#actually... i feel like it could be entirely possible the interest originated from him as well | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

minhosimthings · 6 months

Text

Prideful

Synopsis: You never thought that Lee Heeseung, the man who had proven you wrong in the subject you were best at, would be fucking you on the classroom floor, but here you were.

Pairings: Heeseung × fem!reader, sort of enemies hate sex, includes Sunoo from Enha, and Soojin

Warnings: Smut with plot in the beginning, MINORS DNI, fluffy in the beginning, mention of food, degradation, praise, fingering, oral (f receiving), sex on the floor, unprotected sex (not for you bubs), rough sex, overstimulation, swearing, Heeseung calls reader princess and doll, open ending my babies have fun with that

A/N: idea came into my brain and I thought I'd forget about it and just added it to my wip list but then I was like NOPE IMMA WRITE THIS SHIT. So this makes my third smut for Heeseung (idk why I'm writing only smut for him) enjoy it y'all

Jane Austen once wrote an entire fanfic about enemies to lovers, slow burn, and she thought no one would notice. Well almost no one. Nothing ever gets out of the eyes and pens of literature majors does it? Especially not out of hardcore Jane Austen fans like yourself.

You must have analysed that godforsaken piece of literature atleast a thousand times since you recieved it as a gift for your birthday. And every single time, you failed to understand how such a love could be possible. I mean come on, a man and woman who hate each other, falling in love with each other? Either Jane Austen must have been a reincarnation of Aphrodite, or a madwoman who still kept faith in love.

Your heart nearly exploded when your professor had assigned a full fledged essay-presentation, costing half your grade on Pride and Prejudice. "Explore your opinion!" She had called out cheerfully, "Tell me what your heart truly feels about this beautiful piece and I'll give you a full half grade and no assignments for the rest of the semester." The class gasped in excitement at her words as you pretended to be interested. Internally, you were groaning. Wasting half of your night to make a presentation about a book you hold no love for? The universe really was against you. You picked your books up dejectedly and walked towards the entrance, shoulders hunched and music at a higher level of noise than it should have been at.

"Oh shit!" You cursed, dropping your books at the sudden interruption. A flurry of blue wool flooded in your face, as you leaned down quickly to pick up your fallen books and phone. "I'm so sorry." You apologised not looking up at whoever you crashed into. "It's alright." A voice responded back, and you looked up to see him. Lee Heeseung. You had seen him a few times in class, heard him actually. With his pristine glasses, and his woolen sweaters, he was the definition of a movie nerd. He was actually smart, you had to admit, always quick to respond to the questions that you had no idea about. Best in the class after you, according to your professor. Although his choice of literature slightly weirded you out. You often spotted him sprawled out under a tree, holding Pride and Prejudice to his nose, deeply engrossed in taking in each word.

"Is that The Neighborhood you're listening to?" Heeseung asked, as he handed you your phone, which he had picked up before you had the chance to. "Do you have an ear for them?" You asked, taking the phone from him. His hands felt soft, like the first snow when you were eight. Heeseung shook his and chuckled. "I'm more of a Arctic Monkeys person." You smiled awkwardly and shuffled your feet. "To each his own then."

"Macbeth." Heeseung said, before you could escape from the conversation. "I'm sorry?" You questioned, confused at his sudden outburst. "That line's from Macbeth." Heeseung sent another smile your way, pushing his glasses up from his nose, "Polonius says it, 'To each his own'." You felt a pang of jealousy hit your chest. You didn't know where that line was from. Of course, what normal person would know the origin of a common idiom?

"Cool." Your laugh was not without a tint of awkwardness. "Well-" Heeseung shifted his weight from one foot to the other, "Bye then." "Bye." You bid each other goodbye and rushed off in opposite directions, not wanting to be stuck in another neverending loop of conversation.

"Don't tell me you actually talked with The Lee Heeseung." Your roommate Soojin laughed, accidentally smearing some turquoise nail polish onto your thigh. You quickly wiped it off with a tissue before frowning at Soojin. "It's not a big deal." You scoffed, having another slice of pizza, "I mean he's just a guy. Kinda nerdy actually"

Soojin burst out laughing again, this time shutting her nail polish close. She gasped for air as she pulled out her phone and showed you a picture of a what looked like a frat party. "Girl-" she got up from her leaning position, "Nerdy is the worst way to describe Lee Heeseung. I'm telling you-" she picked up the last slice of pizza, "-he's the playboy representative of this college."

"Oh come on." You scoffed again, getting up to go to the bathroom, "Stop joking around." Soojin shrugged her shoulders as you disappeared into the bathroom. "Whatever you say."

The next day, you strolled into your favourite cafe with your laptop, headphones, a copy of Pride and Prejudice, money in your pocket, a sketchbook, and a positive mindset. Always need one to write an essay right? You were thankful that it wasn't raining today like it had been for the past few weeks.

The cafe was mostly empty, with a few medical students drinking coffee to their death, as they always did. You walked up to the counter, where you saw your friend Sunoo, working his shift.

"Y/N hey!" He flashed his bright smile at you, putting down the glass he had been cleaning. "Hey sun." You clapped back, leaning in front of the counter, "The usual please." Sunoo nodded his head and started to prepare your drink. "So I've heard something." He put on his mischievous smile, one that he often wore when he had gossip on his fingers. "Please tell me it's not about that girl from Chem again." You sighed, as he put a coffee cup down in front of you. "No it's about you dumbass." Sunoo scoffed, taking the money you handed him, "I heard you bumped into Lee Heeseung." You let out a groan at his words, and quickly grabbed your drink, going off to sit in the corner. "Yah take your change!" Sunoo shouted after you to which you shouted back, "Keep it! Your broke ass needs it anyway!"

You didn't get the chance to see Sunoo giving you the stink eye, as you plopped down on the comfortable couch and opened up your laptop. You had prepared a few opening lines the night before, since you had learnt that doing half of an assignment on the day of the announcement is better than starting the next day. Whoever wrote that theory needs to clarify it to you, but hey never pass up a good study tip right?

Immersed by the clacking of the keyboard keys and the pretty syllables decorating your page, you were completely absent from the world around you. Until, you heard a familiar voice, which broke you out of your hypoxia.

Heeseung.

What was he doing here?, You thought, not realising that you were basically staring at him. He was dressed in full black today, a leather jacket adorning his broad shoulders. A single earing dangled from his right ear. He still had his glasses on, which were fogged up completely, courtesy to the weather outside. Chatting away sonderly to Sunoo, as Sunoo prepared his drink in a way familiar to you, Heeseung caught your eye. He waved joyfully to you, akin to a child waving to their best friend. You waved back, not aware of the face you were currently making.

"Hey!" Heeseung said, sitting down in the chair next to you, with his drink in hand, "Working up on the Pride and Prejudice thing?" There were atleast a million other seats empty in the cafe. Why did he have to sit next to you? You didn't really realise how handsome he was, until he was sitting face to face with you. The mere sunlight coming in from the windows seemed to illuminate his face well. "Oh yeah I am." You replied, shooting him a smile, "Same thing?" You asked, wanting to keep the conversation going. Heeseung smiled jovially at you and propped his laptop open. "Yep." He replied and glued his eyes to the screen as you went back to your own work. "The Neighborhood again?" He raised an eyebrow, peeking at your open Spotify. You smiled gently and replied, "Arctic Monkeys?" As if ticking a correct answer, Heeseung laughed and showed you his phone where 'Arabella' was playing. A pretty album cover, you thought, subtle and sleek. "To each his own then?" Heeseung said. You nodded and smiled in response, before dropping your head back down to your laptop.

An hour must have passed like this, both of you hypnotised in writing and editing, and downing the refills of coffee Sunoo was providing you with. You stole tiny glances at Heeseung from time to time. Concentration was a good face on him, his eyebrows furrowed, his hands typing away furiously at the keyboard. He didn't talk to you at all, except for the initial hey and hello. But something about the way he spoke to you in the beginning, about the way he asked if you had a pen, and about the way he said 'Hey you have an eyelash on your nose' made your stomach erupt into butterflies.

Heeseung left before you did and before leaving he had extended a hand out to you. "May the best essay win." He spoke, shaking your hand and showing you his smile. God he never stopped smiling did he? His hand was soft, as was his grip on yours. It felt like how your father would hold your hand when you were little on the crosswalk.

"Girl just ask him out." Sunoo called after you as you were about to leave, "The tension between both of you back there was almost poetic." Even though you laughed at Sunoo's quip, and denied the offer, a part of your mind lingered on Sunoo's words and the way Heeseung spoke to you that afternoon.

The days leading upto the hour of the presentation went fast. Too fast almost. Your mind went over your short conversation with Heeseung atleast a million times, sometimes distracting you from typing. You didn't know where all the red bull cans littered across your room came from, but you remember where you threw every single one of them and why. The presentation was perfect. It must have been checked by your eyes atleast a hundred times. Finally, a time was coming when you would be able to express your true feeling about it. Despise and Trouble ran through your veins as you walked up to the board as your professor called on you to present. The class seemed to hold a tight breath to themselves. Everyone knew you, teacher's pet, best at English, known for using the most difficult metaphores in her essays yet having a straightforward point.

"Shall I begin?" You asked your professor who gave a curt nod and leaned back in her chair, an expectant smile plastered on her face. You returned the smile and turned to your classmates, who seemed most interested in your essay.

"Well to begin with, as one does-" humor was always the best way to start off speeches, which was shown by the subtle laughter of the students, "-I would like to say that Pride and Prejudice may be one of the most despised books I have sitting in my bookcase." You heard gasps around the room as everyone started murmerring. Your professor leaned forward in her chair, her mouth pressed tightly to form a thin line. That's good, you thought, a good way to break into their corneas.

"While most people would disagree with me upon this apparent piece of art, I truly believe that this sort of a romance is highly impossible. And no-dont tell me that this is fiction and in the fictious worlds you can quote unquote 'do whatever you want'." The audience held their breaths back as you continued with your rant. Your professor was watching it all with a smile on her face, knowing that she couldn't disagree with you. After all, you had to present your own opinions no matter how opposite they were to everyone else's.

"Well-" you professor stood up from her chair, as you finished your presentation. It had been a 25 minute rant about the book and by now everyone seemed to be meekly looking at their own essays. "That was brilliant Y/N. Truly brilliant." You professor clapped you on the back, "I must say, you have a flair for arguing in a way no one can find counter-attacks. I wonder why you did not choose law as your major?"

"Because there is another argument to be discussed here."

A cold voice rang through the room, as you were about to laugh at the professor's quip. You spun around on your shoes to face the culprit.

Lee Heeseung.

"Heeseung!" Your professor delightfully responded clapping her hands together, "Well why don't you tell us your opinion then? And we'll see if Y/N can fire back." She sat in her chair again, looking positively delighted at the forthcoming, "A battle of the best wits perhaps!"

Heeseung smiled widely and stepped forward to where you were sitting, plopping down on the opposite chair. Your professor had always kept two chairs facing each other in front of her class, for debates, her reason sounded. And now, as you sat in front of Heeseung and his stupidly handsome smirk, you swore you were going to bring him down.

"First of firsts-" Heeseung began, as everyone's attention caught on you. "-your opinion is speaking from a highly biased perspective." "How so?" You fired back, before he could even breathe, "I had already stated in the beginning, about how this cannot be on a biased perspective, since fiction based in actual words cannot be this animated." Heeseung smiled again, which threw you off track a bit. God he's handsome, you thought, too handsome....

"Of course but must I remind you, that this book was perhaps the first out of many to start with the trope of enemies to lovers?" Why were his eyes like galaxies?, "Jane Austen invented an entire trope, which still remains a genius scan of literature to this day. How could you say it's too animated?"

"Yes but-"

"Furthermore-" Heeseung continued, not giving you the chance to breathe, "inventing new tropes does not break this 'law of literature' as you say. Since there was no law of literature to begin with. So please Miss Y/N-" he leaned forward, looking at you with dangerous eyes, "-don't you dare say that Pride and Prejudice is a worthless piece of literature just because it does not have proof of poetry."

