#(also it's good that I didn't chose graphic designer or something like that as a career

[the-words-we-sung]

Day 3 : dodgeball

For Simon’s Month 2024 hosted by @youngroyals-events

[nimuetheseawitch]

SGA Summer Vacation Recs

So, a few weeks ago, a friend asked for longfic recommendations to read while on vacation, and I did not really realize how many I was recommending at the time. Seemed like a good idea to make a post about it.

Time in a Bottle by astolat, 14K (not originally on my list because it was too short, but it's too perfect for a summer reading list, so I added it), McShep, Rated E, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an hour.

The Long Dark (series) by @logicgunn, 141K, McShep, Rated G-E but the first is M, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings An astronomical event causes two strangers to crash land on a remote island in the frozen Canadian north. Cue a fluffy slow burn in a survival setting.

Lord John Sheppard Versus Earth by LitGal, 61K, McShep, Rated M, Graphic Depictions of Violence Canon diverged before Jackson found Atlantis. The IOC stepped in and decided to make things more efficient. A gene testing program brought Major John Sheppard into the program earlier, but budget constraints and international treaties have kept Dr. Jackson out of the antarctic. So now John has to find his own team--and his own geek--or he's in danger of being stuck in the mountain forever as a light switch. However, as the universe changes, fate forces some things to return to proper form, and other things… they get wildly out of control. John isn't sure how he came to be Earth's enemy, but he's going to have to deal with the cards he's dealt.

Teamwork by onthewaters, 24K, McShep and others, Rated E, Graphic Depictions of Violence There is an Earth where things have turned out a little differently, and the people who go to Atlantis aren't quite the ones we know. AKA The one where Rodney is a Mountie.

The Doctor and the Sheppard by @hero-in-waiting, 70K, McShep, Rated E They've been in Pegasus for a year before Rodney is finally allowed to go off-world to meet with the mysterious leader of a group of allies against the wraith. The first meeting goes well, sending them down a path none of them could've foreseen, and leaving Rodney with thoughts of the mysterious leader with his bright eyes and dark hair.

The Hard Prayer by Rheanna, 30K, McShep, Rated M One year after the end of the world, John meets another survivor.

In Sickness and in Health by @a-storm-of-roses, 31K, McShep, Rated E "So I told a little lie, just to get you back to Atlantis. It was the only way, so try not to get too mad. I told them we were married.” When John suffers a major, life-changing injury on Earth, Rodney must pretend to be his husband to ensure his return to Atlantis. As he struggles to navigate recovery and accept his new reality, John must also come to terms with his new role as Rodney's husband and the new dynamics in their relationship. A story of healing, recovery, loss, love, and acceptance.

Enigma by sgamadison, McShep, 32K, McShep, Rated E, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings During an off-world mission, a piece of Ancient technology transports Rodney and John on a one-way trip to a deserted airfield. Working together to get back, it takes a vivid dream to make Rodney realize what's been in front of him all along.

Bridges by bussaiko, 52K, McShep, Rated E Engineer Rodney McKay went to North Carolina's Crystal Coast to help his sister design a series of bridges. He hoped to rebuild his career following a professional disaster; he didn't expect to be drawn into the small community of Athos Island, where he found friendship and perhaps something more with helicopter pilot John Sheppard. But when Rodney tries to learn more about John's past, what he discovers might tear them apart. (non-Stargate AU)

Apocalypse Rising by sian1359, 81K, McShep, Rated M, Graphic Depictions of Violence The Goa'uld are not the only ones who covet Earth.

Zen and the Art of Jumper Maintenance by Indybaggins, 39K, McShep, Rated M The one where Rodney gets sucked in and John… follows. Featuring a quirky John, Rodney in orange robes, crazy Ancient-worship, sheep milking and jumpers that aren't broken but need to be fixed anyway.

Black Helicopters (series) by whizzy, 141K, McShep, Rated T-E but the first is M, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Screw the bet. Rodney was going to prove the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Oh, and incidentally, he might just catch the United States Air Force with their pants around their ankles.

Pegasus Purgatorio by MrsHamill, 127K, McShep, Rated E, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings It is difficult to write a paradise when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse. It is obviously much easier to find inhabitants for an inferno or even a purgatorio. (Ezra Pound) Yeah, I'd say that about covers it, Ezra. John and Rodney are left behind when Atlantis (and, by extension, Pegasus) is evacuated. While returning to the Milky Way, they decide to bring a few friends along.

What A Wonderful Bunker You Would Make by ocdindeed, 50K, McShep, Rated M Summary in simple words: Rodney is recluse and John has a kid. Summary in not so simple words: Rodney McKay has given up on the world, living a simple life up on a mountain devoid of people. He likes it that way, at least he did until a kid with a full head of dark hair ambled up his dirt driveway and changed his sequestered life forever. (AU - Set during SG1 & Pre-SGA timeline.)

G******, Tramps, and Thieves* (series) by auburn, 372K, McShep and a whole lot more, Rated T-M, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, later fics Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Vala Mal Doran and her partners, renegades Jehan abd-Ba'al and Meredith McKay, hijack the Tau'ri ship Prometheus and leave the Milky Way behind in search of the Lost City of the Ancients, Atlantis.

*I censored this title due to a common racial slur

[il-predestinato]

Interview with Charles Leclerc from Sportweek (La Gazetta dello Sport): “I play the piano, I love art, I want to fly. And I dreamed of Ferrari” (published January 7, 2023).

What is fashion for you?

Charles: “A way of expressing oneself without speaking. I realized this when I started travelling all over the world, thanks to F1, visiting countries and cities I didn't know before.

“I realized that dressing well had a different meaning according to different cultures and traditions. That's when fashion really started to interest me, I would say from 2017, even though I've always liked it.”

What was the next step?

Charles: “I started attending fashion shows, then I became a testimonial for Giorgio Armani and then I came more and more into contact with this environment.”

You also take great care over the graphics of your racing helmets. Which design do you like the most?

Charles: “Probably the one used in France (2022), with the reproduction on the two halves of the photographs of my father Hervé and Jules Bianchi.”

Ferrari is red, but for your 488 Pista you chose a different colour.

Charles: “At that time I was using a matte black helmet with the Monégasque flag going from the front to the back. So I decided to order the car exactly the same. I still like it very much.”

What did you think when you saw yourself in a Ferrari suit for the first time?

Charles: “It was a very big emotion, because it was my childhood dream to get into F1 and race for the Prancing Horse, even though at that time I was not yet an official Ferrari driver (only FDA).”

Do you have any good-luck charms you don't part with?

Charles: “I had some as a kid. My grandmother always used to sew a cross inside my overalls, under the sponsors' logos, but that tradition has disappeared since she is no longer here…”

How do you express your creativity?

Charles: “Mainly through music. I play the piano and invent my own pieces. I will never be as good with a pencil at drawing.”

How do you choose the clothes you wear every day?

Charles: “There's a very classic part of me, which seeks simplicity and comfort, and another more creative part that leads me to play around with streetwear.

“I let myself be guided by the mood of the day, by how I feel, because dressing is a way of making something clear with one's image.”

Will we see a clothing line of your own like Hamilton did?

Charles: “I had started the project, but I stopped. Maybe in the future.”

Do you ever talk about fashion with Lewis Hamilton?

Charles: “Sometimes we discuss the brands we like. He really has good taste and a lot of courage to show off the strangest looks when he comes to the circuits.”

Favourite colours or colours you would never wear?

Charles: “These days I prefer grey, beige and white. I'm not a big fan of fuchsia, in the sense that I wouldn't see myself dressed all in fuchsia, but I've worn that too.”

How do you feel about walking the catwalk?

Charles: “I'm not comfortable. Too many stares on me. But I like to watch the show and observe the more unusual garments. I was at the Ferrari Style show in Milan last year and before that at Armani.”

Try describing the feeling of driving an F1 car to someone who does not know racing. Valentino Rossi, when he tested the Ferrari, said: It is faster than I thought.

