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hawkatana · 3 days

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So, given everything that's happened in recent hours, I thought I might give people who don't know about Gundam some stuff to learn about. Hopefully I can give a balanced and not-racist take like some people.

What is Gundam?

Created by Yoshiyuki Tomino with help by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko and animated by the studio Sunrise (currently Bandai Namco Animation, though I refuse to call them that), the original Mobile Suit Gundam released in 1979 to initially-limited success, though would gain popularity through a combination of fujoshis shipping the characters, the sale of plastic model kits referred to as "Gunpla" and a recut of the series into three compilation movies throughout the early 80's. And as of 2024 is the 66th highest-grossing media franchise of all time, beating out Scooby Doo, Minecraft and the Simpsons.

Also, I'm pretty sure it's what sparked Japanese sci-fi's obsession with O'Neill Cylinders.

The original anime takes place in the year 0079 of the Universal Century, where the Principality of Zeon: a nation composed of orbital space colonies declares a war of independence against the Earth Federation. This "One Year War" has already claimed half the human population by series start and is waged through the use of "Mobile Suits": bipedal mecha powered by a fusion reactor capable of effectively fighting out in the reaches of space.

Main character Amuro Ray is the son of a Federation engineer who lives in an out-of-the-way space colony, though soon finds his home under attack by a Zeon infiltration. After finding the secret Mobile Suit project his father was working on: the RX-78-2 Gundam, he fights off the Zeon invaders, though finds himself and a bunch of other kids conscripted by the Federation to fight the forces of Zeon aboard the ship the White Base. Throughout his journey, Amuro and the Gundam fight many battles against Zeon, including against their mysterious masked ace pilot Char Aznable.

The series was responsible for the codification (but not creation, people get this wrong all the time) of the "Real Robot" subgenre of mecha, where the robots were relatively more realistic and used as weapons of war as opposed to the more fantastical "Super Robot" subgenre pioneered by Mazinger Z and Getter Robo.

A major theme of the show, and the franchise as a whole is "War is bad", as demonstrated through this meme:

Yes, this is the original version of this meme format.

Anyway, Tomino, a renowned pacifist who grew up in the shadow of Japan's involvement in WW2 tried to use his platform as an anime director to try and tell a story that would get people to realise war's futility and brutality.

So I hear you asking, "That's nice and all, but what about the space lesbians who beat Destiel on their home turf?" Well, let's get into that.

What is the Witch From Mercury?

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, or "G-Witch" for short is one of the more recent entries in the Gundam Franchise and a (very) loose adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. Set in the year 122 Ad Stella, the solar system is under the de facto control of the Benerit Group: a megacorporation with borderline-medieval internal politics that maintains a system of capitalism that benefits Spacians at the expense of those who live on Earth.

Main heroine Suletta Mercury enrolls at Asticassia School of Technology owned by the Benrit Group at the behest of her mother: CEO Prospera Mercury of the Mercury-based Shin Sei Development Corporation, and wins a Mobile Suit duel against a bully in her own MS: the Gundam Aerial. This however means she has now won the hand in marriage of daughter of the Benerit Group CEO: Miorine Rembran, beginning a series of consequences that shape the very political landscape of the solar system.

G-Witch was a massive hit, both critically and commercially. The first episode: the Witch and the Bride attracting record numbers for the studio and the Gunpla kit for the Aerial is currently the best-selling Gunpla kit ever.

Contrary to popular belief, G-Witch is not the first piece of Gundam media to feature a female protagonist. That honour would go to the 2002 Japan-only manga École du Ciel, nor would it have the first queer main character, which goes to 1999's Turn-A Gundam (and if you were to ask any fan of the series, they'd so it goes back to the very beginning). But it became notable for its lesbian representation in anime (in spite of Sunrise's attempts to downplay it, to the anger of the director, writer, producer, artists, animators, cast, fans and even their own parent company Bandai Namco who forced them to back off).

One thing I need to clarify: You don't need to have watched the original series to enjoy G-Witch. They're not even in the same continuity.

So if you're interested in the series and you've only watched G-Witch, I'll give out three recommendations for you all to enjoy:

Mobile Suit Gundam 00

Gundam 00 takes place in the year 2307 (the only series to use our own calendar), where the world is divided between three global superpowers: The Union of Free & Solar Nations (The Americas, Australia, New Zealand and Japan), the Human Reform League (China, South, East, Southeast and Central Asia) and the Advanced European Union (all of Europe, including all of Russia west of the Urals) who each control a space elevator near the equator and wage proxy-wars in Africa and the Middle-East over Earth's dwindling resources. This eventually culminates in the emergence of Celestial Being: a terrorist group consisting of Setsuna F. Seiei, Lockon Stratos, Allelujah Haptism and Tierria Erde, all of whom use powerful "Gundam" Mobile Suits and try to forcefully impose global peace on the Earth.

00 is pretty slow-paced and is more about the world than the individual characters, but said characters are really well-written, especially the characters from the three power blocs who are the de facto protagonists as they try to stop what are in their eyes a bunch of crazed terrorists preaching a hypocritical and incoherent ideology of "peace through force".

And to address the elephant in the room, this series is VERY post-9/11. Constant talks about terrorism, proxy-conflicts in the global south (especially the Middle-East), religious extremism, dwindling resources and the wars fought over them. While the franchise has always been political and of-its-time, you can just tell 00 was made in the mid-2000's. Again, it's good. But just something to keep in mind.

Turn-A Gundam

Turn-A Gundam is one of the weirder elements of the franchise for a myriad of reasons. Not the least of which being its unique setting taking inspiration from the famous sci-fi novel War of the Worlds.

In the Year 2345 of the Correct Century, human civilisation is at a level of technology reminiscent of the late-19th/early 20th centuries, save for the Moonrace on... well, the moon. As part of their queen Diana Soreil's plan to reintegrate both Lunar and Terran societies, several scouts are sent to the planet to set up their return to the planet. One such scout: Loran Cehack integrates into Terran society as a driver for the wealthy Heim family, though at a coming of age ceremony for the family's second daughter, a member of the Moonrace attacks the technologically-inferior Terrans. However, a mysterious mustached statue breaks apart to reveal a "White Doll": the Turn-A Gundam, allowing Loran to fend off the invaders. rest of the series becomes more of a mystery to how the supposedly-peace loving Moonrace could allow of such brutality.

The setting of the Correct Century timeline alone is one of the draws of Turn-A, though its excellent characters and compelling mystery also help a lot.

I do however have two warnings for people interested in watching it. The first is that this series was never dubbed. While it did receive an official sub in 2015, there still isn't a dub for the series. So if that bothers you, there's your warning.

The other is that there's a pretty big twist in the latter part of the series that while I will not spoil it here, it's such a big deal that I can't not mention it. It doesn't make any sense, and it actively detracts from not just the series, but the whole franchise. You'll know it when you see it. It doesn't ruin my enjoyment, but a lot of people don't like Turn-A for that alone.

Mobile Fighter G Gundam

Favourite entry. Don't care. It's peak.

In the Year 60 of the Future Century, war has been abandoned by the nations of humanity in favour of the Gundam fight: a quad-annual fighting tournament between Gundams representative of the countries of the world where the winner rules space until the next Gundam fight, all while leaving the Earth ecologically devastated in the fighting. Neo-Japan's Gundam Fighter: Domon Kasshu arrives on Earth seeking information on his older brother Kyoji, who killed their mother and led to their father's arrest before stealing the experimental Devil Gundam to Earth, beating up every Gundam Fighter in his way. However, he eventually learns of far more dangerous revelations about the incident.

G Gundam is to put it bluntly: bat-shit insane. And I love it. It basically took a look at the then-stagnating franchise in the wake of the wet fart that was Victory Gundam and said "I know what can save this franchise, Bruce Lee movies!" And it somehow worked.

Word of advice: watch it dubbed. Mark Gatha absolutely kills it as Domon every time, and puts just the right amount of ham into every line.

So yeah, that's some stuff on Gundam. This was a long post to write out. I'm gonna take a break now.

#gundam #sulemio #g witch #destiel #ao3topshipsbracket #msg #mobile suit gundam #mobile suit gundam the witch from mercury #tumblr top ship bracket #gundam suisei no majo #supernatural #the witch from mercury #witch from mercury #history lesson

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sarahscribbles · 10 months

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𝐋𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐍𝐒𝐅𝐖 𝐀𝐥𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐭

A = Aftercare

Loki and aftercare go hand in hand. He knows he can be intense - demanding, even - in the throes of passion, so expect a full check in once you’ve come back down to earth and are wrapped in his arms. He’ll rain down a steady stream of kisses and praise upon you, making sure you hear every last detail of how good you made him feel and how no one in the Nine Realms could compare to his precious girl.

Prepare to fall asleep on his chest listening to how you were such a good girl for him.

B = Bodypart

Loki loves every inch of you with a burning passion, and he isn’t shy about letting you know, but he has a particular fondness for your neck. Whether you’re stretched out beautifully beneath him in his bed, or he’s sneaking up behind you to wrap his arms around you, he can’t help but press his lips to the column of your throat. He learned early on how sensitive you are there, and he’s addicted to the little noises you make when he nips his teeth along it, or your breathy little whimpers when he soothes the bites with his tongue.

But, oh, how he adores leaving those splotches of purple and red that let everyone know you’re his.

C = Cum

He’s discovered that he loves making you hold his cum in your mouth until he says you can swallow, and he will check.

Loki also loves cumming on you as much as in you. On occasion, he’ll pull out of your mouth to finish over your face, or have you present your breasts while he paints them with himself. Make no mistake, it’s a possessive gesture and one that awakens something primal in him. To see you on your knees covered in his cum? Well, let’s hope you have no pressing engagements…

D = Dirty Secret

Loki has a ferocious libido, which presents issues when you’re not with him and he’s feeling particularly horny. To quell the beast, he casts perfect illusions of you to help guide him over the edge. Of course, it’s no substitute for the real thing - nothing and no one could ever hope to replace his beloved mortal - but stroking himself in the aftermath of battle and having your sweet voice tell him to cum makes his orgasms explosive.

E = Experience

Loki has a wealth of experience in the bedroom, both in being dominant and submissive. Centuries of practice have given him skilled hands as well as a talented tongue, and he knows exactly how to touch your body in order to make you keen for him. It doesn’t take him long to discover that if he positions his fingers just so, or flick his tongue in just that spot, his name will be torn from your lips in a howl to the heavens. Loki is an expert in making you crave his touch like a drug and, oh, he knows how to drown you in an unending wave of pleasure.

And if you want him to submit? Well, he has centuries of experience of being such a good boy that he easily earns the reward of your touch and your sweet words.

Although, on the flip side, he has centuries of experience in being a brat. Will make you tame him until he’s begging oh so sweetly for that release.

And with those big, beautiful eyes looking so desperately up at you, how could you possibly deny him?

F = Favourite position

Loki loves to watch you unravel. He loves to watch your climax build behind your eyes until it crashes down around you so hard it takes your breath away, so his favourite position is missionary or cowgirl. He gets drunk on watching what his body does to you and how good he makes you feel. There’s nothing quite like seeing your face contorted in pleasure - eyes screwed shut and jaw slack - that sends him hurtling towards his own release.

Of course, he loves ordering you to “keep those lovely eyes on me” while you cum, so he can see every second of you falling apart on his cock.

G = Goof

He isn’t one to goof around during sex. Oh, he can make you laugh - he can make you laugh as easily as breathing- but you’re sharing your body with him, you’re trusting him when you’re at your most vulnerable, and Loki treats that as something sacred. Sex is a joining of both your souls and a way to express how deeply and desperately he loves you. Your bed is an altar for him to worship you on and he’s going to ensure you feel every inch of his devotion to you.

H = Hair

Loki’s grooming habits alternate between being fully shaved and keeping things tidy. More likely to be fully shaved when he’s being a good boy for you.

I = Intimacy

Loki cannot get close enough to you during sex. Prepare to be clamped so tightly to his chest that his heartbeat races in time with yours, all while his face is likely burrowed in the warmth of your neck. Sweet praises will drop from his lips like honey - “You make me feel so good, my darling”, “I adore you, my perfect little mortal,” - until you swear your head is lost in the clouds. The sweet way Loki makes love to you makes you feel like the most loved creature in the Nine Realms.

J = Jack Off

On those long nights alone when his energy and magic are depleted, he’ll think about your pretty lips wrapped around his cock. He’ll stroke himself to the thought of you trying so hard to take all of him in your mouth - because he knows how you want to make him proud - especially when he’s ordered you to keep your hands behind your back. He’ll get himself to completion thinking about your eyes peering up at him and the little noises you make while you gag on his cock.

K = Kink

His biggest kink is edging you, whether it be with his fingers, cock, or mouth (or usually all three). He adores watching your body prepare to freefall into a climax, only to stop all stimulation to hear those desperate whines and whimpers that tumble from you. (And, oh, how sweet his name sounds on your lips when you’re so desperate). Rather than make him pity you, it only encourages him to edge you more because there’s no sound sweeter to him than that of you begging him for release.

And you will beg.

He’ll let you cum eventually, but not before settling between your thighs and making you a writhing mess with that sinfully talented tongue.

L = Location

Loki is a simple man and will gladly take you wherever the opportunity arises, be it inside or out. He doesn’t care if it’s between the expensive sheets of his bed or pressed against a hotel window, Loki will fuck you against any hard surface he thinks can withstand his strength.

That being said, he does have a particular weakness for pinning you against the nearest wall to fill you with his cock or fuck you with his mouth. Piined against a wall, there’s nowhere for you to go except further into his arms where you’re meant to be.

And maybe, just maybe, if he’s very lucky he’ll feel the sting of your teeth biting into his shoulder.

M = Motivation

Your touch is enough to send him wild. You can play his body better than he could ever have imagined and all it takes is your lingering touch against his shoulder, or the press of your lips to that sweet spot right behind his ear and he folds. You’re more than he could ever have dreamed of.

N - No

Pet play. Loki is open minded, yes, but this is one thing even his mind can’t fully wrap itself around. He would rip the tongue from anyone who dared liken you to an animal, so it’s one thing he refuses to bring into the bedroom. You’re his precious mortal, his sweet, beautiful girl, and by the Nine he’s going to worship you as such.

O = Oral

Loki is an enthusiastic giver. He loves nothing more than pushing your thighs apart and loving you with his mouth until you’ve come undone at least twice. There’s a reason he’s called Silvertongue, and it’s not because of his smooth talking. He can make you unravel in seconds with only a few skilled swipes of that talented tongue.

And it’s worth mentioning how he much he adores going down on you first thing in the morning when you’re still lost to dreams. The way your hand will clamp loosely in his hair and the roll of your hips that encourages you to keep going? Yes, Loki’s Valhalla is between your thighs.

P = Pace

This depends entirely on the mood. Sometimes he wants nothing more than to thrust wildly, possessively, into you, so there’s no inkling of doubt in your mind for days as to who you belong to. Other times, he wants to make love to you rather than fuck you. He wants to grasp your hand while both your souls align and you cry out his name like a sacred prayer.

