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#throws spaghetti at the wall
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concept print: "ART THOU FUCKLESS" using the ace flag as a colour scheme
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ryutarotakedown · 2 months
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so here's the thing about the latest protocol episode:
georgie has presumably been here for a while. long enough to have a podcast indexed on google, at least. so the assumption i've been seeing that she's protocol-verse georgie and separate from archives-verse georgie makes sense.
but then, why is her podcast on dimensional travel? (sam linked celia mentioning dimensions to the podcast directly, and he has no reason to lie—)
possibilities:
protocol-verse georgie is actually archives-verse georgie who was pulled into the protocol-verse somehow and started the podcast in hopes of finding her friends from archives-verse, and did in fact get celia in on it. they're trying to figure out what the hell is going on with the universes
protocol-verse georgie is separate from archives-verse georgie and is just doing a podcast on dimensional travel for funsies, while celia got pulled from archives into protocol and found georgie immediately but not the one she remembered. then her telling sam that her research was for georgie's podcast was lying to cover up that celia's actually trying to find a way to go back
protocol-verse georgie and protocol-verse celia are entirely different from archives-verse them and celia's whole "tape recorders and manila folders" thing is a whole red herring; she recognized chester because he sounded like georgie's ex (or current boyfriend?) from years ago
georgie's podcast is quite literally the magnus archives. somehow
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beatcroc · 1 year
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pest control.
bonus:
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*UPDATE: i made a sequel
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schrodingers-romy · 7 months
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My Angel of the Sea [Tomioka Giyuu x Reader]
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Pairing: Tomioka Giyuu x AFAB!reader
Summary: After a mysterious ocean creature helps save you, you have the chance to save him in return. And then, after you get closer, you get the chance to 'help' him in another way...
Warnings: Near-drowning, and a few mentions of anxiety resulting from this. Non-explicit mention of injuries. Reader has AFAB anatomy referred to with fem terms, but no other gendered terms are used. Graphic smut (MDNI). Biting. PIV sex. Heat/rut sex. Oviposition (whatever the egg thing is idk). Breeding. Weird sea creature anatomy. Very sweet for what was supposed to just be smut.
Word Count: ~8,700
Notes: First post of my little event, Strange Lovers. Also serves as a submission for @monster-october-kny-2023! This ended up being way longer than I thought lol. Also editing your own smut is very embarrassing. Mdni banner template courtesy of @cafekistune
[Ao3 Link]
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The impact with the surface of the freezing ocean shocked the breath out of your lungs, and you began to sink.
It hurt. The boat was tall, the deck elevated off of the water quite a distance. It had taken a monumental gust of wind to tip it and you enough to where you went flying. From that height, hitting the water felt like getting thrown down onto concrete. It was a wonder you were still conscious.
After impact, you sank like a stone. Through all the pain, breathlessness, and shock, you only had one clear thought: ‘why me?’
There wasn’t supposed to be a storm today; you were nearly to the shore of your home, barely a half hour’s ride away in fair weather. The storm was supposed to pass by after you were already curled up in your little seaside shack with a book. But as always, mother nature was vindictive in her unpredictability. It seemed strange to name a force so powerful and uncaring mother.
She certainly wasn’t being motherly towards you now.
The freezing ocean was less a mother’s embrace and more like that of death. Scarcely had you thrashed your way to the surface for a breath before a white-crested wave forced you back under. The sheer force of it disoriented you, making you spin around in a panic for the direction of air.
Your lungs burned as you kicked yourself upwards again. This time, an even bigger wave shoved you back down, before you could even finish gasping for air. Saltwater flooded your mouth and lungs instead of oxygen, and you started to drown.
It was so much more painful than you would have thought. Your lungs were silently screaming for air, but opening your mouth just brought in more water. Your limbs, aching also from strain, didn’t have the oxygen needed to push your body to safety.
Your vision began to spot black, and the pain began to give way to the numbness of unconsciousness.
Before you were completely gone, your brain fired its synapses a final time to grace you with the hallucination of an angel.
He had an unnaturally pale face, with eyes as placid and blue as the sea on calm days. His long black hair formed a spiky halo around his face, accented with the fluttery bluish fins he had in place of ears. One of his webbed hands seemed to reach towards you.
This water angel was the last image you saw before your mind slipped into darkness.
-
You awoke spluttering, coughing what felt like the entirety of the ocean out of your sore lungs.
You were dazed, but surprisingly…alive, for someone who was nearly drowned in her last memories.
You looked around frantically. You were beached like a whale on the sand. A familiar sand…
Whipping your head around (which wasn’t the best idea judging by how a thunderous headache made itself known as soon as you moved your head), you saw you were home. You had washed up on the beach right in front of your home.
But how? You had been sure your life was slipping away…and you were quite a way from this shore when the storm threw you overboard. There was no way the sea had just washed you here with the tides…right?
But you had no other rational explanation to why you were here, alive, if a little battered and sore. It was simply a miracle.
But in the back of your mind, your hallucination of the water angel lingered.
-
He never left your mind.
Even though you knew he was just a figment of your oxygen starved brain, you found yourself thinking of him constantly during the next few days. Small scraps of paper filled with scratchy, unfinished sketches floated around your home. Each one had him on it; some were attempts at a full figure, but others were just a singular feature. None of them were right. Your hand wielding a pencil was insufficient to render the creature you saw so clearly in your mind’s eye.
Other affects of your near-death experience also lingered.
You hadn’t been back down to the beach since you had washed up there. Once you awoke, you stumbled your way up to your little cabin without looking back to the sea once. You had spent the next few days resolutely holed up in your home, nursing your injured body and mind. The cold shakes and soreness took warm liquids and time to cure, but they did improve. Your mind was another story.
You just couldn’t bring yourself to even look at the ocean then. You knew, logically, that it was a force of nature with no feelings or intentions, but you couldn’t help but feel betrayed. You loved the sea, choosing a remote place just a short walk to the water because you wished to walk the beach every morning just to watch it. You wanted to be able to look out your window and see it. You wanted to be alone, isolated, with it as your only companion. But this companion, this friend your imagination made of the water, didn’t exist. It cared not for you, it had no feelings to return. Still, it was a bitter blow to learn the thing you cared for so much could have so easily been your end.
But you knew you had to overcome this.
Maybe, you thought, if you just went down to the beach again…even if you had to make yourself go. Seeing it again would remind you of your love for it, and perhaps also erase thought of the water angel from your mind.
You took advantage of this temporary burst of courage. Slipping your shoes and a sweater on, you stomped out your way out the door and onto the path to the shore.
You couldn’t yet raise your gaze, keeping it trained on the path you stiffly walked down. You could hear the gentle lapping of the waves; the sea was once more calmed, the beast inside temporarily sated after the last big storm.
Once you could see nothing but sand surrounding your shoes, you stopped. With a deep breath in, you looked up.