Charles: “A nice definition, because it is difficult for a normal person to think about the speed of a F1 car. I always make the comparison with the Rollercoaster. It's like being up there, but keeping everything under control.”

Why are you happy racing?

Charles: “For the adrenaline and because on the track I feel free.”

Do you like motorbikes?

Charles: “I have one motorbike, customised, which I bought in Bali when I went there on a trip with my best friends. We rented it on the spot and I wanted to take it with me to Monte Carlo, even though it was a mess to get it registered to ride there.”

Why that particular motorbike?

Charles: “Because of the memories it holds. I had just arrived in F1 and I decided to take all my closest friends on holiday, for the first time outside Europe. We had a great time.”

Do you still think of getting a flying license?

Charles: “I've already had a few lessons, I'm now at 11 to 13 hours of flying, let's say I have the basics. I had to stop, I hope to start again in 2023. There is a lot of theory to study and I obviously like the practice more.”

How was the feeling?

Charles: “Excellent. I like the stall tests, because there's adrenaline, but also checking the plane in general. And to say that I've always been afraid of flying...”

What do you mean?

Charles: “Even though I've taken planes countless times in my life, I wasn't calm. Now, knowing what pilots do and all the options there are in case of unexpected events, has reassured me.”

Even today you are karting like when you were a kid. Would it be nice to discover a new Leclerc?

Charles: “I would like to help talented young people, who don't have the means, to emerge and make their dreams come true. However, it is a project that takes time and which I therefore see as possible only in the future.”

What does it mean to be the hero of so many very young people?

Charles: “Every time I come to Maranello, outside the Ferrari factory there are always kids waiting for me. In recent years, F1 has regained popularity, also thanks to Netflix. It's nice to see a child's eyes light up when we make a photo. A small gesture is enough, which does not cost effort, to give joy to others.”

Do you feel like an example to follow?

Charles: “I try to be myself, behaving well, if this can then serve as an inspiration for those who observe me, I'm happy about it.”

Translation by vetteleclerc.

[aliciavance4228]

I Hate Lore Olympus (Sorry Not Sorry)

Note: I know that "hate" is a big word and that "dislike" is more fitting. But I never thought that I would ever encounter a comic that is so bad from its very beginning, so I have all the right to use it.

I remember that back when I was around 13 I heard for the very first time about Lore Olympus. I was already into Greek Mythology back then, but I hesistated reading/watching Lore Olympus and I remember myself abandoning it exactly in the middle of episode 10.

So I'm going to talk here about every little aspect that I didn't like about it and made me willing to abandon it so far.

The Colors

Look, I know that associating each god with a specific color based either on their role or personality isn't a new idea; we already see that in Disney's Hercules. At first I was like: "That must be interesting. I mean, it’s an easy way to distinguish each one of them, right?" But then I realized that the main reason why the creator chose to do that in the first place was because she wasn't too good at drawing. There are panels in which the characters are looking normal, and others in which they don’t look like themselves. The only thing that indicates you that yes, this is [Insert Name], is purely their color.

Also, I do not like the choice of color for many characters as well. For instace, the only reason why I believe that Hades is blue and Persephone is pink is because of the "boys=blue; girls=pink" stereotype. Also, why are Zeus and Poseidon purple and green, respectively? For me, it would've made more sense if Zeus was either white or golden and if Poseidon was the blue one. For Hades I think that either black (mortuary color), purple (associated with the riches) or at least a shade of grey would've been a better choice. As for Persephone, I think that ivy, teal, liliac and indigo would've all been better options.

Oh, and... why is Minthe red? Judging by her pointy years the creator wanted to make her look like some sort of a she-devil instead of a nymph. Mint green would've been a better color choice for her.

The Art Style on its own

This is a very subjective opinion, but I don't like this way too colorful, cartoonish design. I quess I'm just way too used of Seinen and Josei, lol.

On a serious note though, back when I was 6 I literally had a fairy tale book full of graphic/explicit illustrations. Inside the "Bluebeard" chapter there was literally an image with all of Bluebeard's previous wives beheaded, tied and thrown into a pool of blood. Not a very long time ago we used to tell our kids stories about cannibalism and child abandonment (looking at you, Hansel and Gretel!), because children are capable enough to understand that life isn't just rainbows and love and that bad thing are happening too. Are you really going to tell me that a pre-teen cannot read a comic series unless it's extremely colored and looks like something made by Disney?!

Minthe

You could've made Minthe either Hades' ex or a girl who tried to seduce him while knowing that he is already in a relationship. In these cases I would understand why you would choose to villainize her and turn her into the Big Bad Guy. But the fact that she and Hades were already in a relationship and he was willing to have an affair with another woman without any hesitation justifies her anger completely, anyone would be angry if they would know that their partner is cheating on them. The choice of making Persephone the mistress instead of her and then acting as if Minthe was in fact the bitch all this time is horrible.

Persephone

I want to know:

Why does she look and act like a child? Just because she was initially an "innocent flower girl" or something like that before she was kidnapped in the original myths that doesn’t mean that she has to act straight up like an infant. This kinda reminds of some sort of a Betty Boop situation: she's basically a character with the head of a child put on the body of a grown sexy woman; which not only that makes men thirsty over her, but helps them to easily manipulate her as well.

And look, I know that Homer is partly to be blamed for this as well: he describes her as trim-ankled and buxom all the time, so in this case it's alright to criticize the poet for the amount of unnecessary fanservice. Don't take this part too seriously.

Why is she only 19 whereas Hades is 2000+? Look, I know that even in the original Greek Mythology there is a generational gap between Hades and Persephone, but you could've made her at least a few centuries older. Was it that hard?! In this comic Hades is both physically and mentally WAY older than her, which instantly makes this relationship creepier than in the original myths. What is next, making her a minor?!

Why is she this little cupcake uncapable of doing anything wrong? Give me a complex character as a protagonist, not a Mary Sue. I understand that you wanted a compassionate and emphatic Persephone, but you know that just because someone is nice that doesn’t mean that they're automatically naïve or stupid, nor that they cannot have layers, right?

Hades

Look, I know that for a significant amount of time Hades was considered the equivalent of Satan and by extension depicted as evil by the Christian Hollywood. But just because he wasn't the devil that doesn’t mean that he automatically was this innocent shy awkard cute saint that never does anything wrong and should be raised in glory. You could've at least give him a dark and dour personality: make him morbid, brooding, sarcastic, surly, insufferable... I don't know, just anything. Besides, I don't like how the narrative acts as if he has no fault at all, when it's quite obivious not only that he cheated on Minthe, but that both of them are toxic and abusive in this relationship, not only her.

Ah, and... he's a creep. He's more of a creep here than in the original Greek Myths, and he's literally kidnapping her there. It's very obivious that he likes Persephone only for her body and nothing else. Even Plato wrote: "This is the reason why Haides, who is wise, consorts with her [Persephone], because she is wise." once.

Remember that moment from episode 8 when she asks him to help her with her hair, and he not only that immediately assumes that she wants to have sex with him, but also tells her that they can do that in the kitchen but to be careful because he has loud neighbors or something like that? That was straight up disgusting in my honest opinion and not exactly something that the ultimate gentleman this narrative presents him as would say.

Demeter

I vaguely remember one moment when Demeter shows Persephone a greenhouse or something like that, which turns out to be a cage. I can't tell for the moment if it was a dream or something that actually happened, but depicting Demeter as an overbearing mother is an instant big no for me. If anyone dares to demonize her just because they ship Hades and Persephone then I invite them to sleep in my trash can, no discussion.

Aphrodite

I just want to know why is Persephone more beautiful than the Goddess of Beauty. You cannot make the Goddess of Beauty less attractive than your MC, just because all the focus is on her.

Overall, I am very glad that I didn't continue it, and that because, from what I heard, things are becoming creepier and creepier with each chapter, and the entire comic is an insult to Greek Mythology (I can tell).