Q = Quickie

Loki is definitely a man for a quickie. When he’s been without your touch for an extended length of time, expect to be pulled into the nearest room or cupboard with a locking door (or not). There won’t be any pomp or pageantry, this will be about getting you both off as quick as possible and hearing you moan his name like it’s the last thing you’ll say.

R = Risk

Oh, Loki loves a risky fuck. Be it in the stairwell of a party or one of the compound elevators, the idea that someone could catch him claiming you sets his blood on fire. He’s always searching for the riskiest place possible to fuck you, though always with your consent. He loves the thrill of pleasuring you so intensely that you’re aching to scream his name, but reminding you that you better be quiet unless you want to be discovered.

S = Stamina

Loki’s stamina is endless and many times he’s still hard once you’ve finished. He’s a god, after all, so expect multiple rounds until he’s fully sated. He lasts longer than what you’re used to, but only because you feel so good on his cock that he can’t help but drag it out as long as he can. Could fuck all day and then some.

T = Toys

Loki has an extensive collection of toys that he’s only too happy to use on you and himself. He isn’t at all threatened by them (why would he be threatened by anything that has you screaming his name in a pleasure filled haze?) He’s particularly fond of blindfolding you and making you choose a toy from his vast collection, and then ask you to tell him exactly how you’d like him to use it on you. Will you be begging to be handcuffed? To be plugged? To be whipped? The possibilities are endless…

Good thing he has that stamina.

U = Unfair

He is absolutely a tease. He loves to leave you with the lingering promise of what’s to come when he gets you alone. He’ll press his body against yours at the most inappropriate time so you feel how much he wants you, he might even slide a hand into your underwear if you’re lucky…

But that’s all you’ll get.

He’ll leave you to carry on with your day all hot and bothered, but only because he loves how you vault yourself into his arms later. Loki isn’t used to feeling desired, but when you run across a room and leap into him, or push him back against the compound walls for a hungry kiss, there’s no doubt in his mind that you, you beautiful creature, desire him.

V = Volume

Loki is vocal in bed no matter if he’s being dominant or submissive. He moans and grunts and pants at how good you make him feel, how your perfect mortal cunt was made for his cock. Loki is not shy about letting you know what you do to him.

He’s also a whiny sub when the moment calls for it. Expect begging and pleading and whimpering beneath your touch because it’s the one thing he can’t get enough of.

W = Wildcard

Loki is unquestionably kinky and he’ll try anything once, but he’s uncovered how much he delights in making you wear a remote vibe in public. He finds it entertaining to have you peer at him warily every few steps, not knowing when he’s going to activate the piece of plastic. Will it be as you both stroll around New York? Will it be while you’re ordering coffee at your favourite cafe?

For the latter, he loves to bring you right to the edge while you’re tucked away in a booth. He loves the way you’ll grab his hand and look at him with those big pleading eyes, and how your grip will become crushing as he increases the intensity.

But just when you think that this time he’ll let you cum, he’ll switch it off. Has he told you how adorable you look when you’re angry?

X = X Ray

Above average length and girth. The right amount that you feel full to the brim each time he’s inside you without being uncomfortable. An addictive seven inches.

Y = Yearning

Doesn’t have a ridiculously high sex drive and a dry spell now and then isn’t going to make him go crazy. That being said, he is utterly obsessed with you and is ready to fuck at a moment's notice when you’re in the mood. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him and he can never get enough of you.

Z = Zzz

Is slow to fall asleep no matter what pace the night called for. Loki loves feeling the weight of you curled into his chest after a night of lovemaking, and he adores feeling you drift off to sleep knowing that it’s him who’s satisfied you this much. Tends to get very affectionate after sex and will drop mindless kisses to the top of your head while you doze in his arms. There’s really nowhere he would rather be than tangled between the sheets with you.

#loki #loki smut #loki x reader #loki imagine

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mggsv · 2 months

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JJK! Manga Spoilers | G . S .

They called you a Star..quite literally. You were the perfect little wife for Satoru Gojo. The Gojo clan saw you as only fit for their little one at the time. Your family sold you off quite quickly, didn’t they? You remember looking at the little arrogant boy while he stared back at you with nothing good in his eyes. Scared as you held your mother’s hand while herself and your father did the signing of papers. Leaving was the hardest. There was a tight feeling in your chest when around Satoru Gojo. That must be the Star in you.

It was said long, long ago, another Star like yourself was also compatible with someone of the Six eyes. They had loved, tied together by the forces of the universe, a string connecting them of an unspoken reason. It’s said the two together would create the most powerful being. Those two did not make it to that point. Star’s were uncommon. Taking centuries and centuries and centuries to have another one, the world simply stopped depending on the rare creation. However, the Gojo clan took action early.

So..as you stood now, standing there in front of the home, you held your hand to your chest. That same aching feeling you once had so, so long ago returned. A wife! You had heard many things about Satoru Gojo as a sorcerer. Very strong..the strongest. You were quite strong too. Being a Star- the only one seen fit to be his other half.

You watched him appear before you. Grinning. It was suffocating. Everything felt tight, your chest, it hurt almost. You hated anything to be tense, but it had made do. It was right. It’s as it’s supposed to be, as it had been for years.

You had fallen quite quickly, however, with the idiot Satoru was you bickered quite a bit. Friends. You became friends before lovers. Once married it got worse, but he never made you anything but happy. Satoru had admitted to you that he also had a tight feeling in his chest. It felt lighter when he left to go be the teacher that he is, but it also longed for you when he was away. You felt the same. No one apart from the both of you and your families knew you were married, you didn’t mind it being that way. Going out in Tokyo without anyone bothering you..

You’d see him sometimes with his students, though. It was cute, watching him annoy them as much as he does you. A best friend he became. When he came home, you always had something new to show him. Gojo admired the light in your eyes while you attempted to cook, something new you picked up. You were a spoiled child, not having much to do for yourself. By the next weekend he’d come home, you’d have something new to show. This time it was something crafty like crochet. Satoru loved every little bit of every little thing you picked up. He enjoyed the time you spent together, always.

He even apologized for the state you were in, neither of you having the choice, but as he said… “I don’t think I can imagine anyone else other than you.”

You loved him. He loved you. He was is your husband for fucks sake. Satoru Gojo. He told you everything when he could. You learned about his best friend Geto, about his old battles. You learned about Megumi and what he meant in Satoru’s life, as well as his father. You learned of Yuji Itadori and his situation, and of Nobara and how much Satoru secretly spoiled her. You learned of curses you hadn’t known about as well.

He told you things about your cursed energy that you wouldn’t dare use. As powerful as you were, you were also destructive. That didn’t change you- you’d never become a sorcerer anyways.

One thing you did find out, though, was that loving Satoru Gojo was hard. You loved him but everyone else did, too, and if they didn’t, they wanted to kill him. He always came home taking about the day, about the things he’s encountered without a scratch. You were always there to watch how he acted mentally. The real him. The one that frowned when he talked about how stressed he felt after a battle- about how much he hated the situation going on at the school- his life. Satoru Gojo wished things were different all the time.

“If it were up to me, we’d all be somewhere safer. All of us. What do you think about..I don’t know- abandoned island bought with the Gojo clan’s funds all to ourselves and then we bring everyone, start a village, tax them, and then start this big economy and make bucket loads?!”

He was insane that Satoru Gojo. It made your heart hurt, knowing that someday..things won’t always be so bright and sunny outside. You loved the sun, it was always such a nice day at your home. You started gardening and kept at it, always showing Satoru your little cucumbers growing.

“Someday,” He had said to you once, “that’ll be you.”

The sun was such a thing for you. It shined on him..you loved it. He was truly a beautiful soul. Until one day it rained, thundering. You hated the thunder, but Satoru had took care of it. The first time..he had took care of you in that way. His heavy pants against your ear, hands intertwined with yours. Your eyes, filled to the brim with pleasureful tears, Satoru’s cock slipping past your tight ring. You were warm. Engulfing him inside of your heated body. You had moaned his name, trembling. He took his time, explored every inch of your body. Filling you…and then again. It was a rainy weekend, and Satoru wanted to stay there for eternity.

You started to love the rain after that. You loved Satoru. He loved you.

“Shibuya?” you spoke into the phone. It sounded busy as Satoru chuckled. “Yeah..there’s something going on. Look, It may be a while before i’m home again.”

“Toru-“

“I love you.”

Satoru Gojo has been sealed.

The phone call from Mei didn’t end well. You couldn’t sleep that night.

Satoru Gojo has been freed!

“Baby- I was so scared I..come home. Please.”

And he did. But he didn’t stay. It rained that night. He made love to you. He cherished you. He filled you. He was determined..

“I love you.”

By the morning he was gone.

Satoru Gojo fights Ryomen Sukuna.

Satoru Gojo loses.

Something inside of you snapped, as if a string had been cut. Somehow, you knew that Satoru Gojo wouldn’t be returning.

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thelov3lybookworm · 10 months

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Nothing Like I Do

Summary: Y/n and Azriel have been friends for centuries now, having run away together during his escape from his father's house. She had been his neighbour's daughter, whose father wasn't much better. They had talked and met on various occasions before, having understood each others pain.

As she returned from the last mission that Cassian had given her in the stead of Rhys, she had decided that she was going to confess her feelings for the Shadowsinger. But when she returns, she realises that even though he has moved on from Mor, he isn't without someone. As she tries to navigate her way to telling him of her feelings, she wonders if she's risking her friendship with him.

A/n: I really like how this came out, feedback is always appreciated. Also, this is my first time writing Y/n instead of a name, so let me know if theres some need of correction.

And the lines written in blue are the lyrics which made me want to write this. I've honestly been waiting to write this since the song came out, but as i was writing you deserve better, I wanted to wait. And the lyrics aren't in chronological order, just placed where convenient.

•○🌑○•

As she flew over the glittering Sidra and the colourful lights lighting the shops, Y/n took a deep breath in an attempt to settle her nerves. She'd be returning home after almost a decade and she'd finally be meeting her friends.

She was half Illyrian just like Rhys, her father being the one with the wings. He and her mother had wed when his father had arranged a marriage for them.

As she landed on one of the balconies of the House of Wind and vanished her wings away, the nervousness came back with a vengeance. Walking in, she heard noises coming from a nearby sitting room. She smiled. They hadn't changed one bit, being as noisy as ever.

Y/n knew that the High Lord had found his mate, and that, after the war, the they had been blessed with a son. Other than that, she knew nothing about what had happened during the time she had been away.

Her heart beating in her ears, she slowly pushed the door open, poking her head in. Rhys was already staring at her, having known someone had entered the shield around the house. But this, he hadn't expected.

"Hello." Y/n squeaked, before clearing her throat and entering fully.

Hit me like a shot in the heart

Never should have played you so hard

Guess I played myself, that's my fault

Azriel was out of his chair and tackling her in a hug before she could blink. The breath was knocked out of her from the force of his body colliding with hers. It took her a moment to wrap her arms around him as well, mindful of his wings. She smiled at the ceiling.

She had missed this.

When he finally pulled away, grinning, she was yet again pulled into another hug, this time by a laughing Cassian. She nearly lost her footing. When he let go, Rhys smiled at her, giving her a far more gentler hug than his brothers.

As she finished hugging him, her eyes found that of Mor's, shooting an instant spike of self consciousness through her.

As always, Mor was dressed immaculately, with her hair done as if she was attending some celebration. While Y/n looked just out of a battle. In her fighting leathers, her hair almost completely out of the loose braid hanging down her back.

And all of that reminded her of the fact that the male she had always been in love with was in love with Mor.

Hit me like a poisonous dart

You wеre trouble right from the start

Should havе ran, I guess it's my fault

Her spirits were already down as Rhys introduced her to the new additions to the family. She excused herself, saying she wanted to take a bath, but before she left, Y/n crouched in front of Feyre and baby Nyx, who was trying to grab a piece of her hair.

As he babbled at her, she babbled right back, making him exclaim in happiness, trying to jump around on his mother's lap. When he started making grabby hands at her, she was shocked because as far as she knew, it takes quite some time for babies to get used to strangers, let alone pick them up.

She stared helplessly at Nyx. Sure, she was good with kids, but only when she wasn't holding them, never really having held a baby. The one time she did, everything went wrong.

She stared at her new baby brother with wide eyes, before looking up at her mother. "Can I hold him?"

"Yes Y/n." Her mother instructed her how to sit on the bed,placing the little bundle in her lap. Little Y/n couldn't look away, her jaw open in awe.

"He's so small." Y/n mumbled when the door flew open, loudly crashing against the wall, making her jump, jostling her brother in the process. She turned to look at who it was, the colour draining from her face.

Her father.

He looked furious. He had wanted her to stay away from the little boy, and when she had begged to know why, he had hit her. She still didn't understand why her father had wanted that. She also didn't understand why he hated her so much. Maybe it was because she asked too many questions? Whatever the reason, he didn't like her and had told her she was to stay away.

In her haste to get off the bed, she forgot, for a moment, that a baby was in her lap. Before he could get hurt, though, both her parents were there, her mother cradling the baby to her chest, trying to get Y/n behind her. It didn't help as Y/n's father had already grabbed hold of her arm, dragging her out of the bedroom and the main door, out in the cold. When she realised where he was taking her, she started crying and screaming, begging to be forgiven this one time.

It was obviously useless. Later on she would wonder why she even bothered, but at the moment, she would have done anything to be spared from the darkness.

She was dragged into the neighboring house, where a man was staring at her in disgust. She didn't hear anything that the two Illyrians talked about, the sobbing mess that she was. Then as suddenly as her father had stopped, he began dragging her towards the stairs leading down, before she was shoved into the dungeon and the door was slammed shut, leaving her in the darkness.

It was quite some time before she could breath without hiccups, finally quieting down.

A small body settled next to hers. "What happened this time?"

Y/n said nothing for some time, wondering how just wanting to hold her brother for some time could incense her father so.

"I was holding baby brother. He didn't want me to."

She couldn't see him, but she knew he nodded.

He was her only friend, Azriel. She was often times put here with him, both their fathers being friends and taking some sick pleasure in torturing the small children, locking them up in dark places. This wasn't the first time her father had done this. The sad part was that, as far as she could remember, this had been happening forever.

Y/n felt Azriel tugging her closer, hugging her close as they tried to go to sleep on the cold and hard ground. He was her only comfortin times as this, and he will be the only one, for quite some time.

Now, after centuries, she understood why he hated her. She was a female. No other reason. And the reason he didn't want her near her brother was because he didn't want her tainting him. Atleast, that's what he said when she and Azriel had gone near there for a mission.

Y/n took a deep breath, shaking those dark thoughts away and focusing on the happy baby in front of her. She won't let those memories ruin this happy moment.

She gently picked him up, looking to Feyre for guidance. As she stood with Nyx, her eyes connected with hazel ones, full of understanding. And when Azriel smiled, it didn't seem so bad.

Sometime later in the evening, after Y/n had already changed and freshen up, she found herself sitting next to the Shadowsinger with Nyx again in her lap, shaking and waving a stuffed bat toy.

As the night wore on, Y/n found her mind wandeing to her decision to confess her feelings to the Spymaster, and how she could do it. But then, soon enough she realised, with a burst of excitement, that Azriel had already moved on from his crush on Mor.