It…was just as you remembered. Smooth, gradient blue marred only by a few patches of white foam on the crests of gentle waves. It was…beautiful, and you felt calm once more. This wasn’t the harsh sea of your nightmare, but the same sea you had seen every day for forever now. This was normal. You were fine.
Everything was normal, except for the thing on the rock.
It had taken you a second to notice it; the rock in question was close to the shore, but a bit to the left of your vision. You waded out sometimes and sat on it, when the tide was low and the ocean quiet. It made you feel like you were sitting atop the water.
You weren’t on the rock now, yet it was still occupied. At first you thought it was a normal man, but then…you froze.
It was him.
Your water angel, that is. Clear and shining in the light of day.
Seeing him again, you realized what he was. Not an angel, not really, but some sort of sea creature. Half of his body was passable human, but at his waist skin faded into dark blue iridescent scales, covering a fish-like tail. Patches of scales decorated his upper body also, and the webs between his fingers were obvious, as were the gill-slits on his neck.
He was acreature of myth, never something you thought was real…but there he was. Looking right at you.
Your eyes were locked with his. His looked even more vivid above the surface, pupils slitted from the bright sun. They seemed to bore into you.
Unconsciously, you took a step towards him. This seemed to break whatever sort of spell was created when your gazes met, because he flinched back slightly, and slipped back into the water.
You ran over to the rock, uncaring of the seawater soaking your shoes. But he was gone in a flicker of blue.
Your water angel wasn’t something made up by your dying mind. He was real, and you knew it now.
-
In direct contrast to how you spent the last few days, the next week of your life was spent almost entirely by the water’s side.
Now that you knew your water angel was real, you were desperate to see him again. You had to know about him; what he was, exactly, and why in the world would he bother to save you.
You knew it was him who saved you, not a miracle of the tide. But you just didn’t know why.
So, you spent almost all your time sitting on the beach, watching the water. The only times you went back to your house were to prepare food or sleep; even then, you sometimes fell asleep on the sand instead of your own bed. Every time you closed your eyes, you could see him plastered on your eyelids, a ghostly figure printed on the blackness.
On the eve of the seventh day, you had to return to your cabin more than previous days. It wasn’t particularly cold out, but the wind was chilly and harsh, so you had to return for a blanket and to refill your thermos with warm drinks. The sky turned steely gray, and the sea mirrored it in color. Eventually, your anxiety at seeing the increasingly large waves won out against your dedication to seeing the water angel again. It was going to storm soon, and nothing was going to keep you out in it. Not again. You couldn’t risk it again, especially since it appeared your water angel wouldn’t be here to save you this time.
So, reluctantly, you bundled yourself up in your blanket, grabbed the basket filled with your things, and trudged back up away from the churning dark water and towards your house.
The storm rolled in quickly after that, and you were grateful you decided to move when you did. The sky was completely black outside; you couldn’t see the water at all. You couldn’t see anything. The only information you had about the outside storm was from sound; the howling of the wind, the vicious sound of rain lashing against your windows, and the faint crashing of the sea in the distance.
Your sleep was fitful that night. You would like to blame it on the noise of the storm, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. Because when you finally were able to fall asleep, all you could see were the deep eyes of your water angel, widened in something that looked like…fear.
-
The sun was scarcely revealed by the clearing thunderclouds before you were up and running down to the beach.
The light glittered on the ocean, highlighting its calm cerulean surface. As if that same ocean wasn’t tearing at the shore mere hours ago in the middle of the storm.  
The beach was covered in driftwood and drying seaweed, remnants of what the turbulent waves cast up the night before. You picked your way across the debris, making your way closer to the water’s edge. It was a bit of a futile task; you hadn’t seen your water angel when you scanned the ocean earlier, and it wasn’t as if getting a few feet closer to the water was going to make any difference. Yet you still kept walking towards the ocean.
It was only when you were nearly stepping into the sea that you saw it. A flicker of blue in amongst the piles of wood.
Could it be?...
It was likely it was just a rock or a piece of sea glass, but you had to check. So, you went to take a closer look.
Up close, it was clear that what you saw was a patch of blue scales, buried under a pile of wood and matted seaweed. Your heart was beating a staccato rhythm in your chest. It could be just a fish, you told yourself. It might not be him.
But you worked quickly in removing the debris all the same. The seaweed was slimy and unpleasant feeling against your hands, but any thoughts of disgust flew out of your head when you saw what you had uncovered.
It was him. Your water angel.
Spread out on the damp sand, he looked considerably less ethereal than the night you met. He was rag-dolled across the ground in what looked to be an uncomfortable position. His eyes were closed, as if he was simply sleeping; but the dried blood painting half of his face told a different story.
You kneeled next to him, uncaring of the sand on your clothes. Up close, it was clear he was still alive; his chest rose and fell, if shallowly. Hesitantly, you reached out to touch his head. His hair was soft, even when dry and tangled, but you were much more concerned with looking for the source of the blood.
It appeared to be coming from a gash on his head, mostly hidden by his hair. It was nasty, but it wasn’t bleeding anymore. From just looking over him, he didn’t seem to have any other injuries, other than minor scrapes and bruises, so it was likely he had hit his head on something and been knocked unconscious.
You…weren’t entirely sure what to do, but there was no way you were just leaving him here. He could clearly breath out of the water, but he was an ocean creature, so he probably shouldn’t be kept out of the water too long, lest his skin…or scales… dry out. And it couldn’t hurt to clean the gash on his head, either.
Mind made up; you stalked off to seek supplies.
-
You made your way back with a garden cart full of first aid supplies and a rough plan you had cooked up on the walk. The first order of business would be to at least clean his wounds. Typically, you would bandage them as well, but…that would require keeping the bandages dry. And that would be virtually impossible while also trying to keep his skin from drying out, so a simple cleaning it was. The second step would be to somehow get him into the garden cart and haul him off to one of the larger tide pools a little farther down the shore. Your first thought was to bring him to your home and place him in your bathtub, so you could monitor him, but that wouldn’t work. Though his torso was about average sized for a human man, his tail made him somewhere around seven feet from the top of his head to the trailing tips of his tailfins. There was no way you could fit him comfortably in the tub, and you weren’t sure about putting a sea creature in a bathtub with fresh water. From what little you knew of fish, which he about half resembled, it could be deadly to shift the salinity of the water they were in. You could be wrong, but you didn’t want to take any chances. With the tidepool, it would be filled with the very same salt water you saw him swim in before, but even at high tide it would be shallow and calm.
Plan in place, it was now just executing it.
You started with his head wound first. First, you rubbed the dried blood off his face, revealing his delicate visage. You still stood by your first assessment of him; he did look angelic. The perfect symmetry of his face, the elegant line of his nose and the sooty brush of his eyelashes…it was all so well put together it became inhuman. His skin was cool and slightly clammy to the touch, and you wondered if that’s what it always felt like. The fins on the side of his face felt surprisingly delicate, and you made sure to be extra careful in wiping them clean. His hair was soft, a lot softer than you would have assumed; your hair always turned unpleasantly crunchy after drying from salt water.
