopping him from his strange goals, whatever they may be? Let’s find out...

Well, let’s get something out of the way first: 70ft tall. This gives the mountainous Demagogue a space and reach of 30ft, and with the power to conjure Walls of Ice 3/day, there is likely little the party can do to stay out of his reach, giving him Full-Attack after Full-Attack. Perhaps fitting for such a refined being, his Bloody Icicles can be drawn from his flesh and wielded as elegant rapiers. +5 Wounding Rapiers, to be exact, sized for his massive form and thus capable of dealing 4d6+17 damage (+1 stacking bleed) up to four times each round. Worse still, his specific weapon selection means he critically hits on a 15-20, giving him a 1/4 chance to double his output for the attack... or, to put it in a worse way, it’s likely he may critically strike once a round, possibly even twice a round!

Those Bloody Icicles make for powerful ranged attacks as well, as he’s able to fling up to four a round as if they were +3 Daggers, each dealing 3d6+15 damage and critically striking on a still-high-but-more-reasonable 17-20. Unlike his servitors, who specialize in attacking from afar, Inkariax’s sheer size makes attacking from a range for him less than useful; he can pretty easily be fired on in retaliation because, unless he wants to take increasingly ridiculous penalties due to a dagger’s pitiful 10ft range increment, he has to stay relatively close anyway, and he’s a huge target. Also like the Libitinarii, he has both Point-Black Shot and Precise Shot, but PBS only works if the target is within 30ft... and if he’s within 30ft, then why not simply stab them with his significantly more dangerous rapier? It feels like his threat could be vastly ramped up if his ranged attack feats were traded out with Two-Weapon Fighting and its offshoots to let him dual-wield his icy rapiers without penalty.

While his skill with a rapier is usually enough to carry him, this is only if the White Death’s attention has been sufficiently stirred enough by the attacks of insects. His Unnerving Gaze completely stuns anyone who meets it for 1d4+1 rounds unless they succeed a DC 32 Will save, and unlike most velstrac, it has an effective range of 120ft, letting his dispassionate gaze take enemies out of the fight before he needs to bother drawing a weapon. For those who power through his gaze, his Regeneration 30 can only be shut down by a deific or Mythic source, and his DR 20 can only be penetrated by a weapon that’s Epic, Good, and silver. Rather notably, while he maintains immunity to charms, compulsions, fear, poison, and petrification, he is not immune to ability score damage, drain, energy drain, or death effects, making him one of the rare campaign final bosses that can potentially be weakened with Energy Drain or Enervation, harmed by Destruction, Finger of Death, or Slay Living, or even outright killed with Power Word Kill or even the humble Death Knell if the party has no other way to bypass his Regeneration... you know, if you can get past his 37 SR, but still. It’s interesting that such an angle of attack is left open. The party may not even realize it’s an option, given how death protection is so pervasive at high levels, especially with divine targets! It certainly takes a lot of bite away from the Demagogue.

Also interesting, Inkariax has no protection against Fire damage. Not even any Resistance! He’s got a hell of a lot of protection from Cold, though; not only is he immune to Cold damage, but he’s utterly immune to the effects of ANY spell with the [Cold] descriptor, no matter what it may be. He can move through snow and ice without difficulty, and use his Icy Logic to immediately and unavoidably end ANY ongoing effect with the [Cold] descriptor whether it be a spell, item effect, or even an alchemical item, with nothing more than a standard action. Why are you even wasting your time trying to use cold magic against him, though?! You fool!

The only master of cold here is him! Though he lacks the penetrating Hellfrost of fellow snow enthusiast Baalzebul, he often doesn’t need it, his spells damaging enough to surpass most Cold Resistance anyway. Like I mentioned before he has Cone of Cold and Wall of Ice 5/day, but he ALSO has Freezing Sphere and Ice Storm at 5/day as well, the inconvenient Chill Metal available at will, and the Dex-draining Polar Ray at 3/day. With so much AoE available to him, he’ll probably hit someone who isn’t fully protected from his cold, provided he’s not using his turn to disassemble nearby targets with his icy rapiers (which average out to considerably more damage to single targets than even Polar Ray). If you ARE immune to Cold damage, or perhaps you seem like something he may wish to add to his collection, he has Imprisonment 3/day as a terrifyingly powerful Save-Or-Suck, a single Will save standing between you and being sealed in his collection for eternity.

In a similar vein to that, though, there is one last gimmick he has: As he’s mostly a larger and more powerful Libitinarii, and they’re known to freeze targets they touch in ice to preserve them forever, you’d expect Inkariax to be able to do the same, right? Wrong! He actually freezes everything around him at once in a single go to save time. Upwards to five times a day, he can force all creatures within 30ft of him to make a DC 28 Fortitude save or take 6d6 Cold damage and 6d6 evil piercing damage... and anyone who fails must make a second, DC 29 Will save or be turned into deathless ice. Any victim who isn’t subject to Break Enchantment or similar within 1 hour per HD they have? They’re gone. Permanently. The book plainly and simply states that only the will of a deity can release someone frozen by Inkariax’s magic, making this one of the few abilities in existence that can’t be undone by Wish or Miracle, something that off the top of my head only the incarnates of Abaddon’s will have been able to do before.

Two failed saves standing between you and losing half your party to an ability from which there is no recovering, which you may have to succeed five separate times against. Between that and his Imprisonment, you may begin to WISH he’d stick to his damaging spells.

You can read more about him here.

#Scourge Season Month #Monster Spotlight #CR 26 and up #blood #body horror #pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

31 notes · View notes

jaygerland · 1 year

Video

youtube

Liked on YouTube: Akira Ito ‎(伊藤詳) - Marine Flowers (Science Fantasy) (1986) FULL ALBUM - Green & Water ‎– R28X-1003 (Japan, 1986) https://ift.tt/ou1IJgL 00:00 A1. 序章華やぎ / Prologue, Into The Beauty 12:55 A2. 水色の聖地 / W・A・T・E・R 18:06 A3. 気の舞い / Dancing Spirits 21:04 A4. 精美 / Essence Of Beauty 25:54 B1. 神がみの遊び / Where Spirits Play 26:57 B2. 祈り / Prayer 38:53 B3. 生生流転 / Life Goes On 42:31 B4. 終章青き久遠 / Epilogue, Out Of Endless Blue Producer, Composed By, Arranged By, Synthesizer, Electric Bass, A. Piano, Percussion, Engineer, Mixed By – Akira Ito Oboe – Heitaro Manabe Percussion – Izaba Saxophone – Koichiro Kami E. Violin – Takashi Toyoda Vocals – Mineko Soundtrack to the Laser Disc of the same name. There is a time in any good musician’s life when they absolutely nail down whatever they had to place. Akira Ito, one time keyboardist for influential Japanese psych rock outfit The Far East Band, could have stayed with that group rehashing “out there” musical troupes – variations on psychedelia with The FABs or Kitaro-like, Jean-Michel Jarre-aping electro-prog as in his early, solo career – or he could, you know, grow the hell up, and accept that music evolves, and so must he. There’s only so much Ummagumma aping one can do in a lifetime. That’s what makes Marine Flower his first release under his own Green & Water record label truly interesting. It shows his shift to a particular electronic aesthetic that his country was cultivating at the time. Marine Flower (Science Fantasy) was far more minimal and exploratory than anything he’d ever done before. It appeared that Akira was taking influence from German elektronic kosmische music of Cluster, Manuel Göttsching, and Neu and trying to chisel it down through a Japanese aesthetic – essentially using the more holistic, environmentally conscious, spacial aware ideas of other Japanese electronic New Age artists like Hiroshi Yoshimura etc. as a sifter/filter to temper the influence of that kind of music. It was/is a beautiful set of electronic mood music with meditative overtones of nostalgia, comfort, and sweetness for good reason. Album highlight “Essence of Beauty” puts all these feelings of aware reflection into full view. Essentially written as part of a musical series called “Music For Inochi”/Music for Life on his label, each album in this series attempted to carry along intently a specific mood. Water-based music, forest-based music, macro-life music like Yumiko Morioka’s Resonance – simple ideas that took all those far out, less inviting, explorations into far more personal and focused pieces. Although Marine Flower (Science Fantasy) was meant for the New Age market, it ventures far outside the genre. Drum machines, saxophones, electric violin, and all sorts of assorted mallet percussion find ways to make their presence felt in what really is supposed to be a set of percolating “floating” synthesizer music. Not entirely perfect – but what is? – it does have so much to offer as another important piece in this whole structure of Japanese electronic music we’re uncovering (with our Western ears) piecemeal.

#IFTTT #YouTube

3 notes · View notes

fermented-writers-block · 2 years

Text

Honestly, looking back, it strikes me as a bit funny the way much of the fandom collectively agreed since True Colors that if Sasha were to get her calamity power back, hers would be fire themed. And yet over the course of S3A, it’s become more and more clear that that distinction would actually belong to Anne most of all.

Like seen above, the dual flame/lotus symbolism extends to her powers itself, not just her shirt symbol. I’ve done a fair bit of theorizing on what this duality could possibly symbolize for Anne’s arc for the end of the show, but in all of this, it begs the question of what Sasha’s Calamity power theme would be if Anne already has dibs on fire.

For me, I’d like to introduce my proposal with a particularly eye-catching feat of nature revolving around fire’s elemental opposite:

Just as blue flames actually burn much hotter than red flames rather than cooler as color theory might make one believe (make of those potential implications for Anne as you will), I feel that Sasha’s Calamity form taking after this kind of rare water phenomena would make for an incredibly striking inversion of the usual element-color associations made in fiction.

In short, a BLUE fiery Anne and a PINK/RED watery Sasha.

However, my reasoning extends further beyond just mere symbolic aesthetics.

From an interview with Matt on the metaphor behind Anne’s power, applying a similar idea to Sasha’s Calamity power would likely necessitate its theme to also be symbolically reflective of her as a person and her growth. In essence, both what she used to be and what she needs to learn to become.

Basically, I’d compare pre-Turning Point Sasha to a fast moving torrent of water coming out from a spigot/flowing across land. From the suggestions that Sasha’s behavior isn’t new across the show, it seems she essentially carved out a metaphorical mental rut for herself over the years in which she felt she had to be in control 100% of the time - presumably from feeling a lack of control in regards to her home life.

Water is a incredibly powerful element, capable of eroding and shaping the very landscape of continents, and the longer Sasha had the water pressure knob set to high with her in control of the flow. Thus, the depth of her path lowered until we got to the girl who couldn’t and wouldn’t climb out of the valley she had shaped for herself, who would flow over and around any obstacle that fell in her way to keep going the same way, and who dragged along anyone who fell in with the direction and sheer force of her current up until they got fished out like Anne and Marcy, found the strength to swim to shore and get out like Percy and Braddock, or subsumed under her waves.

After all, just as it’s difficult to fight against a heavy current and even harder still to divert the course of a river, that’s how her intense personality and persistent drive influenced those around her.

That is, until a stream’s velocity is slowed enough - whether from to where its path can meander much more easily rather than just going straight.

In essence, a water theme for Sasha’s powers and her growth could revolve around the idea of teach her how to let go off the water pressure knob. Rather than dictating the direction of the flow and forcing her surroundings to follow suit, she could learn how to slow down and go with the flow of her surroundings, becoming much, much more flexible and able to change directions while being considerably calmer and clear in mind than before.

In comparison, Anne is someone who used to be and still is someone who tends to jump headfirst into burning her candle at both ends to take on others’ responsibilities, effectively setting herself on fire to keep others warm. With careful moderation, fire can provide warmth, guiding light, and a deterrence to dangerous animals, but fire also has the capacity to spread out of control and burn down entire swathes of land should proper care not be taken with it.

Between her trauma and avoidance of addressing how she actually feels, I can’t help but feel that Anne might struggle to do exactly that in the future, and just like a fire gone out of control, she may need some external help to cool her down.

Overall, Anne’s fiery, passionate emotions and the forceful pull of Sasha’s currents are what makes me feel these elements fit them and their possible upcoming character arcs quite well.