That happiness didn't last long as she realised that the subject of those longing glances and lingering touches had been changed to the middle Archeron sister, sitting on the other side of him.

I don't even know how to think

'Cause now she got your heart, so I feel stupid, foolish

'Fraid I'm losin' everything I thought I couldn't

My whole world is fallin' apart

And she couldn't help but wonder, would she again be too late?

•○🌑○•

As she stared at them from her place on rhe first floor balcony of the River House, Y/n couldn't help the ugly feeling of jealousy that reared its head. She didn't want to feel that way, especially as the person who held her heart looked so happy.

Azriel was standing behind Elain, who was tending to a few plants in her beautiful garden.

Azriel's head swivelled towards her, his mouth open as if he had looked up mid-sentence. He smiled at her before turning back to Elain.

"You should talk to him." Nesta murmured from behind her, making Y/n jump. While she was busy wallowing in self pity and jealousy, Nesta had somehow snuck up on her.

The two of them had become fast friends, finding they had similar interests. Especially those novels. And despite Y/n not telling Nesta about her feelings towards the Spymaster, Nesta had found out.

"I don't know what to say." Her voice wavered with barely controlled emotions.

Nesta leaned against the railing next to her. "I know. But try atleast. If possible, before the party tonight. If all goes well, you can have fun with him. If not... we can find someone for you tonight. Probably try to make him jealous."

It had been two weeks since Y/n had returned, and tonight was the party Rhys had decided to host in honour of her return.

Y/n nodded. It was time. To move on with him, or without. She couldn't waste her life trying to squeeze herself into other peoples lives, hoping someone would give her some affection.

•○🌑○•

Y/n bit her lip, wondering how to approach the topic. But no elaborate words found her, especially with the Shadowsinger's full attention on her.

Don't you go fallin' in love

Trust me, she's not the one

She won't ever love you like I do

Hold you like I do, know you like I do

There was no soft and subtle way to approach this, so she jumped right in.

"Do you like Elain?"

He blinked, taken aback. "Of course I like her. I like you too." There was something in his eyes that Y/n couldn't decipher as he said the last part.

"No like– like lovers kind of like. Are you interested in her?"

His eyes shuttered as soon as he heard the question. "That's none of your business."

"Oh? And since when did the two of us have different–"

"We're both grown up now, Y/n. You have your personal matters, I have mine. Don't snoop in my life. You are a friend. Act like a friend."

Y/n couldn't help but gape at him, wondering what the hell had gone wrong between them to make him so mad at her. It was a few moments before she could speak again. And when she did, she wished she hadn't.

"Forget her Azriel. Don't go falling in love with her. Trust me she's not the one. She'll never–" Y/nstopped herself from speaking, know if she continued speaking, she won't stop and confess, and then end up most probably rejected.

"She'll never what Y/n?" He stepped closer, so close that she could feel his breath, his voice dropping dangerously. When she said nothing, he continued. "And if she's not the one, who is?" Again, there was that thing in his eyes that she couldn't understand. He searched her eyes before stepping back, shaking his head. "Don't try to control my life Y/n. It doesn't suit you."

Tears brimmed in her eyes as she watched him step out of the room she had pulled him into. Just a few moments later, Nesta poked her head in, as if she had been waiting here all this time.

"Let's get you dressed and make him regret." She murmured, tugging Y/n out of the room.

•○🌑○•

Y/n swallowed her nerves as best as she could as she stepped into the ball room, her eyes trying to find the Spymaster without her permission. But before she could see him, Nesta called out to her.

The night fared on without any issues, accept for the fact that she still hadn't found the Spymaster, good at hiding that he was. Sometime ago, a fae male had asked her to dance with him, which she was forced to accept after feeling Nesta and Mor's glares on her.

"Looks like it's time to change partners." A deep voice from behind Y/n said, sending shivers down her spine. The male glanced up, packing a little before making his exit. Finally, she turned to look at her friend, understanding why the male looked scared. Azriel looked like he was ready to do someone's head off. Or probably chew it off. His wings were slightly flared behind him in a show of power and possession, his signature scowl on his face, making him look all the more scary.

Y/n frowned at him, pissed that he had yelled at her just a few hours ago and then had the audacity to scare people away from her.

"What?" He asked after he had tugged her closer and begun swaying, still staring after the male.

"What's your problem?"

He glanced at her before again his eyes began tracking the male. "You didn't know him. He could've been a secret murderer."

Y/n gaped at him. "And what if he was? You had no right to scare him away."

"I'm just looking out for you. Were you interested in him?"

"That's none of your business." She parroted his earlier words, but he didn't seem to notice.

Don't you go falling in love

'Cause I'ma break that shit up

I won't let her love you like I do

Touch you like I do, nothing like I do

Nothing like I do

"He's not the one, trust me." Finally, he looked down at her.

Y/n had to take a deep breath to stop herself from screaming in frustration. "Don't snoop in my life, Azriel. You're friend, act like one."

A muscle ticked in his jaw as she pulled her hand away from his and stepped back. "Don't try to control my life. Doesn't suit you." Y/n whirled, her dress swishing around her legs as she walked away with barley restrained anger.

She walked out into the balcony nearest to her, leaning against it, taking deep gulps of the fresh night air.

Some time had passed before she felt Azriel's presence behing her and she sighed.

He silently came to stand beside her. It was quite a few moments before he cleared his throat. "I– I'm sorry. I was being an asshole. But did you see him? The way he was looking at you– it made me want to rip his head off him. I'm sorry."

He was looking at her now, but she stared straight ahead. When she didn't say anything for a long time, he continued. "What– what were you going to say, when we talked before the party? She'll never what?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

"She'll never love you... like I do." She needed to know, Y/n decided. If he rejected her, she could atleast have no regrets when moving on.

He started laughing, and she squeezed her eyes shut. "No way. You don't love me. You don't, do you?"

She pushed back from the railing, turning away fro him. "If you don't want me –which I know you don't– atleast don't invalidate my feelings by laughing–"

"Who said i don't? Hmm?" He caught her wrist, tugging a frozen Y/n back, flush against him. "I love you too, you dumb female. Have been in love for almost my whole life now."

"But– but you loved Mor–" She sputtered, turning her head to look at him.

"That was me trying to accept the fact that an amazing female like you would never want a bastard like me."

"You're mad if you thought that. Why would you even think that!" She turned to look at him fully, her wrist still clasped in his hand. He just smiled and shrugged, staring at her intently. "You're such an idiot."

"But–" He said after a moments hesitation, "I'm your idiot now?"

She grinned, the tension bleeding from her shoulders as she buried her face in the place connecting his neck and shoulder, his arms instantly going around her waist.

"You're my idiot now."

Little did they know then, that soon they'll realise he was her mate too.

•○🌑○•

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torchship-rpg · 2 months

Text

Dev Diary 14 - Star Union Members!

Hello cosmonauts! Today we’re going to go back to the lore and identity Dev Diaries and cover the remaining members of the Star Union. So far, we have done Terrans & Lunars, and Martians & Spacers. These groups collectively make up the Solar Union, which is far and away the largest and most influential member of the Star Union (as the names imply).

However, there are three other members; let’s touch on them.

Camp Aldrin

The first member we’re going to talk about is actually still within the Sol system! Camp Aldrin was once a major mining base on Earth’s Moon and a small second city, but the costs of maintaining two sets of infrastructure saw it rapidly outpaced by Armstrong City and eventually become something of a ghost town, home mostly to military bases and robotic mining. It is like Armstrong City in most ways, a network of underground tunnels, just smaller.

That changed during the war, because as Solar Patrol started winning battles, it started taking prisoners, and nobody was exactly sure what to do with them or where to put them. The initial plan was to keep them on Earth, which would be cheapest and safest, but Aquillians are not exactly accustomed to 1 g, so that was deemed needlessly cruel in short order. So, Camp Aldrin was repurposed instead; hardly anyone was living there, the systems were robust, it was close enough to Earth to make feeding everyone easy, and escape risk was very, very low on the moon.

Of course, the Sol Union hadn’t really run very many prisoner of war camps in the last half-century, so it dusted off the models it had used during its expansion on Earth, which was basically to have the prisoners self-organise a little community under their supervision, which is a very good way of ensuring that after the fighting is over, the enemy soldiers you release have familiarity with your mode of political organising. This worked extremely well among the Aquillian prisoners (and various auxiliaries and unlucky others who ended up there), who had up until this point lived pretty miserable lives as press-ganged crews of rockets and space stations. Camp Aldrin was the kind of place where the guards didn’t bother carrying weapons.

Then the war ended, and a lot of the prisoners didn’t want to go back. Some left for the new Aquillian republics, some hardliners tried going back to the various Remnants, but after that was over, there were 200,000 people still living in this creaky old moon base who wanted to stay.

So after some negotiation, the guards handed over the keys, and Camp Aldrin was the second full member of the Star Union.

The details of this identity are going to depend a lot on the Aquillian identity, which we’ll go into in more detail in the next Identity-focused dev diary. What’s interesting for our purposes is that Camp Aldrin’s Aquillians are distinct from the other groups because of their ongoing enthusiasm for biological and genetic modification, which is very taboo among other Aquillians. This is basically an excuse to play just about any kind of space elf you want; whatever characteristics you think a space elf should have, there’s a subculture on Camp Aldrin like that.

The other common Traits of Camp Aldrin’s citizens are War Veteran (for obvious reasons), and Dark History, in case you want any juicy dark secrets or old enemies from before you ended up here.

Camp Aldrin’s flag is based on the old uniforms they gave prisoners, which had a terrible colour scheme and a big symbol on it so everyone could recognize escapees on sight. If the ears didn’t give it away. (Which it might not on Earth. God, can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to be part of some cool fantasy elf gene-mod subculture and then you meet real space elves and it becomes hashtag problematic? How do you explain to people you just liked Lord of the Rings before First Contact?)

Proxima

Gee humanity, why does the Star Union let you have two members?

Well before FTL was invented by humans, we sent tiny near-light probes to the nearest systems using our mastery of Fuckoff Big Space Engines. When the images came back decades later, people were overjoyed by the readings from Proxima b; despite being a tidally-locked iceball orbiting a flare star, it had both liquid water and abiotic oxygen generation in the upper atmosphere. Sure, it was cold, you’d need to live in canyons on the terminator band to avoid the howling winds, you need to bring your own soil to grow stuff, and there’s no terrestrial source of metals, but other than that it's basically just like home!

Needless to say, the moment FTL drives were invented, humans threw themselves on some FTL rockets and made the months-long crawl (they were shitty FTL drives) to the nearest star to set up a colony. Compared to Mars, it was basically paradise! Sure, it took months to get supplies from home, and there was no FTL communications yet so that was the only time you got any news, but the basics were covered.

Then one day, after an unusually long delay, one of the supply rockets came in and told them, hey, first contact just happened. Anyway, we’re at war with a giant alien space empire, everyone back home voted to set up an emergency War Council with way too much power over basically everything, and they’ve unilaterally decided that the colony project isn’t affordable in a war economy, so pack it up, you’re heading home.

Needless to say, people reacted in an entirely rational manner. Which is to say, they concluded that the Solar Union had just had some kind of insane military coup, probably by the same bloodthirsty maniacs that oversaw the Elysium Emergency (which was a formative event for most of the colonists), and was trying to shut the place down because it was outside their control. So, naturally, they promptly declared independence, then immediately fell down a rabbit hole of spiralling radicalization and internal conflict as they tried to figure out how to survive in their half-built colony when Solar Patrol would surely be arriving with the jumpjets at any moment.

This is where we get our two Proxmia identities. The first are the surface-dwellers on the planet themselves, who are the far better-known group. Properly Centaurians, but universally known as Proxies. The Proxies had no doubt that humanity would triumph in their war against these mysterious aliens, if it was even real; they were largely Terrans who had grown up at the centre of the Solar Union’s power and could not conceive of something beating them. Obviously, this meant they’d be next!

This group seized heavily on the preliminary plans to do a Martian-style genetic engineering process and decided that going full-steam ahead and making themselves a distinct species would make them too much trouble to re-integrate back into the Union. And, of course, this could be used to create The Ultimate Specimens of Post-Humanity, an impulse that never ever goes wrong ever.

So, obviously, it went wrong. Sure, a lot of Proxies were faster, stronger, maybe even smarter than the human norm back home. But mostly what happened was they made their kids really sick. Even when it worked out, a lot of them were left with chronic pain, neurological disorders, or permanent dependence on various medicines or procedures to have any kind of decent quality of life, things not in abundance on the tiny colony. To make things worse, the place was rapidly falling apart, and the adults were accelerating this process fighting one another over whether to swallow their pride and call home, or somehow try to tough it out. Eventually, the older generation were overthrown by the super-kids they made, who promptly called their grandparents and asked for medical assistance.

Proxies are a chance to play with all the really fun gene-engineering stuff and make a post-human character. There’s a few recommended Traits; almost all Proxies have a tapetum lucidum for better night vision in the eternal twilight of the terminator band, and the Augment trait’s mix of bonus abilities and medical or metabolic drawbacks is perfect for representing it. The Cold Resistance trait is also a good one; a lot of Proxies have an insulating layer of fat or some other adaptation which makes it easier to survive the bitter cold.

The other group in the system which split off were the Proxima Spacers, a group of Spacers who tagged along with the colony to set up mining in the rich asteroid belts in the system. As Proxima b has no local metals, they were the ones who’d need to provide them, in exchange for food and biological compounds from the surface colony. Being Spacers well-accustomed to the precarity at the edge of the system, and just how fragile the Solar Union was, they were convinced humanity was going to lose the war, and they’d be next when the aliens swept in to clean up. Human extinction was surely imminent.

So they started to hide, disassembling their major stations and rebuilding them into the sides of low-spin asteroids, spreading out into many small communities and increasingly relying on cold-gas jets to make increasingly infrequent journeys between stations and to the planetary colony. They put up shielding, used lasers in place of radio to communicate, and did everything they could to disappear. They became the Archivists; doomsday survivalists in space.

When the Solar Union returned to the system, it at first looked like the vast majority of spacers had fled down to the colony or died, but over years they slowly became aware of the Archivists through intermittent contact. They mostly want to be left alone to their task, though sometimes members join Star Patrol, either defecting from the tightly controlled and spartan lifestyles of the spacers or, worryingly, spying and gathering information to squirrel away. For the most part, the Archivists seem to just be focusing on long-term survival, and may even have spread to other systems using their reserve of old FTL drives for redundancy.

An Archivist is a really good way to play a loner. The exact mix of Traits is a bit up in the air right now as we rebuild character creation, but you get all the common Spacer ones with a few extracts to represent the culture of secrecy and isolation you grew up in. Archivist communes are often organised quite a bit like mystery cults to compartmentalise information, so lack of trust is something very central which you may need to overcome.

Proxima's flag is a stylization of the sky as seen from the colony, with the three stars in the system and the endless sunset.

Corvus Peasants’ Republic

Finally, we have the first member to consist of aliens and not be located a convenient walk away from Earth. The unimaginatively-named Corvus is the natural exonym given when a wartime Solar Patrol rocket crashed on an alien world and were greeted by a bunch of crow-people; they presumably didn’t recruit them for creativity.