You did your best to clean the dried blood from his skin and detangle it from his hair. There was still some left, around the area of the gash, but you were too nervous to scrub at it lest the scab come off and continue bleeding again.
You moved on to the rest of his body. There wasn’t much you could do about the bruises, but you could at least wipe down the scrapes and cuts. The rest of his skin felt similarly clammy, but the patches of scales littering his body were smooth and dry. They were small and scattered, until about his waist level, where they slowly faded into larger and harder scales at his tail. Even just lightly brushing down his body, you could feel the muscle beneath skin and scales. He must be a powerful swimmer, you mused.
Then you were faced with what would be your most difficult task yet: getting him into the cart.
You didn’t consider yourself a weak person, but there was a clear difference between being weak and not being able to lift a probably almost two-hundred-pound sea creature gently into a rickety cart.
You sighed. This would be quite an ordeal.
-
It took the better part of an hour, but finally he was settled into the tide pool. He looked perfectly angelic floating a few inches beneath the water’s surface, head cushioned on a seaweed-covered rock while his hair floated out in a halo around him. He looked much better when he was clean of blood and back under the water. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of you.
 You were caked with sand, from kneeling to tend to his wounds and from flailing around trying to lift him. You were also soaked from sea water and no small amount of sweat. Overall, you were a complete mess in desperate need of a shower. However reluctant you were to simply leave your water angel to float in his pool, you needed to clean yourself. And to get some food.
Your eyes lingered on the creature once more before you left. Maybe you could make yourself another picnic. And maybe you should bring some extra food for him. You probably couldn’t go wrong with some fish, right?
-
It was strange sitting next to the creature while you ate your meal. It felt like sitting beside a hospital bed waiting for a coma patient to wake up, and a little bit like having lunch by a corpse. Not exactly the most appetizing, but your struggles getting him over into the tide pool had generated enough hunger to override the slight morbidity.
You began to wonder if you would need to bring out a blanket and camp out overnight, because who knew when your creature would wake up. Or even if he would at all, you thought, and the idea sent a strange pang through your chest.
Your gaze drifted to the sand. You didn’t know him at all, and yet your life was connected to his. And if he lived, his to yours.
Your musings were broken by a splashing noise.
The creature was upright now, partially. He was facing you, head and shoulders above the water and webbed hands gripping the rock. His wide blue eyes bored into yours. He looked stunned; there was also an edge of fear in his gaze.
He was finally awake.
-
You were the first to break the silent staring contest you both were stuck in ever since he awoke.
“Hi,” you said, breathless. “Thank you for saving me. It was you, right?”
He tilted his head to the side slightly, and you didn’t know if this was an acknowledgement of what you’re saying or not.
You continued anyway. “I found you on the beach. I…didn’t really know what to do, so I cleaned you off and brought you here, so you would hopefully be safer than where you were.”
His face was still blank as he watched yours. Finally, he reached one pale hand out towards you, like he was asking for something. You thought he was asking for some of the fish you brought out for him, and moved to give it to him. That wasn’t the right answer, apparently, as he let out a low hissing sound that caused you to startle and drop the food into the sand.
He held his hand out again, looking at you expectantly. You didn’t have anything else you could hand him, so you just looked at him in confusion.
He let out another noise, this one more of a low coaxing churr. His eyes glanced down towards your hand, then back up to your face. He repeated the churr.
Oh, you realized. He wanted your hand. You’re a bit hesitant, because the black claws on the tips of his fingers look wickedly sharp. But he looked so earnest…so you placed your hand in his.
You immediately regretted it.
Quick as lightning, he used his iron grip on your hand to yank you forward, until you tumbled into the tidal pool with him.
Your face went under the water for what was probably only a fraction of a second, but it was enough to ratchet your heartrate up to a dangerous speed. You had still not completely forgotten drowning.
Luckily for you, the creature took mercy on you and hauled you up until you were sitting up, half out of the water and balanced on the thick width of his tail. Still, you were once again soaking and spluttering, and you tried to yank your hand out of his grip again.
“What was that!?” you screeched at him, not expecting an answer.
“I’m sorry.”
You were left gaping at him. His mouth hadn’t opened at all, but you heard a voice, clear as crystal. “…What?”
“I’m sorry for pulling you into the water like that. I didn’t know how to get you into the water with me otherwise…” He let go of your hand, and moved that arm to rest behind your back, supporting you so you didn’t tumble back into the water. “You see, I can only speak to you when you are in the same water as me. I wanted to thank you. For taking me off of the beach, and for making sure I was safer. I probably would have been fine, but…it was nice. Of you. To do that. So thank you.”
Your mouth was dry. You had no idea what you were supposed to do or say now. “It was nothing. I just couldn’t stand to leave you there if I could help it. Anyway, it was the least I could do in return for you saving me, even if I don’t know why you did it.”
“You were scared. I could feel it. You were scared, and you were dying.  It’s as you said before – I couldn’t leave you there if I could help it.” He sounded so earnest, and all of a sudden you were so so grateful that he happened to be there at the right moment to help you.
Overwhelmed, you threw your arms around his neck and pulled him into a hug. “Thank you for saving my life.”
He was stiff and cold under you, arms hovering awkwardly behind your back like he didn’t know what to do with them. “Ah…you’re welcome.” One hand came down to gently pat you on the back. You found yourself smiling at his small attempt at comforting you.
You pulled back, noticing how he shivered lightly at the brush of your fingertips on his shoulders as your arms retreated.
Your mood sunk a bit when your attention dropped back to the light scrapes and bruises decorating his skin, multicolored splatters on the pale canvas of his torso. “I’m sorry, did I hurt you? When I hugged you? I should have been gentler, you’re injured still –”
“It’s okay,” he said, placatingly. “I barely feel them.”
You pursed your lips together. “What about your head?”
At this, he winced. “Sore.”
“What even happened to you?”
He broke eye contact with you, for the first time. His face was still blank, but you thought you could see a flicker of something akin to embarrassment in the tidal depths of his blue eyes. “I got caught up in the storm…I should have gone farther out to deeper water, but I didn’t think about it. I’m not used to the shallows. The last thing I remember was getting swept up in a wave, and then I woke up here. I think I must have hit my head on a rock.”
Your lips tilted down even further, now a full frown. “Why were you in the shallows, then, if you aren’t used to them? I thought fish species typically stayed around the same ocean depth their whole lives?” It took you a second to realize what you said, and then you could feel yourself flush. “I mean I wasn’t comparing you to a fish! You’re clearly much more advanced than that! Much smarter. And better. Um.”
He seemed amused by your floundering. “It’s okay. I know what you meant; I’m not offended. I’m glad you think I’m better than a fish.”