The class let out a breath as you sat frozen in your seat. Someone actually breaking your argument was a first for you.

God, his hair. His pretty curly hair.

You didn't realise how long you'd been staring at Heeseung with widened eyes until your professor clapped her hands together again.

"Well then!" She said cheerfully, effectively breaking you out of your stupor, "I believe this goes for grading both of you an A+. Half of your grade is filled you two! Congratulations!" The class broke out into applause as you thanked her and awkwardly shook hands with Heeseung as the bell rang loudly. "Well class I'll be seeing you next time!" Your professor announced, as everyone started filing out. "Oh Y/N, Heeseung a moment please?"

You stopped your feet from stepping out the door and immediately spun around, marching off towards your professor, seeing Heeseung doing the same. "Yes Professor Kim?" Heeseung responded with those stupid puppy eyes of his before you could. Professor Kim smiled gently at both of you, before pulling out her tablet.

"I need a bit of help from both of you. It'll be sort of a favour to you too." She handed you the tablet, which had a sort of letter open on it. Heeseung leaned from behind you, and put his chin on your shoulder, making your stomach feel clammy. He smelled good too, you thought, like fresh paper.

"An event is being hosted by our Dean for all majors." Professor Kim smiled, "Sort of a career booster you could say. We were instructed to pick two students from our classes to have the assignment of checking essays, and documentations and whatnot pertaining to their majors."

"And you chose to pick us Ma'am? I'm flattered." Heeseung chuckled, as Professor Kim laughed to his quip. "Well you two are my best students." She drawled, "So the assignment I'm giving you is-" she pulled out a huge stack of papers from beneath her desk. It shocked you how quickly they appeared out of nowhere, like magic. "-these are all essays collected by last year's class. I want you to go through them, give them a good critic, and grade them according to you. You will personally grade each one, taking each other's help of course,since it's a group project. And it will lend you a helping hand since you'll be getting a certificate which you can use to get into any company you'd like!"

You and Heeseung glanced at each other and we're relieved to see the same excited expression face back at them. This was a rare opportunity, a diamond of the first water you'd say. And you had to grab it, even If that meant it was with a person you despised with your entire being.

"I'll do it Professor!" You replied positively to which Heeseung also nodded frantically as if to say the same thing. "Great!" Professor Kim clapped her hands together again, "Oh and one rule is you two have to work together in this classroom. Since the Dean wants to provide you with an opportunity to see how workplace relationships doon out."

Your heart dropped to your stomach as you heard her words. You, working with Heeseung in an empty classroom? You would rather have praised Pride and Prejudice.

"Here, the keys." Professor Kim handed you and Heeseung a pair of keys, "You can work in the evening if you want. But make sure to complete it as soon as you can alright? Oh and you can skip classes if you want to do this first, since the Dean is prioritising this before anything else." You nodded in response to her instructions and bowed her goodbye as you and Heeseung walked out.

"So-" Heeseung stuffed his hands in his pockets, "You wanna work on this shit tonight?" "Unless you have any other appointments, sure we can work on it tonight." You responded, coldly, not looking at him in the eye. "Alright then." Heeseung scoffed, "Meet you here at 8?" "Alright." The end of your conversation came a little too fast, you thought, but you couldn't stand looking into his pretty little eyes and talking to him, as if he didn't just embarrass you infront of your entire class a few minutes ago. "Y/N wait!" Heeseung called, running up to you, as you were about to exit the building. "What?" You spun around to face him. "Shouldn't we exchange numbers first?" Heeseung handed you his phone, which had his contact list open. "Why? So you can take me out on a date later?" You shot at him. A smirk tugged on the corner of Heeseung lips, but he resisted, not wanting to anger you more. You looked cute when you were angry in his opinion. "No. Maybe incase you were murdered by someone on the way here, I can call you and scold you on why tardiness is a childish thing to do." Heeseung joked. You smiled sarcastically at him as you handed him his phone back, having typed in your number. "Eight o'clock princess don't you forget now."

Tick tock tick. The clock's quiet sons echoed through the empty class. 'Don't forget.' you scoffed, 'And he's the one who's late.' The time on your watch sounded 8:30 and yet Heeseung wasn't here. You had given up waiting for him, and started on the assignment yourself, already finishing two of the army of papers. You were a hard critic, and it clearly showed in the way you were seeping your eyes through the ink.

"Soojin he's late! I can't come back now!" Your roommate had called you, in the midst of your third paper, complaining about a cockroach in the room. "Just call your boyfriend, and don't be such a pussy it won't hurt you." You scoffed at Soojin, whose scared whimpers were heard clearly through the phone.

"How's the checking going?" Soojin asked, having seemingly calmed down. You groaned and leaned back in your chair, wincing at the crack of your backbone. Your back must have become stiff from the amount of time you had been sitting in that chair. You felt pity for your professors for the first time, having finally been in their shoes.

"Heeseung's not here yet and I'm literally so fed up right now." You complained to Soojin, "That handsome bastard told me not to be late, and now look where I am! Asshole seriously." "He'll turn up, cool down Y/N." Soojin soothed you. You heard a sound of crashing in the background and stifled a laugh, assuming that Soojin must have miraculously jumped from one bed to the other. "I told you he's a playboy." Soojin panted through the phone, "Maybe he's busy fucking some poor girl in his frat house." You rolled your eyes at her statement.

"Please." You scoffed, "He couldn't fuck a girl if he wanted to, with the tiny ass cock he has." Soojin let out a raucous laugh from the other side of the phone. "How the fuck do you know he has a tiny cock?" She chuckled. "Intuition baby." You responded, "And my intuition is never wrong."

"Like how it was on the day of our debate?"

A familiar voice again. But this time, the warmth in it wasn't present. You whipped your head around to the door, where Heeseung stood, leaning against the door and smirking. "Soojin I'll call you back." You cut the call, before Soojin could respond.

"Hey." You called out to Heeseung. "Hey." Heeseung shot back, sitting down on the chair in front of you, spreading his legs wide. An involuntary gulp went through your throat. "What were you saying princess?" He leaned forward, his shirt dropping down slightly, "I have a tiny what now?" The dim lighting of the room, made his eyes look dark, and the leather of his black jacket, gleam more. "I- I wasn't saying anything Heeseung." You responded, turning your chair back to the desk, warmth coming up on your cheeks. Heeseung cocked his head to the side and smirked at your flustered state.

"Really princess?" He smirked, edging closer to you. The smell of his cologne filled your nostrils again. His glasses dropped on his nose, and he hadn't even bother to push them back up. "Heeseung just get to work." You sternly responded, trying to keep your cool. How could you though? When he was so close to you, lips almost touching your ear. "For you information-" Heeseung spoke, turning your attention away from the paper you were working on, "-I had a friend who needed a lift to his dorm, so I ran a little late. But you couldn't wait for me could you princess?" He smirked, laying his hand on top of yours, "Just couldn't wait to critique all those papers like the good girl you are." "He-Heeseung." "Shh don't." Heeseung shushed you, "You want to see how tiny of a cock I really have then hmm?"

"Heeseung we shouldn't." You hesitated, feeling your legs warm up. "No one's gonna know, as long as you don't make a noise alright?" He kissed your neck gently, turning your figure to his, still sitting in the chair. "Oh princess, already wet for me?" He chuckled, toying with the button of your shirt. "Heeseung-" you moaned out, quickly unbuttoning your shirt, as Heeseung took off his jacket and threw it on the desk. You pulled back slightly as your mind came to its proper senses. "Where are you going doll?" Heeseung questioned, hands resting on your thigh, squeezing it from time to time, "Don't worry princess, no one's gonna know."

Heeseung brings his lips down to yours in an instant, wasting no time. You gasp at his sudden actions and he takes advantage of that by entering his tongue into your mouth. You grab at his shoulders while he cups your jaw with both of his hands. Your hands reach his hair, softly tugging at the root and you hear him whine. Heeseung sucks on your bottom lip, catching it between his teeth and pulling it back to look at you. You look up at him and he takes your face in his hands.

“You wanna see my cock baby?” Heeseung asks in a teasing tone as he looks down at you. You could feel the throb in his pants press against your legs as you whimper. “Hee please.” You whine, squirming as he places a kiss between your breasts. Heeseung runs his hands up and down the sides of your body. If he was going to fuck you on the classroom floor right there and then, you were going to let him.

“Oh, you're feeling extra polite today huh? Please, Heeseung.” Heeseung mocks you with a tiny laugh. You groan in embarrassment and hide your face with your hands. Heeseung just lets out another laugh and wraps his hands around your wrists, prying them away from your face. He transfers both of your wrists to one hand, holding them over your head as he uses his other hand to trail his fingers down your body.

“Don’t hide your pretty face now, princess.” Heeseung says nonchalantly as he dips a hand inside your leggings and panties to feel your dripping cunt. His glasses were beginning to fog up slightly as he whipped them off of his face, setting them down on the desk. You clench around nothing when you feel his middle finger dip into your wetness and bring it up to your clit, rubbing slow circles around it. You moan softly as Heeseung teases your clit, never taking his eyes off of your face.

Heeseung begins to rub your clit faster, and you buck your hips up into his fingers. You hear him laugh at your eagerness and he presses soft kisses into your neck. Heeseung takes his fingers off of your clit and he snaps the waistband of your trousers against your pelvis.

“Dirty girl. Never thought you'd be like this.” Heeseung says with a smirk and you dumbly nod your head. The sounds of your heavy breathing and your pussy squelching around his fingers make your legs begin to shake.

Heeseung spits on your cunt to lubricate it even more, and that's what makes you come undone. Your cunt clenches around his fingers, sucking them in as he fingers you through your orgasm.

Heeseung takes his time kissing down your body, letting your need and desperation build by the second. He tugs one nipple and then the other into his mouth, suckling at the perky nubs and massaging your areola between his lips. Your hips are trembling with anticipation, the space between your legs aching to feel Heeseung's kiss.

Stars hover over you, or at least, that’s how it feels. Your eyes are closed, awareness cut off to the world around you except the place Heeseung's face is buried. He devours your cunt like a man starved, swallowing you whole. Heeseung doesn’t come up for air; he doesn’t need to, because all he breathes is you. Your back is arched and arms stretched forward, fingers clutching Heeseung’s hair in fistfuls.

Your thighs are shaking, reflexively clamping around Heeseung's’s face. He keeps forcing them open, demanding full access to your cunt, even as you buck and claw and convulse. Your mouth hangs open in a stupor; a thin line of drool trickles down your cheek and connects to the cold floor beneath you.

Heeseung laps at your slit like he’s never tasted you before, like he never will again. His tongue pads between your lips, upward strokes that end with the tip of his tongue flicking your clit with a firm intensity that has you reeling. Tugging at his hair, trying not to scream his name incoherently, you ride out the longest orgasm you’ve ever had. Tears burn the corners of your eyes, stars bursting in the black sky of your vision. Heeseung doesn’t stop licking your cunt till you release his hair.

“M’gonna fuck you now, okay?” Heeseung says sweetly and you nod your head. He runs his hard cock through your folds, and he catches your clit, making you jerk a little. Heeseung slowly begins to push himself into you and you throw your head back against the hard material of the desk.

“Fuck, knew you’d be tight when I felt you around my fingers.” Heeseung grits out, and he continues to push himself into you until he bottoms out. He starts to move at a slow pace, and he whines when you beg him to move faster. “Fucking whore. Bet you think about me fucking you in class don't you?” Heeseung spits out as he pushes himself harder and deeper into your sloppy cunt. You moan at his words, and you try to reply but all that comes out is a pathetic whimper.

“Hee, I’m gonna cum.” You cry out, and you clench around Heeseung's fat cock.

“ Cum for me princess.” Heeseung. moans out, fucking into you so deep, a ring of your cum and his has formed at the base of his cock. You run your fingers through his hair, harshly tugging on it as you come undone at his expense. Heeseung buries his face into your neck as he cums, sucking at your pulse point. You feel his cum shoot into you and it only prolongs your own orgasm.