The Koath are a species of hunched, bipedal non-humanoid aliens with an interesting evolutionary history. As best anyone can tell, their distant ancestors were once the domesticated pets of a humanoid species which managed to Great Filter itself about a million years ago, possibly over the fact that they’d bred at least one strain of their companion animal to be able to speak and possess the intelligence of a ten-year-old child. The Koath emerged as survivors of the apocalypse, which included a pretty severe biosphere collapse and resource depletion, and have become the dominant form of life on their world.

At first glance, Koath societies look more or less mediaeval, mostly in that really late period where people were doing really cool things with waterwheels, granted, but there’s not a lot of industry or steelworking owing to the easy sources of carbon fuels and decent iron all being long-depleted. For those reasons, the Koath have been at roughly this state of infrastructural development for roughly a hundred thousand years, at the edge of their population carrying capacity and unable to intensify production any further, resulting in interlocking networks of feudal kingdoms prizing stability in an attempt to build up their resources and overcome the gaps.

This does mean that the Koath have a lot of interesting surpluses, though. Having had organised agriculture for ten times longer than humanity, the Koath have selectively bred some absolutely incredible crops; not just for eating, but for just about everything. Need a dye? They can cross-breed you arbitrary Pantones. Need paper? They can make you a lot of it. It’s so impressive that while the planet had consistently been considered not worth conquering, it has long been considered worth visiting, which means the Koath have learned a lot of things they don’t have the technological infrastructure to have discovered on their own… which dovetails with a quirk of their biology.

Koath are really good at languages. Really good. It’s what their ancestors were bred for. They start talking within months of being hatched, and they make up new languages constantly because it’s easy and fun. They have unique languages for regions, religions, guilds, and within families. They can learn to read in weeks. They’re all literate, they make paper with the waste-products of food production, and they’ve had moveable type for longer than human civilisation has existed. And they are, to a fault, curious.

A Koath peasant working the earth with a bronze plough might not know much about quantum mechanics, but they’ve at least heard of it. They have a rich body of secret political writing written in coded languages about how much it sucks living as serfs so a lord somewhere can have the county’s only lightbulb. So when a human spaceship filled with 3d printers, the diagrams for 3d printed guns, and a bunch of very confused communists who immediately bristled at the idea of ‘local lords’ crashed in their neighbourhood, the local peasants did a whole little revolution about it, and were then promptly besieged by every single one of their neighbours.

So that’s the Corvus Peasants’ Republic. Not a whole planet even; a tiny peninsula of possibly overenthusiastic little bird communists trying to build up technological infrastructure while literally having trebuchets pointed at them. They’re very excited to be a part of the Star Union, because every iron-rich asteroid found out there is a new steel foundry back home, so maybe their people can enjoy all the cool technology they’ve had blueprints for since Ur was the happening place on Earth.

As a Koath, you get the Polyglot Trait, obviously, and the Non-Humanoid Bodyplan trait which gives you some cool little tool bonuses when you use your claws, vestigial feathers, and adorable little legs that give a surprising burst of speed, at the cost of needing special tools and being bad at throwing things. You are also a really good recipient for the Out of Time trait, as you may have gone from living as, you know, a peasant, to operating a spacecraft in a few short years. The Prodigy trait also does double-duty here for the curiosity and literacy of the species.

A year ago this little guy was a farmer.

#torchship #ttrpg #dev diary #torchship ttrpg #rpg

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whencyclopedia · 1 month

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Weapons in the American Revolution

The American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) was a long and bitter conflict fought between Great Britain and its thirteen North American colonies over the Americans' liberties and, eventually, for the independence of the United States. The war, which was fought with both conventional linear tactics and guerilla-style warfare, utilized several different kinds of weapons for multiple styles of combat.

Some of the weapons used in the Revolutionary War had long been staples of European-style warfare. Variations of the flintlock musket, for instance, had been used in battle since the early 1600s and would continue to be used on Western battlefields for decades after the American Revolution had ended. Other weapons, like the groove-barreled Long Rifle, were relatively new additions to warfare; the rifle, used in a limited capacity during the Revolution, would see greater use on the later battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) and American Civil War (1861-1865). Some weapons were useful in close-quarter combat such as the bayonet, tomahawk, and saber, while artillery guns were devastating at both long and short distances. None of the weapons discussed in this article were unique to the American Revolution. However, a quick description of the types of weapons used in that conflict could help give the reader a better understanding of what it may have been like to be on a battlefield during the US War of Independence.

Flintlock Muskets

The flintlock musket was the primary weapon of 18th-century European armies and was therefore used by both sides during the American Revolution. A musket was a muzzle-loading, smoothbore weapon that fired a large lead ball with reasonably decent accuracy. By the 1770s, a typical musket weighed about 10 lbs (4.5 kg), was about 5 ft (152 cm) in length, and had a caliber of about .75 (1.9 cm). A typical lead ball weighed about an ounce (28 g). As the name 'flintlock musket' suggests, such weapons relied on a flintlock mechanism to fire. This involved a piece of flint contained within the musket's cock, or hammer. When the trigger was pulled, the hammer would swing forward, causing the flint to strike a piece of steel called the 'frizzen'. This action created a spark that would fall into a flash pan below, wherein a small charge of black powder was contained. The spark would ignite the powder, which would, in turn, discharge the bullet from the gun barrel. By the time of the revolution, flintlocks had long been the most common kind of firearm; the flintlock had been developed in France in the early 1600s to replace the earlier matchlock and wheellock mechanisms and would remain in use until the mid-19th century.

Although the process of firing a flintlock musket sounds complicated on paper, a well-trained 18th-century soldier could typically fire three or four shots per minute. This is quite impressive, especially after considering what the loading process entails. A soldier would first take a pre-rolled musket cartridge – a paper tube containing gunpowder and a lead musket ball – and tear it open with his teeth. He would then pour a small amount of the powder into the flash pan and pour the rest down the muzzle. Next, the soldier would use a ramrod to pack the musket ball, powder, and paper of the cartridge down into the breech. Only after returning the ramrod to its place and fully cocking back the hammer was the soldier finally ready to take aim and fire.

The musket could be effectively fired from a range of about 80 yards (73 m); while it could sometimes be effective at a slightly greater range, musket balls rarely traveled more than 150 yards (137 m). The musket's accuracy largely depended, of course, on the man who wielded it. To increase the effectiveness of the weapon, 18th-century armies adopted the style of linear warfare; an individual musketeer was less likely to inflict damage than a line of soldiers firing coordinated, concentrated volleys. A typical battle line consisted of two or three ranks of soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder, with each man allowed just enough space to be able to present arms, fire, and reload. When the officer gave the order, the line of soldiers would fire in sync with one another (referred to as a musket volley); sometimes the first rank would kneel to give the second rank a better shot, thereby keeping up a higher rate of fire.

#History #AmericanRevolution #FergusonRifle #FlintlockMusket

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theresattrpgforthat · 8 months

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gundam themed/similar games?

THEME: Gundam

Hello friend! This actually made me go back into my previous game recs and realize that I hadn’t properly tagged my Mechs Part 1 and Part 2 recs - so now you should be able to find them! Out of the games listed there, I’d definitely recommend Disaster/Wing by A Couple of Drakes, Mobile Zero Firebrands,by Lumpley Games, and Apocalypse Frame by Binary Star Games.

Now, let’s see what else we can rustle up.

Last Sentinels, by Jason Price.

The people of AUGUR-V had been cast into the stars, pursued by the vengeful forces of the New Alliance. But one Sentinel pilot still offered them hope. This is their story.

Last Sentinels is a GM-less storytelling tabletop roleplaying game for 3 or 4 players. It focuses on one main protagonist, a gifted young civilian who escapes the besieged planet of AUGUR-V on a titanic starship with their remaining people. They must defend these survivors against overwhelming odds as a vast fleet pursues the ship through their former empire.

But your protagonist is doomed.

Their story will end in death or betrayal when they succumb to the intense pressures of hope, despair, scheming foes and high-stakes mech combat.

Last Sentinels is more focused on the structure of the narrative than it is on the fights between mechs. Because the game is GM-less, the story becomes a negotiation, with the responsibilities of the players depending on where they sit at the table. Another thing unique about this game is the fact that no one player is responsible for any one character. This is because this is a story with one protagonist - similar to Amuro Rey from the original series. The game isn’t meant to tell a happy story - this is a game with a tragic ending. If you want a game that treats the subject matter of war with the same gravity as Mobile Suit Gundam, this is the game for you.

IGNOBLECORPS: Pilots of Command, by Declan Lowthian.

Hello Pilot You are about to embark on your first mission for the glory of Command. We have faith that your training will not fail you, and that you in turn will not fail us. You have your mission. Ready for launch.

IGNOBLECORPS is a game about desperate mech pilots working within a titanic organization spanning the galaxy. Fight for and against Command's control and try to get out alive.

This is a hack of a game called NOBLECORE, a game about metal space fantasy with legendary heroes. This system uses exploding dice pools, which means that when you roll the highest number on any given dice, you get to re-roll for a chance at more success! This is also a collaborative game, so it expects all of the players at the table to generate the galaxy around you, rather than providing you with chapters and chapters of lore. This game reminds me of Gundam because it expects combat to be brutal and desperate - even if the moves are flashy, the war behind them is gritty and dark.

Armored Battle Frame, by Mundos Infinitos.

The WORLD is in a WAR fought with MECHAS. You are a PILOT, shaped to fight, witness to atrocities, bearer of wounds, a tool for victory. This is the story of your dreams and ambitions.

As a pamphlet game, expect Armored Battle Frame to be quick to pick up and quick to play. The designer, Benjamin A. Reyna, is very good at fitting a lot of information into a small space. This game can be played with or without a GM, and it can also be played solo! Mobile Suit Gundam is also listed as an inspiration in the game description. The designer also has another Mech game called Real Robot TechaMech: Professional Level, which uses a game system found among a number of Reyna’s games.

Battle Century G: Remastered, by GimmickLabs.

Express your creativity without mechanical restrictions. The game is effects-based, so how you do something does not matter as much as what you do. And what you do is pilot a kickass Mecha, command a badass Battleship, or ride a terrifying Kaiju.

Employ tactics and teamwork to defeat your enemies. Enemies in Battle Century G are powerful, you'll have to adapt on the fly to their weapons and schemes, watch each other's backs with your allies to ensure no one gets shot down, and employ synchronized combination attacks to defeat superbosses.

Explore a solarpunk future. The setting included in this book presents an environmentalist, inclusive and transhumanist society opposing an industrialist empire with the looming threat of kaiju mechabeasts on the horizon. It is inspired by the likes of Turn A Gundam, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Dune and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

Battle Century G boasts fast-paced combat and big powers that make you feel more than competent. It also includes advice on playing for both GMs and players, in what looks to be an effort to make the game as easy to step into as possible, and the themes and setting information allow for a number of societies that look very different from our own - great for speculative fiction.This is a game that is the result of various playtests and previous editions, so it’s less likely to feel like a quick hack and more likely to feel like a full game.

Maharlika, by makapatag.

MAHARLIKA RPG is a technomystic Science Fantasy mecha RPG inspired by Filipino Mythology, centered around Mekanized Weapons or Meka, and their pilots: the eponymous Maharlika.

You will play as these titular spirit-warriors, mavericks, aces, and knights that all swear loyalty to a Datu, one of the CEOs of the Megacorporations, so that you can protect the technospiritual galaxy of Arkipelago.

As a Maharlika, you venture out into space where you will take on dangerous missions, fight for your ideals, hack the spiritual internet that is the Lambat, repel Xenobeings, trade love and resources, and participate in fiestas to survive, thrive, and protect what is yours in the dangerous Starsea.

Maharlika is inspired by a number of mech media, including Mobile Suit Thunderbolt and Iron Blooded Orphans from the Gundam series. The game has two modes of play: Maharlika (narrative) and Meka (mech combat). You’ll use mainly d10s and d20s for these rolls, and add modifiers for skills and stats that your character is strong in. The setting itself is described as technomystical, and the lore is heavily inspired by Filipino mythology, so if you want to really lean into the supernatural abilities such as the psychic abilities suggested in Mobile Suit Gundam’s Newtypes, this might be worth checking out. Maharlika is possibly also the most technically complex game on this list.

Games I’ve Recommended in the Past

Spectres of Brocken, by ehronlime.

Lancer, by Massif Press.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #dnd #game recommendations #asks #mechs

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vile-bestia · 4 months

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why mizu is, in fact, not cis

Everyone is very angry at everyone about how to see or not see Mizu’s identity; being unable to shut up, and having fixated on the show a bit, i’m excited to finally join my first to-the-death-tumblr-discourse-battle.

I'm going to use mostly he/him for Mizu, but please read the premise below. Read the colored strings of text 😭

The main argument for Mizu being a woman is that which has as its basis the fact that cross-dressing is for Mizu an external need: for one, it is a need for protection from patriarchal bonds; secondly, it is a need for independence - Akemi’s story is one of independence as well, of feminine independence, and we have more than one woman pursuing such thing; we could go on with an analysis of brothels as a feminine space, but, alas - and thirdly, it is a need of obligation: Mizu needs to maintain the masculine identity in order to attain the object of his vow.

I find, however, that while the argument stands as perfectly sound (and as canon) it isn’t exhaustive enough of the layered experience of gender in BES.

The trans coding is simply undeniable to me, whether it was intentional or not. I do not mean to say that Mizu is a binary trans man; that would be an approach as reductionist as confirming she is exclusively a woman. However, I find that some behaviours of Mizu’s are coded as dysphoric reactions.

Most of my justifications for this reasoning come from episodes 2, 5 and 8.

In episode 2,

Ringo is vowing to never reveal Mizu’s secret: “I’ll never tell anybody you’re a g-“; and as soon as he’s about to say girl, Mizu is just as ready to slice his throat. Mizu being worried about someone else hearing or witnessing the interaction doesn’t seem completely plausible to me: they’re alone in snowy woods, and, most likely, Mizu wouldn’t have confirmed time and again how readily he’d kill Ringo.

Then comes episode 5,

which is in my opinion the most layered and the most exhaustive in regards to Mizu’s experience of gender, especially regarding his experience of the feminine. First and foremost, it tells the ultimate teaching: that gender isn’t but a performance, just as the gender roles are portrayed through theatre in the episode. As for the dysphoric reaction, it's the whole thing. Mizu is miserable even when we suppose that the marriage could be a relatively happy time. That's another reason why I suppose the puppet theatre tells Mizu's internal sense of self as well (see paragraph 4).