You realized he was teasing you, if lightly, and you felt yourself flush even more. “Well, Mr. Better-than-Fish, what were you doing in the shallows?”
He broke eye contact again. He was embarrassed, it was clearer to you now. “…I wanted to check on you. To make sure you were alive.” He paused, drawing his eyes back from the horizon to your face. “You weren’t on the beach anymore, but I couldn’t see you for several days. I didn’t know if you lived somewhere else, and had already gone home, or if something had happened to you. I was hoping to see you on the beach again, just so I would know you were safe. And then I did see you.  But I never meant for you to see me again.”
“Why did you stick around?” you said softly. “You saw me. You could have left then, and I would have never seen you again.”
“Maybe I liked seeing you. Maybe I liked watching you look for me, every day.”
Your breath hitched. “You could have come to me before now.”
“My kind aren’t supposed to interact with humans.”
“Your kind?”
“Mer, I suppose, is what humans call us.”
Ah. That makes sense, you thought. Mer. “I thought of you as an angel. A water angel.”
“Why?” He asked. There was the lightest dusting of cherry-blossom pink over the tops of his cheekbones.
“Because you appeared to me when I was on the brink of death.” You paused, debating on whether or not you should elaborate. “And because you were beautiful. Are beautiful.”
The pink on his cheeks deepened to a shade of rose. He was, in fact, still beautiful. Especially with that blush. You were glad you had chosen to speak your mind, if only so you got to see his cheeks darkening prettily like that.
“Sorry, I don’t think I ever introduced myself,” you said, sheepishly. You told him your name.
He repeated it, and you felt a tingle go down your spine at hearing it in his voice. “My name is Giyuu.”
“Giyuu.” You repeated. “Well, it’s nice to finally meet you, Giyuu.”
He gave you a small smile. “Likewise.”
Giyuu then turned, looking back out into the sea. “I suppose I should go now that I’m awake.”
A bolt of fear went through you, more severe than you ever would have expected. You found you couldn’t bear the thought of letting him go and possibly never seeing him again; not after you had just found him. “You should stay here,” you blurted out. “To heal, I mean. I can bring you food, and whatever you need. But you need rest.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, hesitantly. “I don’t want to cause you trouble.” A flicker of what almost looked like relief flashed through his eyes. Maybe he also did not want to leave you. This was the same Giyuu who stuck lingered for days just to watch you…perhaps he really did wish to spend more time with you. You could only hope he felt a sliver of the desire to remain as you felt to keep him with you.
“Positive.”
“Okay,” he replied softly.
-
The rest of your next week was spent with Giyuu. Every day, you would wake up, prepare breakfast for the both of you, and set off towards the tidal pool.
You would arrive to him doing slow laps around the pool; he would immediately swim over to the edge of the water to greet you, his ebony hair dripping water down his shoulders and across his torso. He didn’t ever pull you into the water anymore, and instead you would remove your shoes and socks and dangle your feet into the water while the rest of you stayed safe and dry on the rocks. And the two of you would just eat, and talk.
You would only really leave him to go retrieve more food, get a few restless hours of sleep, or to get human objects to bring down and show him. A majority of the time you spent soaking in his presence; your feet were almost permanently pruned at this point, but you wanted to hear him speak, so at least one limb was partially submerged at all times.
Likewise, he would never be anywhere else; when you were gone, you assumed he slept and swam in circles around the pool, but he abandoned whatever he was doing the second you showed up to talk with you.
You talked about anything and everything under the sun. You did not feel any reluctance in telling him all about your life, more than you think you’ve ever told one person. He was fascinated not just by the human world you described, but with you. You had never talked so much about yourself, but you didn’t feel self-conscious. Even talking about your greatest regrets, your deepest anxieties and fears…you found yourself spilling them to him and receiving soft reassurances in return. Even when he was awkward, and clearly didn’t know what to say, he tried his best, and he was earnest in his attempts to make you feel better. That alone was always enough to lift your mood.
Of course, you asked him about his life as well. You learned about what life was like as a mer, and what his family was like, before their passing. He told you about the other mer he met later on, about how they weren’t cruel to him, but they weren’t always kind, either. He said it was his fault, simply because he was hard to talk to. He confessed to you that he believed they all hated him, even though he did not want them too. He just didn’t know how to get close to anyone, not anymore. He even told you, in the softest of whispers, how he wondered sometimes if everyone hated him, and he would never again have the kind of love that he had with his family. You tried your best to console him, telling him you couldn’t imagine anyone hating him. “And if they do,” you added, “Which I’m sure they don’t, you always have me.”
He gave you another one of his small, but genuine, smiles, and replied, “Maybe I should just stay here with you forever.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” you said, and the subject was dropped. But you didn’t forget it. You only hoped that he was genuine…because you truly wouldn’t mind him staying by you forever.
But deep in your heart, you knew he couldn’t stay in that small pool indefinitely. You were already sure he was completely healed; most of his scrapes had faded to white lines by now, and the bruises were gone. Even the gash on his head was more than halfway healed, and he didn’t give any indication of having headaches or anything of the sort. And you saw him looking out, into the ocean…he needed the space.
You would just savor the time you did have; savor the talks, savor the sight of his elegant face covered in rice crumbs from messily eating the sushi you provided him, savor the sight of his powerful body gliding through the water effortlessly. You would make the most of your time before his inevitable departure; you would make enough memories with him to last you his impending absence.
-
It only took until you were used to your new routine for something drastic to occur.
You began your day as normal, making the short trip down to the tidal pools with a spring in your step. You had made a new type of food for Giyuu to try, and you were excited to see his reaction. You noticed that your overall mood had improved ever since he became a regular fixture in your life. Maybe you were lonelier than you thought, living in your remote little cabin by the sea.
However, once you arrived, you were greeted with a seemingly empty pool. No sign of Giyuu anywhere.
Your hands tightened on your picnic basket. Could he have slipped back out into the sea overnight? There was quite the expanse of rocks separating the pool from the main body of the sea, but it could be possible… You just didn’t know why he would leave you without even a goodbye.
Your heart clenched uncomfortably in your chest. Perhaps he really didn’t care for you as much as he seemed to…or as much as you cared for him. Perhaps he just needed the food, and had to keep the one giving it to him happy…
You crept closer to the pool, peering in from the edge. Finally, you saw something.
You exhaled in relief, shoulders untensing. He hadn’t left; instead, he was lying on the bottom of the pool. At first you thought he was sleeping, but his eyes were open, and he was flicking his tail back and forth like he couldn’t get comfortable.
You sat down, setting your basket aside. You gently patted the surface of the water a few times, creating small ripples that echoed out from where your hand touched. You saw Giyuu freeze suddenly.
In a second, his head was poking up over the water. Only his head breached the water, however, and he remained outside of reach from where you sat on the rocks.