After a couple minutes of you two catching your breath, Heeseung takes his face out of your neck and plops down in the chair, pulling you onto his lap. You sit there, dazed for a few seconds, burrowing your head in his chest, his heartbeat reminding you where you were.

"Well that was a whirlwind of emotions." He says at last, when you start to stir from your hypnosis, "You good doll?" You nod slightly and feel Heeseung's arms wrap around you, putting you safely down on the chair, as he put his clothes back on, slowly picking up yours as well.

"Heeseung the assignments." You panic, as he puts your shirt back on you. "It's alright princess." He coos at you, wrapping an arm around your waist, "We can do that in the morning. Let's get you home." He guides you slowly out the door. "So-" he smirks, locking the classroom with his key "Same time, same place tomorrow?"

1K notes · View notes

sausage-rolll · 3 months

Text

The amount of times I said something along the lines of "They would not fucking do/say that!" while watching the live action atla series is insane. It felt so weird to watch because the acting was pretty fantastic and the set design/costumes weren't bad for the most part either, but the writing and direction itself was painfully bad.

I think King Bumi is probably one of the worst offenders of being written completely ass backwards, which is a shame because the guy portraying him did a great job and I think he would have made a fantastic Bumi if the writing was better.

It feels like they missed the entire point of his character. They took his goofy/slightly mad front from the original show and dialled it up to 11 all the while completely ignoring all the nuance behind that front.

Bumi isn't just the mad king they portray him as in the live action, he's a mad genius. Despite his quirks, he's a fucking fantastic fighter and a brilliant ruler. Despite what you may believe from first impressions, it really does feel like he always knows what he's doing.

Even when he's being antagonistic towards the gang in the show, he's never actually putting them in significant danger. The crystals he trapped Katara and Sokka in were ultimately harmless and all the trials he gives Aang were more akin to games than anything. Even when he fights Aang in his episode he's very clearly not giving it his all, as seen when he single handily takes back his city from the fire nation during the eclipse and when he takes back Ba Sing Se with a small group during Sozins comet, when the opposing forces would have been at their most powerful. My point is that if he actually wanted to beat book 1 Aang, he could wipe the floor with him easily. But this version is fucking furious with Aang (wrongfully so this time around because he explicitly did not run away from his duties in the live action) And very much seems like he wants to cause Aang as much pain as possible, but can barely manage to land a hit on him when he's not pulling cheap tricks with the crystals.

I'm getting very side tracked but god damn it! This is the man Aang eventually decides to name one of his children after. Their friendship was so sweet and meaningful in the original. Bumi was such an interesting character in the original! And all of that meaning is lost here.

Ironically in an attempt to make Bumi's arc more dramatic and dark, they ended up making it significantly less interesting, along with also missing major parts of his character.

#atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #king bumi #aang #bumi

390 notes · View notes

thankskenpenders · 10 months

Text

Sonic Prime: "Season 2"

Eight more episodes of Sonic Prime are out! They're labeled as "season 2" despite just being the next eight episodes of the first (and presumably only) season, allowing Netflix to market it as multiple seasons without having to give the cast and crew raises. They love doing that shit to their original cartoons. Ugh.

Anyway! Last time, I gave the show some leeway because it was still finding its legs. This time, though? We're now two thirds of the way through the series, and sadly, I think it's time to accept the truth:

While there are parts I like, a lot of this show... kinda sucks?

This multiverse sucks and Rouge was robbed

Previously, I noted the pattern of each universe spotlighting a different friend of Sonic's (Tails in New Yolk City, Amy in the jungle world, Knuckles in the pirate world) and predicted that, hopefully, Rouge would get her time to shine next. And with 16 episodes left, surely there's time to explore new worlds that are more interesting than the jungle and pirate worlds. Those were just the warm up act. Right?

...Right?

Nope! That's it! There are no more worlds.

This multiverse show where anything is possible really is just about another Eggman-controlled dystopia world, a jungle world, and a pirate world. That's all they came up with! Just those three, and two dead worlds that don't really count - one a featureless wasteland, the other a ghostly echo of the original Green Hill dubbed "Ghost Hill." (Sonic's friends appear here as holograms stuck repeating a single line each. It gets old immediately.)

The jungle and pirate worlds and their inhabitants being so overwhelmingly generic becomes unforgivable the moment you realize this is all we're gonna get. It just leaves me wishing they'd thrown this whole concept out and finally made a normal Sonic cartoon with no twist in its premise. A few of the new takes here are good, particularly Nine as a darker riff on Tails, but so many of them don't feel anything like the fun characters they're supposed to be. They're stock cartoon characters wearing the Sonic casts' skins.

I'll admit my bias is showing, but god, Rouge is REALLY done dirty by this setup. The normal Rouge we see in the first episode is so fun for how briefly she appears, but then in all the other worlds she's reduced to a generic action girl with zero personality. What's her purpose, exactly, when every AU version of Amy is ALSO a straightforward action girl? It drives me absolutely insane that they gave us a PIRATE ROUGE and she doesn't care about treasure. They do nothing with this! How!!!!!!!! She's just never gonna get her turn. It's so obvious that Rouge is only in this show so that they can have another girl, but you could swap her out with another character like Blaze and it'd make no difference.

Speaking of the pirates, though...

The way things play out in the pirate world is so stupid

Previously, with the Paradox Prism shard within reach, Captain Dread Knux was regressing into his old obsessive personality. I'm fine with this. Sonic and Dread both want the shard, they're gonna fight over it. Obvious stuff. But the actual impact it has on the story is maybe the stupidest bit of writing in this entire show so far.

Basically, while fighting a couple of the Eggmen and their robots at sea, Sonic has to briefly run over to the enemy ship to fight them and grab the Paradox Prism shard while Dread and his crew remain back on their ship. Dread goes "Oh my god, look! Sonic's abandoning us! Traitor!" While Sonic is... like 200 feet away. Still in clear view. Fighting the guys who are trying to kill them. Retrieving Dread's beloved treasure for him.

And yet, Dread's crew buys this! And when Sonic runs right back over with the shard in hand, they're all like "HOW DARE YOU BETRAY US" and turn on him.

It's just. What?!

This isn't a huge part of the "season," but I highlight it as maybe the worst moment of the show's character writing. I'm reminded of Thorn Rose's backstory from last time, where she was depicted as suddenly snapping one day when she saw her friends pick one too many berries in the jungle. Sometimes a character just needs to pivot for the story to work, and they aren't really interested in getting there smoothly.

The Chaos Council fucking sucks

I tried so hard to like these guys, but they drag the show down so much.

The choice to have a team of five different Eggmen really just means that Eggman has been split into five one-note characters. Four of them revolve entirely around the most trite, predictable, boomer-ass jokes based on their ages. The teenage one is whiny and just wants to play video games. The young adult one is a vegan hipster who does yoga. The old one is cranky about all the whippersnappers and has a bad back. The baby is a baby. These are jokes that would've been tired if this show aired 20 years ago.

The odd man out is Mister Doctor Eggman, the middle-aged one with a toupee who's the stand-in for regular Eggman. But even he kinda sucks. The other four all being one-note joke characters means that he has to be the straight man of the group, so he's just very dry and serious and plot-focused without any of Eggman's fun eccentricities. He's neither particularly funny nor particularly sinister, which is just about the worst place for an Eggman to be.

He doesn't even have any incompetent robot lackeys to bounce off of, because the unfunny alternate age Eggmen fill the quota for bumbling secondary villains. But also, like... Orbot and Cubot are in this show! They were in the first episode! Where are they? God, I never thought I'd miss them so much...

But, okay. It's not ALL bad.

The highlights

There's a recurring theme here, which is that the best episodes are the ones where Sonic is pitted against a foe who can match his speed and they just let the animation carry it.

The first of the new episodes is mostly about Sonic fighting Shadow, and BOY is their fight fun to watch. Said fight happens because Shadow blames Sonic for shattering the universe and doesn't trust him to fix things. Shadow wants to restore their world, but he refuses to see the various AU counterparts as the same people Sonic once knew, and he doesn't really care what happens to them. Ultimately, though, he begrudgingly accepts that Sonic really is the only one who can hop between dimensions for Plot Reasons, and therefore lets him go try to do things the nice way. He sadly spends most of his time waiting around in the void between worlds, but in the last episode of the batch he and Sonic get to team up against the Chaos Council's forces and it's very cool.

As far as recent interpretations of Shadow go, this is a good one. He's a great foil for Sonic, which just makes me wish he could travel with Sonic to the different worlds. He's cynical and overly pragmatic in his approach, but his points aren't entirely wrong. His anger feels justified. They even let him have some snark! And Ian Hanlin is really great in the role - definitely a contender for Shadow's best voice ever. He just sounds so natural.

The other speedster Sonic fights is Chaos Sonic, the Chaos Council's take on Metal.

He can talk! Deven is basically doing a Jaleel impersonation for him? People are very mixed on this.

The idea behind Chaos Sonic is to turn Sonic's obnoxious smack talk and zingers back around on him, and I don't hate this idea, even if a lot of fans find him annoying compared to Metal Sonic. (Some comparisons have been made to Archie's Shard, but I assume this is a coincidence.) Like the rest of the script, his dialogue certainly isn't anything to write home about, but the fights he gets into with Sonic and co. are so damn fun and dynamic that I have to like him. I also like how expressive his eyes are on his dome screen face, and the animators have a ton of fun with the fact that his torso and head can rotate 360 degrees.

Unfortunately, he's destroyed at the end of his debut episode. I'm praying he gets rebuilt, because this show desperately needs better villains than the Chaos Council.

Again, the animation in Prime is maybe the best animation in any official Sonic media, period. I just wished I liked the characters and worlds enough to be invested in more of the fights. It's hard to care about the dozenth group battle against the generic Eggforcer bots and the baby in his Fisher-Price mech.

The note we end on

After fighting a giant glowing replica of the normal Eggman for... some reason? Episode 16 ends with Sonic and Nine getting into an argument over what to do with the Paradox Prism shards. Sonic wants to restore his original world, but Nine still wants to create a new, better world out of the one that's just an empty wasteland, believing he doesn't belong anywhere else. Nine angrily runs off with the shards, and Sonic is distraught as he realizes that Shadow was seemingly right about how he shouldn't trust Nine.

I kind of like this conflict, mostly because Nine is the standout character of this show. But my main problem is that we don't know what will happen when everything is fixed.

The logical assumption is that the alternate worlds will just... stop existing, right? That must be the idea if Sonic and Nine are treating restoring the original world and creating a new one in the Shatterverse as mutually exclusive options, right? If the Shatterverse disappears, will Nine and the rest all stop existing, too? The show seems unwilling to discuss this possibility, so I'm left not really knowing what the stakes are in this conflict. Nine becomes a whole lot more sympathetic and Sonic becomes a whole lot more monstrous if restoring the world will erase most of this show's cast from existence, but the thought that this could even happen doesn't seem to have crossed Sonic's mind. Sonic seems to want to take his AU friends back to the regular Green Hill - he at least wants to introduce Nine to his normal friends - but like... he can't really do that, can he? They're not gonna have four Tailses running around.

I don't really know what direction this is all headed in. I guess we just have to keep watching, even if I'm past the point of accepting that this show is mostly very mid.

It's just frustrating that everyone else working on this show is clearly giving it their all while the writers at Man of Action phone it in for so much of its runtime. The scripts drag this show down so, so hard. There are moments and episodes I like, but you have to slog through so much mediocrity to get there.

#tkp post #other media

601 notes · View notes

kyouka-supremacy · 7 months

Text

I was asked why I like Beast and why I prefer it over the main universe, so obviously I ended up with a 2k+ words essay on why Beast is great. Now I feel like it diverges too much from what the original ask was actually asking for, so I'm leaving it to its own post. Enjoy.