(And, about gender being performative, see how kabuki theatre was born in the Edo period and how, before being banned from acting, women cross-dressed to play male characters, and men cross-dressed to play female characters. See “professional transvestites” trained to be prostitutes, Kagema being trained from a young age to „act" like members of the other sex; see how by the beginning of the 18th century AFAB sex workers would try to figure out a way to set themselves apart from wakashu, creating an entirely new space for female crossdressers in the adult entertainment sphere; see ukiyo-e representations - chigo monogatari and yukiyo-zoshi literature; stories by Ihara Saikaku that are full of "transgender behaviours" and more)

Back to ep 5:

1. Theme of performance

The theme of performance, which also is the one of Mizu performing femininity for Mikio (in function of the well-being of Mizu’s mother), but being at once unable to suppress masculinity as the only space in which Mizu seems to be comfortable: e.g., it’s a little detail, but Mizu’s only good in the kitchen when cutting vegetables, because comfortable with blades, certainly not with cooking; again Mizu having to perform femininity is when he does makeup to “make-up”, to soften Mikio’s spirit, who feels invalidated by Mizu’s masculinity when it starts to interfere with his pride, and such other details; I even thought of the sword as a symbol for “learned” masculinity: the first time this thought occurred was when it was characterized by sensuality in the scene where the spouses spar: “Unsheathe it. Let me see your blade;” and I interpreted it as masculinity being the only space that allows intimacy as well; then comes the time where Mizu learns he does not need a sword to fight, meaning to me that she can embody masculinity without having to prove it to others. And then comes the reforging of the sword’s meteorite to include “impurities”, and the rite that Mizu performs. I assume that “a sword too pure” is the symbol of, again, learned hypermasculinity to appease patriarchal expectations, and is too pure because it’s Mizu rejecting part of himself, trying to exclude all “impurities”, whether they are being half white, or being half woman. Taigen himself is the one to tell Mizu he can fight without a sword (ep 7, but done in ep 3 or 4 and ep 6 already), and then the situation starts to bear sexual tension, which I directly link to the sensual connotation of the sparring cited earlier up. Possibly, this particular situation could also mean acceptance of Mizu's lack of a native "sword".

2. Gender roles

But a more sound consideration is (i would like to hope so) the one about the whole marriage being told through puppets, and the puppets themselves. While they are different characters, first of all we see an inversion of gender in the roles: at first Mizu is the Ronin because he performs a masculine role of protection, an “active” role; then, Mizu’s role is reversed in function of his marriage. We see Mizu surrendering (forcibly, being manipulated) to femininity as soon as his mother guilt-trips him into marrying, and the ronin puppet assumes a submissive pose, long before the role reversal.

3. A note:

it yet does not seem to me like the role reversal is, so to say, complete: even after the reversal, the narrator tells details about the ronin that are actually details about Mizu, e.g. when the two marry, and despite the positions of the puppets match the ones of the spouses, it is said that the ronin's loyalty is no more turned towards his "path of revenge," (Mizu's) "but to his bride" - in the perspective explained below, perhaps Mizu's own femininity. Also, i find Mizu might perceive Mikio as the bride, and himself as the husband - as an argument it can't stand alone, or it would bare no strength, but I will use it in correlation with the other points made, until now and later, to argue that Mizu thinks of himself as a guy.

4. Performance of Mizu's sides, assimilable to when she has the vision of killing his white side, shortly before facing the four fangs or whatever their name was

This, and one more tiny detail, bring me to think that not only do we talk about external roles, but about Mizu’s self-perception. I'm referring to when it is said that “for the first time in many years, the ronin felt the storm rage inside him.” The storm is a symbol belonging to Mizu (literally it occurs in the first 2 minutes of the episode), and it is explicit that it isn’t something that happens for the first time, but rather returns. By this point, the gender roles were reversed, and yet it seems to me like it isn’t anymore about the marriage itself, but rather about Mizu’s hatred for and slaughtering of his own femininity, and, of course, the experience of betrayal; with his family (especially his mother, see below), and with his femininity, which wasn’t enough to keep him comfortable or Mikio on his side. (...betrayal which is also about mizu himself betraying akemi, i'd add. Mizu is justified here, but it's important to note the parallels between the two timelines i guess?)

5. That random ass baby

There is, at a certain point, a situation of peace, which I think is represented when one of the puppets is holding a blue baby (supposedly a little ronin) in its arms. I want to suppose that the baby represents newborn love between Mizu and Mikio, before it all fell apart. But the love itself is a masculine love, as we see that it is based on masculine exchanges (fighting, doing fieldwork, taming horses, riding together, whatever) and, it seems to me, assimilable to homosexuality between samurai, which was widespread (insert something about Taigen here). Also Mikio wanted to marry a bro lmao. Aside from that, on the level of Mizu’s self-perception, it might represent comfortableness, a sort of congruence, or, rather, a compromise, that Mizu is able to live in, between natural masculinity and performed femininity - opening up to show vulnerability, love fragile as a creature that cannot defend itself, innocent, naive, trusting.

6. About Mizu’s mother.

The puppet used for Mizu’s mother before the role reversal is the same that is supposedly used for Mizu after, but I latch onto a detail: the pattern on the puppet’s kimono is the same as the (real life) Mother’s kimono (see for example minute 12:30). I support this by noting the more obvious parallel between the blue worn by Mizu and the blue of the Ronin puppet, but at the same time I'm forced to note that after a certain point the mother has her own puppet. In any case, I see the mother and the feminine puppet wearing the same kimono as being about femininity, and about the mother’s betrayal of her child, rather than about Mizu herself. For one, manipulating him into marrying and abandoning the vow. But also we learn (ep 8) that the woman isn’t Mizu’s mother at all. One could discuss the reliability of Fowler’s statement, but I feel there are more clues regarding the mother’s betrayal: the episode starts with the Ronin, who feels the storm rage inside him at the killing of his lord (Mizu’s actual mother, perhaps) by the hands of a clan whose crest was the Phoenix (which I suppose are the white men, and the curse of whiteness for Mizu). I’ve thought about the four white men dealing guns (Fowler), flesh, opium (and I’m not sure what role “Violet” has in this, but I think they're the opium dealer), and thought that if Mizu’s “mother” was a substitute, the opium she smokes could point to Mizu’s potential father, perhaps even at the surrogate mother keeping contact, and at the surrogate’s betrayal at the same time. But it’s also true I watched the show while stoned, so I would dismiss this.

7. Onryo (note: characteristic in kabuki)

When the birth of the vengeful spirit occurs, I see very well how plausible it is to say that, actually, the rage that Mizu feels is feminine rage, and I agree with that. Mizu’s femininity is his rage, it is heavily related to the mother-daughter relationship, despite the fact that at a certain point the mother has her own puppet. At the same time, however, it is to me the result of the slaughtering of the performed femininity needed to respect the obligation (we remember the wedding was also to ensure the “surrogate” mother safety, especially financial, as well as to keep Mizu bound), just as accepting you’re able to fight with any tool puts an end to the compensatory movement by which you’re trying to prove masculinity to an observer (which, say, Taigen does as well, wanting to prove to Mizu he can beat him - plus, Taigen himself is the one to reassure Mizu on the complete unimportance of it, see how I read the sword symbol a few paragraphs earlier).

In this perspective, the "dye washing away from her kimono" to me means two things: that being what he is is inevitable, and that the feminine rage sets in; Mizu tries to make up for being a "demon", but in the end rejects the obligation towards his husband, and towards her mother; the pattern is not the same anymore, and Mizu is somehow more like his own person, returning on the path of vengeance, strengthened by the feminine, as the reforged sword will be strengthened by the very ritualistic yaki-ire.

Episode 8,

I feel, speaks instead for itself, for the dysphoric reaction is to me extremely clear. Reacting that way to being called a Miss is not a cisgender reaction. You’ll tell me: it’s not a dysphoric reaction! It’s a reaction of disgust to being fetishized for being a woman! And that’s plausible, supported by the “you just keep getting better,” with clear sexual implication, except I think that is also a fundamental trans experience and one cannot limit the way they read the scene to an exclusively feminine experience.

In conclusion,

I don’t think it might be all boiled down Mizu being a masc woman, because of the trans coding. Mizu thinks of himself as a guy. If not a guy, not a woman either. You’ll tell me: “Of course she does, because she’s grown up that way; she was forced to sustain the lie to preserve her life! It's a matter of conditioning!” And while it is true that the initial context points towards crossdressing, and not inherent feelings of gender non conformity or transgenderism, I feel that if Mizu really felt like a woman, he wouldn’t have such exaggerated reactions, and I don’t think they come from his temperament either. And it is disproved that conditioning someone to have a different sexuality or gender identity works in any way - I doubt Edo period Japan or a particular protagonist would make an exception. "But Mizu herself tells Mikio she didn't want to be a man, she had to be one!" Yes, because it is true. But it points to crossdressing. If it were aimed to explain the whole of Mizu's experience of gender in her self, it would invalidate the entirety of episode 5.

In any case, even in situations where he couldn’t be discovered, Mizu does not allow feminine terms or titles, or tries as best to stop them from happening; plus, it’s rather obvious how difficult the relationship with his body is.

While, once again, reading Mizu as a binary trans man is not enough, I feel like reading him as cisgender isn’t, either. As if, in any case, the feminine experience and the transmasculine one didn’t overlap in many aspects, also during the most tumultuous parts of transition, if pursued.

What is funniest above all is that the whole discourse is substantially useless. The layers of the show open to an infinite variety of interpretations, none of them fundamentally wrong. Mizu’s just quite literally Mizu. It’s a queer unlabeled thing and that’s it. If you take the Lacanian concept of the Real as the hole, properly uninteligible, surrounded by the Symbolic, you'll find that "Queer" is exquisitely representative of the Real, and therefore every label (the Symbolic) is reductive of the perceived experience (indeed the Real). The fundamental lesson about gender that you can derive from the show is that gender is a performative construct. What it pushes you to do is deconstruct your principles, especially if you are queer, since we are all entrapped in the modern western white need for strict labelling; that’s where this whole debate comes from, and it is, once again, pointless.

So, instead making fun of other people because of a set of pronouns, perhaps it would be better to imagine that more options can cohabit together, or that there is no need to label at all. Also be careful about accusing others of a complete lack of media literacy - you should thoroughly examine yours first.

Interesting articles i guess:

Algoso, Teresa A. "'Thoughts on Hermaphroditism': Miyatake Gaikotsu and the Convergence of the Sexes in Taishō Japan." The Journal of Asian Studies 65, no. 3 (2006): 555–573. Algoso, Teresa A. "Not Suitable as a Man? Conscription, Masculinity, and Hermaphroditism in Early Twentieth-Century Japan." Chap. 11 In Recreating Japanese Men, edited by Sabine Frühstück and Anne Walthall. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011, 241–261. Mostow, Joshua S. “The Gender of Wakashu and the Grammar of Desire.” In Gender and Power in the Japanese Visual Field, edited by Joshua S. Mostow, Norman Bryson, and Maribeth Graybill. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press 2003, 49–70.

taken from this post asking about transgender men in the edo period: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/p6x4jk/comment/h9ttgv4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

As a final unrelated note, I haven’t seen anyone praise the MASTERFUL sound design

bye 🪳🪳🪳🪳🪳

#blue eye samurai #bes #mizu blue eye samurai #queer #queer coding #trans coding #mizu #media analysis #mizu gender #mizu trans man #mizu transgender #in this essay i will #mizu trans #mizu bes #nonbinary #genderqueer #transgender character

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lostinthesasuke · 1 year

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I just saw your Sasuke as Joan of Arc art and first of all I LOVE IT second of all I think it gave me a new kind of brain worms. Begging you to elaborate on what you mean by Sasuke would understand how Joan of arc felt, please I feel insane.

first of all thank you so much, that means a lot to me. <3

second of all, not sure if you know the can of (brain)worms u just opened. this is long so buckle up.

joan of arc was born into a century long war between france and england, and saw her home destroyed.

sasuke was born into a military state where children are primed to be perfect soldiers the moment they are old enough to hold a kunai. the state groomed his brother into a murderer, stripped his home and family from him.

throughout her life, joan of arc saw visions of saint michael, telling her she would be the one to lead france to salvation. joan vowed to avenge her country, and petitioned the king. at seventeen, joan was sent to war. at seventeen, she was victorious. when france was triumphant, she was beloved. when the tide of battle turned, she was blamed. she was burned at the stake.

sasuke was plagued by visions too, images of his family eviscerated at the hands of the most important person in his world. burned into his eyes like a brand, forced to watch on repeat.

with that, he resolved to wage his own war.

joan, who was once revered as a pure maiden and was made a symbol rather than a girl, became despised; villainized, and accused of demonic possession.

sasuke was made a symbol, too. the last of his clan, a powerful asset. an uchiha, a holder of a desired kekkei genkai, not a boy. he fled. like joan, he sought a powerful entity to gain strength, to forge his path in battle.

at seventeen, he learned the truth about his clan's state-sanctioned genocide. at seventeen, they called for his execution, too. discarded once he no longer served konoha's purpose, had abandoned the so-called 'will of fire'. the illustrious uchiha name tainted by blood, by a farcical "curse".

his opponent used the very power stolen from his kin, their doujutsu embedded in his arms. joan's detractors still benefited from her name long after her demise, too.

joan's emergence was prophesied, a legend of a virgin who would bring peace to france and end the war.

a virgin, pure.

sasuke's ideological purity is a topic that has been debated at length by both his supporters and critics, both in the text and real life (and kishimoto himself.)

sasuke's "purity" and the morality of his actions are always under scrutiny. which follows since his clan name has been "dirtied".

joan was also forced to defend her purity. a maiden and a virgin, she was put on trial for her supposed lack of virtue with her life hanging on the verdict. they labeled her a heretic crossdresser perverted by satan because she kept her hair cropped short and wore only men's clothing. they killed her for it.

sasuke and joan both blur the lines of gender. sasuke is portrayed as a heroine and a femme fatale, and objectified for his looks and his body (whether for power or other nefarious reasons). he is more scantily clad than any of the women characters, and cast in a lascivious light.

joan rebuffed suitors and refused marriage all her life. similarly, sasuke rejected all advances from women throughout the manga (post 700 doesn't exist to me) despite the intensity with which he was pursued.

joan's righteous fury at the british, at the wars that claimed her childhood, are all reflected in sasuke's motivations. in his quest for justice, in his resolution to bring peace to a war torn world, to make those in power pay for the suffering that they are complicit in and dismantle the very framework that allows it.

at seventeen, sasuke decided to become a martyr for the world's hatred. he decided he would be the one to shoulder it all, to purify the world of conflict by taking all of the animosity onto himself. like joan who believed she was sent by g-d to end war, sasuke resolved to become a savior.

a martyr like joan (like itachi), whose guilty verdict was only overturned long after her death. who was canonized as a saint long after mobs raged against her. who became a symbol of freedom and revolution enduring hundreds of years, her name a rallying cry despite the vitriol that claimed her life.

sometimes when you're seventeen, the voices in your head tell you to start a revolution. sometimes, they're right. sometimes the institutions upheld by those in power need to be cleansed by holy fire, and maybe sometimes something better can rise from the ashes.