The former would need external help to control and simmer down should her emotions run wild, and water is quite an effective tool for such. And the latter would need an extra hand to keep Sasha’s head above the turbulent waters coming her way and point her towards calmer pastures, or at least help guide her up the slopes and keep her from sliding back down into the valley she had created.

Such is the way of the potential burning perils of fire, and the landscape shifting power of water.

#amphibia #amphibia meta #amphibia specualtion #amphibia thoughts #amphibia theory #sasha waybright #anne boonchuy

85 notes · View notes

ciaran-archive · 3 years

Note

Sorry to pry but can you elaborate on the authenticity post and what you don’t like about Ender’s Game? I don’t mean this in an accusatory way btw I genuinely wanna hear you complain about it.

WHY YES I WOULD LOVE TO BITCH ABOUT ENDER'S GAME

my fatal flaw as a person is that i cannot stop thinking about ender's game . like this book lives in my head in a way that far better books i've read just don't and i think that's partly because it did so much to me.

i read it when i was, 13, i think? like. i was just kind of figuring out that i was queer, i was weirdly uncomfortably obsessed with m/m relationships, even the vaguest implication of lesbianism made me feel sick and awful, i was pretty depressed, i had very few friends, and i wasn't....in a good place at all.

and i read ender's game and it kind of maybe saved my life? it showed me that being alone and being lonely weren't inherently a death sentence. it allowed me something i still don't have a name for. ender and valentine and peter felt like facets of a reality i nearly had, and in their reflection i could be something more like myself. who knows where i would have been but for ender's game!

it also fucked me up so bad.

one of the core messages of ender's game - and of a lot of OSC's other work - is that you cannot be truly Original, and you can't Create Anything Worth Creating, if you derive from the work of others. to make something Really Great you must isolate all your creativity and not allow anything else to influence it or it will be tainted and suspect forever. like not in those words but in that essence, that was clearly one of the subtexts of the book.

the other core message is "it is necessary for adults to hurt children; it is irresponsibly stupid as a child, especially a clever child, to trust that adults will ever not hurt you" and combined with the valorized loneliness of the first message it kind of.......still messes me up? and one of the reasons it fucked me up was because i was so bad at adhering to its lessons.

and that's my problem with ender's game at the end of the day: it's like drinking nuclear waste water when you're dying of thirst. like yeah it'll save your life but it'll also teach you how to justify doing the worst things possible (to yourself and others) and i was damned lucky that fiction was my first outlet for those urges and justifications because good god i don't like thinking about what it would've been like directed at myself without any barriers! and it was pretty bad even so!

OSC is also wildly unreasonably and rabidly homophobic so there's, uh, that. To Deal With.

the thing about authenticity is that it doesn't really exist. there's no true self, only selves less articulated or entirely unacknowledged for whatever reasons. sometimes those selves aren't given form because they have nothing to do with us. but we exist in a constant state of becoming; we are built in relation to our surroundings, and we can never strive to be free of influence. isolation is its own form of torture.

there are no authentic cultures either, only arbitrary markers we place in our pasts to delineate the "real" from the "influences" like every culture isn't a snapshot of its moment in time. things are always changing and turning into something new. they rarely become more "themselves" because the idea that you can strip away everything an outsider gave you and still end up with something either real or worth having is....kind of sad, really? do you want to know the person you are without everyone you've ever loved?

it's one thing to talk about capitalism and the commodification of the self and cults of personality and another to act like the very act of articulating your identity in a series of labels/aesthetics/shiny online things inherently corrupts your "soul". this process exists offline also; we are always building ourself to be approved of or disapproved of or reacted to or ignored by the people around us.

but people get really bogged down in the idea of authenticity and the specter of a real self that can be accessed by jumping through various hoops (go offline! go on instagram! make a succulent garden! get a tiktok! buy this thing!). and then they start acting superior because they don't need the internet to feel like their "real self" - as a friend said, sounds like they have a surprising amount of ability to be their real self with parents and bosses and cops - like i'm sorry! some of us are queer and trans and autistic and can't access an offline social group! and even if i did i would prefer to be online a lot of the time: the internet is full of spaces where i'm safe and in control, and that's just harder irl. and my experiences aren't any less valuable than those of someone with different ones.

...anyway, that's on authenticity.

#asks #anon

146 notes · View notes

writer-akihiko · 3 years

Text

[NSFT] Observant Master - Lucien X Reader

For @xxsycamore's Kinktober Event! Also tagging the two biggest Lucien fans that I know, @writer-lixue and @little-butterfly-writes for this spicy Lucien fic.

If you are under 18, do not read. This work contains sex and other sexual themes. Please also consider blocking the [#not family friendly] tag on my blog because I still will be posting that kind of content.

Prompt: Maid fetish; "I see that you're enjoying my gift."

Lucien sure had his ideals with his aesthetics, but nothing surprised you more than the package at the foot of your bed, with a set of clothes with a familiar black and white frilly dress… and a name card with your name written in Lucien's handwriting.

Of course he knew your measurements. His hands running over your body every time he had you in bed resulted in something. It was a perfect fit even, as you pulled on the lacy white socks over your thighs… Waiting patiently for Lucien to return home, you fiddled with the frilly apron of your maid dress.

Sprawled all over the bed, you couldn't help but wonder about how your lover would take you. Would he run his hands over your socks? Would he flip up your skirt and pound through you, exhausting all his stress into every thrust? Or… would you be taking him down your throat and accepting your master's seed oh so humbly?

" I see that you're enjoying my gift."

You froze in place, hearing the sultry tone of Lucien as he tugged off his coat, his eyes simply darting to every inch of you. You were flushed for sure, with the short skirt not helping your wet patch from the obscene thoughts of Lucien.

"Let me check what you've been doing, love."

Your body responded first before your mind, too used to obeying your Master. He just knew what you were up to, but he was a tease. He wanted to hear it from you. You shuffled closer to the bed, as Lucien briskly removed his belt.

Parting your knees and thighs, you lifted your skirt by the edges, revealing the wet patch that was slowly spreading. Lucien tsked, still appreciating how simply adorable you looked… He'd certainly take his time, but he had that wet pussy he needed to attend to…

The professor, with one hand, pulled your panties down in one fell swoop. The sudden feel of cold air made you shiver, almost losing balance. He tried the waters, the tip of his finger swirling around the wet essence pooling at your centre, before pushing in.

"L-Lucien~" You moaned out, feeling his entire finger slide into your cavern.

The pleasure instantaneously stopped. You panicked, wondering what happened to your reward. You didn't dare to move your hips, with Lucien's steely gaze piercing through you. It wasn't wise to disobey him… your…

"Master?"

He smirked, rubbing your walls with his finger in and out your core at high speeds, spreading your insides as he discretely adds another finger in. His other arm rests behind your hips, supporting you as his lips leans into your collar, kissing and leaving love bites all over your skin…

Lucien's vigorous pumping of his fingers into you brought you to your high, and another high after that… and a third right after. It was when his three fingers pushed against your core you came to your fourth, squirting and making a mess of yourself and Lucien's fingers.

"Oh?"

His voice had no tone of regret, yet no surprise either. Instead, your lover held you in his arms, taking in your well-fucked face as he allowed you to lean into the bed. With one final kiss, he straddled you, unbuttoning the buttons below his collar as he loosened his slacks, his kind smile hiding his feral lust.

"You have one thing left to clean, my maid."

#mlqc #mlqc xu mo #mlqc lucien #mlqc smut #mlqc x reader #VISIONSOFTEMPTATION2021 #mr love queens choice #mr love queen's choice #mr love dream date #mr love fanfic #mr love lucien #mlqc lucien xu #mlqc lucien smut #mlqc lucien x reader

136 notes · View notes

sugar-petals · 3 years

Text

♡ måneskin scenario: getting to know ethan

↳ NOTE. by popular demand and because i’m entirely enthralled by the phenomenon that is ethan torchio myself, here we go givin’ the gorgeous drummer some love.

word count. 5.5k

TAGS. no warnings all fluff, fem!oc, slice of life, photographer!reader, first date-ish, shy flirting, ot4 is part of the plot, ethan being sexy in heels

Jacob had enough of that twilight bullshit and joined a glam rock band. At least that’s what you thought seeing Ethan around for the first time. Setting up the kit, carrying his whiny band members around, fixing his ruffle shirt, chugging some water: Big gig tonight, extra long setlist. Five minutes later, complaining about his brocade shoes being hard to kick the bass drum with. Even later, silently nodding along to an impassioned Damiano speech crafted to boost the morale, and posing for your camera in his silver jumpsuit. Friendly to approach all the way, but without initiating stable eye contact even once.

One thing’s for sure. As your favorite professor said back at university: Someone may be photogenic and unearthly as hell in terms of looks, and even be intimidating — but also so damn shy, you won’t see their eyes a single time. „Gotta work with it and not against. Then it gets interesting“. In essence, the takeaway from that course. Which does come in handy now. Ethan seems like the kind of guy you really have to get into for a more intimate-feeling picture.

Sure, many people in front of your camera have all kinds of introverted personalities anyway, wearing sunglasses in particular. So much about eye contact in the first place. And the aesthetic is priority, not studying character. Although you really are a fan of that, it’s a huge part of photography if anything. Alas, you’re here to „capture nothing more but the spirit of italo-rock, the attitude, the hedonism!“ (the exact words of your boss) for a music magazine after all. Really, nothing more? You paid attention to how he worded it. Fair enough. Rock spirit, that’s all, the exciting parts.

Ethan surely has it. Drumming on everything he can find during rehearsal breaks („music is everywhere“) with his sticks, even Thomas’ amplifier. He’s actually dorkier than you thought, less composed when he’s in his element. First impressions do deceive. The hair’s hard to miss, too. It’s the central motif that attracts you. You may or may not have taken over 50 shots of it just because. Ethan is a bad bitch and he better know. You climb around the venue to get any salient angle of Måneskin you can think of. Even from all the way back, last row. You don’t want to annoy them being all up in their face constantly. You’re hired to get all the good shots, they’ve been a band for seven years already, professionals in the making. Doesn’t mean you have to stand below the edge of the stage and never change position.

Even from back there, the silver reflects beautifully at the back of the stage. The fashion’s all designer and it shows, but Ethan couldn’t look bad in any of the shots even if he tried or wore the plainest black suit (hell, that would be just as beautiful in fact). Just how long is that hair anyway. All the way down to the solar plexus, must be 24 inches or more. 25, even. Many rockers would wear it that way, but Ethan seems particularly interesting with how he touches it, how he behaves with it. There we go again with the character study, you can’t help wondering.

But really. It’s any photographer’s dream when someone moves their hair around so damn naturally. Gives a great variety to how it frames and shades the face. You like to play with light all the time. And hey, why ask for eye contact when he does even better posing in other ways. The body, too, Ethan’s posture is great. Victoria and Thomas often bend to really get into their power chords, Damiano frequently hunches forward for a belt. But Ethan’s throned at his kit like some royals taught him to be a good boy. Back straighter than a pole, how the hell.

No glance in your direction still, even if you return from your last row spot to move around on stage with the camera. Which gives the band a motivation boost and chances to try out gestures up close, too, so even better. Hey, maybe it doesn’t annoy them. You can actually get used to it, this way of photographing them is all dynamic. Nearing the end of the first rehearsal, you’re all busy maneuvering between Thomas and Damiano to get a nice semi-profile from Ethan’s left side. Gotta work with it not against, you chant to yourself as a mantra, and it seems easier to stick to than you thought.

How glossy all that hair is commands all the attention of your shutter release in and of itself. That he takes good care of it and has been growing it since forever shows a dedicated guy. It’s actually quite wavy. The band arrived in the pouring rain and Ethan’s curly strands at the crown and nape of the head were definitely showing — super cute. An army of stylists took on the resulting humidity frizz. They whipped out the straightening iron and protective spray, and even now before the big performance, Ethan brushes his hair out in front of you, and sweeps it around with his fingers anyway. You take pictures of the bits you find most candid, and decide to rather perfect single shots instead of making several in a row. The more you photograph him, the more you want to discover his essence in one picture. His sheer presence almost begs for it, it’s ridiculous.