Why do you like Beast? So, first of all you MUST know that this is a question that could keep me talking for days to no end. I'm not kidding. Here there will be some disorganized rambles but trust me, if I had time to actually do so I'd keep going on forever.

Alternative universes are cool I love Beast. I think it starts off at a point when the bsd author was more experienced from having already worked with the main series for many years, and ultimately ended up making an alternative version of the work that is more mature and refined, while still maintaining bsd's core themes (and conservative worldviews at that lmao). Starting off, the “what if” concept is endlessly fascinating, pretty much the entire fandom culture is based on it. It IS unfailingly cool to see what could have happened if Akutagawa sided with the ada and Atsushi with the pm, it is extremely interesting to see what changes out of their personalities and on the other hand what stays the same, what is intrinsically them. About sskk, I find it really compelling how Beast tackles intimate aspects of their lives, pasts and traumas. The café scene is genuinely brilliant in the way it shows, completely unexpectedly and to the reader's full disbelief, them getting along in normal circumstances. Who could have predicted that! Of all things, Akutagawa and Atsushi getting along. But it happened, and nothing before had ever shown to that extent how similar they are, how much on the same page they are, how much they're meant to be– like yeah obviously I mean romantically, but even if you're not particularly into that, it displayed just how deeply connected they are. I'm forever grateful for that scene.

Beast Akutagawa is great But I think… More in general, I just really like Beast Akutagawa and Beast Atsushi, even better than their canon counterparts 😅 Again I do think at the point when they wrote Beast the author had already gathered a lot of experience from serializing bsd for at least five years, and ended up making characters that are more solid and compelling (although please don't get me wrong, I LOVE canon sskk and I believe canon Akutagawa's character arc in particular is amazing. It's just that at least to me Beast sskk is everything I could ever ask for.). I love Beast Akutagawa! It was so so capturing to see him grow outside of the pm. And especially it was infinitely interesting to see Akutagawa grow outside of Dazai. And don't get me wrong, I love the influence Dazai has on canon Akutagawa, I wouldn't have it any other way: it made Akutagawa who he is, and I love reading about his character. But I also found it wonderful and pleasantly refreshing to see how he would be if he had never undergone Dazai's training; I like this Akutagawa who's possibly even more immature and impulsive, wild and untamed than his canon counterpart. Beast is also the universe where Akutagawa gets his chance at being a good person - which is something he desperately strived for but never got to have in the main universe -, and in the end I am a little attached to Akutagawa, so I'm happy for him! His relationship with Oda and the whole ada are wonderful, I like getting to experience a universe where Akutagawa is loved and supported, unapologetically, for who he is.

Beast Atsushi is great Beast Atsushi is AMAZING. Like. Character molded appositely to my liking ahah. He's so cool! He's so tormented! He's sweet and cruel and utterly unstable! I love him so much. He truly is Atsushi at his full potential. I love this Atsushi who's biggest fear isn't the world, but rather himself. He's beautiful and horrible and deathly and kind. He killed his abuser to stop him from haunting his nightmares, but ended up turning those nightmares into his life. He takes his coffee with three sugars. He loves his little sister and would risk the safety of his organization and the boss he's endlessly loyal to for her. The only person who ever understood him is his most loathed enemy. He's one with death and indistinguishable from darkness. His laughter stops rain. He lives in perpetual physical pain due to a choker constantly piercing around his neck and yet even that is nothing compared to the damage of his psyche. He's so, so fucked up. He deserves the world. I LOVE HIM.

Beast Dazai is great Also, I really like Beast Dazai!!! He's always Dazai, but I think his character works out a lot better in Beast for the role he covers. In canon Dazai is this omniscient, all knowing figure, but he's also a protagonist, and him being so perfectly flawless doesn't go well in the long run. You've seen it in the last season 5 episode, it just gets boring after a while– it would be nice to see him face actual challenges and high stakes for once, but he's so overpowered, that never happens. In Beast, it's pretty much the same deal (author really loves Dazai lmao), but the fact that he isn't the protagonist and instead the main villain? I feel like from a storytelling standpoint, it works so much better!! I mean, his being omniscient works a lot better– he's not the one who the reader expects facing challenges and high stakes, the protagonist is. In addition, in Beast Dazai has almost universal knowledge due to his link to the Book, so that makes his being omniscient and even god-like a lot more feasible and easy to contemplate! I think that plot-wise it just works a lot better, there's an actual reason he's so overpowered, and that reason is explained, it's in the text. Oh and I LOVE his utter devotion to Oda. I know it's the same in canon, but still… There in Beast you can see it concretely, you can see it everywhere. That very universe exists how it is because of Dazai's love for Oda, because there's nothing he wouldn't do for him, because in the whole universe, in the whole multiverse, Oda's happiness is the only thing that matters to him. I think such strong feelings of love being put so explicitly is something simply wonderful to read, and makes Dazai infinitely more sympathetic than what he may be in canon. “But I do have one regret, Odasaku— I won't be able to read the novel you'll complete one day.” LIKE YEAH, SURE, ALRIGHT, JUST SHOOT ME TO THE HEAD ALREADY. That line alone is worth the whole novel, honestly. Oh and the thing about Oda harshly repudiating Dazai, the man who literally did everything for him, who dedicated his whole life for him… Man!!! That REALLY made me sympathize with Dazai in a way canon will never be able to. All those factors only contribute making Dazai's suicide in the end all the more emotional– which I believe works really well in the story, he is an enemy and he is a god and he had to die, but still makes for an extremely emotionally charged scene and a wonderful story climax. Imo Beast Dazai had to die so that canon Dazai could live (and, hopefully, find a reason to live!), and it's as bitter as it is beautiful.

The Beast ada dynamics are great And I love the ada in Beast!!! They feel infinitely more of a family than they do in canon. Kenji, Kunikida, Tanizaki, they all seem to love Akutagawa in a way that's hard to be found towards Atsushi in canon? The way they didn't falter to rescue Akutagawa even as he went, against all their advices and pleas, to a suicidal rampage was wonderful and heartwarming. They make it sound unbelievable that when Atsushi was (mind you, unwillingly) kidnapped their first response would be that it was an hassle and that he should have dealt with it on his own (this time I truly believe it was the author learning from their own mistakes, because seriously, who does that. It makes everyone instantly feel a thousand times less sympathetic). As people have said, the ada alone makes Beast feel like the “right” universe on the basis that in it they actually care about their members. All things considered, the ada treats Akutagawa as this kind of rabid murderous gremlin they just adopted who's going to bite everyone but that they still love no matter what, and it's super cute. Beast ada really is the bsd found family if there ever was one.

A cool plot The Beast storyline is just very compelling in general? The introduction chapter is amazing, I mean, The Heartless Cur is amazing. Again, Beast Akutagawa is such a great character, and the description of his struggle to find his own humanity, although in my opinion does fall weak in some points and has flaws, still treats a concept that's very interesting to ponder over nonetheless. I like how there's a series of more light-hearted chapters in the first half, it helps solidify the characters, and those chapters are really nice to read; not to mention having lighter chapters alternated with the strikingly more gloomy and violent pm Atsushi scenes makes the latter feel all the more frightening and disturbing, it's a great narrative choice. And the big crescendo of Akutagawa storming in the pm headquarters! His fight of physics and morals against Atsushi! Them telling each other they're nothing like the other when the reader knows the exact opposite is true! It's all very good, and again, Dazai's suicide makes for a perfect climax to the story.

Sometimes being a seinen can be good I like how Beast is a seinen way more than the main story is? Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with shounen manga - which bsd seems to lean towards more often than not, with only occasionally tackling more adult concepts -, but at this specific time in my life those darker themes are just something I find more entertaining to read about. I feel like the gritty and often gruesome depictions, although maybe a little overused in the manga, really help emphasize the dark atmosphere of the manga and overall effectively convey the whole “beast” imaginary as wild / violent / unpleasant / animalistic.

It's got sskk in it And in general it's just… Compared to canon, Beast is very very sskk centered. It's significantly shorter than the canon manga, and in a way that helped focus on sskk specifically, because it only had space to narrate one story, which is sskk's. And I don't know what to tell you, I'm here for the sskk. Of course I like Beast best.

Beast Atsushi is great (cont.) Back to Beast Atsushi because he's everything, really. I love how when I went into Beast I was like “I mean, whatever Dazai is making of Atsushi under the pm, if can't possibly be any worse than the constant abuse Akutagawa had to experience 😊” AND I WAS PROVED WRONG. I mean, I think the fact alone that the author could come up with something worse is remarkable. Dazai's emotional manipulation and psychological torment is, I believe, the darkest facet of Dazai we ever witnessed, and it's extremely well executed. Beast Atsushi is so so unstable, so on the brim of mental breakdown and psychosis at every second. Him being made unable to let go of the past makes him live in a perpetual nightmare. And I feel like the way his character story is unwrapped is truly masterful, storytelling wise!!!! On the reader's first encounter with him, it's evident how deeply scarred and disturbed he is, but the reader can't tell why. That adds to the mystery and feeling of unsettling surrounding the character: his story is wrapped up by darkness and it's impossible to predict, just like he is– and it's deliciously unsettling, scary, to be unable to tell anything about what made him like he is except from guessing that it must have been something really bad. And yet even then /nothing/ could have prepared the reader to what his backstory really is? And when the traumatic event is finally unveiled, it's worse then any guess the reader could have made. Atsushi's back to the orphanage flashback passage is terrifying! He didn't undergo any harm, like it would have been easy to guess; on the contrary, his torment stems from having killed his abuser. But he did so at a point when he didn't represent a threat for him anymore, when he was proud of him, when he got close to resemble a father to his eyes; and all of this he realized too late; and now he lives in constant regret, constant terror of himself. It's great, really! And even then, Atsushi carries on with being. super cool lmao. Like yeah he's unstable and everything, he's wild and violent, but he's also still very kind. He's timid and blushes easily. He also feels a lot more mature than he does in canon, and it's nice to see. He's more confident and serious, and that's nice too. He REALLY is my favorite character.

Some pretty cool scenes are in it Moving on, Beast has some truly amazing scenes. The Heartless Cur is amazing and builds up such an awesome character, Atsushi's introduction is petrifying, the Kenji / Akutagawa conversation is as deeply moving as it is cathartic. I won't be talking about the sskk café scene. Akutagawa's whole assault to the pm headquarters is rich of emotional scenes. I already talked about Atsushi's flashback and Dazai's suicide being wonderful passages both from technical and emotional standpoints. And the manga ending is just so good!!!!!!! Like it truly is the perfect ending– the way it ties up with the main story! How it feels like ada Akutagawa's story has just begun, a conclusion but also hope for what's to come. The “out behind our company's building there are some people of low character hanging about”– I can't stress enough how emotional this line, a final and definite tie to the main story, makes me, how meaningful it is in its quality of being both an ending, and a beginning. The last page showing Akutagawa at the center of the ada, it just moves me so deeply to see him being the protagonist, surrounded by a crowd of people who love and support him, getting his own chance at a life in the light 😭😭😭 “I'm going to live as an agency member. I'll solve cases, rescue the weak, and prove that I'm not evil.” Crying my eyes out 😭😭😭😭😭😭 And don't get me started on when Akutagawa and Atsushi's voices mix up to speak as one; I could never hope to be able to express what that makes me feel.

Siblings dynamics are my jam I also love Beast because one of the main aspects that drives the plot is Ryuunosuke and Gin's relationship, and I /love/ siblings relationships, and I //love// Ryuunosuke and Gin's relationship. I don't think Gin's character was written well at all (because the author literally can't write female characters for the life of theirs), but eh, at least it reinforced the concept that Ryuunosuke loves Gin terribly and would be able to do anything for her. Atsushi and Kyouka's relationship, too, is to die for.