#sorry this got so fucking long #txt #sasuke uchiha #naruto meta #this is my first time putting meta in any tags ...#ask

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andr0nap · 22 days

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You mentioned the deal w seeds in the plane au — what IS the deal w seeds in this au, if you don’t mind me asking?? 👀

bwah okay its not that much different from canon. they were still a deep space colonization fleet but in this au their mission was technically a success

seeds established an research outpost on no mans land to study the planet and test it for potential permanent habitation in the future. basically the fall doesnt happen. or at least not when and how it does in canon

vash and nai were born when seeds began constructing proper long term facilities on the surface

2 years later the research facilities have turned into small cities, terraforming projects kicked into gear and a decent human population was slowly being woken up from cold sleep. the colonization mission for this fleet was deemed a success

the twins were part of a project testing independent plant capabilities and the utility potential of reality bending (the ability to both power and control machines and expanding the storage capacity of small fast aircraft for transportation efficiency), later named project gemini in their honor. during that time the jets g-01 and g-02 and their prototype engines were constructed

at some point nai found detailed info on the project and noticed the discrepancy in their unit numbers, their engines being numbered 02 and 03 in the blueprints. more digging led to the discovery of tesla and her fate as an integrated part of the fleets onboard ai, knives went mad and began plotting the downfall of humanity. over a few weeks he secretly gained control over the local aircraft fleet and one of the production lines and launched an assault on the main ships in orbit

the one man war against seeds (and poor vash, who was caught in the crossfire, not wanting to fight either of them and trying to stop them from fighting each other) lasts a few decades and only ceases when nai shoots his brother out of the sky by accident

by then little was left of the original seeds project, losing the battle in the end. the sky and desert are a graveyard of ships and aircraft a century later. most of humanity doesnt remember the project or know what happened. a majority of the population abandoned seeds and fled the facilities to establish their own settlements during the war

and thats the deal with seeds! i think? did it explain anything? i got so caught up in writing this that i wrote down some of the early plot dhgfjhdfg

#ask #untitled plane au #nai was scared they would end up like tesla #maybe not dead but losing their independence and being reduced to a computer in charge of a colony ship #which wasnt wrong of him to assume #its what seeds were testing with the twins #just on a smaller scale #they were trying to find a way to reduce the need for human input for future long interstellar travel to the absolute bare minimum #so the staff could remain in cold sleep for longer periods of time too #they hoped that replacing the unfeeling ai with a “human” but unaging element would make for a better overseer #humans have different priorities than machines #its why WE still rely on human input instead of letting machines do everything #god i am RAMBLING #sorry again if im not making sense

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vampir3sfall · 7 months

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good omens characters as things my strange, gay english teacher has said

'as the kids say, allow him to cook' - aziraphale

'if I learn who's teaching that i'll find then and i'll fight them behind a grocery store' - warlocks father when nanny taught him swears in the name of satan

'what part of 'the biological machine is a horror' do you not understand?' -gabriel, when explaining why he doesn't eat

'if you aren't afraid to put the knives on your feet' - muriel, describing ice skating

'yeah, that's because i can't count' -shax

'i can't promise that i wouldn't build a flamethrower' -crowley, being questioned by aziraphale about what he would do if he was a supreme archangel

'we need something that properly billows' -16th? century aziraphale (the resurrection minisode)

'since i do realize that some you of do experience empty brain no thought' -nina and maggie, reprimanding crowley

'which means it's a good word for you to know, as angsty teens' -crowley talking to adam + his friends in season 1

'the light of the screen, the darkness, the demons coming at you, ect' -crowley when asked to describe hell

'and you might think but mr.tenny you are smart. you use many big words and string them formed into long sentences that still make sense than thank you, and I am even smarter than that' -aziraphale trying to politely tell someone not to fuck with him

bonus - "the battle that students and teachers are always in, similar to that of g-d and lucifer" (no GO character here it's just something he said)

#Good omens #good omens season 2 #good omens season 1 #neil gaiman #inncorrect quotes #good omens incorrect quotes #tenny boy #no one who knows me irl show this to tenny ill die #good omens minisode #shax #crowley #aziraphale #adam young #gabriel good omens #nina and maggie

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daevastanner · 2 months

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Halfbreeds - Ch 3 is up!

g w y n

Six months later…

The House of Wind

Gwyneth Berdara stood with her palms braced on either side of the map laid out on the mahogany table. Behind her the private library’s hearth roared with a fire, less for the balmy summer night and more for the Valkyrie’s comfort.

She muttered to herself, eyes roving over the marks she’d made, the strategy she’d detailed, the only chance at getting her mate back from Koschei’s clutches. It was risky, but with enough Valkyrie Units dispatched Gwyn could pull it off. All she needed was for Rhys to sign off on the emergency status that would allow her to lead such a large number.

Nodding, Gwyn stood up straight, admiring the plan once more. “I promised I’d never let anyone lock you away again,” she whispered to Azriel, hoping he could hear her across the bond they’d yet to accept. “I will keep my word, Shadowsinger.”

The doors squeaked across the room and the Valkyrie’s head whipped up to see Nesta striding in, her expression cautious as she no doubt tried to gauge Gwyn’s distress over Azriel’s abduction.

Gwyn gave the eldest Archeron a hesitant smile. “I think I have a plan. It just requires a little luck, and Rhysand’s approval of…”

“Gwyn, wait,” Nesta interjected.

But there was no time to lose, so Gwyn continued, “...emergency status so I can lead a…”

“Gwyn, please stop.”

“...unit of Valkyrie to help me…”

“Listen!” Nesta snapped.

Gwyn jerked back, eyeing her friend like a potentially threatening predator. She narrowed her eyes, prompting her to explain why she was so fiercely protesting Azriel’s rescue.

Nesta breathed slowly through her nose. “Gwyn, Rhysand is calling the Night Court’s forces to retreat. He won’t be dispatching any more units until the Healers have seen to the wounded and the High Lords are able to meet and discuss how to move forward.”

Blinking, Gwyn walked around the table towards her friend. “But… but he’ll make an exception for Azriel, won’t he? That’s his brother.”

Nesta’s throat bobbed. “No exceptions, Gwyn.”

“Well, then he must not be aware that Azriel has been captured,” Gwyn countered.

Because if Rhys knew Azriel had been captured he would do everything he could to see that he was brought home. He had worked so hard to ensure Azriel lived for the past five centuries, he wouldn’t stop now. And certainly not after he had succeeded in his covert maneuvers to guarantee Gwyn and Azriel met, that the bond snapped for his brother as it had for her. That the shadowsinger received the happiness he had so long deserved.

“He’s aware Azriel was taken, Gwyn,” Nesta said gently. “And he is still ordering the retreat.”

Gwyn felt her brows pull together, her jaw falling open as she struggled to process what Nesta was saying. “He… He wants to wait to rescue him until after the High Lords have convened?”

Nesta gave a single nod, then placed a comforting hand on Gwyn’s shoulder. “If all the High Lords decide rescuing Azriel is a priority for victory, then yes.”

If Azriel’s life was ‘a priority.’

A priority?

If?

Gwyn’s blood boiled, her brows slamming down. “He can’t be serious. If he knows it’s me leading the plan, he’ll make an exception. I’ll speak with him–”

But as Gwyn tried to step around Nesta, the eldest Archeron blocked her path. Her steely eyes were hard, but Gwyn could see a frown threaten to tug at her full mouth.

“Nesta…”

“Gwyn, I’m under orders to ensure you remain here in the House of Wind until we’re called into battle,” Nesta replied. “Rhysand wants you clear-headed when we move out eventually.” Then softer, “You’re to be sequestered here on the High Lord and Lady’s orders.”

Gwyn’s whole body began to tremble with energy, her eyes blazed.

First it had been Rhysand, now it was both Rhysand and Feyre.

And judging by the immovable set of her shoulders, Nesta agreed with her sister and brother-in-law. She would follow their orders.

“Nesta, get out of my way,” Gwyn said, her voice low.

Nesta swallowed, but held her friend’s skewering gaze. “I can’t, Gwyn. I understand you want to save Azriel, but I won’t let you sacrifice Valkyrie troops in the high of your mate-induced anxiety so you can hate yourself for it later.”

Mate-induced anxiety? What the hell was that? Whatever anxiety Gwyn felt was the result of the other half of her soul being held by Koschei, not the stupid mating-bond they hadn’t even accepted yet. This blazing, burning fury that lit her up from the inside out was all hers.

Wasn’t it?

“I know it feels normal. It’s going to feel natural,” Nesta said calmly. “The urge to turn the world to ash in order to save him, right? The anger that justifies you going to such extremes. It feels like any other decision. Like you’re choosing what to read for the night.” Lady Death shook her head. “It’s not. Once the haze clears, you may regret what you did in the heat of the moment, Gwyn.”

Gwyn shoved the words away, glowering at her friend now, “Maybe I will regret it.” She took a step forward so they were nearly chest to chest, “But I know I will regret letting Koschei kill Azriel because I was too scared to stand up to you and Rhysand.”

Nesta opened her mouth, her features shadowed with alarm, but Gwyn didn’t even let her get a word out before she grabbed her by the side of her neck, applying tension to the arteries she could feel beneath the pads of her fingers. She squeezed before Nesta could pry her hand off, and Nesta’s blood pressure rose till her eyes fluttered shut. Her body began to slump, but Gwyn caught her, carefully tilting her to lie on the rug by the table.

“I’m sorry, Nesta,” Gwyn said, grabbing a throw pillow from an armchair and lifting her sister’s head to rest upon it. “But you wouldn’t let anything keep you from Cassian either.”

Read the rest on Ao3

#gwynriel #gwyneth berdara #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar #gwynriel supremacy #gwyn and azriel #acotar fanfiction #gwynriel fic #gwynriel fanfiction #ao3 #gwynriel weeks 2024

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steellegacy · 9 months

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⚜️ Broadsword of Oliver Cromwell, England, c. 1650

Medium: Iron alloy (steel), partially engraved; chiseled; silver wire; wood

Length (overall): 96.8 cm

Blade: 82.6×4.9 cm

Hilt: 12.9×11.7 cm

Pommel: Height-5.4 cm, Diameter-3.3 cm

Weight: 1405 g

Facts:

▪️ August 9, 1655 - Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell divides England into 11 districts

▪️ Cromwell is an iconic figure in British history

▪️ He was a key figure in the trial and execution of King Charles I

▪️ He has the peculiar distinction of being the only political criminal to be executed two years after his death

Cromwell was exhumed from his grave in 1661 and put on trial by the late king's son, Charles II. Posthumously convicted of high treason, Cromwell's corpse was hanged and beheaded, and his head was impaled on a 6-meter spike atop Westminster Hall. The mummified head remained on the spike for more than 20 years

▪️ In 1960 (300 years after Cromwell's death), Dr. Horace Wilkinson donated the head to Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge, Cromwell's alma mater

"Cromwell's head is buried somewhere in the college chapel, supposedly in a biscuit tin" (says Stuart Orme, curator of the Cromwell Museum)

▪️ Cromwell's most famous quote is "Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry," but there's no proof that he actually said it. The line comes from a 19th-century poem called "Oliver's Advice" based on a "well-authenticated anecdote" associated with Cromwell

▪️ September 3 is a fateful date: Cromwell routed the Scots at Dunbar (1650). The Battle of Worcester would prove to be the final action of the English Civil Wars (1651). Cromwell's first Parliament met on 3rd September, 1654.

▪️ Cromwell died suddenly at age 59 on 3rd September 1658. He suffered from a lethal combination of malaria and typhoid fever.

- -

⚜️ Палаш Оливера Кромвеля, Англия, ок. 1650

Материалы: сталь, гравировка; серебряная проволока; дерево

Длина (общая): 96,8 см

Лезвие: 82,6×4,9 см

Рукоять: 12,9×11,7 см

Навершие: высота-5,4 см, диаметр-3,3 см.

Вес: 1405 г

Факты:

▪️ 9 августа 1655 г. Лорд-протектор Оливер Кромвель делит Англию на 11 округов

▪️ Оливер Кромвель - человек, повлиявший на ход истории Англии

▪️ Он был ключевой фигурой в судебном процессе и казни короля Карла I

▪️ Известен тем, что является единственным политическим преступником, казненным через 2 года после своей смерти. Был эксгумирован в 1661 г. и предан суду сыном покойного короля Карлом II. Посмертно осужденный за государственную измену, труп Кромвеля был повешен и обезглавлен, а его голова была пронзена 6-метровым штырем. Мумифицированная голова оставалась на крыше Вестминстерского дворца более 20 лет

▪️ В 1960 г. (через 300 лет после смерти Кромвеля) доктор Гораций Уилкинсон пожертвовал его голову колледжу Сидни Сассекс в Кембридже, альма-матер Кромвеля.

"Голова Кромвеля похоронена где-то в часовне колледжа, предположительно в банке из-под печенья" (Стюарт Орм, куратор музея Кромвеля)

▪️ Самая известная цитата Кромвеля: "Уповайте на Бога, мальчики мои, и держите порох сухим", но нет никаких доказательств того, что он действительно это сказал. Эта строка взята из стихотворения XIX в. под названием "Совет Оливера", основанного на "достоверном анекдоте", связанном с Кромвелем

▪️ 3 сентября - роковая дата Кромвеля. В этот день он одержал победу над шотландцами при Данбаре (1550), разгромил отряды Карла I в Вустере (1651). Первое заседание созданного Кромвелем парламента (1654), после чего этот день был объявлен Днем благодарения.

▪️ Умер 3 сентября 1658 г. в возрасте 59 лет от малярии и брюшного тифа

#кромвель #Cromwell #Broadsword #палаш #меч #вооружение #armsandarmor

#medieval #средневековье #middleages #history #история #arms and armor #broads and broadswords #broadsword #вооружение #меч #палаш #кромвель #ол��вер кромвель #oliver cromwell

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ltwilliammowett · 10 months

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A little Naval History Beginners Guide

Books I like to recommend because they are really well written, have a high information content and I personally work with them. This is only a small list, there are of course many more, but for a start these are good to begin with.

B. Lavery, Nelson’s Navy. The Ships, Men and Organisation. 1793-1815 New Edition (London 2012) B. Ireland, Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail. War at Sea 1756-1815 ( London 2000) N. Tracy, Nelson’s Battles. The Art of Victory in the Age of Sail (London 1996) D.Davies, A brief history of Figthing Ships (London 1996) A. Lambert, War at Sea in the Age of Sail 1650- 1850 (London 2000) G. Wells, Naval Customs and traditions (London 1930) P. Goodwin, HMS Victory, Pocket Manuel 1805 (London 2015) J. Eastland a. I. Ballantyne, HMS Victory. First Rate 1765 (London 2011) J. Bennett, Sailing into the Past. Learning from replica Ships (London 2009) M. P. Smith, Terror at Sea. True Tales of shipwrecks, cannibalism, pirates, fire at sea & otherdire disasters in the 18th& 19th centuries (Maine, 1995) J. Lowry, Fiddlers and whores. the candid memoirs of a surgeon in Nelson’s fleet, James Lowry, 1798 (London 2006) B. Lavery, Royal Tars. The lower deck of the royal navy, 875-1850 (London 2010) R. and L. Adkins, Jack Tar. Life in Nelson’s Navy (London 2008) A. Bruce, Encyclopedia of Naval History (London 1998) J. Black, Naval Power: A History of Warfare and the Sea from 1500 (London 2009) N.A. M Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain 660-1649 (London 1997) C. L. Symonds, The U.S. Navy: A Concise History (New York 2015)

https://naval-encyclopedia.com/ C. G. Davis, American Sailing Ships: Their Plans and History (University of Michigan 1984) B. Greenhill, The Evolution of the Wooden Ship (1988) R. Woodman, The History of the Ship: The Comprehensive Story of Seafaring from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1998)

Admiral W. E. Smith, The Sailor's Word-Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms (England 1867)

#naval history #books

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thebottomfromhell · 2 months

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Headcanons

Reincarnation after courtship. Demon male reader, part one [here]

Reincarnation after courtship. Demon male reader, part two [here]

Reincarnation after courtship. Human male reader, part one [Original Ask]

Reincarnation after courtship. Human male reader, part two [here]

Warnings: Manga spoilers, Predatory-animalistic reader, Yandere behavior from reader (not a real Yandere, but still), Cannibalism, canonical demon's inability to grow and move on, Polyamory (Akaza, Koyuki and you), sexual assault attemp (not from reader nor character, is stopped before anything happens), Non-Character Human Death, Implied possible character death, References sexual content, Excesive violence in training,

Reader:

You didn't manage to do everything he wanted to you to do, one of your biggest failures is finding Tamayo and not being able to kill her. You almost did, managed to rip her apart with your hands and fangs, but with that doggy brat of hers she managed to scape you and almost got you to say his name. You never found her again, you had the flavor of her flesh and blood always in your mouth, you searched for a while, but then gave up. You were not killed for failing, so it's probably not a big deal, still you have her blood on you, so you will know if she is near. You could keep searching, hunting her to death for her betrayal, but you want to spend you time in something else. In someone else.