Victoria on the other hand has no problems with rapid-fire releases and comes close to your lens to pull funny faces. She’s got some of the coolest poses you’ve ever seen with her bass, and hops around the stage like a bunny to the beat. Thomas is a virtuoso and pro who keeps on doing what he does when you make him pose, and Damiano can flirt with any camera ever. He even lowers his red leather jacket off his collar bones for you to have a great shot. He’s promising and most definitely a born divo, your boss will be happy with those pictures most definitely.

Then again. Behind that supposed hedonism is so much hard work and thought. Damiano even gives you ideas for angles during the second rehearsal. „Hm, maybe stand on the amplifier?“ Eagle perspective, not a bad idea at all. After trying out said suggestions with the help of triggered stage security making sure you don’t fall off the construction („eh, Damiano always suggests the most reckless things to staff, don’t mind him“), you find yourself concentrating on what goes on at the back of the stage all over again.

Ethan is busy practicing a new solo which has you curious about whether it’s for an upcoming album. Though again — the shoes cause trouble. Ethan complains again, the music stops. That could very well be the reason why he seems so preoccupied today, or is it? The manager tells the stylist, and the stylist hurries, voilà, Ethan has a new pair of shoes brought in. Ones with a thicker sole, bit of a chunky heel, and laced up rather than being slippers, a drummer’s worst nightmare as you have learned today.

You wait until he changed. Then snap some more pictures how he continues practicing calmly, and the sound did improve since he can kick the bass drum better now. Now you position yourself across the stage all over, in the empty audience ranks. Ethan is the most radiant and confident when you just take a step back. But well, he still sweeps his hair around a whole lot and looks even more tense-looking than Damiano who’s doing vocal warmups and jumping jacks, „Come on guys, come on, we’re starting in 30 minutes!“.

You can tell he does it more often when he’s nervous. And that means he does it very often. People would probably assume it’s vanity, or the fact that the hair gets in the way. You can see that for him it’s a place of distraction, maybe safety. A gesture like an anchor. He’s used to it being long just like his eye shadow being dark and smoky all day. He knows the drums by heart, if it falls in his face no need to shake it away. And besides. The strands reach below his shoulder blades, it stays down his back if he doesn’t move around too much. He could easily tie it up as well. All those things go through your mind without you even knowing why.

To switch things up a little, you photograph Thomas fooling around with Victoria at the snack bar, stuffing fries up their noses, and already see the lighting technicians do their final check. Some of them you know briefly, you made shots at this venue before, last year for a Shakespeare theatre play. You did some freelance work in the scene, but now you’re put to the test for more involved jobs. Hard to complain though, Måneskin are amazing in front of the camera. If Damiano is not the ideal Hamlet, you don’t know anymore.

Something new happens all the time, the expressions are priceless. Ethan’s in particular, when he does his wide-eyed surprise faces learning that there’s actually healthy food at the snack bar. „Vitamins, how nice.“ — Thomas, pokerfaced, reacts with eating a mayonnaise-dripping sandwich. Ethan, unfazed. Headed straight to the fruits. You’ve never seen a tall silver glitter tower like him walking around biting a bright red apple. Well, you can take Jacob out of twilight, but not the twilight out of Jacob. Snap, another picture. Clash of words, that’s a nice theme.

The concert of this evening seems particularly energetic and leaves your camera roll with some brilliant, tweet-worthy material. Damiano covered in confetti, eyeliner running. Victoria on the shoulders of Ethan while he’s playing her bass. Thomas, stagediving. Fans waving banners and chanting along to Seven Nation Army. Your ears are ringing when the light technicians close down the stage two hours later. Thomas really played his soul out with the solos, and your feet seem to vibrate. That’s your body thinking Victoria’s bass is still playing, but the magazine is very happy with how the pictures turned out after you send the whole batch to them as soon as you can.

Little to no retouching, zooming, or cropping necessary. Ethan is just perfect as he is, you feel like you captured him well. After swiping through the gallery on your tablet, you think Victoria has some great ant’s eye perspective shots as well. Those go right on your own blog, she’s just amazing. The magazine has an enthusiastic article typed out already. Damiano’s mid-air split on beat for the final song makes the cover story on Monday, and Måneskin’s manager comes back to you a week later. „What would you think about doing some behind the scenes stuff for us? We’re planning a music video!“

And that’s how you end up in a Sicilian restaurant with Måneskin and crew a week later, stuffed with Calzone and mind filled with Damiano’s inspiring words (and the occasional catchy freestyle rap). The MV is as good as finished. Thomas had shown you around the mansion they were shooting at, and you could convince a taciturn Ethan to walk between the marble statues and boxwood trees in the garden. With his black cape on, a rhinestone choker, and the low-cut lacey blouse that the MV director was obsessed with as well, asking you to focus on it. Your best shot even ends up in the thumbnail of the Youtube video without you even expecting it would.

All the garden pictures turned out mindblowing. If not iconic, the best project you had so far. Gets to show you the best things are often improvised. Ethan, stoic as always, sat at the base of armor-clad Emperor Augustus twisting into the blue sky in a large gesture. The marble was a perfect contrast. Ethan ate a ripe pear from a tree, even that was aesthetically pleasing, then leaned against a hunting Apollo, and you also framed him from the back next to Aphrodite and Cesar. He put on his sunglasses underneath Achilles, and knelt at the feet of a Pietà replica. Marvelous panorama shots, with him the shining center. Well, we know since Queen that the drummer is the unrealistically pretty one.

The whole picture series is blowing up on your blog for the whole afternoon. „Count Dracula on a stroll in Versailles — eugh, begone sunlight!“ is what a comment neatly sums it up as. People seem to especially like the shot where Ethan playfully put his cape over Pallas Athena’s spear with a blurry Thomas having a laughing fit in the background. Well, even Count Drac gets photobombed sometimes. Your phone buzzes with notifications every other minute, you do notice it against your thigh. But the insalata of the restaurant is good and the night is young. Victoria and the manager tell old stories of Thomas snapping a guitar string while he was trying to serenade a highschool crush. Ethan scolds them for making fun of it.

Damiano gets drunk and dances on the table, the MV director discusses new ideas, some walk-in fans take pictures. The temperature is still unbearable. You order a dessert to share with Victoria and Ethan. A large tiramisu that the waiter cuts in three pieces, and it’s truly delectable. The chocolate, so crunchy, melty. The cream, fluffy and cool, making for a funny white beard that makes Ethan look like an arctic scientist returning from an expedition.

Of course, you take pictures, all the food is documented. As are late night restaurant shots with Damiano’s heels peaking into the frame when you photograph the band’s friendship bracelets, hand-made by Victoria on a tour bus last year. Damiano’s back down on the table soon, singing, while Ethan creates a beat with two forks. Thomas also agrees to take your camera for a while so you’d be in the frame for a change, too.

You pose for a group picture, or rather a group hug, and being in the middle …Ethan’s arm wraps around your shoulder loosely, hair dangling into his face, but also brushing yours. He focuses on the camera, facing away from you. The schooled eye could catch you breaking a sweat in the resulting photo. Ironically, the tiramisu doesn’t cool you down the way you thought. Thomas is too busy trying to figure out your camera dials and yelling „hey eyebrow king, smile!“ at Ethan.

A round of even more gelato goes down in spoons and spoons. The band members eat like they ran a marathon. Ethan clinches a third round because he can, unhealthy be damned, he needs some sugar and refreshment. And it’s true the MV shooting was strenuous in the heat, and had lots of intense performing parts. Even an invisible rope suspension were Thomas would descend from a ceiling during the chorus with little cherub wings attached to his back because why not. If the manager agreed to recreate this on tour some day, the pictures would be amazing.

You can’t help but think what kind of special effect would suit Ethan the most, and you come to the conclusion that a bridge lift would be the coolest thing ever. A rising part of the stage letting him emerge like an elevator from the underground. Maybe using smoke machines, too. The idea twirls around in your mind so intensely, Damiano asks if you’re wasted. You’re always getting carried away with all kinds of fantasies like that for over a week now. A dreamy photographer? Not unusual, but it’s seriously distracting you from the present moment.

The crew slowly heads home, and the band decides (translation: Victoria’s mood is) to head to the movies. Just when the waiter arrives with the bill, Damiano spills panna cotta all over Ethan by accident. So bad he’s all sticky from the shoulders down, making Ethan opt for the hotel instead. Besides, he’s been drumming his soul out, sleep is so needed now. Since the group is already gone and there’s still a forgotten cymbal left to carry back to the equipment bus by the hotel, you help Ethan maneuver it around. The heat is making either of you sweat, even with the full dark of the night coming up.

The gaffer lady you’re sharing a hotel room with is already fast asleep. Damn it. You want to cut a video and make screenshots with the laptop being decently bright. And with some volume if possible, you don’t find headphones in the darkness of the room. Ethan clears the desk in his own room for you after removing his make-up. He looks so young and beautiful and tired.

You type and drag and double click yourself through the video and do some last blog updates to deal with all the notifications. Ethan lends you some headphones, but you only keep them on one ear. The humming is too nice to ignore. Nor do you know what to even expect. The bathroom door is open, Ethan is topless washing the lace blouse by hand. Only wearing bellbottom pants and his lace choker — nothing else. He’s fully immersed in his task. He even adds some other shirts and silk scarves into the soap water along the way while he’s at it.

You’ve never seen someone do their own laundry so systematically. Ethan looks like Prince Caspian at the sink, wielding the almond soap bar like his weapon of choice against the enemies of Narnia (the devious panna cotta that’s still sticking to everything). He might be all mysterious, but he’s well able to curse all kinds of things. You tease Ethan for dropping his gentlemanly behavior for a stain of dessert. Ethan insists you sound like Thomas trying to test him with his slick comebacks, which makes you laugh. The blog has calmed down a little and your eyes hurt from editing, so you call it a day and send one last e-mail.

Ethan is drowning in bubbles at this point. The whole room smells like fabric softener. He thanks you for helping him carry around the equipment earlier. In return, you say grazie for him being your perfect muse in the garden today. Philosopher he is, Ethan remarks how Måneskin is usually the one searching for muses, now he ended up one himself — „Maybe not a bad thing, eh. Become the thing you want or something.“ That’s way too deep for a summer night in Sicily, and both of you need a huge portion of sleep. Tomorrow, lots of schedule. You do find yourself wanting to help lick that dessert off his chest. No way you’d tell him.

Ethan waddles off to shower after a crooked, reserved smile for a good night departure. When you close the door to your room and start brushing your teeth, the other members’ voices emerge in the hotel corridor — they’ve returned from the movies. Damiano is even more wasted than before and audibly sings. „You’ve looked at the photographer lady in a certain way earlier, huh. I saw, I saw!“ Victoria does a loud ‚shh‘ noise, and the stoic reply is a simple „Sleep, Damiano, you’ve had too much.“ Thomas giggles, and four doors click shut. Damiano’s singing is now muffled for two minutes until it’s silent. How the fuck can you even sleep after hearing that.

You assumed that Ethan would treat you differently the next morning, in whatever shape or form. But he doesn’t. The greeting is short as it would always be, and he informs you that he did manage to wash out the sugary clay from his clothes as he puts it. Damiano says nothing, adjusts his rings. Thomas randomly pulls zippers at his packed-up equipment. Victoria headed to the car already. Downtown to a studio it goes. The group gets styled to perfection, twenty minutes later they make a reaction video to the newly released MV teaser. Ethan talks about enjoying the sculptures in the garden.

Three hours down the line, you shoot some promotional pictures of them at a pool. Thomas has the time of his life perfecting his diving board skills, and Damiano creates the musical background, singing and prancing. The aerials would make literal perfect editorial-in-VOGUE material. In the meantime, Victoria dozes in the sun. Ethan dives. Sometimes just sitting at the bottom of the pool, othertimes swimming back and forth. The art director suggests you to go into the water, too. He’s right, the perspective works out well this way.