Not only was his behavior that day strange, but he looked…sick. His face was flushed red, as if he was fevered, and his eyes were blown wide. He was breathing heavily as well, too heavily for how little he was moving.
“Are you okay?” you asked, brows furrowed.
He nodded jerkily, obviously lying. “I’m fine. You should just go back up to your cabin.”
“No!” you said, incredulously. “You look sick. I’m not leaving you here when something is obviously wrong.”
He let out a low rasping sound, almost a growl, startling you. You had never heard anything like that from him…it was deep, aggressive, and animal.
“No. You need to leave. Now.”
You scowled. “I refuse. Tell me what’s wrong.”
He dove back under the water in lieu of replying.
“Hey!” you yelled. Normally, you wouldn’t push him if he said he wanted space. But it was clear that something was wrong with him, and he was hiding it from you. What if you could help, and things just got worse because he was too stubborn to get your help?
You stood up, and made to start wading deeper into the pool, uncaring about how your clothes were getting soaked. If he was going to be like that, you would just have to chase him down.
It wasn’t the most well-thought-out plan; he was a much better and faster swimmer than you, built for the water while you were built for dry terrain. The pool wasn’t large, but it was big enough for Giyuu to swim around comfortably, meaning he could feasibly stay out of your reach by just swimming away. He could also stay under the water indefinitely, a skill you sadly lacked. It didn’t help that you were still hesitant to submerge yourself, your mind still lingering on its vivid memories of drowning.
Yet you didn’t think about any of this, your mind clouded with annoyance, and more prominently, worry.
You were nearly all the way submerged. The water was lapping gently at the dip of your collar bone, and your heartbeat had kicked up against your will. Your breaths were shallower than normal, dormant anxiety forming iron bands around your lungs, but you pushed past it. You were in no danger; there were no waves, the water wasn’t deep, and you were a reasonably competent swimmer. You were just about to dive into the water when he reappeared.
Unlike before, this time he was close. Close enough for your slightly gasping breaths to shift his wet hair. Up close, his condition seemed even more severe. His eyes were nearly all black now, deep blue covered by the spreading inkblots of his pupils. He was still red and panting, mouth open, revealing long, needle-like teeth.
“Why don’t you just leave?!” he said. His voice was deeper than usual, rough. You could hear a low growl starting up in his chest again, so low you could almost feel it through the water. “Don’t you understand how hard you’re making this for me? I’m trying so hard…”
“What are you talking about?” you asked, almost pleadingly. “I don’t understand. You just look like you’re in pain. You can’t expect me to ignore that!”
He bared his teeth, growling getting louder. “I’m not sick. I’m not hurt. But you need to leave. So you don’t get hurt. So I don’t hurt you.”
Your gaze softened. “Oh, Giyuu…I trust you. You wouldn’t hurt me. I just want to help you. Let me help you.” Impulsively, you reached one hand out to graze your fingers over his cheek.
He let out a full-body shudder at your touch, eyes slipping shut. When he reopened them, there was something dark in their depths.
“Do you really want to know what’s wrong with me?” Deceptively strong hands grabbed onto your waist, pulling you until your body was flush with his. You let out a gasp.
Through your wet clothes, you could feel the ridges of his muscles, the light pinch of his claws on your hips…and something else, against your front. Something large, and stiff, pressed between your bodies.
Your breath hitched. Was that…?
“I don’t think I told you before…” he purred, “But Mer have mating seasons…where all we want to do is fuck…and breed. Normally, I would just hide away, ride it out on my own…But then you had to come here, tempting me. How am I supposed to resist such a lovely creature bringing me food…taking care of me…acting like they want to be my mate? Offering to ‘help me’ with my rut? Don’t you realize what you do to me, baby?” He pulled you close again, grinding against your stomach almost unconsciously.
You could not even speak, only letting out a small squeaking noise as he rubbed against you. Mate? Breed? You knew he wasn’t human, but this…you should have been repulsed, or at the very least offput by this information. Instead, you could feel liquid heat pooling in your abdomen like molten lava.
His hands flexed on your hips, claws ripping through your clothes and scratching your bare skin. Then he let you go, leaving you to quickly flounder to keep your face above water. He looked like it physically hurt him to tear himself away from you, teeth clenching and muscles flexing as he hovered an arm’s length away from you.
“You need to leave if you don’t want this,” he said, panting heavily. “Because I won’t be able to hold myself back if you stay.”
The obvious answer was to take the chance and run. To not agree to get fucked by a sea creature. Go back and hide in your cabin until this was all over, and then continue as you were until Giyuu inevitably left you and all of this faded away like a dream.
And yet…he was beautiful. Ethereal, strong, and even caring…the thought of being bred by him was intoxicating.
You didn’t leave. “Fuck me,” you said, voice a little shaky, yet confident in your decision.
With those two words, he was on you.
Giyuu’s claws were back, this time ripping your clothes right off you. Soon, you both were surrounded by a halo of floating fabric scraps; even your underwear was not spared.
Divested of this one last barrier between you, hands on your hips yanked you back against him. He resumed grinding on you, frantically; you couldn’t see much of him because of the water, but you could feel him. His cock was thick, with ridges running along the length of it; you couldn’t get a good judge of his length with his movements, but you knew it would reach deep inside of you.
He wasn’t providing you any sort of real stimulation, humping your body like a dog in heat but missing where you were hottest. The water was disguising the wetness that you knew would otherwise be dripping down your thighs. He hadn’t even done anything, but you were more aroused than you could ever remember being, just hearing his panting in your ear as he chased his own pleasure, feeling the strange clicking, purring sound vibrating in his chest.
But it wasn’t enough for him.
He let go of your waist just to swim under you and hook his arms under your knees, lifting you up out of the water only to pull you back down so your exposed pussy rubbed directly against his cock.
You let out an embarrassing whine as you felt the ridges on his dick slide against your clit. You threw your arms around his neck to grip on his hair, pulling a light rolling growl out of him.
He ground against you a few times, fucking his cock between the swollen folds of your labia. You couldn’t hold back your own noises when you felt him nudge against the little nub at the apex of your sex, sending little electric jolts of pleasure up your spine.
And then the pointed tip of his cock caught against your entrance.
Giyuu froze for a second, wide, black eyes gazing into yours as you panted into each other’s mouths. You became hyper-aware of every sensation. You could feel the flutter of his gills tickling your forearms; the sensation of his damp hair tangled up in between your clenched hands; his webbed hands braced on your back, claws definitely leaving thin scratch mark in your flesh.
And then your focus was drawn back to a single point as he thrust his cock fully into your soaking pussy.
You let out a shriek. You weren’t exaggerating about his size earlier; you felt completely split open. Your poor cunt was trying valiantly to clench around him, but he had you gaping so much you couldn’t do more than lightly flutter your inner walls around his length. He was long, reaching up all the way to prod at the entrance of your womb. You could have sworn you could taste him in your throat, he was so deep.