You like to think of yourself as a good man, or at least a good lover, courting took effort, but having that very special demon, an Uppermoon no less, warming up to you and letting you be in their life is worth it. It was fine, a good life, all because he was alive. And then he wasn't. You were not on their final battle, but you felt the second both him and your beloved were gone.

G O N E

And it drives you mad, they are all still gone, only Tamayo's puppy left. You spend your days searching for him because how come both you and him get to LIVE when your Upper Moon did NOT? Now is the Twenty-first century, it's been around one hundred years but that dog hides as good as always, it doesn't help that civilizations are everytime more demanding (What do you mean papers? Camara what? How come plastic stamps now have magic money?) and you still must hide from the sun and eat humans. You never found Tamayo's dog....

But you found your lover.

Kokushibou:

The first time you met Kokushibou you were scared of him, of all the power he had, at the same time you got enamored of that fear and how regal, beautiful and graceful he was. Right now, he is the one scared of you, but still keeps that regal aura and beautiful appereance, but the fear keep his movements and posture from being graceful. He also smells so good, not as a Marechi, but as always, he's special. He has always been special.

He is training in kendo, still a samurai at heart, at the club, late night. He is working hard, harder than ever. Before, to him being the strongest was just natural, right now you can smell the greed for power with the adrenaline in his practices. But not all of his power is gone, because he finds you spying on him, when he should not have being able to detect you. He uses the katana to cut the curtains, showing you outside the window, you were not what he was expecting, with your bright eyes, fangs and claws. "Kokushibou-san." You greet him smiling and he runs away.

It's fine, you let him go. He will come back sooner or later, he always does. You have waited a lot to see him again, and you have always been patient with him, there is no reason to stop now. By the next night the curtains are replaced, but he came over daylight. You respected that he wanted to distance himself and didn't follow to his house, didn't follow him at all even if you already knew where he lives. With his brother, or whatever that being is, because the second you saw him you thought you were about to die for no reason. "Are you a lost spirit?" Kokushibou ask once he is ready to face you again. "No. At least not anymore. Not with you here." You smile, not being able to contain the need to show yojr fangs, to light up your face in his presence. He is so frail right now, you remind yourself as you move your hand forward to reach his face.

Kokushibou takes a few steps back, smelling afraid as he frowns. "My name is not Kokushibou. You have the wrong person." You tilt your head, confused. This is clearly Kokushibou, but then again, he doesn't remember being him. Should that matter, though? Being Upper Moon One was his perfected forms, the most powerful and lasting version of self, the one that survived over 300 years, from Sengoku to Meiji. "Maybe the wrong time, but ever after missing you for so long, I know it's you. Even now, in this form, I wish to remain by your side and take your hand."

You grab softly the sides of his face as you close the distance between each other, the second you touch his warm skin he paralyzes, nose inches from each other. The scent of sweat and fear you had you making a long sniff, you love this smell. He smells... special. "You are so special, Kokushibou-san. The strongest, the first ranked. Can't you feel that?" He always needed to be the number one, by his reaction, it seem that hasn't changed. Escept, he is just a human, so... he can't. That is probably why he begins to cry into you, as you hold his now more delicate body.

He let's you visit, shelter him, follow him, you both barely make up any conversation, but you learned to accept, by the time he was a demon, that words meing nothing compared to be able to hold Kokushibou, to touch him, to have him trusting you. More than once you have considered turning him into a demon again, and you would if you could promise it would go exactly like last time, but you can't. You are not the new Demon's king, you don't have that power over this precious blood. You don't even know if he will survive, and the last thing you want is for him to die again, but this time by your hands.

He still practices with the sword, and you watch him. He always starts determined, then concentrating, only for frustration and desperation to increase inside him until he has to mask them with anger. "Still not good enough!" He still doesn't point that anger on you, or anyone in particular, but you can see the focus in his eyes, smell the recentment. There is one object or person that holds all of his hatred, yet that person seems secluded and shielded from those feelings. It's weird, Kokushibou has never being the one to hold back what he thinks, specially when he doesn't like something.

Still, you stay near by, you stay by his side, wanting to hold this now frail body, a part of you wishing to cherish it, other part wanting to bite and rip. But you have always been a good partner, you have always being respectful and docile, so there aren't reasons to change now. "I am no swordsman, but I could help you train. Use the real sword and show me what you can do." And so you begin to help, and with your condition, loosing limbs and blood for the sake of his improvement seems correct, supportive. There was even a time he almost decapitate you, not that it would matter, considering he is using a normal katana, not a nichirin.

You help him train and get stronger, while he grows. Once he gets his own house you start living with him, who has not commented in your diet. He is afraid of your meals, but also... he looks that you the same way he probably looked at him, before being turned. You like this sense of power, of having your beloved belonging to you, of you being in control to keep him safe and happy. Of course, you are kept a secret from the rest of his family, but you don't mind. Kokushibou doesn't have friends and doesn't have a close relationship with his family. His... sibling visits sometimes, only to be told off.

"I don't know if it will work, so I wait until you are ready, after living as much as you must, to try and give you more power. I will give you all you want." You say as you cuddle with him in bed, sniffing his bafe skin against yous, carresing it with your teeth and tongue softly. "Kokushibou-san." He stopped fighting you with the name years ago, and now he seems more keen into accepting his demon name, his perfect name, over his human one. You can see that in his applications of weird glowing boxes he has changed to his perfected form.

"I want to beat Yoriichi, I am done with falling behind him. I want to..." he doesn't finish, he doesn't need to. You have even offered to kill YoRiIcHi for him, but he denied. "I don't want you to. I want... I just hate him so much, but I don't want you to kill him I don't want anyone to kill him." It's an odd situation, maybe he wants to kill him himself. "I want to be more than him. To leave him behind, not the other way around." Whatever the case, you will support that.

He keeps growing, only leavind for work and go to family meetings, one day even grew the courage to let you feed from him, aftwr having to see his family. "Make me numb." You agreed, you took some bites from the white and healthy skin, opening holes the drip blood into your tongue, a blood so... so sweet that it makes you moan. He also moaned that night under you. "For now you might be pray, love. But one day you will be a predator again, you will sink your teeth into me like I do for you. You will be number one again."

Years passes, until one day instead of growing stronger, he grows weaker. You can feel it in his blows, in his scent, in his taste. "I want you to take my blood now." You are afraid of what will happen, but he agrees. That night he uses his katana, the same way as you train, and manages to decapitate you. You feel proud, but also exited to see again the monster you feel in love with. The second he goes to hold your head in his arms, you bite and take advantage of the bleeding drops falling of your neck, tainting his wounds with your blood. "Y/N." He calls you, a bit afraid and in pain due the burning sensation of the demon cells taking over, consuming and replacing the mortal ones. "We'll meet again."

Douma:

As a demon you have never feared a human, you didn't even allow yourself to fear the Hashira. You wanted the Second Uppermoon, and you had to ask him first, what use would they (even now you can feel the hate in being put in the same sack as Douma) have for a coward that fears dead by an inferior race? Now that you see Douma as a human, you still fear him at the sight of his empty eyes and body. His smile is so fake, and yet you missed it so much. You missed this fear, you missed having him close.

"Hey princess, need me to take you out of this castle?" You basically purr offering your hand, and him, who wants nothing but to leave this foster home who only ever locks him up in his room to recite the sutras, accepts. It's weird how quiet he is being, but you guess he is a bit shaken by the corpses in the living room. To be fair, you were worried, you could smell Douma inside, and the second you smelled his blood you got triggered. Turns out it was a nosebleed, but he didn't seem hurt, so when you asked "it just came out of nowhere, I don't know why but I started having them in my third year in here." Maybe is because of stress, you can taste it the second you lick his blood off his face (it taste so good, like mixing warmness and life with a kiss. You better avoid becoming addicted, because he needs his blood more than you want it). Douma always hated not being able to go out, to do what he wanted, and his room doesn't even have a window (or at least not one that let's him watch outside due position facing other building and it's small size).

You take Douma over your back and take him somewhere else, you take him back home, out of the city, out of society. He holds himself tightly into you, clearly instinctly fearing to fall off at the speed you are running, faster than any human can, an so his heartbeats faster than usual. Or maybe it's the exitment of leaving all behind, the sense of bravery and adventure. It's hard to tell, specially since Douma himself could never tell, but he often ignored it or faked the best outcome, not because he cared, but because there was always others watching him. But now you are in his old santuary, this time actually being for himself.

"Let me clean this place as you rest." It's not as dirty as it could be, you have been coming back every once in a while to check it up. It was the place where you were supposed to live eternity together, you couldn't leave it behind. Even if you had to kill the cult, seriously, it was getting on your nerves. After Douma died, because you were his consort, the cult tried to replace him with you. Because you understood that, even with everything, your beloved still wanted his oart of this place, you stayed, but you didn't last two years before being done. One problem here, one complaim there, one wish here, one sob story there, you had to end it. How did Douma stand it for centuries?

No matter, you just provide like you were provided before. Douma just stays in his shrine, where his sit is comfortable enough to sleep in it. He must be tired, considering the run was a bit too long for your taste and the effort to keep his grip must have been big for a human who doesn't seem to excersize that much. He will also need food and water, now that you think about it. But what foods? And how to cook them? You never had to think of that in your life as a demon, probably neither in your time as a man, since those were the wive's chores, not yours. One can learn how to clean without messing up too badly, but the worst thing you can do to a human with food can be harmful, poisonious even.

"What do you want from me?" He asks a few hours later, when he wakes up. He knows you are not going to kill him, you would have already if you intended that, it's what he always argued when annoying him. That is a reason why he is so daring, because he is untouchable... was. "I'll try to take care of you." You are far from the nearest town, and even then, it's not one of those where humans have these magical voxes they use to tell everyone everything in less time you need to rum from one distric of Tokyo to another, how did they manage?

It doesn't matter, part of you feels guilty for secluding Douma this way. Another part? It thinks this is exactly what Douma always needed. To be free. "Let me take care of you." He begins to relax near you shortly after, most likely testing boundaries and limits. He has realized he can go outside in daylight while you can't, he has stayed under the sun the whole time it was out, even wandered around, but has not tried to run away. You take it as a good sigh, that he is just taking his freedom.

Other times he talks with you, it's mostly sharing his experiences, which are few, but for you they still count. It's weird being the one that talks more in the pair, but then again, this Douma doesn't have over 200 years to talk about. You do. You tell him about his past life, of what he used to be, the power he used to hold. It's odd, but he seems to both believe you and deny everything you say. You go to town and city when he is sleeping, getting a snack and stealing the clothes, money and other items from the humans you eat. Sometimes you get into homes for more personal things, and also get human food that is already cooked. Heat it up with fire and pot is easier than learning how to cook, specially since you can't rely on your body to know if it's good enough for Douma.

"Are you going to keep me in here forever?" He asks as he plays with a small magic box you found in a pocket, it's not the first one you have got him, but the weak things all die out after a while. "You want to leave?" You genuinely ask. This is the safest place you can think about, but you are not going to force your beloved to be caged in here. "The place is nice, but I really need more to do than just walk outside and talk with you. It's getting boring enough." You nod. "I'll take you to the nearest village tonight."

"Aren't you afraid I will be recognized as a missing person?" ... ok, he has a point. "If they do and take you away then I will go and get you again, all the times that are needed." He looks at you for a while before looking away quietly, he keeps the soft faked smile in his face all the time. "I will buy a few things, then I will try and get someone to bring me here." That becomes the rutine, Douma is out during the day and you go out during night after he tells you about his day. You make sure he gets the attention he needs.

"It's been a few years since you got me here. You have seen me in almost every way. I want to actually see you too." He asks you to eat in front of him, so you bring a living person, a young woman, remembering how much he enjoyed eating them. He didn't take his eyes off neither of you when you killes her by stepping over her head, crushing her skull, acreaming for help, trying to get Douma to intervine. He didn't. Instead, while you are eating, he asks "Can I bite you?"

You warn him of the risks of your blood, but he keeps insisting. Day after day he keeps insisting, begging, negociating, threatening, anything he can do. You decide to let him have a taste, but promise to spit it out the second blood gets in his mouth. He does, one night that your sit on his bed, giving him your back so he can bite your shoulder. He used to bite you a lot back then, but now most of those contact berely feel like a nibble. Not that you mind, it's cute, but it's still a loss. After managing to make you bleed by your neck, he spits the blood, but savors whatever he can in his mouth.

"I want to drink your blood one day, and I want you to eat me if it kills me. That way I can be forever inside of you, just like those lucky people who get to live with you for eternity." He says as he cuddles with you, resting his face in your already healed shoulder. This is so familiar, these thoughts, this ideology, this scene. "I new I didn't lose you." It's like gaining everything back. You lick Douma's skin, soft and tempting, but you only carress it softly. "Just give me a few more years."

A few more years to love him before risking to lose him again. Just a few years. He agrees. It's clear that Douma wishes to be a demon again, that he needs that power, that freedom, that link to you. "I also want a few more years to feel..." He says, hugging you, before falling asleep. You pet his back, trying to be comforting, as you fear a bit for that future. Your beloved is probably afraid too. "My princess is meant to leave the castle, don't worry about that." But it matters very little, because both of you are meant to be powerful and free, whatever consecuence included.

Akaza:

You find it adorable. Akaza always loved to take care of you, but there wasn't much he could care for since you both were demons. You didn't have chores besides cleaning your only set of clothes when they got dirty, you could hunt your own food and no matter how paranoid your husband got, you were never sick, poisoned or much less about to die. Now he has a human companion, a cute and fragile woman around his age. They smell as if the belonged to each other, why tear that apart?