You’re basically standing in there with your flowy pantalon pants and camisole, using a waterproof camera. Your bikini is back at the hotel. It doesn’t matter, everything will dry quickly, the others went in the pool with clothes as well. And you’re all too wrapped up in your passion in the first place. You marvel at how fun the whole scenery looks through your lens. Their outfits are cropped and luminous, today’s color is bright red. You order the lighting assistant back and forth, get some more great Thomas frames where he tosses around a volleyball that the manager brought along. Less rock than usual, but it works. Måneskin at a pool in Sicily.

Damiano splashes water around like crazy. Victoria joins the fun as well, splashing right back. It’s infernal. Well, those are going to be dynamic pictures, you think, and the cameraman never dies, so. Ethan resurfaces every other minute, wiping the chlorine from his eyes. He slicks his hair back with both hands, looking down his body learning how his shirt has become completely transparent. He covers his chest with his hair, quickly, then submerges again. It’s strange. Being topless is usually no big deal in Måneskin.

Almost 12 o’clock. Thomas and Damiano wander off to work on some lyrics, probably the title that the drum solo is part of. All top secret. Victoria returns to her sun lounger, checking her phone. The crew heads for lunch, but you stay in the water, gladly you put sunscreen on earlier. You ask Ethan to try some seated or floating poses at the bottom of the pool that you saw him practice earlier. „No worries, keep your eyes closed.“

What unfolds before you is the most beautiful thing. Ethan’s shirt fans out like a red jellyfish underwater, playing around his body. His figure is just enviable. He gets the hang of it and knows quite how to move. Or rather, to remain stable when the pose is perfect. Hands above his head, horizontal, or seated, only one foot lightly sweeping over the pool floor, or on one knee, as if he proposed.

Raising his arms helps him sink down and settle, as if he immersed himself in deep meditation. Although the purpose of meditating is to be present, isn’t it. And that’s what he feels like. Ethan would normally switch on autopilot for most of his public interactions, now he’s alive and fully in the concentrated movements of the photoshoot. So much about improvising all over again. The hair creates the most incredible shapes like a black, wide brushstroke, clearly outlined. Thank god you have the waterproof camera. These are moments you’ll never forget.

Your blog notifications keep on bleeping throughout the afternoon. The promotional pictures are a hit. Måneskin’s manager is basically waving five new contracts in front of your face at dinner, but you’re kind of spaced out again. The cozy, rose-ranked atmosphere of the street café you went to is inspiring, and the members dressed up in the most fancy suitwear. Men in Black? Måneskin in Black. It’s almost as if fate read your mind. Ethan is looking at you very intently from across the table when the minestrone is served.

Pasta shells, parsley, vegetables and basil leaves. The scent surrounds the entire table. Damiano, in serious mode tonight, is too busy finding new rhymes and an alternative chorus with Thomas who wildly brainstorms. Victoria drinks, loudly chats with the gaffer lady that you share a room with, and they use a leaf of a palm tree pot plant to tickle Damiano. Thomas plays the acoustic guitar. Ethan and you end up smiling briefly at another. „Bon apetit,“ you say. It’s almost 34° celsius. That’s going to be an entire pile of cheesecake gelato tonight.

Five signed contracts later and halfway through a hefty caprese cake, the title song is finished. An ode to Marlena, fierce like the Mediterranean sea. The piece certainly sounds exactly like this place. Strangers listen to Damiano performing bits and pieces, but you decide to disperse when too many cellphones come out. Damiano wants to go to a bar, Thomas and Victoria carry home their guitars, or to the hotel to be exact, and bags of newly shopped vintage clothes. You ask Ethan if there are any cinemas around the area. „We missed out last time, remember.“

The Palazzo Theater is a small and hidden insider tip far from the main street with its busy beach tourists. Under bulbous metal balconies and peach-colored facades, a small entrance with lanterns on each side guides you inward. Ethan almost hits his head, it’s so low. He’s wearing glossy red bottoms under his suit pants, you’re out and about with a 6’2 giant after all — a statue by himself. A small man with a pipe sells you cheap tickets for a Mads Mikkelsen movie and lemonade, Ethan picks up an XXXL caramel popcorn bucket. You think he’s flexing, but you get a sudden heureka by looking at it twice.

Unlike the S, M, and L bags, it’s thick cardboard and drum-shaped. Oh my god, obviously. Which fine percussionist could ever resist such temptation striped in red and white, the sound deep and dull? It makes you smile how Ethan pursues his instrument even when he seemingly doesn’t, it really has to be a hobby at heart. That’s how a job becomes a profession, and a profession a vocation, your uni professor’s other favorite words all over again. The latter’s words have gotten you far so you again trust the insight that came to you through that quote.

Seeing Ethan standing there, you can almost see the childlike joy at imagining it being empty and ready to get turned around. A tuxedo Italian with Louboutin heels and a ginormous popcorn drum, half past eleven somewhere in Palermo: Ingenious combination, you snap a picture. Ethan makes a cute face, posing like a pinup of the 50s. Who knows how many vintage store posters he’s seen during tours, he must have picked it up there. And— Is he blushing? Must be the dim lights in here.

Off you go to the auditorium. Ethan, who balance the popcorn with all care in the world like it’s his baby, walks the aisle slower than you. The slim steps don’t have any floor lighting. Not very heel-friendly, but since it’s not a huge budget theater and few people dare spike heels on those cobblestones outside anyway, the stairs shall be forgiven. You take out your phone and offer your arm. For every gentleman it takes a gentlewoman, duh. Like rock’n’roll and the camera staff, chivalry (or shevalry as Damiano calls it when Vic holds the door open) never dies. He mumbles a thanks, you climb upward to the fourth-last row, Ethan holds on tight.

No ankles twisted and not one popcorn spilled, you get seated on red velvet. The chairs are dated, but nevertheless ultra comfortable. Nobody else is here. The adverts roll, Ethan cracks open the lemonade bottle caps with his chunky golden lighter because he can. You toast to Mads Mikkelsen’s bone structure and good minestrone, Måneskin’s finished title track, the promo pics, and the discovery of Ethan’s favorite new drum. A whopping five things to toast about? The night’s going to be great.

Damiano catwalking across the screen, wearing a Versace skirt in the middle of otherwise-boring commercials does shake you up. He was picked as a testimonial recently. Though, your pulse is high enough. Ethan’s hair is brushing against your shoulders, not to mention his goddamn massive arms. He can’t get out a single word either for the entirety of the ads, avoiding eye contact all over again. Just how much suspense can starting to eat the first popcorn have. Well, you pick two from the very top and start munching.

Mads does a great job opening the movie as one would expect, but you just can’t concentrate. Instead, you stress-eat popcorn. Which makes Ethan do the same thing, at least he’s somewhat fixated on the screen. After the first ten minutes, he shakes his head. „That makes no sense at all,“ he clears his throat. „Yeah, yeah it clearly doesn’t,“ you agree, basically on Torchio-autopilot yourself for the lack of a better reply. You were too busy figuring out the components of his aftershave rather than the thin plot. Shifting in your seat, chugging lemonade…

The air conditioning is scarce, but at least the screen is quite large and proper. You try to focus on the cinematography and do small talk about it. If there’s something you can comment on without having followed the string of action, it’s at least this. You might be nervous, but you’re still a photographer. „Um, isn’t this chainmail nice in the closeup?“ — „Hm, I guess it works. We should ask Damiano to request something like this from Versace.“ — „Medieval Måneskin Rockers?“ — „Something like that.“ — „Hilarious.“

By the twenty-minute mark, the popcorn drum is almost empty. Gladly, that stuff just shrinks to bits in the stomach. The lemonade just has to galvanize it. You might be able to distract yourself with the camera shots and the last caramel chunks, but that doesn’t change Ethan’s long legs and Acqua di Parma perfume next to you. Yep, you finally figured out what it was, it wasn’t the aftershave. And well. Ethan smells like hotel soap from Milano to Napoli and back.

That scent basically dominates all the others besides a hint of cigar and basil and citrus-y deodorant mixed with runny sweat. God fuck, you can barely stand it. And the almond scent. You take a chance to at least jokingly point it out to him. The random movie flashback sequence is boring — and just as nonsensical as before, no offense to Mads though, he’s just walking around in chain mail — enough to deviate from whatever choppy convo you had going on before.

„I actually washed it twice,“ Ethan pulls off the silky scarf that functions as his current tie, and you recognize it. „The strawberry sauce was hard, but the cranberries… God no, I’ll never go near pana cotta again. Nothing against cream desserts.“ You take the scarf, smell it. Did he literally just hand it to you? Figures, he’s sweating bullets, too. And oh shit, he hasn’t talked that much all evening.

You slowly shift from bodies turned to the screen to facing each other. So up close, so up front, only God can help you know. His eyes are dark and reflective of the film’s flickering lights and changing scenes. You wish you could photograph them on sight. It would be as glimmering as your view from the hotel room, overwatching the unobstructed stars of the Mediterranean bay down the boulevard.

But it’s like you’re stuck in your position this way, feverishly thinking about a reply. What to pick up on, what to pick up on. You think about today, the evening where you edited things in his room. „Uh well, drop your laundry in the pool next time,“ you laugh, more than tentative, with your fingers randomly curling around the scarf. „The chlorine stuff will do the job for you. It’s so aggressive, it bleached by pants one shade lighter.“

Saved. Smooth transaction. Phew. „Oh, the pool was horrible. Not the photos, I mean… I don’t know how you can poison water that way.“ — „I know right? It’s still in my nose. But yeah, was a good idea with the underwater thing. The photos turned out really well.“ — „I really haven’t done something like that before but I guess it turned out hm, nice?“ — „Come on! Nice is understated. Are you fishing for compliments?“ — „No no, by all means!“ — „The one kneeling. It’s my favorite. I don’t even know what to do with all these pictures.“

„I don’t know. Maybe keep them?“ — „Keep… for what?“ — „It’s a separate series, right. The art director didn’t request it. Maybe they can be used for something later on during promotions.“ — „Yeah. We’re always a little extracurricular,“ you laugh again, tense in your voice, and empty your lemonade completely. „This, too,“ Ethan points at the theatre in general. „You’re good to talk to. The better version of alone time.“ — „Thank you. You’re great to go out with. I… really like it.“ Beautiful nature scenes show on screen, but they’re nothing but a blur. You take Ethan’s hands in the dark and smile. „Maybe we should do it more often.“

masterlist | bookmark/read it on ao3

#maneskin #ethan torchio #ethan torchio x reader #maneskin fanfic #maneskin scenario #måneskin #maneskin fluff #maneskin x reader #maneskin fanfiction #ethan x reader #ethan torchio fluff #ethan torchio fanfic

293 notes · View notes

crystaltale-official · 3 years

Text

◈ Lucidial ◈

"God formed a believe to create a strong conviction."

──💎──

Lucidial in its prime was once considered a heaven through all of its people. Only the arches and their partners are allowed there as it’s considered sacred. Dragnar cannot be present all the time so he entrusted MoiRai as his right hand man. This place is home to the arches and some of their servants if they wish. Each part of the Lucidial represents the arches that resides there with their own aesthetic of choice. As time passed, the restrictions became a bit more leisure and only appointed hopers could enter besides the arches’ partners. They’re there to learn of the arches’ knowledge and spread it throughout the world, both hoper and dreamer.

After the first Great War, the hoper won and changed the old ways entirely. This group of people despises the arch and follower system and wishes to be more modernized in their own eyes. After some tension of discussion, they allow the dreamers to live within them in their own rules and separated throughout the world to not easily gather a force to rebel. Some of the people in the group were extremists that wished that dreamers would be locked away in the Lucidial, away from them. However, the knowledge of magic is held by Victor Oswen, a dreamer. He made the table turn at the dealings since he has what they want, the secret of magic. The extremists lay down until they could get rid of dreamers completely.

The Lucidial remained untouched after several hundred years and was in MoiRai’s care. The second Great War came and the monster lost once again. This time the group took action and succeeded in persuading the other leader to banish the monster into the Lucidial.