[rainbowmoonstonestories]

Let Your Dreams Be Your Wings | Chapter 13

Chapters: 13/? Fandom: The Sandman (Netflix 2022, minor content from the Comics) Rating: Explicit Relationships Dream of the Endless/Morpheus x F!Reader  Characters: Dream of the Endless/Morpheus, Lucienne, Matthew the Raven, Mervyn Pumpkinhead, Hob Gadling, Death, Rose Walker, The Corinthian, other minor Sandman characters, Original Characters. Warnings: 18+ content (minors DNI), explicit sexual content, POV switching, very long chapters to read. Summary: You always dreamed of becoming a successful Fashion Designer, sharing your creations with the world and making your father proud. But with him being very ill and so many costs solely weighting on your shoulders, things didn’t go as planned and you had to take a different path instead. An interesting offer led you to the elder Alex Burgess and you were hired as a new housemaid for a very good pay. However, your kindness and outstanding empathy convinced the man to give you an additional task for a doubled compensation; gaining the trust of Dream Of the Endless, held captive into the basement for over a century. Despite the shock of finding such an ethereal entity stripped of all his clothes and contained into a confined space, you had to accept for the sake of your father. But the more you got to speak to the mysterious anthropomorphic personification who didn’t utter a single word, the more you were lost into his eyes that, conversely, seemed to contain the entire universe. A deep connection formed between the two of you, separated only by a thick layer of glass.

Little did you know, what started like a simple housemaid job was about to change your life forever.

Credits: The moon dividers were made by firefly-graphics

Tagging: @number-0-iz, @emarich7. If anyone else wants to be tagged in the next updates, let me know! I noticed that Tumblr sometimes won't let me tag everyone for some unknown reason, so if it comes to that I can at least send you a message to notify you.

You can also read this on AO3 if you feel more comfortable!

Warning: This chapter includes detailed smut right at the start.

Morpheus would go to great lengths for you, even crafting terrifying nightmares to fuel your enemy's fears. And sometimes, as you had come to learn, the ultimate outcome truly justifies the methods employed along the way.

The moment you excused yourself with Ella and Oliver, finally able to go home after a thorough interrogation from the local authorities, a whirlwind of thoughts flooded your mind. Maya's presence at the crime scene, the perplexing dilemma of providing a plausible explanation for the pendant emitting light, and the astounding fact that the fire had left you unharmed due to its influence.

Ella's doubts were evident in the unspoken questions reflected in her eyes. She allowed you to leave, refraining from asking in front of her husband, and all you could do was silently depart, by Morpheus' side, as the two of you made your way back to your place.

Although the King of Dreams could have effortlessly transported you directly to your apartment, the fresh air served as a necessary means to clear your head. He walked alongside you, finding solace in the shared silence, allowing you to tightly grip his arm for support. In his company, you chose to forgo the subway and opting instead for a longer walk, but the extended journey didn't bother you in the least. The mere presence of him next to you, without any complaints or need to hurry away, transformed that moment into something enjoyable, despite the prevailing circumstances.

The truth was, you didn't know how to feel. The incident at work had left you with an odd sense of confusion, incapable of distinguishing between shock and relief. Morpheus didn't press the matter, and for the time being, you had no inclination to talk about it. Still, the gears in your brain had already been set in motion, and you couldn't help but dwell on the possibility of Maya intentionally targeting you in the worst of ways.

Accusing her without any concrete evidence would have been a significant leap in the dark, but there were too many inexplicable factors that simply didn't add up. Was her aversion towards you so powerful that she didn't even consider the consequences of destroying her workplace, obliterating everything you had created for the company?

In order to avoid a headache, you made the decision to cast the matter aside, at least temporarily.

As you arrived at your building, you asked Morpheus to stay a little longer, and you were pleasantly surprised when he agreed with a simple yet resolute nod. Although he had been there twice before, the fact you were inviting him inside as a regular guest made him feel particularly hesitant. He focused his attention on your decorative pieces, observing everything as if it were his first visit. At times, he was simply too adorable for you to contain your infatuation.

Since you had already prepared a quick dinner at the office before the fire broke out, all you could offer Morpheus was a drink and a snack, which he politely refused, as he always did.

With your clothes and hair permeated with the strong scent of burnt plastic, you had no alternative but to hastily take a shower to eliminate the odor. Despite your reluctance to leave him alone again after making him wait while you dealt with the police, you refused to be with him in that state.

You rushed through it, washing yourself at lightning speed and barely drying your hair. When you emerged from the bathroom, feeling refreshed and clad in a soft robe, you discovered Morpheus meticulously examining the sketchbook left open on your desk. You observed him with a gentle smile forming on your lips, appreciating his beauty illuminated by the soft orange glow in your room. His long fingers delicately traced over the scattered drawings on the table, and although a part of you felt self-conscious about having your entire work on display, the sense of intimacy you felt warmed your heart.

You embraced him from behind, wrapping your arms around his form and resting your cheek against the back of his shoulder. Instead of immediately turning around, he chose to unwind under your touch, gently stroking your wrists with his thumbs. After a few moments, he rotated slowly and glanced down at you, running his fingers through your partially damp hair. The contrast between his cold hands and warm body always enticed you.

"Forgive me, I forgot to ask," you said, your hands grasping the sides of his coat. "How is Calliope? Did everything go well?”

Even though you had truly forgotten about it after the events of that night, you were starting to feel a bit restless to find out.

"It is done,” he replied calmly.

“Is she free?”

“Yes.”

"I'm glad to hear that," you responded sincerely. "I can't bear to see what my people are doing to all of you.”

"It is not your burden."

"Maybe. But it feels deeply personal to me.”

There was something else that you wanted to ask him, but you were uncertain, wondering if it would be wise to do so. As he glanced at you with patience, waiting, you could tell that he was expecting your question.

And so, it naturally came out of your lips. "Is everything okay between the two of you?”

He averted his eyes, taking a moment to process everything in his mind. "The distance between us cannot be bridged," he began. "But… we have dicussed it."

You nodded, acknowledging his response and accepting it. After all, how could it ever be easy to confront an ex-lover after such a significant amount of time, especially with a history of tragedy that had driven them apart? Even for someone like you, who had relatively straightforward and ordinary experiences, it would still be immensely difficult to encounter any of your former partners.

You let out a sigh, taking a small step back. "Thank you for accompanying me home. I kept you waiting for quite some time tonight, I’m sorry. If you need to leave, I won't hold you here.”

Once again, his lips parted but abruptly stopped, leaving his words unspoken. He expressed his inner conflict through a pout and a frown, clearly wrestling with his own thoughts and emotions.

“Do you wish for me to leave?”

Your heart sank upon hearing his vulnerability and uncertainty.

"Absolutely not," you reassured him. "To be frank, I would love nothing more than to keep you here all night. But, I understand that you have important responsibilities to attend to.”

His eyes glistened, and for a fleeting moment, you were reminded of the first night you spent together. The gentle radiance of the bedside table lamp traced the lines of his face, imprinting that memory upon you.

"I cannot stay all night, but for now, you shall have me.”

He leaned in, closing the distance between you, and tenderly brushed his forehead against yours in a familiar gesture of affection.

You shivered at the contact and asked, "Is there something on your mind?”

Your eyes met, and his desires were unmistakable. You could feel the intensity coursing through your spine like an electric current, causing every fiber of your being to quiver against him.

"Let me be with you," he pleaded, his voice low and filled with longing.

“Morpheus-”

"Please.”

You could feel his desperation and heartbreak as he had to confront his past once again. It was intertwined with your own need to be embraced in his arms, seeking solace and comfort. How could you even consider saying no, when all you wanted was to be loved by this extraordinary and awe-inspiring being who you had the honor of calling your boyfriend?

You pressed your lips against his, relishing the taste and savoring the softness of his mouth. He reciprocated immediately, his hands eagerly pulling at the sides of your bathrobe. The sleeves slipped off your shoulders, revealing a generous expanse of your skin. His lips trailed down to your neck, leaving wet kisses with each gentle peck, while his tongue sensually traced circles on your shoulder, igniting a tantalizing blend of pleasure and relaxation.