You found him when you saw some teens at night comenting about a dojo and mimicking the movements, Hakai Satsu katas. You went there and started watching them, glad your Komainu is faring good, not minding that now he is her Komainu. You were not planing to show yourself, just watch his happiness was enough for you (That happiness and the love he has for her is enough for you to love her too. Koyuki, Haku calls her), but weaklings, just like he always told you, are disgusting, cowards who can't fight, so they use dirty tricks. Akaza was about to get shot by a gun in a fist fight one night you followed him into beating a gang.

"What the fuck?!" He screams as you put yourself in between the shot and your husband. It stings a little, then there is that known tickling burn sensation as the regenerating skin push the bullet off your wound. "Are you ok, my Komainu?" You look at those blue eyes, missing the gold, but still finding the wild and feral softness in there. Except this time there is disbelief, fear, cunfusion, between other things. The second the gun touches the ground, due the fear of the armed human, you remind yourself the problem.

It takes less than a minute to kill the conplete group before they could run away, but they did manage to scream. With how fast everything spreads now a days, that is bad. Authorities will come, which doesn't really matter for you, but Akaza can get in problems. So you grab him and scape. "Hey! Hey! What the fuck! Let me down!" He hits you a few times, and it did hurt a lot for an unarmed human. This is definetely Akaza, you had no doubt before, but now is comfirmed.

By the time you arrive to his home there is a trail of blood falling from your nose, the wound itself healed already, but the impact still hurted you a little. Then again, you were never half as strong as he was, but right now you have many advantages. Advantages that let him get out of this situation without harm. "Safe and sound, my dear." You say as you finally let him down. Akaza takes somes steps behind without taking his eyes off you, using his arms to push you as he adds distance. He is panting, almost sweating, frowning and making fists on each hand.

After calming down a bit, still anxious, he looks down and up to you, examining your features. "What are you?!" He almost screams angrily, not wanting to show vulnerability. That was a mistake, because his companion comes out the house asking in confusion what is happening, making him tense and even show his fear in his face. "I am someone that loves you a lot. That is why I am taking care of you now. As long as I am here, no one shall lay a finger on you and your beloved. You will both live." The young woman asks him scared about the situation, clear love and worry in your eyes.

You were never a jealous partner, you didn't have much opportunities to be jealous over Akaza against someone else, but you never thought you would be willing to share him this way, specially with such a fragil human. But she is his, and so he deserves to be hers too, because it makes him happy in a way you can't, just the same way you were able to make him happy in a way she wouldn't be able to. "I will be seeing you." And you take your distance, hiding while still watching them as she, Koyuki, runs towards Akaza, hugging him and asking him again what's going on as he relaxes into his arms.

After a few days, on weekend, you notice they step outside their home and just sit. They don't talk to each other, not even look at the other, being the hold in each other's hand the only contact and comfort they have. You notice they start looking everywhere. Are they looking for you? Curious, you test it out by jumping and landing in front of them lightly, barely making a sound. Koyuki flinches by the surprise while Akaza instinctly leans to shield her, he did that a lot with you when you fought those slayers. After a few seconds of silence they relax a bit, enough to talk. "Who are you?" She asks.

"Y/N... I'm a demon." you don't know how to answer further, their relationship makes you cautious, not enough to leave, you waited too much to just leave, but enough to not introduce yourself as Akaza's husband. "What do you want with us?" You look at Akaza stand up, again, shielding the woman, making you smile. "I want your happiness, to see you live." The silence after that becomes uncomfortable, you just stay staring each other, only leaving when you sense the sun is rising up. Even then, you leave without a word.

They leave for a period of time, you know the will come back since they haven't sold the place, and they left Koyuki's father there. Once they come back they both seem... more relaxed, comfortable. One night Koyuki leaves a plate of food outside, not the food they tend to give to strays but a proper human meal. You got tempted to eat it only for the kind gesture. You do take a bite, and it's awfull, it makes your throat and stomach tight up and chum, wanting to return the piece. You basically throw it away and some street pet starts eating from it. "Here is your plate, please don't do that again. I don't eat human food." "Oh... ok." She doesn't ask what you actually eat or what did you do with the food.

But slowly you become a part in their life, and in a year gap they let you inside the house. You decided to stay until told you overstayed your welcome, that moment never comes. You begin to talk, to help with the chores, to share a life. You only ever leave the place to eat, beaside it, you always make sure to take cara of Koyuki while she sleeps, and also make sure Akaza- who still fights the name but let's you call him "Haku" or "Komainu", like back then- doesn't get himself into something he can't handdle. Soon there are touches, and kisses.

Soon new seasons starts, and years go by. They are growing older, but haven't married each other, even if you insisted in wanted to see them married. You are still fighting to convince them to just be happy and let themselves be taken care of. You are more gentle with the beautiful snowflake that Koyuki is, but Akaza still likes to be treated roughly but kindly, both in fights and in bed. "Bite me~." That is something you can give that she can't.

One day, Akaza will grow weaker instead of stronger. Back in the days the mere thought would spiral him into insanity, but now? "We are just worried of what will happen with you once we are... older...." you look at them both, feeling something tender and warm in your chest. This is the first time you yearn to hold human life so softly, instead ot rip out flesh of it. "I will be seeing you and taking care of you. Forever." You hold them both close, comforting, making sure to not harm them.

This is the love you shared, this intensity, this feral need to keep close and protect, to kill for it... this is what makes you a demon. But maybe Akaza was meant to die a human. Is so, you will not resent it, but you won't be letting it go. They are yours, too. No matter whatever it takes, you will make sure they are loved. As long as you live.

Nakime:

Nakime takes walks at night and stays in a park near her apartment where she practices with her Biwa and compose music (she most of the time ends up throwing away the papers of her notes and compositions, it seems she doesn't like them as much as you. Better for you, as you take them from the floor and trashcan to keep them!) Everytime any sound is made you fear being thrown into the Infinity Castle, but it never happens. Right now she is not the dimensional powered demon she used to be, just a frustrated young woman. Still, you have not stopped to adore her cold and prideful attitude nor to cease the appreciation her music deserves.

You always follow her from the distance to watch her, admire her. It took you one moment to figure out how weak she actually is right now when a piece of shit trapped her into a hallway, covering her mouth with his dirty hand and trying to pull up her skirt. What else were you meant to do but throw yourself at him with your fangs at his neck. You taste the alcohol in his blood, this was once her favorite meal and now she can't even fight it off. To think the day would come where Nakime would need protection... "Are you ok, Dear Melody? Can I do anything for you?" She is scared, you don't touch her because of that, no matter how much you would like to embrace her, she is probably also afraid of you. You are now the one that holds power over her and not the other way around. That feels wrong.

The woman runs away, or she tries as she stumbles, so you catch her before she hits the ground to let her sit without harm. This instance is a reminder of how fragile humans are, and you wish you could just give her everything back. Her Blood Demon Art, her castle, her biwa, her powers... all of it. "It's ok. It's ok. I won't hurt you." You say as you take your hands off her, always showing where they are to let her calm down. Nakime doesn't try to run again as you take some steps back, going to the corpse.

You never understood how she could like to eat this rotten alive type of corpses, but after what you just saw, maybe she just had an idea of what person she just killed and eaten, always satisfied with it. You can't help but want to destroy the corpses, you were far to mer- "You were far too merciful with that bastard." She suddenly says, and after a moment of silence, you laugh. That was just what you were thinking. "Yeah, I should have ripped limb by limb." You smile as you bend to pick the body with one hand, ripping the heart with the other once the corpse is at your level.

She watches you as you take it out and bite it off, alcohol making it stinks and giving it a mixture of sour and bitter to the taste of iron, the temperature. You won't get sick eating this, but you would rather having a diet more fresh, like healthy youngsters, not this. Still, seeing the awe in her eyes as you bite off the muscle, blood splashing over you... you keep going. Once you finish the heart, you go to the lungs, not wanting to touch the digestive organs (the nastiest part when eating alcoholic), you decide to take a rip, break it with your fangs and lick the insides.

One one moment you realize she is taking notes, smiling to herself. "Another song?" Now she actually tenses. "How would you know that?" Right... you have a lot of explaining to do, don't you? That line of thought makes you a lot more self-aware of where you are. If you get caugh, the one in problem won't be you, it will he her. "I will explain it on a safer place and time, I promise. Right now we should get you home." You try to reach her, but she stands up by herself and draws back. "I can get home by myself, thank you." And she leaves.

You didn't follow her, understanding she is still very interested in keeping her space for herself. This night could have gone sour for her, but... she starts conposing music, you always hear new songs in the park. After a few weeks, you decide to get close. "I owe you some explanations. Don't I?" She doesn't even react, just caress the strings of her biwa as you talk, a very familiar scene. After you finished explaining everything, Nakime doesn't like to mess around so it's better to come clean from the start, she just stares for a while. "I find it hard to believe you, soecially since I don't... do men. But... I would like to see you do that again." And you do, you start killing men in front of her, and she gets inspiration.

You also make sure to show her all you abilities in order to have her slowly but surely adapting herself to the idea of demons, that everything you told her is true. You don't care if she isn't into men, while you can't force her to love you, you want her by your side. You want to share her silence and music, to be part of her life once again. And this suits you both, since eventually she trusts you enough to invite you to her home, and show you her work. It seems now she has some magic box where she cages her music and other are supposed to be able to listen to it in a.... Yuu-tube? Thing? Well, what matters is that she says people like her music, that she recieves magic money from it and that she is happy. And if she is happy, you are happy.

"I really love you, you know? So much I don't really care about being your husband or not. You already gave that gift in our past life. All I want is to be able to make you happy." You tell her one night, one you didn't go out hunting. Nakime doesn't seem to creave the power she had before, no matter how much you tried to make it sound appealing. One of his fourth strongest demons, it's something to be proud of. And you were always proud for her. "I just want people to see my talent and passion, and to be able to do something out of it. Hopefully make a bit of money too." That would mean to stay human. You can't understand, but you can respect it. Besides, it's not as if you would know if it would actually work.

You stay with her as her career as a musician grows in the magic boxes, the... phones and computers, you learn with time. You see her grow up, and the you see her grow old. She never married, had a few partners here and there, but in the end you were a one and only for her, even if you were not her husband. "I love you, Nakime." She never says it back, not even when she has one foot on her grave already, but she never had to. You always knew.

Gyokko:

Gyokko has always smelled like money, ceramics and the sea as a demon, or at least his smell reminded you of those things to the point you started to relate them to him. Even now, that there is also a thick smell of blood and flesh, food, he smells like money, ceramics and the sea. Is nice to see he is still an artist, you go near art exhibitions every once in a while when you get bored, it reminds you of him. And here is one piece of art of him, a ceramic with fish patterns just besides a statue of a mixture of a half dead man and a fish.

It screams Gyokko all over it, except it isn't made of real flesh, but fake materials. It's a shame that mortality has set him limits even in this part of his life. Get in during night is easier than it should be, and it's just messing with some matalic strings to be able to get inside, just one hit on the box that holds and no more moving picture camara bothering you. Once or twice you had the authorities searching for you, and it made a good meal, but it wasn't the lifestyle you wanted. Really annoying.

You wait until they take down his works down, it's sooner than expected, at least the sculture. You fail to underdtand why, but the rainy weather let's you get vlose to hear that most humans couldn't take the view of exposed organs and dead fish texture in a humanoid skinned figure. Then you hear it. "Are you really going to listen to some lousy mothers? It's their fault if their children have nightmares! Of course some brats wouldn't be able to understand real art!" It's his voice, and his smell.

You look at the direction of the voice and... he looks very different. Part of you still expected, hoped, that he would come out of one of the pots as always. That he would still be the same, even if you were aware that he had died, and the only way he had came back is to reincarnate... as a human. Gyokko used to day living human were empty canvas, that they should be grateful to be turned into something artistic, beautiful, tasteful. He would despise knowing you saw him like this, and he would hate you for not fixing it right away but...

This new blood, the one that keeps you alive... would he survive it? The transformation itself is risky, and you have not transformed a single human in your life, never saw a need to it. And it's not like he wanted his demons to run around and make more, it just happened sometimes. But... you follow Gyokko. You don't dare talking to him, just take advantage of the clouds to trail behind. You look human enough for the moment, and it's been so long. You need to reach out, to touch him, to hold him, to grab him, to take him. It's being so long but he is just there... and it takes a while, but Gyokko notices he's being followed.

"By the gods, another stalker?! Shoo! Shoo! If you are a fan or a hater I don't care! I'm not in mood of dealing with lowlives." He is so close, before you were a few steps away, now... a few breaths. So close. "What did you just call me?" He opens his eyes as you cup his face, blinking as if you would fade away with the sudden changes from light and dark. You don't. You won't. "Call me that again." He used to insult you when he was in a bad mood, and he is here. "Wha-..... What...." he starts swearing and his heart start to beat faster, clearly confused. Scared.

"Fear has never suited you, Gyokko. You are more than that. Agony and death represent the best picture, don't they?" You grab softly his hand and kiss the back of it. "Only a demon can make such a beautiful piece." You whisper against his skin, fangs carresing if after your breath. Gyokko trembles and blushes, a new glow in his eyes. After that everything is so fast, but... he keeps you around. As if you were a stray, he brinsg you home and keeps you there.

"Y/N! Help me out!" You push into his interests, show him something he called taxidermy and other arts. You teach him everything he taugh you, everything you managed to learn. Of course, at first he doesn't dare to do it with humans, too risky, specially with the current status quo, but every night you go out to feed he tells you to bring sone dead animals. Most of the time you just jump to the sea and take something, knowing Gyokko lifes sea themes. Sometimes you steal koi fishes, but everything is for the sake of art.

Then one night, when you were leaving to eat, he stopped you "Wait! Would you... bring the corpse of whatever you eat here?" You look at him for a while. He is returning, or his art at least is. Not in the dame lever as before, the new technologies and the lack of a Demon Blood Art wouldn't let it happen, but... it's a sigh that he is still there. That he has always been there, that this man is not an empty canvas, but the demon you married. And yes, you have told him everything. He has accepted it quite quickly, and he is trying to come back.

"And how does one become a demon?" He asks one day you are both locked in the house on a sunny day, curtains protecting you from the daylight. By that time you both have been acting more or less like a couple, like before. He lets you touch, grab, kiss and bite, he let's you help and take care of him where you can. "The... master's blood, his blood. You know I can't say that name, not even when he is gone." You are still afraid, after all. "So there is no way you can turn me?" He sounds dissapointed.

"I could try to give you my blood, but... I don't know if it will work, or if you will survive." You say, but soon after some seconds of silence his arms wrap around you,breaths away from the other. "Well, you said my husband always gave me what I wanted. I want to try, and if I die, I want you to make me the most sublime piece of art and expose my beauty to the world." He grins like a mad man, but... that is Gyokko. You can't help but go for a kiss, bit his lips, and brace yourself to bite yours, not because of the pain, but the consecuences...

Consecuences be damned, everything is for the sake of Gyokko's art. Everything, even your love.

#top reader #demon slayer #kny #kny x reader #upper moons #kokushibou #gyokko #akaza #douma #nakime #I made this for my own birthday #second part will be off this weekend

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