Lucidial is now shut off from Dragtal, the physical world. Without it, it cannot sustain itself because of the lack of the flow of physical magic from Dragtal. The Lucidial that was once a heaven turned into a ticking time for the inhabitants unless it sacrificed a human or living beings that originated from Dragtal. Without it, Lucidial will slowly crumble and fade away into non-existence. Perhaps into the Depths. An irreversible process.

There’s a time where many of the inhabitants turn into Monstre Lucifent, making them a shaman. The most forbidden in both societies. Monstre Lucifent was a major problem back in the Medieval Era so perhaps some of them followed monsters and used them to gain life force. This era is called the Lucifent Era.

──💎──

≿━━━━༺◈༻━━━━≾

💎───────── 💎

Justine Dreemurr, the unusual king.

༻ Leader ༺

Lucidial was once ruled by Dragnar and MoiRai until He decided to create the arches to help Him manage the world. At some point in time, Dragnar left Lucidial for unknown reasons. Until then it was taken care of by MoiRai.

After the Second Great War, the Lucidial was taken in charge by the Dreemurr family since they’re the leader of monsters. The family took care of its people but unfortunately did not realize the effect of the class system where the social gap is wide.

Known leaders:

◈ Dream Wishmurr ◈ Asgore (Justine) Dreemurr ◈ Kit Dreemurr

💎───────── 💎

Renonculemus, the symbol of ancient heaven.

༻ Symbol ༺

Lucidial’s symbol is the modification of the Animus symbol which later on became the Renonculemus. This symbol is a combination of the Animus and Dreemurr’s family symbols. The Animus symbol is always related to Dragnar’s iconic symbol. The crystal being the essence of this world while the wings represent his wings, spreading his blessings. The centre of the symbol is the Golden Flower symbol representing the royal family. The crystal frame represents that they’re made, depend, and use crystals. Out of it, there are 4 parts representing the clouds of Lucidial, symbolizing the divinity and the fact that the place is a floating realm.

💎───────── 💎

༻ Politics and Society ༺

Throughout its history, it changes alongside human’s history as they watch them from the water in Lake Bliss. It’s like a watching mirror to Dragtal as it’s used by the arches to watch over it in the past. Changing from the Medieval era, Enlightenment Era, to the Modern Era. They still speak some of the old Medieval languages and older people still speak the first language! Their clothes still follow the human trend by seeing them through Bliss Lake although, they do add their own culture. They will always have a crystal or brooch and most colors are white, blue, and green. Monsters cannot have a soul representation except if they’re the arches' family or trains for years or a gift. Thus, there’s no specific trait for them.

💎───────── 💎

༻ Politics༺

The Lucidial do not hold any relationship with the nations until the portal to Dragtal is open once again. They made a relationship with Goldenflow’s leader so their kind could live there until all of the nations approve their return to the world. Boreal and Nightral welcome them with open arms. Although, Nightral limits its access as they have a tie with Geronto which do not agree with the monster's sudden return. Occirly only allows some officials and nobles to enter as their place is already “overpopulated” and their arrival would distract the workers.

💎───────── 💎

༻ Class System ༺

There are 3 main class systems in Lucidial. That is Royals, Metics, and Ghetto. This classification is based on old ways as Lucidarians are still in some ways connected to the past. They’re based on family’s lineage, magic, and wealth.

◈ Royals

Royals are the descendants of the 8 arches before them. They’re the one that has the MTP constellations. Before being sent to the Lucidial, they’re once a ruler to their own land. They usually wear clothes that represent their trait colour as colours are seen as important symbols throughout the history of both humans and monsters. Symbolism is very important. They will usually have a crystal in any form to represent them as well.

◈ Metics

Metics are the ones that could sustain themselves and have normal magic. Unlike Geronto, you could be an inert but still classified as metics as long as you’re wealthy enough or have a strong connection to the royals. They usually wear yellow to blue hue colour as that’s believed to be the colour for divinity and heaven. Similar to the royals, they use crystals to represent them, often the same as their trait.

◈ Ghetto

Ghetto are the minority and almost forgotten. Even after the war, they’re still the same as before. Struggle to get food on the table. However, unlike the other nations, the Ghetto lives are getting better as time passes. Their number decreased as the royals tried to reform the system. They become displeased when the Lucidial portal opens to Dragtal. With the royals focusing on diplomatic relationships with the humans and racism from them, it’s even harder to survive. Although, they’re relieved that they did not die as a result of Lucidial falling.

Rumours surfaced that the reason the number decreases is because they’re used as a sacrifice for the Lucidial, even though it will only give little effect. They’re the most vulnerable to the Monstre Lucifent’s whisper as they have so many weaknesses to exploit regarding their lives back when they just established themselves here.

💎───────── 💎

>>Environment of Lucidial seems to be sealed at the moment<<

༻ Environment ༺

This place it’s known as a heaven in the past thus there are many magical and unknown things to outsiders. Lucidial is a floating island on what looks like a white place with clouds surrounding it. Like in many depictions of the heavens, the place mostly consists of white, blue, and green colours. The colour of peace and calmness. In the past, Dragtal used to be like this but as time passed, it’s almost completely gone. Only in Lucidial where the past lives on.

There are many crystal plants and animals that are called Krisant and Krisani. Animus crystals also thrive here as they exist because of the high magic essence present. There are not many buildings here as converting crystals into materials are difficult and they do not want to change this place entirely. Remnants of the previous arches’ place are still there and soon filled in by the inhabitants.

💎───────── 💎

༻ Technology ༺

Surprisingly, despite being held back in Lucidial and not following the human’s development of technology, they made very good progress in it. With the help of magic crystals, Victor’s notes and the Eidya’s help, they’re able to make a scientific breakthrough. Some of their inventions even surpass humans. Such as magic sharing where users could share their magic trait for a period of time or perhaps the classification of magic and blood type. There are some other inventions that could’ve been made if not because of the resource limitations.

💎───────── 💎

>>Lucidial’s Portal seems to be sealed at the moment<<

༻ Lucidial’s Portal ༺

Lucidial’s portal is a portal that connects Lucidial and Dragtal. With this portal, the flow of magic flows through between them, that means both magic and physical essence. After the second Great War, the main portal was closed off by the wizards and thus the flow of magic was disrupted and cutted. However, because of the nature of magic like water, looking for a way to flow, some small occurrences of Lucidial’s portal around Dragtal exist. Around these portals, magic’s flow usually is odd and someone with a high magic aptitude will feel the flow disturbance. Despite being able to let some of the magic flow, it’s only a little and sometimes none. It does not solve Lucidial's crisis of needing physical magic from Dragtal.

Only some people and things could enter. For people, only the one with MTP constellations or very high magic aptitude could enter it and end up in Bliss Lake or any natural water in Lucidial. However, it would be hard to go back to Dragtal as there is no currently known way to return and monsters are desperate to get a hold of humans so they would not die.

💎───────── 💎

≿━━━━༺◈༻━━━━≾

Related information: Dragtal [Modern] | Dragtal Map

Creator's Footnote:

"Lucidial's hues are my favourite because yellow, green, and blue and the colour palette I often used. This nation is inspired by the Greek Gods story. I also wonder what if a place like heaven become something the opposite of it? Well, if we look from the neutral side, heaven exists because some people believe it aka it needs a foundation to exist. Now, what if heaven doesn't have that? Will it hold itself together?"

#undertale au #crystaltale #lucidial #undertale #crystaltale lore

21 notes · View notes

skincafe · 3 years

Text

the signs as skincare

i like astrology and skincare so here we go

this is also just my opinion :)

aries- face masks

aries being the first sign is all about establishing their own identity and purpose. masks tend to have a focus on a specific purpose or skin issue, such as hydration or unclogging pores

they will have active ingredients selected and tailored to their purpose and active ingredients can be found in higher concentration which means they are meant to have a significant impact, def cardinal energy

debating btw aries and libra but aries is a more personal sign while libra is an air sign, more outward

taurus- moisturizer

at first moisturizer was giving me water sign probably bc of the name but it was also giving me fixed sign energy bc its a rlly foundational step of the routine that can be built upon

but fixed and water is scorpio and that did not make sense

but taurus makes sense bc moisturizer locks in all the other beneficial ingredients and steps in the routine and allows the skin to take them in

it also feels nice and soothing to apply

taurus being venusian and fixed is here for locking in actives, the benefits, the feel, and the dewy glow

gemini- retinol

ik every derm and skincare person has preached abt retinol and its wide range of benfits

also retinol is only one type of vitamin a derivative but i used it as an all-encompassing term here bc most ppl know it as retinol

bc of the various benefits, aging, acne, pigmentation, brightness etc. def a mutable sign very adaptable

also definitely a mercurial sign since it is one of the most well-researched ingredients and clinically approved

i was debating btw virgo and gemini, but i went with gemini for their air sign qualities, able to set their mind to various endeavors at once whereas virgo would focus on a single goal

cancer- spf

cancer is very protective and so is sunscreen, it is crucial to protect against skin damage from the sun, aging, and skin conditions

cancer is sometimes referred to as the mother of the zodiac (in reference to archetype), it is a necessary step to allow all the other ingredients to have a lasting effect

cancer is also the cardinal sign in western astrology that begins the summer szn

you should wear sunscreen yr round tho

just as uv filters can help absorb uv rays into the skin without damage, cancer is empathetic and can absorb the emotions around them

leo- toner and essence

originally this gave me water sign energy and ik leo would want to be a spotlight skincare step BUT here’s my reasoning

leos actually enjoy helping and protecting others, think the “king of the zodiac” archetype, but more of a benevolent ruler. they enjoy seeing their friends prosper with their help. they’re also a fixed sign

fixed signs do not like change, they prefer consistency and toners were originally created to re-balance the ph level of the skin (back when cleansers were too harsh). nowadays different toners do a lot to balance out the skin: manage oil production, hydration levels, calm irritation, etc.

essences allow for products to absorb better into the skin and work better.

leos are also very creative and toners and essences tend to have many new and interesting ingredients in them, unlike spf or moisturizers which have multiple trusted and reliable ingredients and less experimental ones.

virgo- salicylic acid & benzoyl peroxide

salicylic acid is a BHA which is an exfoliant too but this is more in an acne fighting sense, exfoliation is lower

these are both two very common but very effective acne fighting ingredients

similar to gemini, virgo is mercurial and would appreciate that both these products are well researched and clinically approved i had a prescription w benzoyl peroxide before

also have many great uses and can work with different skin types and different types of acne

libra- spot treatment

spot treatments are fast-acting, filled with active ingredients usually at higher concentrations than all-over-the-face products, usually work quickly and effectively

definitely cardinal energy since w/ a good spot treatment we see the results quick, and expect that change

i was thinking libra or aries, but libra is more about relationships and communication with others/ the outside world. it is also venusian so more about aesthetics than aries

the skin is one of the outermost parts of our body and the outermost organ, so naturally it will communicate more. whether you are blushing bc you are happy, or look tired, or pale bc you dont feel well etc.

scorpio- exfoliation

all about intimacy, finding what is hidden, transformation, and deeper meaning

exfoliation is all about removing the dead skin, and (if its an intense professional chemical peel it will remove a whole layer of skin), and seeing the healthier skin underneath, very transformative, very scorpio

can also be a bit intense depending on the strength of the product

sagittarius- serums

serums are definitely a mutable sign, the most adaptable and people often change them for different needs, i think you are more likely to buy an anti-aging serum to add to a routine or an anti-redness serum or a vitacin c serum, than you are to buy a whole new moisturizer with each active

constantly exploring new and interesting ingredients in serums, provide a lot of variety

sag does not like to be tied down and is always exploring new philosophies

capricorn- facials

while chemical peels and the laser treatments fall under this category, this is less specific, just the overall variety professional facials

capricorn is a very trusted and reliable sign and very wise and pragmatic. they are also a cardinal sign making them ambitious

with professional facials, you are going to get very effective, reliable treatment based on expertise just like a cap

and you expect to see a significant change, reflecting the cardinal qualities.

professionals would alter the facial to meet your needs making it very practical and no nonsense as well.

aquarius- laser and led treatments

aquarius is very innovative and seeks new technology to better the world around them

in more recent years, a lot of new technology is being introduced into the realm of skincare, which all screams aquarius to me but i put laser and led treatments bc they are pretty well known

i feel like new technology could give cardinal sign energy but i think fixed energy makes sense. it indicates a time of focus imo. there is less influence from a changing environment

pisces- cleansing

cleansing has mutable energy to me, i think of taking the entire day’s worth of makeup and dirt and oil off

mutable signs indicate the changing of the seasons, and pisces is the end of winter, like the end of day

pisces is very reflective and being the final zodiac sign they can look towards all the past experiences and bring the cycle to an end.