Slowly, your breasts were exposed, your nipples becoming taut with anticipation. His lips ventured downward, lavishing attention on the sensitive flesh, leaving moist circles in his wake. As you arched your back, your fingers tightened their grip on his shoulders. He sensually licked and caressed you, handling your breasts with the utmost care and tenderness. It was as if he was afraid of causing you any discomfort, his touch filled with sweetness and devotion.

He switched to the unattended side, prompting a moan of ecstasy from you. The pleasure intensified as he skillfully stimulated your nipples with his fondling, sending waves of delightful sensations straight to your core.

"May I?" he asked, his fingers securing themselves over the knot of your belt, keeping the robe together. He sought permission, waiting for your consent before proceeding.

"Yes," you granted. “I’m yours.”

The depth of your words seemed to darken his gaze, adding yet another layer of intensity to it. You couldn't help but feel a sense of quiet satisfaction as you noticed the contentment that adorned his face.

In a moment, the knot was undone, and the bathrobe opened fully, revealing your entire naked form to him. As he hungrily took in the sight of your full breasts, your stomach, the rosy flush of your clit, and the curves of your upper legs, you let the bathrobe slip from your arms, allowing it to fall gracefully onto the floor. Taking his hands in yours, you shared another sweet kiss before turning on your feet to lead him towards the edge of the bed.

"Could you undress for me?" you asked, your voice laced with a mix of arousal and shyness.

Closing your eyes, a heated blush spread across your cheeks. You heard a delicate "swoosh" sound in the air, and when you reopened them, you found him standing before you, completely bare, his pale figure unveiled in all its splendor.

Just like your first night together, his clothes had seemingly vanished in a cloud of sand, leaving no trace behind. You released a light chuckle, feeling a spark of warmth as you pressed yourself against him again. Your hands traced along his upper arms, exploring him with gentle caresses. Morpheus barely reacted, but a small grin tugged at the corners of his lips, reflecting the amusement and complicity between you.

In spite of his prideful nature, he willingly obeyed, allowing you to guide him to the mattress as you gently pushed him down onto it. You followed suit, positioning your legs on either side of his body, sitting on his lap without fully settling down.

You put your hands around the back of his neck, using it as leverage, while he kissed your collarbones and the top of your mounds. He firmly grasped your waist, holding you in place and adjusting his own posture. You could feel the undeniable hardness pressing against your inner thigh, creating a wonderful friction that intensified the passion in him. Your breath grew hot and heavy, the pulsing and clenching of your walls indicating that you were almost ready for more.

But before succumbing to the temptation, you placed a gentle and delicate kiss on his right eyebrow, bestowing a feather-like touch upon his skin. Moving lower, you brought your lips to his eyelid and the corner of his eye, lingering on his cheekbone before repeating the same pattern on the other side. Morpheus relaxed beneath you, his own breathing slowing down and becoming steady. As he savored every moment, his hands glided up and down your hips, contributing to the sensuous exchange with equal amounts of care.

As you returned to his mouth, you properly settled onto his lap, feeling his erection pressing against your bottom, bending and pulsating. You began to move in a grinding motion, back and forth, generating a spectacular friction between your sensitive nerves and his growing arousal. You were taken by waves of bliss that shook you from head to toe, intensifying as his index and middle fingers met the hood of your clitoris. He had a perfect understanding of how to please you, delivering a massage that catered to your precise preferences. It was difficult for you to restrain the impending release, as it always took him so very little to unravel you.

You let him continue for a moment longer, moaning and trembling atop him. You sneaked your hand downward to grasp his hardness in return, encasing the tip between your fingers and gently stroking it up and down with a flicking motion. He let out a contented hum for the pleasurable attention you were giving him.

Unable to hold back any longer, you brought his erection to your entrance, allowing it to partially slip inside. Morpheus unleashed a low growl, a sound that signaled his surrender as all resistance faded away. And then, he lifted himself up, effortlessly sliding himself fully inside of you.

It felt absolutely heavenly. Words couldn’t adequately express the spiritual connection you experienced, transcending the physical realm as you merged together into one. You lifted yourself up, moving slowly, only to descend again. You repeated this motion once, twice, and then even more, establishing a satisfying and sensual rhythm.

For a few minutes, his hands aided you, following your movements and meeting your pelvis halfway. Nevertheless, as soon as you quickened your pace and exerted more pressure with your thighs, he asserted his dominance by abruptly ceasing your actions and pulling away from you.

He gestured for you to recline on the mattress, where you sank into the comforting softness of the pillows. With your legs spread apart, he situated himself between them and planted kisses on your stomach, slowly descending lower and lower with the most sensual look in his eyes, ablaze with desire for you. Finally, his mouth planted a sweet peck on your pubic bone, teasingly gliding around your clit without making direct contact.

"Morpheus, what are you-"

Your heart raced in your chest as his lips closed around your pleasure center, sending a new rush of exhilarating shockwaves radiating through your body. He was relentless, his tongue licking and suckling on your clit as if savoring the most delectable feast. Despite your warnings and the gentle tug on his hair, he showed no signs of interrupting what he was doing. The unfinished business from earlier had left you on the brink of release, but he was determined to prolong his ministrations, ensuring that you received exactly what you craved.

Everything he did to you was impeccable, and your body trembled in response to his loving efforts. He enveloped your clit with his mouth, occasionally withdrawing only to have it immediately covered by his tongue once more. Again and again, with increasing speed, straight to the point of no return.

Your orgasm erupted like a fierce volcano, causing your body to convulse and tremble uncontrollably. Instinctively, you entwined your legs around his head as the final surge of euphoria subsided. You gasped heavily, desperately trying to catch your breath.

Morpheus's tongue remained firmly pressed against your clit, continuously bestowing pleasure after pleasure until the very end. Only when he was certain that you had reached the peak of ecstasy did he retreat from your core.

He climbed up, kissing on your chin, your lips, and finally your forehead.

"You're terrible," you said playfully, letting out a giggle as you embraced him and repositioned your legs around his waist.

“I am not quite finished with you, my dear,” he replied, equally amused.

Noticing his hardened member pressing against you with even greater force than before, a smile of satisfaction formed on your face. "Clearly."

Morpheus smiled slightly, his hand gliding along your side, while the other delicately encircled his arousal. The view was highly provocative and erotic, immediately awakening your senses. "Turn around for me," he murmured.

Thrilled by his request, you maneuvered and repositioned yourself on the bed, resting your stomach on the silky sheets. Taking care not to put his full weight on your back, the Endless cautiously guided the tip forward, meeting your entrance again. Feeling his hesitation, you aided by spreading your legs wider, raising your hips to create the perfect angle.

The fact that he, with his power and presence, still displayed uncertainty out of concern for your well-being was undeniably endearing. While he may struggle most of the time with controlling his negative emotions, when it came to loving you, his level of consideration surpassed the boundaries of your worlds and extended beyond the universe itself.

As he penetrated you, the immediate contact with your most sensitive spot had you on the verge of mewling, your eyes rolling back in pleasure. Morpheus established a steady pace, thrusting in and out of you with an escalating tempo. His grunts were barely audible, but their vibrations resonated in your ear, causing your heart to flutter with excitement. It didn't take much for you to feel another orgasm building inside.

His fingers intertwined with yours from behind, enveloping you in the most exquisite embrace. You kissed his knuckles, the sounds of sex filling the air, further encouraging him as you whined in response.

"So good," you whispered. "Please, don't stop.”

"I have no intention of denying you this," he said hoarsely. "You are exceptional, thoroughly prepared for me.” With a particularly forceful and powerful thrust, he made you jolt slightly upwards. "And you are mine."

His possessive declaration was the ultimate catalyst you required, and a second orgasm erupted within you, causing your clit to quiver and throb against the mattress. The wave of bliss cascaded down to your legs and rippled up your torso, your nipples reacting as if he were physically touching them.

It felt magical, powerful, and utterly intense. It was a level of intimacy that you had never encountered with anyone prior to him, and somehow, it felt so right, effortless and instinctive that you failed to perceive any of it as indecent. Just like any other private moment you spent with him.

If anything, your confidence continued to expand.