The designs and manga art style slay Besides, the character designs are beautiful???? Akutagawa's Beast outfit is my second favorite out of the whole franchise, it's just such a look™. I love in general how rabid and messy Akutagawa looks in Beast, he feels so much more free? And like, good for him. In my head Beast Atsushi is the most handsome man in the entire franchise and I don't think I can take criticism on this. I find cutting off his longer bang such a witty way to represent not only how this Atsushi is different from the one we know (after all, that's the most remarkable and eye-catching feature of his appearance!), but also to symbolize how the cut with his past at the orphanage was harsh and violent. Characters designs aside, Hoshikawa's art style is GORGEUS. It's hard and rough and messy, it's dark and unpolished and violent and beautiful and exactly everything Beast is. It's PERFECT for the story, it's like it was made to portray it.

Sskk is always great And that's just talking about the canon content but like. Beast means a Beast sskk. Which is basically new and improved sskk. And I like sskk. And I like every version of sskk but especially this version where they're even more violent and fucked up and madly in love with each other and evidently meant to be. So yeah.

And this is like, just the very tip of the iceberg of what I love about Beast. Humbling offering you this Beast love letter in hope we can all give this novel the appreciation it deserves (๑˃‌ᴗ˂‌)۶

#ryūnosuke akutagawa #atsushi nakajima #sskk #shin soukoku #osamu dazai #bsd ada #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd beast #bsd analysis #my analysis #mine

251 notes · View notes

elementroar · 13 days

Text

Flament Nagel, the Flaming Nail - Paracelsus theory(ies)

This was gonna go out earlier yesterday, but you know, Slayer happened lol.

I feel that ArcSys has been hinting that Paracelsus' 'true nature' is more complicated than described, even more than how his true form being kinda formless and his nature as a morph weapon that reacts to the emotions of his wielder.

So below is his appearance during A.B.A's Instant Kill move back in ACCENT CORE +R, which were a signature cinematic and flashy move that instantly destroys your opponent regardless of health. It's a retired game mechanic now in STRIVE.

So back in their previous appearance back in ACCENT CORE+R, this is the form Paracelsus briefly takes when performing A.B.A's Instant Kill, where he first flies up into the sky while she summons her door.

What’s interesting is it’s only in this form that we see him resemble his original name - Flament Nagel - which is misspelled German for “Flaming Nail”. In no other move or scene does he actually look or behave like a 'nail' that's on fire.

After their enemy is sucked into the door and it closes, Paracelsus returns but in Goku Moroha mode (the extreme mode above his usual Moroha mode) and slices the door in half to break it and ‘seal’ their enemy on the other side to ‘instant kill’ them.

He then slices the doors apart forcefully because he is actually rotated with his blade facing the door. Paracelsus is not facing us the audience in this animation. The 'face' facing us isn't his actual face morphing, but some kind of energy entirely.

What’s more, Paracelsus himself appears to be knocked out (😵) during the entire animation and only opens his eyes after the black smoke dissipates and seems kinda scared or confused at the end of it. Which suggests it isn’t even 'him' doing the attack with A.B.A, or at least not him consciously doing it.

There's the possibility that this smoke and the sludge we now see in STRIVE are suppose to be the same thing, but changed due to art evolution. A kind of formless mass Paracelsus takes on when he doesn't have a definite form, or a form that differs from his default.

I'm not saying Paracelsus was taken over by a completely separate personality or entity, because he still had agency and awareness, he still talked as himself in Moroha mode. And it's clear he enjoys/enjoyed blood and violence and he still reminisces about them with some fondness in STRIVE.

But when he says he "lost his sanity" during his bloodlust, I wonder if it was more like he was partially possessed, and he didn't realize it.

Paramirum

Coupled with his new transformation which is called “hyoui” (“possession”) internally, and his STRIVE axe form has both two 'heads' at once, and is actually a double-bladed axe with one blade broken off. It feels like hints and motifs that Paracelsus is or has multiple entities or personalities in one.

Like on his blade in Jealous Rage mode, that word on the blade is "Paramirum" which is actually one of the books written by the real-life alchemist Paracelsus. It means "beyond wonder". What's more interesting is that the roman numeral Ⅱ is on that blade too, right above "Paramirum".

Does that mean something like a second Paracelsus, or "Paramirum" personality is appearing on that blade? There is a goat's eye on that half in Jealous Rage, which gets much larger in hyoui mode. Could this be his old goat's head personality reappearing indepedently of the main Paracelsus personality?

(There's also text on Paracelsus' end in Jealous Rage, but I can't tell what it is from the gallery images, prolly will need to see the actual model textures)

It should also be noted that in his original Moroha mode, it’s shown that only one of his eyes lights up. So the idea of him being somehow ‘half’ isn’t entirely new to STRIVE.

It’s also not clear if Paracelsus is actually aware in red hyoui mode, and if it's actually him snarling with A.B.A in her attack. His regular face is apparently still there when the attack happens, according to this concept art, so it's a second face appearing on the blade half. Could this actually be a completely separate personality from the main Paracelsus?

Personal headcanon/theory

My personal headcanon now is that ArcSys is heavily hinting a dual-personality situation with Paracelsus. If he really is actually a twin-bladed axe that got one edge broken off, then maybe the Paracelsus we know is ‘half’ of his full personality and is technically incomplete. If Moroha partially reveals his other personality, maybe they use to both be present at the same time (both blades present) but now only one can take dominance at one time (as a single bladed axe).

Or a new personality is emerging that's in response to A.B.A's bloodlust in STRIVE.

There's also a lesser-known property of magical foci like Paracelsus, in that they described as 'physical proxies' to the real 'data' they're pulling from in the Backyard (think in computer terms: the main Guilty Gear world is really more like the Windows Desktop of reality while the Backyard is the actual hard drive).

It really doesn't come up much, maybe in I-No's story, but functionally doesn't mean anything for characters like Paracelsus. Usually.

But there's an interesting thing with what we see pop up out of A.B.A's door when she does her Keeper of the Key Overdrive.

The multiple tentacles are made of sludge similar to Paracelsus' form, have eyes similar to Paracelsus', and also sharp blades and red energy. The Jealous Rage version even reminds me of Paracelsus' other nickname, 'the Sanguine Gale', where he supposedly swung so fast that he sent blades of wind out to slash at enemies back in his berserker days. The Jealous Rage version has the tendril twist around like a tornado with blades extended.

My theory is THAT is part of Paracelsus' 'full body' back in the Backyard. A giant formless mass much like Paracelsus' true sludgy form, that is summoned A.B.A unlocks the way to it when she uses Paracelsus himself as the key, and reacts to A.B.A's wish for them to attack by forming blades and lashing out.

Maybe it's a giant collection of multiple souls, entities, and memories, because magical foci can be created from multiple things attaching to each other and an object or human. In its case, I can imagine it's the collective memories of warriors who died on the battlefield, that melted together in the Backyard and attached themselves to a weapon - an axe.

And Paracelsus could be just one facet of the collective whole that has grown independent in the physical world of GG.

But big reminder that this is all my personal speculation. I don't expect ArcSys to ever definitely say what's coming out of the door; because there's always the chance it's really just 'rule of cool' like most things in the game, to be honest.

But I like to think it's not a coincidence that A.B.A's new Overdrive has her actually use Paracelsus as a key now, and she's summoning something that looks like it's also sludge like him.

#guilty gear strive #a.b.a guilty gear #paracelsus guilty gear #aba guilty gear #arc system works #ggst

109 notes · View notes

swanpyart · 3 months

Text

Prepare For My Most Deranged Slay The Princess Theory That Makes Sense The More You Think About It - The Narrator IS Another Voice

I'm a bit jumbled so bear with me, but I realized a lot of odd things that give me the idea that the Narrator is actually another Voice and another facet of the Long Quiet.

The game goes out of its way to make it clear that the Narrator is different from the Voices; he has a degree of power over the Player that the other Voices initially lack, he has info about the world that the Player does not, and his authoritative nature puts him (and us by default) in opposition with the Princess. Because of this, none of the other Voices treat him as an equal or even as a friend: They are all either opposed to him, treat him as someone who can be listened to but ultimately ignored, or outright dismiss him. In the Thorn Route, Hero even points out that the Narrator "doesn't count" as one of them.

Another difference is that the Narrator never learns new info from previous chapters; we essentially get a new Narrator each one, while literally EVERYONE else remembers what happened before. This alone feels like the game pointing out the disconnect between the Narrator and the rest of the Long Quiet.

Now, for what my theory hinges upon.... the Start Over Ending, where the Princess wipes the Long Quiet's memories and causes the entire game to start over from scratch. The interesting part of this is that both the Long Quiet AND the Princess remark that there's a chance that they'd done this before, possibly countless times, because they were unable to make a permanent decision the previous times.

If this is actually true, and the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound have been in this perpetual cycle of the Long Quiet finding five vessels, the Narrator's Echo fading away, both gods realizing their true natures but being unable to compromise, and the Princess wiping both of their memories and forcing a restart.... then what becomes of the Narrator? How does he come back for things to restart?

"Well, obviously he's resurrected," You might say, but we're not given any reason to believe that the Long Quiet can resurrect an actual mortal person, right? The entire point of the game is the inevitability of death, and that "even in rebirth, things can't be the same." Not only that, Nary is an Echo, not an actual person, so his presence as a living being is one that's even more precarious than an actual human life; focusing too much on him makes him fade away. The Long Quiet and the Princess can come back from death, but those two are literally GODS.

So, my main theory is this: The Narrator we hear throughout the game is no longer the Narrator the Long Quiet may have originally started with in the VERY first loop with the Shifting Mound, right after the Creator killed himself and split the Gods in half. The original Narrator is actually long dead, along with his original Echos, and now he is merely another Voice of the Long Quiet assuming His role. Perhaps at one point, the Narrator was actually a person who wanted to rid the world of death, and created an Echo of himself to do it, but the Echo of that human has long since faded away, only to be replaced by the Long Quiet to maintain the illusion of the loop.

In this light, it's entirely possible that every version of the Narrator and the Creator we meet is merely an extension of the Long Quiet playing the role of an omniscient storyteller. This could be part of why the Narrator struggles to answer in-depth questions, and why the Creator never goes into detail about his true identity as a human. The Long Quiet doesn't actually know much about the one who created him, and gives the same recycled lines he heard long ago from the voice of a long-dead man.

So, why does the Narrator never remember previous Chapters? That's his role. Every Voice has specific skills and abilities, and the Narrator's role, as a Voice, is to maintain a status quo. With no storyteller, there is no path in the woods, there is no cabin, there is no Pristine Blade, and there is no basement. There's no vehicle through which the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound can reach an agreement of some kind.

The irony, then, that, if this idea is true, that the Narrator, hellbent on destroying the Shifting Mound, then becomes a vehicle through which her love for the Long Quiet facilitates. It's no wonder that, Like the Voice of the Hero, the Narrator is ALWAYS with us, and if Hero represents our agency, then Nary represents the scenario through which to exercise that agency.

Let me know if I sound like a madman lmao

#slay the princess #slay the princess game #narrator #stp the narrator #stp the long quiet #stp the princess #voice of the hero #the voices #stp voices #theory #slay the princess theory

77 notes · View notes

freed-justine-my-wife · 1 month

Text

Thunder legion hcs but some of them get weirdly specific bc i think abt them too much

(Part 1??)