#astrology #skincare #beauty #astro community #skincare routine

77 notes · View notes

aiiwa · 3 years

Note

sike- i can't focus, i'm sending in my thirst!!🥺😩 just, @b0ba-chan match up messed me up so freaking much and all i can think about is semi semi (more than usual)

i just want to make out with my aesthetically pleasing boyfie who's damn jealous because he forced me to go out and a dude started flirting with me while semi was busy. i want him to be mad at me and just you know, mark me up in all the right and wrong places and have his beautiful fingers with cold silver rings explore my body and mayhaps choke me forcing my focus entirely on him. just do me, eita-san! happy birthday boy!

i'd bathe in holy water if i wasn't an atheist

for my wifey and baby, runa. happy birthday ily <3

semi loved to take his baby girl everywhere with him, especially to the high-end after parties he and his band were always invited to. you were just the sweetest thing, and he adored being able to show off how good his cute baby could be for him to everyone. yet tonight you had been anything but, flirting with that little fanboy right in front of him and his bandmates.

so what else was he meant to do except teach his naughty girl a lesson.

he had dragged you away, the metal of the rings he donned on his fingers digging into your wrist almost painfully, as he pulled you into a shadowed corridor of the vip lounge. semi wasted no time with forcing you back into the marbled walls, pressing his toned body right up against your own; parting your knees to accommodate his thigh between your legs.

“what was that all about, huh?

“w-what d’you mean, ei-”

a big, warm hand claimed itself around your lithe neck, fingers digging bruises into your skin. the other brushing over your collarbone; drawing a hot pathway down the side of your breast, leading downwards to squeeze your waist, before hitching your thigh to hook your leg around his hip.

“keep it here.” he gives you no chance to question his motive when suddenly he’s sliding his palm underneath the hem of your silk dress, toying with the crotch of your soaked panties. “oh so wet already? who’s this for?”

in a breathy moan you manage to hiss out, “you...s’for you...”

unsatisfied with your answer, semi moves your panties to the side; two fingers starting to tease the drooling slit of your cunny. craving his touch, you attempt to grind against his fingers, though he makes sure to deny any attention to your throbbing clit. desperate with the need for more, you resort to begging - he was never one to ignore what you wanted.

“please, e-eita, please...more, ah-!”

the hand around your neck reaches up to grab your jaw tightly, cutting you off, and smushing your cheeks together. whining as semi pulls his fingers away, he brings them up between the two of you, letting the rough pads of his fingers smear the pout of your bottom lip in your slick. his tall frame leans down to give you a peck, coating his own lips in your essence, and squeezing your cheeks one last time as he claims your mouth.

there’s nothing sweet about the kiss, its punishing, and possessive; his tongue swirling against your own, forcing you to taste yourself. each moan is swallowed by him, and when you try to wrap your arms around his neck to pull him closer; he tangles his fingers into your hair and yanks your head back - a silver string keeping you connected. dark eyes take in how desperate you look, panting, waiting for him to give you what you want.

“hands to yourself.”

is all he says before he buries his face into the crook of your neck, plum love bites blooming across your sensitive skin as he marks you up. his hand finds its way back in between your plush thighs. humming in appreciation as he feels how wet you are, practically dripping down his hand, he slides two long fingers in your aching hole.

“f-ah-uck, eita!” you cry out.

“that’s right, baby, let everyone know who you belong to.”

the lewd squelching sounds of your cunny sucking up his long fingers, has you mewling and clenching around him even more. the thick digits were stretching you out, sliding so deep inside you that you could feel the cool metal of his platinum rings brush against the swollen lips of your entrance. when his thumb begins to rub slow circles on your sensitive nub, you’re at your wit’s end; a babbling mess that can barely keep yourself upright.

“eita! yesyesyesyes-!” just as the wound up coil in your belly is about to snap, semi completely pulls away from you. at the loss of support you fall to your knees, shaking thighs pressed together. “mmm, why wouldn’t you let me...?” you hiccup.

“you think naughty girls get to cum?”

all you can do is stare up at your boyfriend, tears brimming in your eyes at your ruined orgasm; and watch as he tugs his belt buckle loose with one hand. freeing himself, you come face to face with his pretty cock, its usual baby pink tip now an angry shade of red, twitching and leaking pre-cum. using his hand covered in your juices, he strokes himself, and shuffles closer to press himself against your smooth cheek.

“you wanna be my good girl again?” you nod your head eagerly, as a hiss escapes between semi’s clenched teeth. “then show me. go ahead and give me a kiss, baby. right there, just like that- fuck! you’re such a good girl.”

#nona thirsts💦#runa❣️#haikyuu smut #semi eita x reader

184 notes · View notes

sepublic · 3 years

Text

Disparity between the Knights of Ren and Kylo

But something about the Knights of Ren, in contrast to their leader, is that they seem so much more… scrappy? Dirty, unorganized, but also used and worn-out, and thus genuine? Like they’ve really put themselves out there into the harsh work with rolled-up, tattered sleeves, and you get this sense of them actually being in the fray and on the frontlines.

You’ve of course got their dirt-covered boots and whatnot, but also you have people like Vicrul or Cardo, who use the hides of animals as part of their attire… Ap’lek’s cloak is oiled to shed aside water, he’s clearly someone who works within the elements to take advantage of them as part of his stealth, they’re his dirty unglamorous home. Clearly the Knights of Ren do a lot of work putting together scrap metal, like you see with Ap’lek’s mask, Kuruk having those pieces bent around his helmet to help focus his vision, Cardo’s mask is just a repurposed furnace plate! Ushar’s mask has a straight-up dent in it that he’s never bothered to fix, even when he has access to Albrekh; Likely as a twisted memento of honor and tribute to the victim who inflicted the damage. Trudgen straight-up has part of a Death Trooper’s helmet incorporated into his own mask as well!

Then you’ve got the Night Buzzard, which is dirty and grimy, and has received constant modifications, likely by Kuruk, that cause it to spew noxious gas. Vicrul’s pistol has also been pushed to its limits with alterations, and Cardo is obsessed with modifying and enhancing weapons, keeping them up to date and ready for the next battle; The Knights of Ren have weapons that are a more cold, dull steel and gray, not polished and refined. Their armor and outfits feel much more scratched-out and faded, used and worn in. You get the sense almost that they’re kind of like scavengers themselves, similar to Rey; Making do with what they find, not too focused on aesthetical neatness nor tidy appearance, just getting the point across, salvaging trophies from victories.

And, it fits with their philosophy, the Ren- Which revolves around basically just living in the moment, unapologetically taking and consuming and resorting to nature and instinct… Letting the ‘Shadow’ guide and feed them, like they’re always on the fringe of society, gathering and appreciating what they can and making use of it, having to make the most of their tools, constantly altering and patching themselves up. They don’t have the access to the best resources, not fancy luxuries or anything like that; It’s almost rather working-class, I’d say! It of course matches with their origins as essentially criminals and a cult-ish biker gang, a ragtag group of mercenaries.

Even their original, nameless leader kind of fits this more down-to-earth, cobbled-together aesthetic, with a gray mask that he’s customized with a red symbol, amidst the scratches; Not wearing much save for a tattered cloak and glove, and his pants and boots, and that’s about it! Nothing particularly polished nor clean. He’s dirty, roughed-up, and covered in scars, he has not gone unscathed and he doesn’t need to protect himself from the elements, he wears his damage and past on his (metaphorical) sleeve and possibly even has a cybernetic hand, to go with the Vader parallel that Charles Soule intended!

All of this of course contrasts with Kylo Ren, who… His mask is clearly hi-tech, up-to-date, with a full-on vocoder and mechanical function that causes it to open up and close, possibly somewhat vacuum-sealed as well. The metal is polished and shiny, the mask a smooth, likely painted, matte black. His clothes are tidy and almost prince-like, made of what seems to be more comfortable and fancier cloth and fabrics, a nice deep black that’s clearly taken care of, shiny boots, the works. While the Knights of Ren make do with just their Night Buzzard and weapons they scrounge for, constantly patching up and honing them between battles to keep them almost good-as-new, Kylo Ren has his clean and sleek, modern ships supplied directly from the First Order; He’s got his command shuttle, the TIE Silencer, and at least two TIE Whisper’s.

His vehicles have red, vibrant and glowing lights and paintjobs, and are likely the sleek pinnacle of First Order engineering, with Kuat and rich backers from Canto Bight to contribute to development. Kyle Ron probably has his entire team of engineers to prepare and take care of his ship before him, even before becoming Supreme Leader- Especially when he tells a pair of officers to prepare his TIE Silencer for him, even before he usurps Snoke. He was clearly the golden child throughout his life in a sense, born into a privileged, luxurious family with a lot of power and fame; And then serving Snoke, who himself had all of the inexplicably vast resources of the First Order behind him, invested everything into Kylo Ren’s training and upkeep… Kept him well-fed and taken care of (at least physically).

Yeah, Kylo has trained vigorously, and his own lightsaber is a patchwork job, but that was built back when he was ‘just’ leader of the Knights of Ren, newly anointed, and before he’d started serving in the First Order; And as a major political influence, with a LOT of authority and power behind him, serving as a triumvirate alongside Hux and Phasma, right beneath Snoke himself! You get the sense that he always had something to fall back to, a comfortable safety net- That when all was said and done, he had a retinue of medical droids to patch him up, a team to keep his laundry nice and clean and ‘presentable’. That he always had his parents who were welcoming of him, trying to be patient, always offering him the opportunity to go back home; He had SO much, and yet he really threw it all away for some fantasy, didn’t he?

Kylo Ren really comes across as like… A privileged rich kid, a pampered brat who doesn’t really know what it’s like to work out in the fringes, to have to constantly fight and kill just to survive, to be fed the next day. To not have the luxury of mindlessly destroying the hard work and machinery, the craft of others he’s taken for granted, every time he has a temper tantrum- Leaving people to clean up the mess and replace it good as new. The Knights of Ren couldn’t be so frivolous with THEIR resources, they had to make everything count, reuse and recycle, scavenge from scrap metal, tidy things up at least a little; But they didn’t have the luxury to make themselves sleek and polished, nor access to the most up-to-date technology of an entire military junta.

They had to get their hands dirty and personal, all of the time, they didn’t have the pride and privilege to turn down jobs; They took whatever mercenary work was offered to stay fed and clothed. And yet they remained just as vigilant and dedicated to the Ren as ever, never wavering as far as we can tell; Even when their original leader was slain, they didn’t throw a fit, but just made do with the situation, accepted that this was all they had left, and had Kylo as their new master.

While Kylo was no doubt living the high-life at the very top of the First Order pyramid, we rarely see the Knights of Ren, who don’t have Snoke’s personal precious attention and protection. They’re likely out there doing the dark, unknown and unglamorous dirty work, quietly coming back to restock and refuel, no ceremonies nor worship from Stormtroopers, most of whom seem to regard them in disgust as ‘Ghouls’. Unlike Kylo, they fully chose and accepted and embraced their roles, they provided their ‘good’ deaths and earned their spots within the group, not fighting it, not constantly lamenting and whining about how they deserved better, because anything is good.

Even when Kylo Ren became Supreme Leader, it seems that for whatever reason, the Knights of Ren didn’t embrace the new resources at their disposal- Did Kylo not bother to take care of them, or were they just so used to working as scrappy little mercenaries, that the high-end luxuries of the First Order somewhat bothered them? That they preferred to keep doing things as they did, that this organized, political and polished structure wasn’t for them. Hux regards them as distasteful for it, but while he and Kylo have entire armies and servants at their beck and call and disposal, the Knights of Ren have only themselves and each other to carry out the missions assigned to them, and they do their tasks silently, dutifully, and without complaint.