Turning your head to meet his gaze, you panted in exhaustion and moved closer to capture his lips, which he eagerly accepted to offer. He continued to thrust frantically into you, nearing his own climax, as you engaged in a passionate exchange of open-mouthed kisses, tongues entwined in a neverending tangle of love.

"Give it to me, please," you murmured. "Let it go.”

And that's exactly what he did, burying his face in the crook of your neck. His hips jerked forcefully, accompanied by the most alluring grunt that had ever resonated in your ears. His untamed hair brushed against your skin, tickling it gently, as he breathed in the refreshing scent of shampoo from your drying locks.

Taking a moment to bask in each other's presence, you soaked in the warmth that surrounded you. Somehow, Morpheus had the ability to fill even your world with enchantment and wonder, treating you as the Queen of Queens.

"I love you," you expressed. "So much that it takes my breath away.”

Your feelings were unique, unmatched, and transcending ordinary boundaries.

“And I too love you,” he replied. “I deeply cherish you.”

You let go of his hands and completed your turn, facing him fully. Your expression became serious, your smile and contentment disappearing in an instant. "You'll never leave me, right?" you asked earnestly.

Your question caught him off guard, and he needed a moment to process the fact that, for once, it was someone else begging him to stay.

"No. I will not.”

"Promise me," you pressed him, resonating with the wounds of past betrayals. "Promise me that no matter what, you won't break my heart.”

Your relationship with Morpheus had progressed in an unprecedented manner, surpassing all expectations you had when you first met him. Asking him such a question felt somewhat inappropriate, considering that you, as a mortal with a limited lifespan, were destined to grow old and eventually abandon him forever. And yet, you still craved that confirmation, the assurance that you could rely on his unwavering, devoted presence for as long as you existed.

It may have been selfish, but you couldn't imagine it any other way.

Morpheus appeared genuinely sincere, his eyes filled with unswerving convinction. "You have my word.”

With the office partially unusable, Ella invited you to come to her place to discuss matters with Oliver and assess the situation, in order to determine the next course of action. The repair costs were expected to be quite substantial, as they would involve the complete replacement of the electrical panel, two computers that were destroyed, as well as the need for various new components to repair the ones that could be salvaged. Additionally, there would be the expense of furnishing the studio anew and completely repainting its walls.

Although a portion of the apparel needed to be remade, thankfully, none of the approved works and sketches were lost in the fire. Taking everything into account, you were still on track to participate in the Fashion Show, albeit with a slight delay in progress.

Your full work activity was set to resume in the following week, despite the ongoing renovations in the studio. For a brief moment, you found yourself on the brink of expressing your suspicions about Maya, as she happened to still be present when, in theory, she had left the office over an hour before the incident. You wisely chose to keep them to yourself, opting to take a sip of the warm tea that Oliver had kindly prepared.

Now was not the right moment to address it. Or so you thought.

"I just can't understand what went wrong with the electrical system," Oliver remarked, removing his glasses and rubbing his weary eyes. "We perform checks every week, and the last one was just three days ago.”

You stared at the ripples forming in your tea, biting your tongue. ‘Not the right time,’ you repeated to yourself.

"And Y/N was in the studio working just a few minutes before. There were no issues going on there," Ella chimed in, unable to contain her own concerns.

You nodded in agreement. “Indeed. And let’s not forget, the panel was still intact when we went there to check.

“Right,” Ella confirmed.

"But if the electrical panel was fine prior to the fire, what could have caused it?" Oliver pondered aloud. “The authorities are still investigating. Apparently, they can’t rule out the possibility that someone intentionally started it. That’s ridiculous!”

Ella scoffed in disbelief. "That can't be! Nobody else was there apart from the two of us and Amy. Do we have a ghost wandering around the office or something?”

"Yeah, and I'm the Pope.”

A sudden ringing filled your ears, and your stomach clenched tightly, preventing you from taking another sip. You placed the mug on the table, took a deep breath, and interlocked your hands together, attempting to regain your composure and steady yourself.

"Guys, there's something I need to tell you," you declared, finally deciding that it was, after all, the right time for it to be revealed. "I saw Maya in front of the building the other night. I think she's the one who did it.”

The bomb had been dropped, and while you felt a surge of confidence, you were unsure about how your friends would react.

In the end, it turned out that you had set your expectations too high.

"Wait, what?" Ella frowned in confusion, her brows furrowing. "You're not falling back into that 'Maya hates me' obsession, are you?”

Your blood ran cold through your veins, and your expression turned blank. The weight of Ella's words and the implication behind them hit you like a sudden shock.

"Because right now, we have other pressing matters to attend to.”

The realization struck you hard - Ella didn't believe you. Taking a deep breath, you slumped your shoulders against the chair, preparing yourself to face the challenge ahead.

"Ella, this has nothing to do with a paranoid obsession," you asserted, your voice steady and determined. "I have valid reasons to suspect Maya, and I believe it's important for us to consider all possibilities in order to find the truth.”

"Yes, but what reason would Maya have to sabotage her own workplace?"

"I'm not inside her head. I'm just sharing with you what I witnessed."

"So you're suspecting her just because she came back? Maybe she was still nearby when it happened. There was a large crowd gathered due to the incident, after all. That would attract anyone's attention on the street.”

You rolled your eyes in frustration, fighting the urge to slam your hand against the table. "How can you be so blind? I may not have concrete proof at the moment, but can't you see that what she portrays at work is just a façade?”

“Enough!”

Oliver's voice reverberated in the room with a higher note, and when you turned your head, you noticed a look of rage on his face. It was a stark contrast to his usual composed demeanor, and it left you feeling mortified, as if you had disappointed him for the first time.

"Maya has been a part of my team for years. You, on the other hand, have only recently joined," he stated.

The potential accusation in his sentence fueled a mix of anger and hurt. "Ah, I see. So now I'm the one being suspected?”

"Of course not," he clarified, his tone softening. "I trust you, even though Ella may know you better than I do. But still, I cannot allow you to make false accusations against any of my employees.”

You clenched your fists tightly, the pressure turning your knuckles white. "I understand," you said through gritted teeth. "As a new recruit, I suppose my opinions hold little weight in this, or any other matter.”

Oliver sighed heavily. "I'm not saying that your opinion doesn't matter. But I find it difficult to believe that Maya, someone who has been a dedicated member of our team, would go to such lengths to harm you or anyone else. This incident has affected the entire company, including Ella. We must consider all possibilities with care and not jump to conclusions."

You completely understood his point of view, but you hoped that they would at least give you the benefit of the doubt.

"Y/N, I haven't forgotten that Ella is safe because of you," he added. "I appreciate your willingness to protect us. I'm just asking for a bit more patience and understanding as we navigate through this.”

As you glanced back at your friend, you noticed her staring down at her hands in clear embarrassment, caught in the middle of the tense exchange. It felt as though both she and Oliver were cornering you, disregarding your warnings based on their perceived trustworthiness of Maya and the company as a whole.

You didn't expect your confession to be taken lightly, but you had hoped that the years of friendship you shared with Ella would have brought a deeper understanding and insight into your concerns.

"Do you remember the times I mentioned having this strange 'gut feeling' back in high school?" you asked her with hope and apprehension.

Ella immediately looked up, curiosity and recognition flickering in her eyes. “I do, yes.”

"Great. And how many times was I wrong about it?”

She opened her mouth, realization crossing her face as the memories came flooding back. “Uhm… zero.”

"Let's suppose you're right, let's say that hypothetically she was nearby and came to investigate. Did it occur to you that she didn't even come close to find out what was truly happening?” You insisted. “I saw her walking away. If that isn't suspicious enough, I don't know what is.”

They were left speechless, taken aback by your final response without knowing how to react.

You stared at the couple with a stern gaze, pushing the mug forward on the table. The last thing you wanted was to exacerbate the drama in their house, as their personal interpretation of the incident clearly contradicted yours, no matter what you had to say.

"Thanks for the tea," you said curtly, standing up from the chair without saying another word. The tension in the room had reached its breaking point, and you felt the need to remove yourself from it.

"Y/N, wait a second!"