- Originally Bickslow and Freed lived together as roommates, Evergreen lived in fairy hills and Laxus had his own penthouse. When Fairy Tail disbanded they began living together while they were in Blue Pegasus as it was just easier, and they never stopped (im running off the hc that theyre all living together for most of these)

- Freed is the cook of the raijin tribe, they used to have a cooking rotor but it slowly became just Freed cooking every night

- Evergreen CAN cook basic meals but hates doing it so just, wont. Back when there was a schedule she asked Freed to do it instead and he usually agreed because he enjoys cooking

- Bickslow also can cook, but likes to experiment quite heavily and will not be convinced to make a normal meal. Got banned from cooking after he served shrimp pasta with ice cream

- Laxus can cook you a damn good grilled cheese, but thats it. Only cooks when people are feeling like grilled cheese

- Bickslow is a painter, not-quite Reedus level but still good, they like to paint from the imagination more than from reference which ends in very interesting (and only mildly disturbing) pieces

- Evergreen likes to garden, its something she started when she was young because her mother told her fairies like to care for nature. Their apartment is filled with various plants that she keeps and cares for, and while she could use magic to help them grow she prefers doing it by hand

- Freed enjoys playing a lot of musical instruments, hes best at violin and has been playing since quite young along with piano, but can also play gutair and bass as of more recently. Also has a collection of books in the apartment, originally all stored in his room before he ran out of space

- They have a schedule of getting up at about 7am at the latest most days, its not heavily enforced day to day but they stick to it on missions, if not getting up even earlier depending on the job

- Off-mission though? Nobody is actually getting up at 7am. Bickslow doesnt have a set time to wake but tends to actually be an early riser, he enjoys the mornings so he usually gets up a bit before 7, occasionally to do some painting or stretch ect

- Freed wakes up at 6am sharp and gets straight out of bed, no yawning or stretching or anything just stands up and walks away

- he is also the one attempting to enforce the 7am rule (sorry king) but bickslow usually joins in if only to annoy people

- Evergreen prefers to sleep in a bit more where possible, usually till half 8 or 9 if she can get away with it, then spends way to long in the bathroom doing her hair, makeup, and picking an outfit

- Laxus normally gets up at 10 and is impossible to wake before that, youd have to kick him awake and hes still grumpy afterwards

- Freed is French (I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL) and comes from a military background, specifically a noble house that specialised in military trading and training in France (i have an entire backstory mapped out for this freak if anyones interested drop me an ask)

- Bickslow grew up in the circus, hes always been naturally flexible but its where he honed that ability as well as learning some acrobatics, however it burned down when he was a teenager and the puppets (“babies”) he keeps around are the result of friends who died in that fire

- Evergreen is Scottish and grew up mostly raised by a single mother, her father was around for a few years but was generally a horrible man, a drinker and abuser who eventually left her mother alone. She also has a brother a few years younger than her who she helped to raise and is still close to

- Freed is the tactician of the thunder legion, comes along with being a leader but hes usually the one coming up with the plans

- Speaking of, hes someone who prefers to have a plan before a fight where possible, particularly as his magic is one where its difficult to construct quickly, especially if he wants a high powered jutsu shiki. So while he can think quickly on his feet hed rather have a plan mapped out

- Evergreen is the one who’s best at thinking quickly, if they end up in a situation where a snap decision needs to be made shes confident enough to make it and order her teammates around without second guessing herself

- They also all understand the importance of teamwork and its the main reason they’re so effective (as seen in the battle of fairy tail) their close bond allows them to work extremely well together, even if they tend to argue sometimes

- When Bickslow dislikes someone they have a habit of showing it on his face, usually by pulling a disgusted expression

- Ever does this too in a more subtle way, usually exchanging a glance with one of the thunder legion if shes not liking what somebodies saying. She WILL be gossiping about it later

- If Freeds not interested in a conversation he just silently walks away when youre not looking, people have gone 10 minutes before noticing hes left before

- Laxus just leaves mid-sentence though, doesn’t even think about it just walks away

- None of them can drive anywhere for various reasons, Laxus obviously gets extremely motion sick so is out for the count right off the bat

- Bickslow was banned due to being deemed “a danger to himself and others” after he got too many speeding tickets and crashed the car into a postbox

- Evergreen literally applies makeup while driving, shes blasting the radio while doing lipstick without looking at the road and its terrifying

- Freed is who people THINK would be the most responsible driver, and while he’ll get you to your destination safely, he also has a bad habit of ignoring the speed limit and accidentally running red lights. Unlike Bickslow however hes somehow managed to avoid getting any tickets

#fairy tail #fairy tail headcanons #fairy tail freed #freed justine #fairy tail evergreen #evergreen #fairy tail bickslow #bickslow #fairy tail laxus #laxus dreyar #thunder legion #raijinshuu #raijin tribe #thunder legion hcs #long post #why was this so long hello?#thats what she said #i literally have so many more of these boo i feel so cringe #did i proof-read this? no. its 5am and i havent slept just pretend this ones a banger guys

51 notes · View notes

newtonsheffield · 4 months

Note

Absolutely loving the bodyguard au snippet we are getting. If you do spicy Sunday I would love to see them for it. possibly the first time after Anthony gets shot, I feel like it would be interesting to see how Anthony deals with wanting to be with Kate but also having to deal with his arm not back to 100% (if that makes sense 😂)

Oh boy, I think his arm is probably something Anthony feels super self conscious about. He’s now in a very public relationship with the country’s most eligible woman. Anyone would love to be in his position. Not just because one day Kate’s going to be the queen but because he literally can’t imagine a better person than her. She’s so beautiful he catches himself staring slack-jawed at her as she does the most mundane things like drink her smoothie in the morning. She’s also smart, and kind, and compassionate and she has a pretty wicked sense of humour and even at Anthony’s best it would have been a huge swing to introduce them publicly as a couple, Anthony thinks. Now that one of his arms hangs by his side unmoving, and will for the rest of his life it seems even more ridiculous.

(This isn’t going to be too sad or that spicy honestly)

Some days Anthony wasn’t sure why he’d agreed to come here. Well. That wasn’t true entirely. Kate had strong armed him into it. He’d sighed, his left arm in its sling as he ruffled his hair with his right.

“Babe, I can’t do that.”

Kate blinked at him, “Why not? Everyone knows about us, I don’t think it’s going to scandalise anyone to imagine we’re sleeping in the same room.”

“Ben can stop by and look after me.”

Kate had looked disappointed, and Anthony hated to see that. “I want to look after you, that’s what partners do.”

“I don’t want to be a burden to you.”

It was guilt that was driving Kate he was sure. The bullets that had been meant for her and burned through him instead after he’d pushed her back into the arms of the other protection officers and he knew she felt guilty. She felt as though it should be her, how could she not?

Kate rolled her eyes, “I love you, you aren’t a burden. We can do this one of two ways: you move in to the small palace with me-”

“I think Edwina would have something to say about it.” He clutched at that as his lifeline.

“Edwina understands that I want to look after my boyfriend who nearly died.” Kate tutted, “If you won’t go there: I’m coming to yours.”

Anthony’s heart stuttered, “You can’t! You don’t have enough security there!”

Kate clicked her tongue, “Then I guess we’re back to my original plan.”

“Ben would actually prefer you to be where Edwina’s beautiful secretary is.” Ben said from the sofa giving Kate a furtive High Five.

“Settled then.”

Anthony deflated, “Am I ever going to win another argument?”

Kate kissed his forehead, “No, but you’re very handsome.”

So he’d come to stay with Kate, he’d let her fuss over him, let her take him to his follow up appointments even though he hated how useless he felt. It was the first time in his adult life that he’d been idle, Anthony had realised. He’d graduated school and gone into officer training, then he’d been in the army and when he’d left the army he’d become Kate’s head of security. He’d never been without a job since he was 16 working in a Newsagent’s and now all he had were long days sat on the sofa with an arm that would never move again.

It wasn’t the most romantic start to their life together, it wasn’t the way Anthony had imagined when he’d let himself get carried away and imagined a life where he and Kate could actually spend their lives together. He hadn’t imagined Ben having to put his arm in a plastic bag to prevent the surgical wounds from getting wet and more importantly, preventing Kate from seeing them. He hadn’t imagined her faced with a life of having to cut his food for him and part of him hated being stuck in this weak body. He hated sitting with Kate’s fingers intertwined with his, their hands resting on her lap as a doctor looked over the results of the tests he’d done.

“Well, everything looks great, Anthony.”

Kate kissed his temple, “I told you.”

Anthony tried to smile at her, “So… my sling?”

The doctor smiled, “You can wear the sling if you like, and I’d like you to attend so more rehabilitation but I don’t think it will make much of a difference now. You’re cleared for physical activity now.”

“Ooo exciting.” Kate chuckled, “Looking forward to it.”

Anthony squeezed her hand, nodding at the doctor, “Great. That’s… that’s great.”

He was still staying at the palace, settled into the routine of showering early, while Kate was out for a jog so she wouldn’t see the puckered pink lines of the scars that marred his shoulder ad the upper part of his chest now. When she came home with her cheeks flushed and her skin smelling like sweat and kissed the top of his head he tried not to notice how disappointed she seemed.

“You showered already?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” Anthony cleared his throat. “I felt a bit gross.”

“Wanna shower with me again?”

“No I’m um… I thought I’d call my Mum.”

She kissed the top of his head again, “Okay. Love you.”

“Yeah I… love you too.”

He wasn’t giving her what she wanted. Likely what she needed either. Kate was so affectionate, her fingers were always in his hair or intertwined with his and he loved that about her. He loved how physically affectionate she was especially given how touch starved he’d felt when they’d first fallen into bed together. And now he was terrified that if he let himself be close to her she wouldn’t like who he was now, because he barely recognised himself. But Kate never pushed it and somehow that made him feel worse.

They sat together, just like they did every night, Kate tucked under his arm on the sofa as they watched something on the TV, Her thighs were bare against his legs in his pyjama shorts and she sat in one of his shirts. Anthony swallowed the heat that rose in his chest at the feel of her skin against his the way it always did. Kate’s breath was warm against his neck and her arms were tight around his waist, her legs slung over his and his chest ached to reach out and kiss her. He wanted nothing more than to slide her onto his lap and let their hips rock together but he didn’t want to have to see the look in her eyes if he did.

“You okay?”

Anthony cleared his throat, trying to adjust his hips, “Ah, yeah. I’m fine.”

Kate chuckled, her eyes dancing in that way he loved, “Yeah I can feel how fine you are.”

She reached up, her fingernails scratching his chin as she tilted it down until their lips met.

Anthony moaned at the feel of her lips on his. They’d kissed since he’d been injured, of course they had, even if they hadn’t been having sex, they’d kissed but it felt so long since it had been something that felt as though it would build to something more. Kate’s tongue swept over his and when she drew him closer his arm slipped to around her waist, holding her tighter. Kate shifted against him, her legs widening until she straddled his hips. Anthony could feel heat creeping through his body, his heart pounding in his chest. And then her fingers caught the edge if his Tshirt.

Anthony pulled back shaking his head, “Sorry, Um. I don’t want to. I… I need to go to bed.”

Kate’s face fell, “I’m sorry. Did I do something wrong?”

anthony couldn’t even look her in the eyes, “No I just… I can’t.”

Kate swallowed and her arms were wrapped around her chest now but she didn’t move away from him. “Do you not want to do this anymore?”

Anthony froze, his eyes shooting to hers. “What?”

“Do you not want to be together anymore? I… don’t care if you need more time, or you’re tired. I don’t care, I don’t need to have sex as long as you’re here but if you don’t want to be together anymore then I just want you to be honest with me.”

That was what broke him.

“I don’t want you to see my arm.”

She blinked at him, looking down at his left arm in surprise. “Your arm?”

“Not my arm.” He let out a frustrated groan, “My shoulder. The scars, they’re ugly and I don’t want you to see them. I just feel fucking useless, Kate. I used to protect you, and now I sit on your sofa, and you have to cut my chicken for me.”

Her fingers twisted in the front of his shirt, “I’m happy to do it. I love getting to be there for you.”

“I don’t feel good about myself and I hate that and I hate that I’m disappointing you.”

She shook her head, “You’re not disappointing me. And I get that this is… probably really scary for you right now but I promise: there’s nothing that could happen that would make me fall out of love with you.”

Anthony nodded, staring down at her hands in his shirt, “It’s ugly.”

She smiled at him, “You could never be that.”

There was a question in her eyes and Anthony nodded slowly, apprehension curling in the pit of his stomach. Kate moved slowly, giving him plenty of time to stop her as she pulled his shirt over his head.

He couldn’t look at her, as she guided his paralyzed arm from the arm of his Tshirt but he felt her eyes burning into his skin. Her fingers ghosted over the puckered lines, following them across his skin and her lips curved in a smile as she leaned forward and kissed them gently.