He let out his own moan. “I’m so deep in you baby,” he said, almost deliriously. “I can feel it--uh--can’t you? I’m filling up your whole pussy.”
You moaned. “Yesss…can barely fit you…so big…”
He thrust into you, slowly, only once, like he was trying to get you used to it. You could almost count all of the strange ridges lining his cock as they ground against every sensitive spot inside of you, making you let out another gush of fluid to get washed away by the gently lapping water.
You clenched on him again, tugging at his hair. This seemed to rip away the last of his restraint.
He started thrusting into you rapidly, pulling you almost completely off of his cock only to force you back down as he simultaneously flexed his tail up, impaling you onto his thick length. It was like he was carving the perfect space for himself into your pussy, ridges sawing against your walls, making them even more sensitive. His tip slammed perfectly against your cervix, as if begging entrance to your womb, so he could breed you more directly.
The sheer overwhelming sensation of having all the nerves in your soft, wet cunt pressed and scraped against by his massive cock caused you to come almost immediately. Your head lolled back as you rode out your orgasm, waves of electric heat pulsing through you like waves crashing against the shore. You clenched down hard on Giyuu’s still-moving length, your pussy gripping every bump like it was trying to seal him inside you.
“Ohh, baby, so perfect for me…” he slurred. “Perfect mate, made just for me—”
You could do nothing more than whine, as he continued to abuse your pussy at the same frantic pace as before, almost ignoring your pathetic attempts to squeeze around him as you were pushed into overstimulation.
-
Your mind was starting to drift…after around the third time, you lost count of how many times you had come. It didn’t matter anyway, because no matter how many times you clenched around him and cried your way through orgasm, he never let up his tempo, continuing to fuck you as if it was the only thing keeping him sane. You would have thought he was completely in his own mind, unaware of the delicious damage he was doing to your body, if it wasn’t for the intermittent churrs of praise he panted into your ringing ears. These were interspersed by nips and bites to your neck and shoulders; you were so deep in pleasure that his needle-sharp teeth burned in a good way as they repeatedly pierced your spin, leaving bleeding marks decorating your skin red.
You were nearly unconscious by the time his rhythm finally faltered, his strokes turning harder and sloppier, no longer with the perfect staccato tempo of before. You would think your nerves would be too worn out to feel anything, but he still managed to hit your cervix hard enough to send an almost painful shock of pure sensation through you.
“M’gonna breed you now,” he whined, sounding absolutely wrecked, even though, by your count, he was the one wrecking you. “Gonna fill you up so good--my pretty mate—"
“Please,” you managed to eek out, tongue heavy in your mouth.
He thrust into you one last time, hitting the tip of his cock against the entrance to your womb as he came.
You could tell when he was about to come because his whole cock seemed to twitch inside you, and the ridges swelled up even more, until he was completely plugging your pussy, with no chance of pulling out. Then, he filled you with his come.
But…it wasn’t come, your orgasm-drunk mind realized after a minute. Your pussy was being filled to bursting with what felt like small, jelly-like spheres…
You let out a broken moan. He was breeding you. He was filling you with his eggs.
The steady pulse of eggs seemed to go on for eternity; the sensation of being filled so much caused you to orgasm again, more of a dry shudder at this point than anything else, but it caused Giyuu to coo at you and stroke his cool, sticky tongue over your lips in a mockery of a first kiss.
You let him lap fully into your mouth, closer to a proper kiss, even if it was messy and dripping…you tried to suck on his tongue, but it was too long, and he ended up fucking it in and out of your throat instead.
Once the eggs finally stopped, Giyuu gently ground into your throbbing pussy until he filled you even more, this time with a warm pulse of thick, sticky liquid that spread out in between what little gaps were left by his eggs. You could feel his whine vibrating up though his mouth into yours and he stilled completely for the first time in ages.
He pulled his tongue out of your throat to roughly whisper praise to you, but you barely heard any of it as your body slipped into blissful unconsciousness, its ordeal finally over.
-
You awoke to Giyuu cradling you in his arms, gently licking at the bite marks that scattered your neck and shoulders. He had pulled out, leaving your full cunt to drip his come slowly into the water. You felt bloated, and sore, and your neck stung, but you also felt a bone deep satisfaction.
“You’re awake,” he turned your head so he could look into your eyes. His pupils had shrunk back down to normal, revealing the deep ocean blue once more. “I’m sorry for hurting you,” he whispered, stroking a fingertip lightly along the red and inflamed puncture wound he had caused, eyes drifting to them, almost regretfully. “I couldn’t hold myself back…”
“It’s okay,” you said, voice raspy from screaming. “It felt good.”
He didn’t seem convinced; his face was back to its normal blankness, but you could see the faint furrow between his brows.
Seeing his distress, you lifted an arm up to pull his head towards you, pressing your lips together softly. This kiss, unlike your first, was chaste, just a brief meeting of lips, but it was enough to relax him. You gave him a small smile. “You’re so sweet, taking care of me,” you cooed, only slightly teasing him. It was amusing to see the creature who had just fucked your brains out mere hours ago blush prettily at being called ‘sweet’.
You would miss him dearly when he left you. He must have seen your face drop, because his mood shifted towards the melancholy as well.
“Still…I should have held back. I didn’t want it to happen like that.” He murmured, tucking his face into your neck, still ashamed.
You froze, hand mid-way through stroking his hair. “What do you mean?”
“I wanted to make you my mate before this,” he replied, “I had a plan…I was going to court you, once I was well enough to leave. Mer court their mates with gifts, and I have nothing here, even though you bring me things every day. But I had forgotten about my cycle, and here we are.”
You almost couldn’t believe your ears. “You want me to be your mate?”
He pulled back to look at your face quizzically. “I thought I had made that clear before.”
“No,” you squeaked.
His face dropped. “I thought my intentions were obvious…I thought you reciprocated, but it’s okay if you don’t. I thank you for your help anyways. I can leave whenever you want.”
“No!” you blurted again. If you knew nothing else, you knew you wanted him to stay. “Mates, that’s like marriage, right? We’ll be each other’s?”
He nodded, face still carefully empty.
You wrapped your arms around his neck, tugging him until your noses brushed. “That sounds wonderful. You being mine, me being yours…I don’t mind it if you leave when you want, as long as you remember to come back to me.”
“I’ll always come back for you baby,” he said, smiling softly as he kissed you lovingly. “My lovely mate.”
You had known him only a few days, but you couldn’t imagine your life without him anymore. He lit up your days, just with his presence; he made you happier than you had been in a very long time. You should have been more cautious, instead of immediately promising yourself to him, but the soft, syrupy warmth you felt as he kissed you was intoxicating. You only hoped that this sensation would never go away.