Ella called out urgently, but you didn't pause or turn around to hear her excuses. Determined to create distance between yourself and your childhood friend, you walked briskly to the door, firmly closing it behind you and disregarding her pleas. The sound of your heels clicking on the polished tiles resonated as you descended the stairs, each step reflecting your irritation.

With the possibility that Maya could effectively be the culprit, you knew you had a wild card at your disposal - Morpheus. Intent on uncovering the truth and bringing justice to light, you embarked on this fresh endeavor with a renewed purpose.

The argument with Ella and Oliver had left you emotionally depleted, and a part of you had started to question whether you had acted impulsively or not. From their perspective, it was undoubtedly difficult to believe that someone who had only been working with them for a short time could have a better understanding of a team member than they ever did. Given the situation, it was natural for the couple to support Maya and vigorously defend her against everything you had disclosed.

You trudged to your apartment building, your feet heavy, sighing deeply to yourself and contemplating your next move. Considering Oliver's unwillingness to accept your worries, conducting your own investigation seemed like the most reasonable option at hand.

Yet, a part of you couldn't help but wonder: could they be right? Had you unfairly judged Maya solely based on her jealousy, without considering the possibility that she could have coincidentally been present in the vicinity when the fire broke out, and left out of shock?

Once again, your intuition affirmed that you were not imagining things or creating illusions. You always perceived an unsettling feeling about the way she constantly stared at you, reminiscent of a villain scheming for revenge.

Just as you were about to reach into your bag to retrieve the keys, a gentle meow echoed through the street, immediately grabbing your attention and causing you to slow down. A few feet away, you noticed a mesmerizing black cat staring at you, its eyes sparkling in the darkness. Its fur was incredibly sleek and shiny, resembling silk.

With a cautious smile, you approached the animal slowly and crouched down. The cat maintained complete stillness, calmly seated before you. Despite its non-stray appearance, there was no visible collar around its neck or any form of identification.

"Hey there. Where did you come from?”

The cat purred softly, rising onto all fours and slinking closer to you.

"I'm sorry, I don't have any food with me.”

The feline creature remained composed, appearing at ease in your presence. Its eyes, a captivating shade of light blue, immediately evoked thoughts of someone else.

It was peculiar, but the longer you gazed into those orbs, the stronger your conviction grew that they were far from ordinary. There was an undeniable aura of enchanting power coming from them, something that could only be attributed to a particular being.

For a moment, you dismissed it as an unlikely theory, but the energy radiating from the cat felt oddly familiar, causing you to instinctively utter the name of The Endless.

“Morpheus…?”

The gentle glow emanating from the Moonstone was all the confirmation you needed. The cat brushed its fur against your leg and walked past you, its shadow casting a shape on the ground before gradually transforming into something different. It became larger and taller, eventually taking the form of a man whom you knew very well.

Nothing could possibly surprise you anymore. A wide grin spread across your lips as you stood, the imposing black figure standing right behind you.

"Nice trick," you uttered, pivoting on your heels.

"You are a keen observer," he remarked with a touch of astonishment.

"I would recognize those eyes anywhere."

He offered a faint smile, but it faded as he sensed something unsettling in you.

"My love, what is troubling you?”

The fact that he could perceive your emotions even when they were not outwardly displayed was truly extraordinary.

And so, you recounted it all. “Well, I attempted to discuss my suspects with my friend and her husband, but they chose to label me as nothing more than an obsessive paranoid.”

"Y/N, I extended my offer of assistance. What is it that you wish for me to do?"

Even though you had regarded him as your secret weapon, now that he stood before you, you were hesitant about it. "Are you certain you want to proceed with this? I don't want you to feel like I’m using you for my own benefit.”

Morpheus appeared puzzled, unable to grasp the reason behind your sudden fear. “I assure you, that is not what I think of you.”

"But... it would be unfair for me to take advantage of your power even more than I already have."

“You did no such thing.”

As you pressed your lips together, you found yourself at a loss for words, unsure of what else to say.

“Y/N, someone has attempted to cause you harm. I do not need any other reason to do what you ask.”

You were deeply touched by the protectiveness he exhibited towards you, and you couldn't bring yourself to turn down his plea for support. With a bright smile returning to your lips, you embraced him, wrapping your arms around his neck and letting them rest on his shoulders.

"I have this colleague, Maya Davies, who has been harboring a grudge against me ever since the day of my interview. I believe that she was the one starting the fire, but without solid evidence, I am unable to make a formal accusation.”

Morpheus nodded, his hands gently encircling your waist.

"I wouldn't even know how to prove it, so I was thinking... is there any way you could, I don’t know, persuade her to voluntarily confess her crime, maybe?”

"My love, as the King of Dreams... and Nightmares," he said, emphasizing the last word. "There is nothing I cannot do to 'inspire' mortals.”

You had never been one to seek vengeance, so the fact that you were deriving pleasure from the idea of him unleashing his darkest powers to frighten Maya made you question your own character and become skeptical. However, not only were you endangered by the fire (largely due to your reckless actions), but Ella was also put at risk.

And so, you agreed, expressing your gratitude with a light kiss on his lips.

The music blasted at its loudest, drowning out any other sounds. Despite the overwhelming noise, Maya and the others on the dancefloor remained unfazed. The club overflowed with lively people, bouncing, twirling, and thoroughly enjoying the moment. Maya, too, let go of all her tension and anxiety, releasing them with each graceful wave of her body.

She threw herself into the performance with a boundless energy, exerting all the force she could muster in her impromptu choreography. Yet, despite the intensity she was infusing into her dance, she appeared completely unaffected and didn't break a sweat.

And then, her gaze landed on him. That enigmatic figure dressed in black stood just a few feet away, his long coat skimming the floor. His piercing stare held an intensity she had never seen before, his eyes enthralling and luminous. His dark hair appeared as if someone had just run their fingers through it.

She vividly recalled that moment when she was at the club with her colleagues, and her eyes locked onto him for the first time as he strolled leisurely through the crowd. He was stunningly handsome, fitting the image of the man she had always envisioned for herself. Overwhelmed by a surge of admiration, she couldn't resist taking a bold step forward, mustering the courage to ask him to dance and ensnare him in her charm.

But before she could even approach the man who appeared to be the personification of her deepest desires and fantasies, she was hit with a cruel twist of fate. The universe played a maddening trick on her, revealing that he was already in a relationship with none other than you.

You. The very person who had not only snatched away the job she had coveted for five years, but also seemed to have effortlessly secured it without undergoing a proper trial period. She was Isaac's right-hand person, possessing far more experience than you could ever accumulate. She had undeniable talent and excelled at her work, and yet, Oliver had opted to assign the position to her wife's old friend rather than choosing her.

It was infuriating, disheartening, and incredibly demotivating. Not only had you marginalized her, restricting her to tasks that were beneath her abilities, but you had also managed to find the perfect boyfriend, a partner she could never aspire to have.

She constantly grappled with finding someone who was sincerely captivated by more than just her physical appearance and beautiful face. She yearned for a partner who shared her outlook, didn't see black as a negative, melancholic color, and could embrace her distinct, goth-like style.

This man standing before her embodied everything she wanted, and the fact that she was hindered from getting close to him, once again due to your interference, pushed her to the edge of rage.

She harbored a deep resentment towards you. She needed to possess what you had. She hoped you would step aside and surrender what was rightfully hers.

And so she smiled enticingly at the man, using her long nails to beckon him towards her. He appeared to respond, making his way to her and coming to a stop just inches away from her face. She ceased her dancing, delicately running her fingers along the fabric of his coat. He remained motionless, his gaze fixed intently on hers, not even blinking.

"I was hoping to see you again," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the strangely distant and faint music. "I had no idea you were Y/N's boyfriend. I wanted to invite you for a dance."

He didn't respond, but she was intrigued by his enigmatic aura.

"I wonder what you even see in her. She can be so irritating, always putting on a fake smile and pretending to be innocent," she told him aloud, her inquisitiveness tinged with a touch of disdain.