“I was right. Still beautiful.”

His breath shuddered from his chest as he leaned down and captured her lips with his. It was still a gentle kiss, really, even with the heat simmering between them but Anthony could already feel his heart pounding in his chest. Kate gasped against his lips and her hand tugged his left arm to wrap around her waist as well, holding them together.

Her hips started to rock slowly against his and heat roared to life in his stomach at the slip of her skin against his, even through the thin cotton of his shorts. Kate swallowed his gasps and moans with a smile on her lips and her forehead pressed against his.

“Yeah?”

Anthony nodded as her fingers curled in the waistband of his shorts, “Yeah, yes. Fuck, yes, Kate.”

She smiled against his lips as she kissed him again and the clothing between them seemed to melt away. Anthony could barely breathe at the feel of her soft skin and her arm wrapped around his neck, her bare chest pressed against his.

“Oh god.”

Everything fell away but Kate. There was nothing but the feel of her hips moving over his and the beat of her heart against his. He couldn’t feel Anthony but her lips pressed against the skin of his shoulder and her fingernails cutting into his skin. Anthony’s forehead fell against her shoulder, desperate to be as close to her as he could after weeks of denying them both this intimacy. Kate’s breathing was ragged and every move she made left him feeling closer and closer to her, closer to the end he wanted them to find together.

Heat curled in the pit of his stomach and he could feel Kate’s thighs starting to shake as they climbed higher and higher, their eyes locked together. Anthony could feel his skin burning and his chest heaved as his jaw clenched.

“I love you.”

Anthony fell apart at the same time Kate did with her words whispered in his ear and his arm crushed her against his chest as their movements slowed to nothing.

“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t sure why he said it. Not now.

Kate hummed against his skin, “When I said I loved you I meant it. Forever.”

Anthony felt his eyes fluttered closed, “I love you too.”

Kate sighed, her fingers twining in his hair, “Does this mean we can actually shower together again? Because I miss getting to wash your hair for you.”

anthony chuckled, “My hair?”

“Yeah it’s cute. And the rest of the view’s nice too.”

Anthony groaned, standing and crushing Kate awkwardly against his chest with one arm, for the first time unbothered that the other hung at his side. “Come on then. My cute hair needs a wash.”

#bodyguard au #spicy sunday🌶️#kathony #anthony x kate #kate sharma #kate sheffield #anthony bridgerton #molly’s asks and answers

71 notes · View notes

bowsersfavprincess · 10 months

Text

BOWSER X METALHEAD S/O

Contains: Fluff, gn reader, Bowser having a fat crush on the reader (ofc), Junior being a cutie patootie, Kamek not giving af, mention of potential imprisonment/death/kidnapping, bad words 🙀☠️

Sorry it took me so long to make another part but this pretty much goes with my last post (Although you don't have to read it to understand)

Bowser's a lonely guy, all he has is his makeshift family

Kamek, the Koopalings, and of course his son Junior

Which you'd think is a big family, but he still feels lonely

He longs for companionship

He craves the thought of marriage

Which is why Peach finds herself in his grasp so often

Junior obviously deserves a mother figure, and who better than the sweetest most beautiful Princess in all the land?

And although Bowser can't deny that Peach is something special, he finds himself thinking about how Peach sort of isn't his type

She's too uptight and prissy for him

He wants someone who he can be himself around, and they won't see him as a total monster

But he's convinced himself that no one like that exists, and that Peach would be the best option for a mother

Well he was convinced, until he met you

You had both been at a concert

Bowser's favorite heavy metal band at that

A band that happened to originate from the darklands

The band was entirely made out of Koopas, so the only fans were darkland creatures

Who would be dumb enough to travel to this deadly lava land and possibly be imprisoned forever just to see a rock band?

And it made sense, heavy metal was usually only enjoyed by the people of Bowser's kingdom

But there you were in the crowd, sticking out like a sore thumb

Easily noticeable

Though most of the Goombas, Koopas, Shy guys, and other creatures didn't seem to take notice or care

If you were any real threat King Bowser would easy spot you out and dispose of you

And oh, he spot you out alright

As soon as he sits in his big throne (which he has for all his concerts because he's 'The King of Awesomeness') he spots you immediately

'Kamek... who the hell is that?'

Kamek nudges him for swearing because Junior's standing by

The small Prince looks at his father with wide eyes

'Oops.. uh.. sorry Junior. But who is that?'

Kamek just shrugs

'I'm not sure sire, why don't you ask?'

'Wha- I can't just go up and ask!'

Bowser wonders why he's so nervous about asking

You're technically an intruder, and he could throw you in a pit of lava if he so wished

But that feeling in his stomach reminds him that he wouldn't

That jittery feeling of nervousness and excitement

He begrudgingly does what his advisor suggests, tapping you on the shoulder

You turn around to a tall King looming over you

His shadow engulfs you, but you aren't afraid

He seems puzzled at this

'Oh! You must be King Bowser. It's a pleasure to meet you, really.'

Now he's even more confused

A pleasure? To meet him? Surely you're joking

But that sweet innocent smile says otherwise

'I.. uh.. yeah. You too...'

He's at a bit of a loss for words, which never happens to him

Ever

He's trying to find something to say, to not just stand there staring awkwardly

'So uh.. you... like this band?'

You smile at him once again with genuine interest in the conversation

'Yup! This is my favorite band actually.'

Bowser can't help but smile too

'Huh... really? Wow, not a lot of uh... outsiders like this music..'

He quickly speaks again to make sure you're comfortable

'Not that you're not welcome of course! I won't uhh, throw you in lava or anything..'

He chuckles awkwardly, hoping that he won't scare this mysterious human away

You laugh too

'Oh that's alright, I'm not scared'

He stops, blankly staring

You're not scared

You're not scared of him

You're not frightened, visibly repulsed, you actually like the music here

Bowser just stares for a long while, absolutely dumbstruck

Then the buzz of speakers connecting is heard and he knows the concert will start soon

'Uh.. why don't you.. join me?'

He points to his elevated seats

'Best seats in the house'

He smiles awkwardly and is overjoyed once you accept

It's then you meet Junior and Kamek

Kamek isn't necessarily interested in you, you aren't a threat and Bowser seemingly enjoys your company

Junior however, could not be more interested

Some random human that his father brought back to sit in the royal spots with him

Some human who seems genuinely friendly

It's not something Junior is used to either

He doesn't get along with Mario at all, doesn't see Luigi much and well

Princess Peach doesn't necessarily like Junior

As much as she's sugary sweet on the outside, the idea of mothering a small version of her enemy doesn't quite appeal to her

And she's not exactly the best actress

But this random human seemed to have no problems with Junior

In fact they seemed as interested in Junior as he was in them

Bowser notices

'Oh, that's my son, Junior'

Junior just gives a small wave

Your eyes go wide and you smile at him

'Hello Junior'

You can't help but squeak with excitement looking at the shy koopa

'Oh, you look just like your father! I bet you're going to grow up and be big and strong just like him, huh?'

Junior's tail wags slightly

'Yeah! I'll be just like papa!!'

Bowser watches this scene with the most joy he's felt in years

Maybe... maybe he could stop pursuing Peach and kidnap someone else

No, he had a chance

It was slim, but much larger than the chance Peach was giving him

Which is none

He didn't have to force you, not yet

You weren't scared

You seemingly liked him and his son

Maybe he could actually get someone to love him

The real him

After the concert ends Bowser doesn't want you to leave

In fact he's a bit beside himself at the thought

Maybe he will have to kidnap you, make you stay

But you assure him that you'll be back

He doesn't believe it, not one bit

But then you take out a sharpie you had brought to get the bands autograph and write your number on his palm

Once again he's speechless

Maybe he has a chance at real love after all

We can fix him. Or make him worse 😈

I'll probably make a part two to this because I was going to do something entirely different but then accidentally made a whole story lol

Also how do you guys feel about Bowser x reader smut?? 🤔🥴 (Monster fuckers unite)

#bowser koopa #king bowser #super mario #super mario movie #bowser x reader #peach #bowser jr #kamek #bowser x peach #koopalings

213 notes · View notes

pinkorchidsinspring · 4 months

Text

EVELYN is that you?! For the Straights, and gays who have never had the soul crushing pleasure of reading (and those who have ;) “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo”, Allow me to elaborate ⬇️

To be clear: Evelyn Hugo Marry’s seven separate men in order to cultivate her Hollywood image, at the expense of her true love interest and sexuality. Aka lavender marriages, aka bearding. She was bi however we barely have one actual male love interest for her..

let’s meander some of the lovely connections our blonde woman-who-is-attending-an-award-show-with-a-woman-on-her-arm-to-✨dispell✨-the-gay-rumors has with the ever amazing Evelyn Hugo 😍

Green is quotes from the book, anything else is Taylor’s lyrics 💗

"It shouldn't be wrong, to love you. How can it be wrong?"

They say I did something bad / Then why's it feel so good?

I love you ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?

Is Evelyn Hugo going to tell me just enough to keep me on the edge of my seat but never enough to truly reveal anything?

What a Mastermind wouldn’t you say?

I did it because I want to climb the ladder as high as I possibly can. I did it because I want my name, the name my father gave me, in big, bold letters one day. This is my chance.

He wanted a bride, I was making my own name

People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth.

I want to wear his initial / On a chain 'round my neck, chain 'round my neck / Not because he owns me / But 'cause he really knows me / Which is more than they can say

Celia was starting to get goose bumps, so I suggested we go back into the living room, where it was warmer. The desert winds had swooped in and turned this June night into a chilly one. When I started to get cold, too, I asked her if she knew how to make a fire.

He built a fire just to keep me warm

Wine went all over her white shirt.

The burgundy on my T-shirt when you splashed your wine into me

I was in emerald green again.

“Evelyn, who was your great love? You can tell me." "Celia St. James.”

I just had to put this in here- no need whatsoever but 😍

Don was off somewhere else, leaving me before I could leave him. Instead, right on my doorstep, was Celia St. James.

Stand there like a ghost / Shaking come the rain, rain / She'll open up the door / And say, are you insane, -ane?

🤭And that's how it works / That's how you get the girl🤷‍♀️

She literally told you-I anyway

You wonder what it must be like to be a man, to be so confident that the final say is yours.

A little side note: The way in which she naturally uses those two fingers is very audacious to me.. but that’s a topic for another time…

I’d risen from ashes more than once by that point. But I didn't want to have to do it again.

And I know I make the same mistakes every time

I'm getting tired even for a phoenix / Always risin' from the ashes / Mendin' all her gashes / You might just have dealt the final blow

"Everyone's a pawn.”

Checkmate, I couldn't lose

One day I'll watch as you're leaving / 'Cause you got tired of my scheming

The black beaded dress I wore that night. Two slits on either side of the skirt went up to my mid-thigh. I loved that dress. (For the nomination for a film called Cornelia Sunset, might I add…)

And what I wanted was to move to the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Where were the original Polaroids for 1989 shot? Oh in manhattan…

Where does Taylor live? In New York… maybe not manhattan… but you get the point..

Welcome to New York, Taylor wrote this song specifically about moving there, and the very diverse people there…

In the pursuit of a great cause, I think people can be of service in a number of different ways. I always felt that my way was to make a lot of money and then channel it to the groups that needed it. It's a bit self-serving, that logic. I know that. But because of who I was, because of the sacrifices I made to hide parts of myself, I was able to give more money than most people ever see in their entire lifetime. I am proud of that.

"Evelyn, you are not capable of giving it up. And you never will be. And it will be the tragedy of my life that I cannot love you enough to make you mine. That you cannot be loved enough to be anyone's.”

"Do something, babe, say something" (say something) / "Lose something, babe, risk something" (you're losin' me) / "Choose something, babe, I got nothing (got nothing) / To believe / Unless you're choosin' me"

Which is about the cruelest thing you can do to someone you love, give them just enough good to make them stick through a hell of a lot of bad.