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autoboros · 3 months
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Look at my girl thing
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lgbtlunaverse · 6 months
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A slightly unhinged case for jin guangyao knowing about the core transfer while WWX was still alive
Ok. SO. In chapter 101, during guangyin temple, Jin Guangyao clearly knows about the golden core transfer. He uses it to bring Jiang Cheng off-kilter and stab him and simultaneously reveals to wwx that jc himself now knows about the golden core transfer.
I've always wondered exactly when he figured it out. The most obvious explanation is that he pieced it together after hearing about Jiang Cheng asking everyone to unsheathe suibian (also? jgy? how the fuck do you know that? You were already going to/at Guanyin temple at this point! Did you just have people listen in on rumours from Yunmeng and report back to you for that?? Did you tell your spy network where you were going? My whole kingdom for a retelling of this arc from the pov of these random jin disciples seeing their sect leader start spiralling. He's diggin up random tombs? Fleeing the country? And threatening the heir's life?? What was random Jin cultivator #6 thinking of this before Nie Mingjue turned him into minced meat?)
BUT.
The first time I read that line I was like "oh so he's known for a WHILE." I mean, the line "I've always found it peculiar [that wwx never took his sword anywhere]" does indicate he's been thinking about this for a while, but it doesn't have to mean he knew back then. So I absolutely can't say with certainty that my instinct was right. But I DO have some decent canon backing for how he might have potentially figured things out as early as before Wei Wuxian's death. Specifically, after the discussion scene that takens place when wei wuxian does his thing with the wens and dissapears.
Cause, see, Wen Chao would definitely have bragged about Wen Zhuliu crushing Jiang Cheng's core to his father. He killed the current sect leader, and then permanently disabled the only heir. He did it! the Jiang are gone! I bet he was very loud about it until, a few weeks later, Jiang Cheng suddenly strolls up to the battlefield, with Zidian on his finger, cultivation very much intact, looking for Wei Wuxian.
That must've been fucking baffling if you were Wen Chao and/or Wen Zhuliu and/or any other cultivator who was there and definitely saw Jiang Cheng's core get crushed. They must have assumed something went wrong, or he faked having his core destroyed, but we've never heard of something like that happening before, and they tortured him for hours! It wasn't a quick batle where Wen Zhuliu must have missed in haste, he would've noticed!
Now, by the time Meng yao arrives, wen zhuliu and wen chao are both long dead, but that kind of thing would at least still be a source of gossip among the other Wen. The only time the core melting hand ever failed!
It might be something that, say... a very careful spy with a perfect memory looking for information... might pick up on in his stay with the Wen, no?
So, Meng Yao has heard the rumour that sect leader Jiang got his core crushed but somehow managed to... still have a core.
Independantly of his, Wei Wuxian is being really weird and refusing to carry his sword. His primary concern there is wwx stirring shit up, he has no reason to believe these things are connected yet.
But then Wei Wuxian runs off with a bunch of Wen, and before he is cut off, Jiang Cheng tells everyone that after the siege on lotus pier, he and wei wuxian were helped by Wen Qing and Wen Ning! Jiang Cheng doesn't get to say how, which is good for jgy in this moment because he's trying to steer the conversation as such that no one gets mad at the Jin sect for all the war crimes, but even if his goal is for everyone else to forget Jiang Cheng said that, he'd remember it.
So... after the moment where jiang cheng, according to rumours that were contained to the wen, lost his core, he was helped by wen ning and wen qing, who is a really good doctor. And, in canon, had written theoretical proposals on core transfers before, just never experimented on them. Were these available for others among the Wen to read? Did jgy read them? We have no way of knowing. But if he did, he remembers them. Either way, he knows her reputation.
And Wei Wuxian disappeared right round that same moment, only to resurface with his demonic cultivation, at which point he never touched his sword again. Not even in the middle of a dangerous war. Not even when he was public enemy number one and it would do wonders for his reputation if he was seen cultivating the traditional path. When doing so would have made not just him but the 50 people he was shielding safer! if Jin guangyao was somehow in his position, he'd immediately do everything he could to counteract the narrative of beign a dangerous madman who'd left the straight path. Wei Wuxian has been in absolutely desperate situations and still refuses to pick up his sword...
The saying doesn't exist yet, but i'm sure someone like jgy, more competent than everyone around him, is intimately familair with at least the sentiment of "never ascribe to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence" He is helping spread the narrative of Wei Wuxian as a violent madman, sure, but does he believe it? If it makes no sense for wei wuxian, no longer a privileged young master but an outcast, to not pick up his sword again out of arrogancy, the most reliable explanation is that he... can't.
So Jiang Cheng, who got his core melted, got help from Wen Qing, an incredible doctor, after which he coud cultivate just fine but Wei Wuxian, no matter how desperate, never used traditional cultivation ever again...
Hm. interesting!
It's likely no one else in the jianghu outside of the wen even knew Jiang Cheng lost his core to begin with. And Jin Guangyao was never given wwx's excuse of Baoshan Sanren owing him a favor like Jiang Cheng was. He has all the puzzle pieces in front of him and... if anyone as gonna put them together, it'd be him.
And that's my unhinged case for why I believe Jin Guangyao knew Wei Wuxian didn't have a golden core anymore years before anyone else did. He just never told anyone, because why would he?
I think this adds a whole other level to his speech to Jiang Cheng about how everything could've worked out if he'd just trusted Wei Wuxian more and stood by his side. He saw it all play out in real time knowing there was more going on beneath the surface!
Now the really interesting question becomes: When did he figure out Jiang Cheng himself wasn't in on it? Did he piece it together immediately from remembering seeing jiang cheng berate wwx for not carrying a sword, a thing he should've known he couldn't do? Or was it not until later, maybe the fake yunmeng bros fallout, or the REAL fallout when Jiang Yanli died? Or was it still the news of Jiang Cheng going around and asking everyone to unsheathe subian that made him realize that oh my god this stupid bitch had no idea the whole time.
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withdenim · 4 months
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Consider, if you will.
“If you seek to return that staff to its rightful owner” yk. I’m wondering if it’s just a common startouch design motif or if maybe the nova blade is a little less swordy than depicted in legend.
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harlequin-wheels · 11 months
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jp dub version
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stealingyourbones · 1 year
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Short DPXDC Prompts #570
Kwan dropped the potential football career and now works as an ER nurse who specializes in metahuman treatment.
One day this tiny kid that could no be older than 10 is rushed to the emergency room.
Patients name: Billy Batson.
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spacelazarwolf · 9 months
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first: get gone bozo.
second: me when a trans person thinks that a disgusting and unethical "joke" i made is disgusting and unethical so i retaliate by insinuating that they're a child predator.
if you condemn making unfounded transphobic accusations like this against trans women, please condemn it when it happens to trans men too. whether or not you agree with literally anything i say, this should be universally agreed upon as a thing you do not fucking do. hold your people accountable.