As she noticed his expression getting cold, she realized that perhaps she should have kept that thought to herself. She felt a complete lack of inhibition, as if all restraint had been cast aside.

"If only it could be me," she confessed, her hands gliding along his chest before enveloping his neck in a tight embrace. "I wish I could have it all."

She parted her crimson lips, attempting to initiate a kiss that held the promise of something more. The man made no move to reciprocate, keeping his hands firmly at his sides, as if her very presence repulsed him.

And then, he spoke. His voice reverberated like an echo, booming and commanding, resonating in her and filling the space surrounding them.

"How far are you willing to go to attain your desires?”

It wasn't a question posed out of mere curiosity. If anything, it had an ominous warning, instilling a sense of terror.

“I… what do you mean…?”

Maya quickly pulled away from him, allowing her arms to drop before she instinctively crossed them, hugging her own upper body in a protective gesture.

“Do you understand the damage your actions could have caused?”

Everything around her plunged into darkness, as if the world had vanished in a puff of smoke. The people in the club and the music disappeared, leaving only the two of them illuminated by a solitary spotlight.

“My actions…? I…..”

"You do know.”

She understood exactly what he was referring to. Deep down, she had been evading the truth, trying to bury it and push it away for the past few days. It was a reality she had contributed to creating, and one she wasn't prepared to meet face to face.

“Please, no…”

"Those women could have endured severe injuries at your hands. Or worse,” he stated with anger and accusation.

She trembled like a leaf, her body quivering uncontrollably. She sank to her knees on the cold floor, her curly hair cascading in front of her eyes, partially obscuring her view.

“I didn’t mean to!”

He began to pace in a slow, menacing circle around her, exuding threat and intimidation. “Perhaps you did not, but the truth of what you’ve done is engraved into your mind.”

She shook her head vigorously. "I didn't know... I didn't think it would... that they…." Her voice trailed off, filled with regret and disbelief. "This was supposed to be Y/N's breakthrough collection. With everything destroyed, she couldn't have participated in the Fashion Show under her own name. We have other pieces that can be showcased, and I have countless projects that I've tried to present to Oliver repeatedly.”

Her nails pierced through the skin of her palms, but she couldn't feel a thing.

“Why couldn't it have been me? Why did he choose to overlook all my efforts?!" She screamed in frustration. “I couldn't let her ruin everything I've worked tirelessly to achieve. I never intended to harm her, I swear! I had no idea they would throw themselves into the fire just to save a pen drive and a few garments!”

Tears streamed down her cheeks, cascading to the floor and pooling into a strangely large puddle. The reflection in the water mirrored her profound distress and heartache.

"You must confess your mistake," he commanded. "Unless you wish to be haunted by your nethermost nightmares.”

“But… I can’t! If I do, I will lose it all!”

Somehow, he appeared to have grown significantly taller, his presence commanding and imposing. "You offer nothing but excuses in an attempt to justify your wrongdoing. You have chosen to walk a dark path in search of a light that will not come to you, not in this way.”

She sobbed uncontrollably, her voice trembling and broken as tears continued to stream down her face. The puddle on the floor grew larger with each passing moment, reflecting a horrifying distortion of herself. In the reflection, she saw a monstrous depiction, with decaying, melting skin that peeled away in patches. Frantically, she touched her face, moving her hands up and down, screaming in terror and gasping for breath.

"So be it," he declared with a somber tone. "If it is darkness that you want, then you shall have it in abundance," the warning was made unmistakably clear as the puddle transformed from salty water to thick, crimson blood, emphasizing the gravity of the consequences.

When she looked up, the man appeared to be gone, leaving her alone in an unfamiliar place. All sources of light had been extinguished, plunging her into the shadows.

Maya awoke with the most severe tachycardia she had ever suffered from, her heart racing uncontrollably. The feeling of emptiness tightened inside her, saturating her insides with a frigid void that she had no idea how to alleviate.

Your peaceful immersion in a captivating new book was abruptly shattered by the jarring sound of the doorbell. Annoyed and displeased, you emitted a grunt of frustration before reluctantly abandoning the comfort of the couch, dragging your feet heavily. As you opened the door, your eyebrow instinctively arched in surprise at the sight of Ella standing before you. Her appearance was disheveled and worn-out, leaving you concerned for her well-being. Pressing her lips together, she mustered a feeble "hi" that barely escaped her lips, conveying her exhaustion and distress.

You instinctively crossed your arms, your gaze darting between Ella and the pink box she held delicately in her hands. It was a sight to behold, with a beautiful red ribbon adorning its top and hand-painted hearts scattered across the container. It exuded an air of intricacy and affection.

"May I present you with an olive branch?" Ella spoke nervously, holding out the box that emitted a delightful aroma of something incredibly sweet. "I made your favorite cookies as a gesture of peace.”

“Are you trying to bribe me? Because it's definitely working,” you replied with a smile.

Your comment effortlessly broke the tension that was holding Ella captive, prompting a delightful chuckle out of her. She shook her head, a glimmer of relief and gratitude shining in her eyes. "It's more of a way for me to apologize. I have been such a terrible friend."

"Don't say that.”

"But it's true! You tried to warn me about something important, and I completely disregarded you. After knowing you for so long, how could I even entertain the thought that you were paranoid? I should have known better than that!”

As you noticed her teary eyes, your heart softened, and any lingering anger dissipated. With a gesture of forgiveness, you stepped aside, granting her permission to enter. "Would you like to come in, or would you rather stay out here playing the self-loathing game?"

She nodded enthusiastically, placing the box into your hands and gently closing the door behind her. Taking a moment to survey your space, she meticulously examined the furniture design and the personal touch you had incorporated into the room. "What a nice place. It looks so...”

“Cozy?”

"I was about to say it is so 'you', but yes, cozy works too."

You watched her attentively as she navigated through the apartment, hesitantly settling down on the couch. Placing the box of cookies on the kitchen table, you couldn't help but notice her nervousness reflected in her movements and audible sighs. There was more to her visit than a simple apology; something weighed heavily on her mind.

That "something" was likely the very thing you had been consciously avoiding in her presence. Nevertheless, you took a seat next to her on the couch, leaning against the back cushions.

"Y/N, I'm serious. I really need to apologize to you. You were right... about the whole thing," Ella said earnestly.

"Are you talking about Maya?" you asked with apprehension and curiosity.

"Yes, she actually came to us this morning. It was quite unexpected, and she looked so pale that I thought she had fallen ill.”

Immediately, you straightened up, tilting your head slightly to the side. “What did she want?”

Ella's words hung in the air, heavy with revelation. "She admitted it. All of it. She told us about the fire, about how she pretended to leave by taking advantage of Amy's distraction. In reality, she was waiting for the right moment to strike.”

Your eyes flickered with realization as you contemplated the situation. "So, that noise I heard when I left the studio...”

"You probably heard her bumping against one of the chairs. It seems that she wasn't thinking straight and acted on impulse. She was certain that we would find out before she could set her plan into motion. Go figure.”

You instinctively massaged your temple, attempting to alleviate the growing stress. “Did she tell you that?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “She told us everything we wanted to know, and more.”

"Even the reason?”

As you listened intently to Ella's account, the full extent of Maya's motives began to unfold. She had been driven by an all-consuming urge to sabotage your work, hoping to dismantle it and compel the team to start over with her own projects that Oliver had previously discarded. Her confession painted a picture of jealousy and resentment, adding another layer of complexity to the situation.

"This is absurd," you blurted out, your voice filled with a mix of disbelief and frustration. "I can understand her resentment towards me, but what was she even thinking? Starting a fire in the studio could have not only destroyed the entire place, but also endangered the lives of those still inside.”

Ella nodded in agreement, her expression reflecting a mix of understanding and disappointment. "I know," she replied solemnly. "She was so blinded by her fury that she didn't consider the potential damages. She believed that we would discover the fire quickly enough and that the Rescue Service would handle the situation in time. She wasn’t expecting it to spread the way it did.”

“It was a reckless and dangerous gamble,” you concluded. "She could have become trapped inside and injured herself in the process.”