You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love / The slowest way is never loving them enough

And let me just say bring a woman who promised to be Taylor’s “invisible bride any day”, to an award show after that homophobic piece of 🔥🗑️ NYT article calling her only straight…

Not to mention her name starts with a K..

Look how happy tree is, because this Evelyn Hugo won’t be hidden forever 💚🤍

62 notes · View notes

supercalime · 19 days

Note

I know Buck wasn’t originally written as bisexual but looking back to season 2, you actually can interpret buck being attracted to eddie. He may even had a little crush on him. But Eddie being canonically straight didn’t show any romantic or sexual interest towards buck. I think if he was canonically gay and interested in buck and made any moves towards it, he could have had his bi awakening or realization back then and could have caught serious romantic feelings for Eddie. You can’t deny some parallels between his first meeting with eddie and with tommy. The unknown jealousy and the ranting about them. But because eddie is straight and never showed any sign of beeing into buck, his (maybe) feelings for eddie turned into an incredibly great friendship. That’s why I think his feelings for Tommy are very real and don’t have anything to do with Eddie. Tommy is canonically gay and reciprocated the feelings and attraction to buck. He was the one who made the first move and kissed buck. Buck was clearly interested in him and tried to get his attention. I do think that if tommy wasn’t interested in him and didn’t kiss him, buck still wouldn’t have figured out that he’s bisexual and his feelings towards him probably would’ve eventually turned into friendly feelings. I personally tend to hope for bucktommy rather than buddie but I wouldn’t be mad if buddie became canon. But I think the only way would be to make eddie demisexual, because there were really no signs that he likes men in any way other than his strong connection and chemistry with buck. Different from buck where you can retrospectively see many unintentional signs.

Oh yeah! I want to make it abundantly clear that I’m all in the bucktommy train 100%

I fell in love with them and I’m more in favor of them than the ship that shall not be named. I can’t stress it enough, I want bucktommy to be endgame. I’m a bucktommy slut.

I do believe you can look back and see clues that maybe buck was into eddie, whether that was intentional or not. I believe the writers accidentally queer coded him and when they noticed they decided to run with it when they got the green light from the network.

But as you said, he could have had an initial crush on a friend and that changed with time. And that is completely fine! It doesn’t mean he had been in love with him the whole time and repressing it. Of course there is the possibility that buck and eddie can be an item, if the writers decide to go that route.

That being said, as of now, there are no concrete evidence on screen that buck and eddie were/are going in that direction. Like you said, eddie hasn’t shown he’s into men/buck and if buck was into eddie since the beginning and vice versa, i believe the writers would have pushed that queer coding to the max she-ra style to force the network to get them together. There had been opportunities for the writers to not be that ambiguous.

And yes! The canon bi buck storyline is not about Eddie and it shouldn’t be even if buck and eddie are supposed to be endgame. All the signs since 07x03 (when Buck touched Tommy’s shoulder and we all got a little bit of the gay vibe) have pointed that Buck had been into tommy and mistook who he was placing the jealousy on during 07x04. It’s a classic trope and I hate that b*ddie stans conveniently forgot how misdirection works to feed into what they want (not only that, but also stating as fact). When 07x05 rolled around and we got the coming out scene, it’s clear to me that there was no intention to place bucks attraction to men on eddie or eddie also realizing he’s queer. It would have been the perfect opportunity to sprinkle in some queer eddie but there was not even a subtle hint of that in that entire scene and I honestly hope their friendship stays that way.

Not to be a bitch but, why can’t they “just” be friends? It’s so rare to have these archetypes of characters be as vulnerable and devoted to each other, without an ounce of toxic masculinity, being true friends and nothing else. I whole heartedly believe what buck and eddie have is even bigger than family or romance, they are each others rocks and defining them as brothers or “husbands” does a disservice to their relationship. I think of them more as platonic soulmates. They are others ride or die, which reminds me a lot of Marjan and Paul from lone star (they have a very similar dynamic and despite theoretically having the possibility of being a couple - as a straight woman and straight man - I don’t see them going that way ever because that’s not what their relationship is. They love each other, would literally die for each other but are not and will never see each other as potential romantic partners).

On a waaaaaaaaay lighter note: I’m excited for next episode. We are surely getting more bucktommy and I simply can’t wait to see what the writers have cooking up for this lovely ship!

#lety rambles #ask #911 #bucktommy #tevan #911 abc #911 lone star #firefly #firepilot

32 notes · View notes

stardustdiiving · 5 months

Note

I would love to hear more about your thoughts regarding Wanderer being trans whenever you find the time to write about it more!

(follow up to this post)

AWESOME. okay. So. This got super long and I keep nitpicking if it clearly says every single thought that goes through my head or not so I’m just going to post it

There’s many interpretations about this headcanon I enjoy, but one particular angle I would find interesting to explore that I’ll pitch here is basically centered on a characterization where Wanderer’s internal relationship with his own transness is very tied with his non-humanness, maybe even more so than his gender.

The appeal of this angle for me is essentially having a character’s queerness tie into genshin’s overarching themes about identity & personhood, especially in regards to the relationship between divinity & humanity—themes that obviously apply to Scaramouche (and also basically every other not human genshin character I can think of that people generally agree are engaging characters)

Scaramouche (which name I use for him is intentional & reflects what era of his life I’m talking about) to me is someone who basically enforces a sense of apathy over his own emotions, especially ones relating to his sense of identity—he seeks godhood in hopes of being able to purge himself clean of experiencing (human) emotions, and therefore the vulnerability & trauma he associates with having them.

Intuitively I can see him feeling a similar conscious apathy about his gender: I see him as viewing gender identity as a “too human” trait and therefore something he’s above, basically—which is really a deeper deflection of his own insecurities with his personhood/identity.

So to Scaramouche, internally, anything about his transition or transness is less about gender and actually far more about his desire to obtain godhood, and this is a mental narrative he really sticks to because it fits in comfortably with his hatred of humans and desire for a purpose/identity for his existence as a non human entity “without a heart”.

If this were a fic I were writing, Scaramouche would undergo a lot of physical/medical transitioning during his time as a Harbringer and he would essentially be narrating & viewing anything gender affirming thing he does as him becoming closer to godhood and further from being human. This would contrast how I’d portray Kabukimono earlier on in his arc—where I imagine Kabukimono took on a lot of social transitions based on observing humans and building a sense for what human things he liked to participate in or mimic.

Kabukimono, in a manner similar to Scaramouche, might sometimes categorize some of his transness as relating to being more of a puppet/nonhuman origin thing than a gender thing, (ie getting gender dysphoria from having long hair but rationalizing it has more to do with not wanting to look like Ei), Kabukimono was more in a position of building towards his transness being a positive thing that affirmed him his sense of personhood & sense of belonging with others. By the time Scaramouche reaches the point of resenting humans, and in turn resenting his own sense of humanity in his arc, he needs to establish all parts of his identity as the farthest thing from human as possible

The irony, however, that I’d highlight in the hypothetical fic of this, is that Scaramouche’s experiences with his transness are narrated as being things no one could ever understand because of how inhuman he is—while in practice you see a lot of his trans experiences are actually pretty common ones many trans people would understand.

So like, Dottore does his canon typical physical experiments/modifications on Scaramouche, and the entire time Scara is undergoing but also gloating the entire time how he’s able to endure this because he’s not as weak as humans are—and this continues when, at Scara’s request, Dottore gives him Evil Mad Scientist Top Surgery, and he’s having this snide internal monologue about how godlike he is because of all the inhuman ways he can physically modify and mold his body to be to his liking, and then suddenly he looks in a mirror and sees himself with a flat chest for the first time and just has… like, a moment of very genuine happiness with feeling more like himself for the first time, and processing all the ways he can exist more comfortably in his body without having to work around dysphoria constantly. He imagines himself existing among humans in these brief thoughts without even realizing it, and the idea is this is written in a way that makes him sound very human—and how he seems happier when he lets himself be.

Meanwhile Dottore in the background is just, very nonchalant about this and makes some bored comment about they ought to not delay more important procedures any further if he wants to ascend to godhood anytime soon. Scaramouche kind of snaps out of it & back into his usual sort of headspace/mindset and kind of sneers at him how this was a far more significant step in ascending to godhood than Dottore could ever understand.

And after he says this he mentally pauses, because he really hadn’t been thinking of it like that before—and then wonders if it was true, because it wasn’t an experiment that made him feel more powerful like the other ones had. What he feels now is something other than more powerful—but there’s not really any other explanation for this reaction. More godly, maybe. It makes him feel not more powerful, but closer to what he wants—which is a god.

So from there my idea is Scaramouche kind of…attributes the joy associated with his top surgery, and other similar major landmarks in his transition, with his pursuit of godhood. It spurs him on to want to be a god even more, because it's solidified in his mind as the one thing he really needs to be himself/truly happy

And then he does finally reach godhood—and is plugged into the Everlasting Lord of Arcane Wisdom’s body, he’s just finds himself feeling disappointed.

He has this minor mental crisis about it where he’s not unsatisfied—he’s more exhilarated than he has ever felt in his entire life, because he feels unspeakably powerful in the way he should be. It /is/ everything he wanted, and he savors the sheer triumph and power of the movement, but it’s just not the same. It’s not enough to make him regret what it took to get here but he’s really frustrated, because he doesn’t feel happy. Which is not an emotion Scaramouche really cares about, but even one thing he wants being somewhat out of his reach when he had hoped to suppress all the unpleasantness of having emotions is deeply unpleasant for him.

I think the next time Scaramouche really feels something close to what he’d been missing is post Inversion of Genesis, after he becomes the Wanderer.

In this narrative I think it would be an extra kick in the face that Dottore had helped him with part of his transition while Scaramouche watches Dottore kill Niwa, where Dottore basically affirms Scara’s dehumanization while Niwa insists on affirming his humanity with his dying breath. There’s the obvious violation violation of realizing someone basically sabotaged your support systems to isolate/alienate you from the world, then manipulated and groomed you into joining the fatui so they could experiment on you for their own satisfaction and intrigue, but he also finds himself grappling with recontextualizing alot of his interactions with Dottore, and coming to this conclusion that Dottore was only ever vaguely interested in Scaramouche’s potential for godhood, and doesn’t care about…this other part of why that was important to Scaramouche as a person. (Which is his transness, basically)

It’s not that he ever believed Dottore cared about him or wasn’t pursuing his own interests, but I think recontextualizing how dehumanizing Dottore’s treatment + view of him is, forces him to really pick apart his transness vs desire for godhood, and realize there’s sort of a distinction between the two he hadn’t been making.

Post IoG I think this line of thinking, along with learning Niwa hadn’t betrayed him making him hate humans much less, lets Wanderer start developing a much healthier relationship with his transness, and also just his entire identity in general. He can reconcile with his own humanity, which lets him reflect on himself more, and I think eventually he can come to an answer on why becoming god wasn’t what he needed to be happy with himself + his gender.

So essentially I’d write present day Wanderer as being more comfortable with his gender than Scaramouche would be. If I were to apply our contemporary English labels/language to his gender I think he’d more or less jsut view himself as a trans guy, but I guess by technicality has a sort of “non binary” gender bc he just doesn’t view himself in terms of human binaries due to being a puppet?? That’s just my own characterization tho. All in all I bend characterizations of characters’ queerness in line with what whatever sort of transformative work I feel like doing so this isn’t even the only way I’d write trans Wanderer. Just usually the one I go off the most when portraying him as a character

#additional thing. in my og post I mentioned I kind of default view Wanderer as trans whenever I portray him in my fan works right #u can absolutely do a trans reading of the fic I wrote based off this concept of Wanderer/Makoto resemblance #I have thoughts on a more active trans reading of it that I did actually consider while writing it #even tho there wasn’t rlly a way for me to like mention wanderer’s transness naturally in the text #scaramouche #wanderer #Genshin #fandomferns #gender impact #asks #fern.txt

58 notes · View notes