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zarlev · 3 months
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💃
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muninnhuginn · 1 year
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the way teru was introduced proclaiming himself as the ‘main character of this world’ because he was the most powerful person he knew until he met mob. and mob was a threat to him and ultimately to this mindset so he tried to take him down. but even when mob collapsed teru didn’t win because mob refused to fight him and so teru couldn’t prove power to power that he was “better”. instead, when ??? came out, teru was stripped to his core and shown that he was ultimately unimportant in this world.
and in the most recent episode this entire situation is flipped. teru has entirely shunned his old philosophy because mob taught him that he’s not all-powerful, he’s just an average guy. that’s his new identity. but his new philosophy where he chooses to prioritise saving people over fighting back is the most main character thing he has done in the series. teru is yet again broken down to his rawest, but this time, he wins.
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likegoldintheair · 3 months
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no but the way we've seen eddie reassure buck over and over again that he has a place in the diaz family and that he is important to both him and chris and somehow i think buck still doesn't quiet believe it i think he gets it in a way but i don't think he dares to actually fully believe that he is allowed to have that or that it won't be ripped from him so if he accidentally causes an accident where chris (or eddie) gets hurt he'll probably think that he's fucked up bad enough that the only thing he can do is distance himself before chris and eddie get the chance to do so (hence him telling maddie that he doesn't think that 'he' wants to hear from him right now) and then we get the madddie scene and eddie's hand on his shoulder reassuring him once again which leads to the conversation with chris and all of those three scenes/converations cements once and for all what buck is exactly to chris and eddie
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iolite-wyvern-art · 2 months
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How to Train Your Dragon TTRPG????
HTTYD books fans, I’ve got a question for you. Hypothetically, if if someone were to make a HTTYD based tabletop roleplaying game, would anyone be interested?? It would just be a system mostly based on DnD 5E, some rules to play by, maybe some character creation and quest ideas/prompts. It would more than likely be formatted as just a series of posts or maybe a google doc.
Point being, is there any interest in a HTTYD TTRPG??
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bedpissercastiel · 1 year
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HUGE if true
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@real-oddity YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND ok before i wordspill, keep in mind that this is all pure assumption and speculation cobbled together from looking at the map and tidbits i hope i'm remembering correctly. take all of it with a Hefty grain of salt
so.
i think that Julie's character arc might be about societal norms, the pressure of expectation, and how those conflict with the self. because i think the puppet show intended for her to be Wally's love interest - but that's not what either her or Wally want.
STAY WITH ME I HAVE EVIDENCE. first, lets look at Julie's house:
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all of the blatant heart decoration, from her tree to the windows to the hedges and even the welcome mat. no other building has heart imagery, and especially none this heavy handed. it just screams Love Interest to me.
like if i was designing a house for a love interest character for a children's puppet show in the show's time period, i'd go ham on it. children's shows are rarely subtle. and more often than not in shows, especially in older ones, the "main character" (in this case, Wally) always has a love interest, and that love interest is always blatant. usually the Moment they appear onscreen, the viewer goes "oh, ok, thats the love interest."
not only that, but look at the windows. to me, they look a lot like eyes - reminiscent of Home. The way the curtains fall, the placement, even the structures under the sills looks like eye-bags. Julie's house is also the only house other than Home to only have one floor, not two. and then there's the fact that she has no flowers outside her house, but she has white daisy decorations - mimicking the white daisy flowerbeds flanking Home's door.
"but why do you think that's not what she or Wally wants" so glad you asked. lets start with Wally:
for one, there's the smiley-face balloon featured in the above image, tied to the swingset. two heart-shaped balloons colored red and blue are on either sides of it. as soon as i saw the balloon, i went Oh, that looks like Wally. but when have you ever seen a smiley-face with closed eyes? when does Wally close his eyes - he loves eye contact! to me, it seems indicative of Wally ignoring or avoiding the hearts.
that, and - now this part is definitely a stretch - the trees behind Home are set up in a strange way to me. Julie's house gives the appearance of "staring" directly at Home. but the trees behind Home are hiding it from the house's view.
(also, just imo, Wally doesn't seem very romance-oriented to me. he just gives off huge aromantic vibes. i could be completely off the mark and might be proven completely wrong <3 i probably am <3)
now here's why i think Julie is also not on board with this:
one, it's interesting to me that Julie's house has a lot of heart symbolism, but her character design doesn't. Wally has hearts on the soles of his shoes, but those have been explicitly linked to Barnaby's heart-shaped paw pads.
Julie's character design and symbolism is all about flowers instead of hearts. Which ties to her being in a best-friendship with Frank, a distinctly platonic relationship.
now, an argument could be made that the show might've wanted her to be Frank's love interest, or have had a Who Will She Choose, Frank Or Wally subplot. what backs this is her being close to Frank (the platonic nature of their relationship could've been a deviation from the "script" due to our lovely fruity Frank Frankly), and the fact that outside of Wally, Frank is the only other neighbor to have a white daisy growing in his "yard". though that could just be to depict his closeness with her - like Barnaby having paint supplies outside his house despite not being a painter like his bestie.
(if you want to read a dissection of neighborhood flowers and their symbolism, here's a post all about it)
also, it just occurred to me - the only design thing she has in common with Wally is her little tie thing. it's very reminiscent of Wally's ascot. but it's also Very vaguely similar to Frank's bowtie. it just stands out - Sally doesn't have any neck accessory (that we can see), Poppy has her shawl, and everyone else has ties. im stretching again. this is a yoga post
and again, despite her house being heart-infested, nowhere in Julie's canon images (outside of the Valentine's Day cards), her character description, or pretty much anything relate to romance. she's centered around friendship and fun.
all in all, it gives the vibe of the show wanting her to be a love interest, but Julie either ignoring it or actively going against it.
obviously something like that would influence her character arc, if not be a big part of it. then - HOLD ONTO YOUR GRAIN OF SALT HERE, FELLAS, I COULD BE MISREMEMBERING - there's the thing Clown said about homophobia being a... not quite theme, im missing the word rn, but it'll be a factor. which makes sense, this is a cast of mostly queer characters from a late 1960s / early 1970s kid's show.
the obvious target for any homophobia, internalized or otherwise, would be Frank & Eddie. but they're not the only gay folks around. Julie (i believe) has been stated to be bi, Poppy is a lesbian, and i'll eat my cats if Sally isn't some flavor of gay.
so i think it's entirely possible that Julie might get in on that storytelling element. if the show wants her to be a love interest, maybe she is. she's just interested in the wrong person (looks intensely at Sally)
all in all, i think she's going to have an arc about resisting the role chosen for her and her struggling with that. and i think it's going to be a Big struggle. i think she might make some Horrible mistakes while grappling with her inner conflict bc of the intense effect expectation/pressure have on a person's mind
(which might uh. which might tie into the flower symbolism i rambled about yesterday, but that's so much of a stretch that it's practically molecular. still. im Thinking.)
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