To contrast, Kylo Ren has a much cleaner, brighter aesthetic, flashy and red like his lightsaber, and later the Sarrassian iron that puts together the fragments of his helmet. He’s a leader, a political figure, who intentionally draws attention to himself as the heir to Vader, he thinks he’s entitled to Anakin’s lightsaber, and can afford to draw attention to himself, he wants it. But the Knights of Ren, they have to be practical and dark, hiding to survive, Ap’lek especially, although of course some manner of exception is made with Ushar and Cardo. It’s not like they’re just hunters, but also prey as well, like the Mandalorian coverts… Their dirtied, roughened-up appearance, more battered and humble like what you would see with the Millenium Falcon, paints the Knights of Ren as more underdogs than their leader.

In essence, you get this sense of privileged disconnect between the Knights of Ren and Kylo; That he’s this bourgeoisie rich kid, whose parents bought him everything, that he never REALLY had to work for things, there was no genuine struggle nor danger for him. Work and training may as well have been a hobby for him, he can afford to throw things away, while for the Knights of Ren it very much is a matter of survival, life or death. And with how Kylo wants to join them for some reason after leaving the Jedi Order, even though he only had ONE encounter where they tried to kill him, Luke, and Lor San Tekka; And all their previous leader did was just leave an open invitation…

And again, you get the idea that Kylo Ren has this idealized, glamorous, almost fetishizing and romanticized view of what it’s like to be a Knight of Ren, that it’s some cool club to join- And not a genuine, forged-in-fire, rigorous existence. That it’s tough and painful and very much a deliberate choice, not something done lightly and for fun, which he finds out when he tries to join them for ‘comradery’ I suppose, only to be oh-so shocked at seeing them kill people, as if he hadn’t always known this. Kylo Ren didn’t really want to be a Knight of Ren, just his cool idea and fun of what it’d be like, how he doesn’t REALLY want the Empire back, just the idealized version of the past. He’s a pampered brat playing pretend, so psyched up for the dream of the job, but when he actually has to do the hard work and unglamorous parts, he caves and hesitates, while the actual Knights of Ren roll their eyes, because of course this little kid does. He has no idea what he’s getting himself into, he’s so dumb and naïve and reckless.

It’s telling that the Knights of Ren have no issues working with Albrekh, an alien, especially because they know they can’t afford to be picky with their allies and friends, beggars can’t be choosers; While Kylo “My parents didn’t love me enough” Ron is willing to kill an officer for asking a reasonable question, and throws aside all of the people in his life that he takes for granted. Similarly, the only person resembling an alien that we see Kylo Ren actually work with is Snoke, whom he hated and eventually killed, and even Snoke was at least part-human, so given his worship of the Empire, and Kylo Ren likely looks down on non-humans.

Not to mention, with how Kylo sometimes refers to Rey as ‘the scavenger’, and you get this sense of like… disdain from him towards her more humble, downright impoverished, background and conditions of her home life, and the way she had to keep herself fed. And you can’t help but wonder if the Knights of Ren picked up on this, that part of the reason they never enjoyed the First Order’s resources was because they knew that they didn’t belong in this neat and tidy, posh hierarchy of political society and advanced tech; That they were regarded as savage monsters and ghouls by the First Order, dirty and unkempt. Their own leader didn’t really know or understand them, he only had leadership by virtue of power and affinity to the Dark Side, but not much else; And he was constantly fighting the Dark Side, always in the hand of Snoke, never really leading the Knights of Ren alongside them as equals and comrades like their past leader.

He probably didn’t care for, nor appreciate them- Kylo probably even looked down on them, even! Not fully and openly, but there was likely this implicit disdain and disgust… Or at the very least, he made an ‘exception’ to them, but with how he regarded scavengers and lower-class people like them… The Knights of Ren could only wonder just how conditional his tolerance was. He praised and elevated them, borderline glorified and romanticized; But he could never truly be one of them, he never knew what it was like, he had no idea, he could only guess and play pretend, and never admit that truth. There was a growing disconnect, likely a dissatisfaction between the Knights of Ren towards Kylo, and it just worsened with his agendas with Rey, forcing them to do the work of capturing her by themselves, forgetting the Knights in his own confrontations, etc.

Kylo didn’t really feel like one of them, like a part of them- He saw himself as elevated and separate, more like lapdogs and attacks dogs, tools to point in a direction, not true brothers-in-arms on the same level, regardless of leadership role. And this ignorance, this subtle lack of regard and attention, quickly abandoning the Knights of Ren to focus on his drama with his parents, Luke, Snoke, and Rey… It must’ve been frustrating and alienating for the Knights of Ren.

The closest Kylo ever got was when he repaired his shattered helmet using Albrekh himself, with the dented and scratched-up look more akin to them, uniting the aesthetic more… But again, there was always that fancy, graceful training from Luke and Snoke, and his special little lightsaber. Then the attention from Palpatine… And when he had to go to Exegol, when he confronted Rey, Kylo never did so with the Knights of Ren, because he never truly trusted nor felt like they had his back, he never truly saw himself as one of them, and didn’t think it necessary to bring them alone, to include them all.

They weren’t special, chosen ones with the cool bloodlines and parentage that gave them special innate talent and Force powers, they were more like Voe if anything else. The Knights of Ren had force-sensitivity, but it was stunted and much weaker than Kyle’s natural, unearned talent and gifts; Everything they got, they had to fight and train and work for, self-taught and without the guidance of some wiser leader, because I doubt Kylo trained his own Knights either. Their fighting style is more brutal and utilitarian, with the use of a wide variety of tools and actual blasters- The Knights of Ren had to make a name for themselves, carve out their own reputation, because they started from nothing, and their original leader best exemplifies this with his lack of name, the closest being the title of Ren that he shares with everyone else anyway.

The Knights of Ren didn’t have a special destiny, nor a bond as part of some sacred, prophesized dyad- If anything, they were more like Rey, before THAT reveal… Just lowly nobodies who had to make a name for themselves, stumbled across their own version of found family in a sense- Did what they needed to survive, had to go through the grueling agony of existence on their own. They actively looked for new members to add into their group, other lowly and despised criminals and others of society, as could’ve been the case with Karrst. There was no special place for them within the story, and yet they were still relegated to doing nameless, thankless jobs and tasks, not even acknowledged individually, and forgotten and abandoned by even their own leader, for some stranger he’d just met.

When he turned to the Light Side, did their time together mean nothing for Ben to leave them- Of course it did, because there wasn’t REALLY anything there, and he never tried, or at least never could’ve understood, and never realized this from the position he was in. He tried to force his way in and it just created this uncomfortable, begrudging toleration by the Knights of Ren, until finally their resentment boiled up and bubbled over and burst; And they took their sweet time, vengefully confronting their former leader and beating him up slowly, because they wanted this to hurt. They wanted him to know what it was like to be beaten down with no hope, with no glimpse of light, nobody to pick him up and comfort him, no luxury nor resources or sacred destiny; To have only darkness and shadow to hide and thrive in, to embrace and become grateful towards… As they scrounged up and kept fighting, determined, not entitled by any parentage or destiny, but because they simply chose to keep biting and survive.

Nobody seemed to care nor remember the Knights of Ren, they were just disposable tools for everyone, except their original leader, who really did seem to be on amicable relationship with them; Addressing them by name, in a casual manner that alluded to past comradery and shared knowledge, bonding… Someone they felt safe actually speaking up and talking to, asking questions instead of silently waiting for orders and accepting things as they were. There was no special Force powers, for they did not expect anything from the Shadow, and when they did receive, they made sure to venerate it in return, for of course this was owed back, they had to pay back the force that guided and fed them.

They had a gratitude, and as their Ren codified, the Knights learned to disregard societal norms and obligations, and attitudes, and just live, doing what they needed to survive. No apologies, no glorifications, they just were, that’s all they wanted and needed. Obviously this independent, not-caring-what-anyone-thinks attitude was no doubt ‘cool’ to a young Kylo Ren, which was why he wanted to join them, while misunderstanding so badly how the Knights of Ren even got to that point in the first place, and what came with this. Kylo kept being concerned about how others perceived and looked at him, because he was a sad, pathetic, insecure little child; While for the Knights of Ren, it just didn’t matter.

They could be hated, or beloved- It wasn’t important at all how others regarded them, because they didn’t heed how outsiders felt, they didn’t apologize nor account for their existence, didn’t try to justify anything. It was Us VS Them, they found solace in just each other, and recognized and prepared themselves for an entire world against them, anyone else as fair game and a potential enemy. Their prior leader rightfully regarded Kylo with suspicion, kept a cautious distance- So nothing was lost when they confronted Kylo on Exegol to kill him, no tears shed nor regrets made whatsoever, besides having not done this sooner.

But of course, special Ben Solo gets his redemption or whatever, he gets his spotlight and glory as he saves the day, or at least sort of tries to contribute. He is glorified by the narrative and likely in-universe, venerated for his ‘noble’ turn and sacrifice, especially by the real-life fandom; But the Knights of Ren, nobody cares for them. And it doesn’t matter- They’re used to it, they’ve learned to accept and adapt, this is just the normal status quo for them. They don’t need veneration nor hatred, they’re just here to get through the day and only focus on what matters, themselves and each other.

…In that sense, with all of this meta about the Knights of Ren being more like ‘nobodies’, poor and scavenging, having to work for things; And Rey, the contradictions of her character be damned, feels like she’d be a more welcome fit as a new leader than Kylo. Maybe there could be an AU where she joins them, and the Knights of Ren bond with this new kid, this little sibling, who’s a dirty feral gremlin like them who likes to scavenge and experiment, modify, messily and shoddily cobble stuff together.

I do have to wonder if Rey calling herself a nobody, initially intended at one point to have no special place nor destiny in the narrative, besides the one she made for herself with her found family- If that was meant to be a parallel to the Knights of Ren and their former leader, who also calls himself a nobody, and goes by no distinctive name himself. I can only imagine, but I bet that a Dark Side Rey would be a much more attentive, down-to-earth, and ultimately preferable leader to the Knights of Ren, as someone who actually bonds with and understands them, and learns to value them; To the point where if she DID make a turn to the Light, she’d probably invite them to come with her out of concern, and the Knights of Ren would be touched enough to even consider, or at least spare, Rey…

At the very least, I don’t think Rey would immediately throw them aside like the garbage they always were, because she was good now and too enlightened and heroic to be level with these evil monsters; She knew someone who was a masked ‘monster’ himself, Finn, and she fell in love and found acceptance with him, and vice-versa. Rey, for better or worse, has the patience to reach out and give others the benefit of the doubt, to hope for them, to not hypocritically condemn, for she knows her own mistakes and weaknesses as well… So I think the Knights of Ren in this AU would be much more likely to be touched- And that even if they were to lash against a reformed Rey, it’d come from a genuine sense of hurt and betrayal, grief and loss; And not just a relieved desire to get rid of this pesky brat that’s been bugging them for the past several years.

#star wars #knights of ren #vicrul #trudgen #ushar #star wars kuruk #cardo #ap'lek #albrekh #kylo ren #meta

40 notes · View notes

sinceileftyoublog · 2 years

Text

Big Thief Album Review: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You

(4AD)

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Big Thief’s fifth album was destined for instant lore the moment its context was revealed. Recorded in 4 different locations with 4 different engineers over 5 months! A session that yielded 45 songs! Distilled down to 20! For a band whose past albums were certainly cosmic in theme but not necessarily in sheer scope, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You is, on paper, ambitious. But the concept of ambition has a certain connotation of unattainability; while Dragon is certainly long and covers a lot of ground, it’s remarkably, yet expectedly held together by warmth, togetherness, and the poetic mind of Adrianne Lenker. Big Thief always had this in them.

In my mind, one key choice gives Dragon cohesion: The songs from the different recording sessions are mixed together. Sure, for a short while, the middle of the album lulls to mood pieces, but the album’s overall diversity of sound from song to song puts it on par with an indie rock epic like The Lonesome Crowded West. The entire album was produced by drummer James Krivchenia, who imbues the songs with a dreamlike timbre. And of course, there’s Lenker, who can conjure feelings of hope and connection with simple words just as easily as with complex rhyme schemes. “Change, like the wind / Like the water, like skin,” she sings on the album opener “Change”, with Buck Meek and Krivchenia’s backing vocals and the tremolo twang of Meek’s electric guitar guiding her. In contrast, the immediate, messy instrumentation of “Time Escaping” allows her to sing with more urgency than ever, rhyming “energy” with “eternally” and “entropy”, a headiness that’s nonetheless clear in intention. (The song’s homespun feel, combined with the fact that Lenker is recorded talking to her wandering dog, is reminiscent of Fetch the Bolt Cutters.) That the album opens with these two tracks is telling for the listener of what to expect, an all-encompassing embrace.

Even in singing about or inspired by her experiences, Lenker has a knack for dissecting the origins of humanity at large with the stroke of her pen. On the existential title track, she conjures the Big Bang, her whooshing vocals atop cascading piano and pedal steel from Twain’s Mat Davidson, the honorary 5th member of Big Thief for part of Dragon. On the Biblical “Sparrow”, she tells of the story of Adam and Eve and the fall of man in a layered vibrato, tragic, yet gorgeous. And on what she originally thought was a throwaway tune, Lenker delivers some of her shrewdest observations ever. “Spud Infinity” will go down as the jaw harp-laden song that rhymes “finish” with “potato knish”, nonetheless so heavy hitting it made Krivchenia cry when he first heard it. “Ash to ask and dust to dusk / A dime a dozen, aren’t we just? / But a dozen dimes will buy a crust of garlic bread,” Lenker sings. In other words, we may feel like we’re not unique, or at worst, insignificant, on our own. But together, we can do something special. Appropriately, Big Thief ends the tune with a minute-long barn jam.

In essence, throughout Dragon, Big Thief showcase that, for lack of better words, there’s just something special about being in a band. “Little Things” is one of a few straight up shoegaze pop tunes on the album, and its sonic heights, buoyed by handclaps, buzzing electric guitar, and tambourines, are breathtaking. Krivchenia effortlessly adds drum machine into the band’s otherwise acoustic aesthetic on “Heavy Bend” and “Wake Me Up to Drive”, experiments that sound like they’re playing on a road trip to the future. Standout “No Reason” is Big Thief’s “Get Together”, featuring Carole King collaborator Richard Hardy on flute. “There is no reason to believe / No reason at all / Come together for a moment,” Lenker sings. The sentiment is far from nihilism; Lenker argues that belief, especially based in rationality, is not the end-all-be-all. Just being, especially with others, can catapult us into the heavens. Or, as she sings on “The Only Place”, “The only place that matters is by your side.”

On “Change”, Lenker begins Dragon by asking, “Would you live forever, never die?” Anyone who has ever had an existential crisis, afraid of what the human race will think of them when they die, has pondered the question in avoidance of their own impact. On closer “Blue Lightning”, she’s much more at ease, singing, “I wanna live forever ‘til I die.” Following her own advice in “No Reason”, Lenker throws logic in the trash with a statement that’s a semantic oxymoron but truly aware and empathetic. Notions of forever, of time, are subjective, based in people’s individual experiences. Big Thief believe in themselves, in others, and in you.

youtube

#album review #big thief #4ad #adrianne lenker #buck meek #max oleartchik #james krivchenia #mat davidson #dragon new warm mountain i believe in you #the lonesome crowded west #fetch the bolt cutters #big bang #twain #adam and eve #carole king #richard hardy

2 notes · View notes

edmund-valks · 3 years

Text

Interlude - The Maw

A blacksmith would have taken different steps. Forge the blade, give it a handle, wrap the handle. Something like that, at least. Thankfully she was able to skip most of that by designing a mold and taking extraordinary care in its production. A perk of being smart, as she figured it.

The metal was nearly ready. It wasn’t the colour of anything she’d seen back on Azeroth, instead shedding four different glows at once. They overlapped and intertwined because nothing here was ever simple. Ilandreline wasn’t one for metaphors, but even she could recognize this one: four ores, wildly distinct, that could only be properly alloyed through the use of a fifth. Naturally the alloy was stronger than any of them independently. Also it was a bastard to work with.

She fed the ingots into the crucible, watching as the forge’s heat quickly liquefied the elethium. A pull of the lever and it drained into the waiting mixture, which one more movement injected into the waiting mold. That had been the real work, creating the exact negative space needed inside a block of solid stone. Not just any stone, of course, but the kind that wouldn’t melt in a furnace designed to bind souls to metal. Getting pieces of the Black Empire was hard enough even before one crossed into the realms of the dead.

Once the mixture had filled the block, Ila grasped it with the tongs she’d liberated from the soulforger whose workspace she now used. Steadiness was required to keep the metal from sloshing out or the whole thing from upending. Her movements were slow and deliberate, never jerking. A device was only as good as its craftsmanship; she intended this one to be her masterpiece.

Typically one would quench using a specific liquid. Fresh water, salt water, olive oil, certain beverages made by the dwarves… what one used depended on the desired outcome and the materials involved. For this it was something a bit more unusual. The Maw had recently become the destination for a great deal of anima drawn from the spirits being repented in Revendreth. This made for a sharp, hungry quench, which was precisely what she needed. She lowered the discomfiting block of slick stone into the roiling crimson, listening to the violent hissing as the alloy took shape.

Once the soul-steam had cleared and the little barrel was minutes removed from its moment of boiling, she fished the mold out with her borrowed tongs. "This better have worked," she muttered, mostly to externalize the worry. Better out than in, that sort of thing. "Only one way to find out."

Placing the black brick on the anvil nearby, she inspected every side for cracks or gaps. The only one she could find was the little hole where she'd added the molten metal, so… maybe it had happened? Picking up the hammer she'd made for just this purpose, Ilandreline closed her eyes and sought the resonance. It was so much easier now than that first time. That was how she'd survived the darkest path into the Shadowlands, and ever since she'd found herself increasingly aware. Now it was almost as easy as making saltpeter; not necessarily fast, but a simple task for the experienced. She felt for her core, dove into it, releasing her perceptions through the nightpurple veins bordering reality.

The Black Empire remnant was anything but dark now. Even the Maw's dolorous half-light caused a reaction, oil-slick scintilla flaring across the infinitesimal pockmark surface. In a way, it sang. Not like a voice, but a tuning fork, a frequency of sensation manifesting multitudinous waves into singular tone. Where her family's faith resided she felt the echo of kinship. Reaching through herself, she grasped the thread of the stone's structure and pulled.

In a sweater, such an act would have been the destruction of order that caused its unraveling. The bedrock of those who dwelt between the stars was made differently, however. What she had done manifested as an ordering matrix, leaching the inherent structural chaos out, snapping the minerals into some kind of grid. Gripping tightly through the depths of her soul, Ilandreline raised the hammer high and swung.

The hardened shadowghast strikeface tolled as it impacted the ruthlessly ordered block. The sound was brutal in its discordance, an archetypal resonance of shattered chains. What was held tightest become most undone; the black stone crumbled to dust, its forced structure inverted until it could no longer hold together.

Ilandreline felt her entire self ringing as she set the hammer aside. The reverberations rattled through her bones, trying to unmake her as thoroughly as she had the old gods' relic. But she was a Glimmerbow, born of those dark blessings, the ancient primordial unmakers' essence suffusing the deepest fibers of her being. The resonance traveled through her, unable to find an outlet to erode, equally unable to escape until she opened her mouth.

She didn't scream; this wasn't pain. Instead she had become an accidental echo chamber, an acoustic amplifier not unlike the elegant curves of a bell. From inside her structure rang the peal of uncreation. Open-mouthed she exhaled it into the stygian plains, unable to cease until the note was spent. Unable to hear, she could still feel the rigid structure of forge beside her eroding beneath the reciprocal action to what she had done.

As suddenly as it began, the moment ended, buckling her knees. Reflex alone allowed the elf to catch herself, weak-legged and bent over the anvil, eyelids only now able to pry themselves apart. Unsteady, Ila exerted her focus once more, willing herself to stay standing. As she did so, refusing to acknowledge the possibility she might collapse, she examined her work.

Atop a fine pile of utterdark sand lay a blade. It was a single piece, cast-forged, with a tapering, triangular blade emerging from one edge of a metal-wrought vertebra. Opposite the blade extended the cylindrical smoothness of bone, flaring into a double-knobbed pommel. It was far more beautiful than she'd expected, or perhaps that was the wrong word. Elegant? Fitting. This was a blade made with purpose, for someone very specific, and such certainty was apparent in its aesthetics.

"Almost done." Her voice was hoarse though she didn't realize it. She hardly knew she'd spoken, what with the ongoing ringing in her ears, and the way structures sounds such as speech fell apart in the fading wake of the hammer blow.

Ilandreline forced her legs to stillness, stood straight atop them once more. Grasping the weapon's handle -- she would wrap it with aged linen later, to give it the feel of something found in an ancient mausoleum -- she turned its stiletto point toward herself. Her other hand moved to expose an expanse of pale flesh, against which she set the blade.

"Freely given," she murmured, the spoken fraction of a larger recitation mostly contained within her mind. "A gift for another, made with intent. A part of me to carry with you." It was almost embarrassing to say it. Hearing herself speak so openly brought heat to her cheeks, but it wasn't so bad to shake her from her plan. Not after coming so far.

Shutting her eyes, Ilandreline exhaled slowly. Her free hand rested along the cold curves of the pommel. Freely given. Lungs fully empty, she braced herself and pushed.

The blade slid in more easily than she'd expected, quickly piercing through skin and fat and muscle. Farther and farther she guided it until the change in resistance signified she'd reached her goal. Just the barest movement more, pricking the exterior of her still-beating heart. Now the hard part.

Pulling the blade back out was the most excruciating experience of her life. It was a tool of purpose, to pierce through barriers and bring an end. To remove it without having killed was to deny it that fulfillment, and so the blade fought her every fraction of the distance. Blood -- her blood -- flowed over its pyramidal smoothness, slicking everything, trying to undo her efforts and allow the blade to feast on her life. Gritting her teeth, she looped a finger through the hole in the center of the guard, using the extra leverage to force the dagger out of her flesh entirely.

Slamming the bloodied weapon back on the anvil, Ila scrambled to the forge. There she snatched up the last of the prepared tools, a length of featureless iron, brilliantly glowing from the infernal heat. "Fuck, this was a stupid idea." Laughing at herself, she pressed the white-hot implement against the triangular piercing in her breast, allowing her rasping scream to drown out the sound of flesh cauterizing.

She didn't know how much time elapsed between keeping herself from bleeding to death and when she was able to stand again. It didn't matter, not really. The important thing was Loira's gift was finished. Complete, even. Totally worth it… but if she loses it I'm gonna kill her.

Chuckling at that, Ilandreline scraped herself together. Time to get out of here before the Covenants' assault wavered and the Jailer's forces had time to look for things like wayward elves with bad ideas. She took another quick look at her handiwork as she vacated the premises. There was no trace of her blood any longer, though she didn't remember wiping it clean, and every now and then the faint ghost light would reflect off a fleck of gleaming darkness. Sand in the blade? No, not sand; the dust of the Black Empire. Absorbed somehow following the sanguine consecration. Curious, but probably not a big deal. She hadn't felt anything strange, and her instincts were usually good about that sort of thing.

"Thanks for the help!" she told the forge's previous user, stepping over its hollow corpse. The spiked helmet that had been something like a head was mangled beyond recognition, as if repeatedly bashed by some kind of heavy blunt object. Ilandreline hefted her oversized wrench, rested it on her shoulder, and set off. Hopefully the blood loss wouldn't slow her down too much. It would be a shame to die before she could actually give Miss Winford her present.

(( Tagging for mentions of @ms-winford ))

#wow rp #warcraft rp #ilandreline #ilandreline glimmerbow #fence macabre

8 notes · View notes