“In a way, she did. She was limping.”

“What are you going to do?”

Ella clenched the fabric of her trousers tightly, a visible display of her inner turmoil. With Oliver taking the lead and contemplating involving the police, her thoughts were muddling her judgment and clarity, leaving her feeling inefficient. The trust and stability she once had seemed to crumble, leaving her in a state of emotional upheaval. The trauma she experienced was exacerbated by the realization of betrayal and deceit.

Wrapping an arm around her shoulder, you provided a source of support as she rested her head against yours. While you were determined to express your gratitude to Morpheus later, a pang of guilt washed over you for subjecting your friend to a similar ordeal.

It was a necessary action that had to be taken for the sake of the company, but was it truly the right approach?

"We are also to blame. If we had listened to her, if we had given her a chance...”

"Ella, don't go there. What you did doesn't justify any of that. It’s insane.”

Ella sniffled and wiped away a tear before it could roll down her cheek. As she looked at you, she swallowed her pain and allowed the right words to form in her head. There was so much going on inside her, so many things she couldn't easily put together on her own.

It was only a matter of time before she would reach the part you had hoped she would forget.

"Y/N, there's something I want to ask, and I need you to be completely honest with me.”

The moment had arrived, catching you completely unprepared. At that juncture, however, there was no way to avoid it.

“Okay.”

Ella glanced down, fidgeting with her fingers in her lap. "When the electrical panel exploded, you were right there. The fire engulfed you, and I watched, fearing that you would emerge as a charred corpse.”

You couldn't even come up with a plausible lie. There was no way to divert her attention from what she had witnessed.

"I was so terrified... I thought I had lost you in that moment. But when the flames around you died down, you were completely unharmed. No scratches, no scars, even your clothes were untouched.”

Her gaze dropped to the Moonstone resting on your collarbones, its blue flashes swirling across the surface as you breathed. A faint rainbow-like streak seemed to blend with it.

"I saw your necklace glowing. I mean, it was actually emitting a blue light that seemed to illuminate the dilapidated room. At first, I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me from the shock, but then it happened again when you pulled me out.”

You allowed her to continue, remaining silent without saying a single word.

"The flames surrounded us, but somehow... they didn't even reach us.”

“Ella, I-”

"Please, tell me what's happening. Anything will do, just assure me that I'm not going crazy.”

What were you supposed to say? How could you navigate the situation without compromising Morpheus and his identity?

“You’re not going crazy,” you confirmed.

"Okay, that's something," she muttered. "So what, are you some kind of witch? That would at least explain your supposed sixth sense.”

“I’m not a witch. I’m human, Ella. Just like you.”

She appeared to struggle with believing it. "What is that necklace, then? You told me it was a gift from your boyfriend. Is that true?”

You had to approach things with careful consideration, uncertain of what Morpheus wanted you to disclose or keep hidden.

"Ella, please listen to me. I understand that you're confused, but there are certain matters that I can't easily discuss.”

She clicked her tongue. "Come on Y/N, it's me! I promise I won't judge, and I won't breathe a word to anyone. Not even to Oliver if you want to keep this between us.”

Could you really ask her to keep such a significant truth from her husband? While it might not be an outright harmful lie, you couldn't allow her to hide anything from the man she loved. It didn’t feel fair.

"Maybe one day I'll tell you. But for now, I need to ask you to trust me. Please, give me some time.”

She wasn't happy about it, but eventually, she accepted your terms and let the subject go. "If you believe it's for the best, I won’t insist. Regardless of whether you're a witch or not, I owe you my life.”

You playfully bumped your forearm against hers, just like you used to do when you were younger. She took your hands and gave them a gentle squeeze, and together, you both reveled in the joy of rediscovering your sisterly bond.

I wish you all a Happy New Year! May 2024 make all your dreams come true. I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the support I'm receiving since the end of 2022. See you in January with Chapter 14!

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 (currently reading) Go to Chapter 14 ->

[snek-panini]

It's been a few weeks since I had new books to share, but I finally got photos taken of the newest ones so today's the day. Here, have a book:

This is Across Tides and Currents, a Good Omens siren AU by Sodium_Azide and @doorwaytoparadise (hi. I hope I tagged you right). My favorite thing about this AU is that, at its heart, it's about learning to communicate with someone who is so different from you that you can't even physically speak each other's language, and yet you've still got so much common ground that you find a way. It's way lighter and more fun than that description makes it sound, though, so go read it if that's your thing.

The cover on this is Lineco book cloth, scrapbook paper printed to look like leather, and blue foil htv. The foil was actually a nightmare to do. The first time I applied it, it wouldn't stick no matter what I did, and the bits that did stick peeled off as soon as I touched them. I had to peel them up very carefully, cut a new image, and try again. Thankfully it worked the second time but I don't know that I'll be using the foil type again unless there's no other way to get the color I want. The non-foil metallic was so much easier to work with.

More book photos under the cut!

I went with a coptic bind for this one for a few reasons. The first was that I wanted to try one on a quarto-size book to see if I could. I also wanted to try the mitered corners thing I did when I bound Strange Moons, and see if I could have the same effect on the interior. (That bit didn't work out so well; the front is fine but I mismeasured the inside and the lines didn't match up, so I trimmed some pieces of cardstock to cover that up. I really like the layered look though, so that's fine. It's quirky.) The third reason is that not long before I decided to bind this one, the authors published a new chapter after two years of no updates. That's the best possible reason to have to change plans, and the glueless bind means that if they ever do that again I can just redo the stitching to add more pages. Win-win.

Getting whimsical with title pages here. This took way longer than I thought it would, probably because I don't like graphic design and I did it in Word where I do the rest of my typesetting. Usually what I do is grab an image and put text around it or on top of it and then just play with fonts and sizes, but this time I drew the lines and then made the text follow them. This is the first time I've used the word art feature since...probably 2009? I'd forgotten how. I have no doubt there are better ways to do this but if I'd had to learn a new program at that point I'd have quit. And I do think it was worth it--it's cute and fun and looks about how I imagined it.

Couple of photos of the inside. Sorry the first one's blurry, I had someone trying to get my attention when I took these. The section break image came from rawpixel, I just made it gray instead of black so it's more subtle. The fic has very nice illustrations that I specifically got the artist's permission to print and then I failed to get any photos of them when I did my little photo shoot. They look very nice, though. I swear.

The last image is something I've started including in my latest books. I'm calling them "A Note from the Bookbinder" and it's basically just me talking about why I chose that story, the experience of reading it for the first time, stuff that's going on in the fandom, stuff about the process like the new chapter coming out as I was preparing to print. It's kind of...like marginalia? Part of fanbinding is preservation and that's linked to archival work, and something I know archivists love is marginalia and diaries. I don't like writing in my books and I've never found any fun in journaling, but sometimes that kind of context is important so I'm trying to add it. Someday, decades from now, I may not remember all the details, so I'm trying to preserve them. IDK, this got philosophical on me. Go read about mermaids now. Promise it's a good time.

[dominus-discordiae]

Marinette's Rave'N Dress – Marinette Addams Au

Once the goth girl was gone, Marinette giggled and skipped over to her closet where she hid her special project. Perhaps it didn't fit the generally accepted white theme, but she doubted a white dress would go well with Wednesday's dress. She also wanted to show off her skills, and there was definitely something to be proud of.

It was a wonderful black dress that combined Western fashion with traditional Chinese clothing in a way that is difficult to find in the best designers. The bottom of the dress was made to reveal the wearer's calves and one of the spare garters from the front, but at the back it formed a kind of tail that trailed slightly along the ground. The top of the dress resembled a traditional qipao and was made to cover the neckline, which had an image of a raven embroidered with silver thread. The whole outfit was complemented by a long scarf, covering the shoulders and reminiscent of wings. Marinette planned to add her typical signature to the scarf and prepare a special pin to hold it on, but she decided that it could wait for another occasion.

She chose simple and elegant black shoes with the dress, with a low and massive heel, which ensured good grip on the ground and could even be worn for running, which Marinette learned to appreciate as a Parisian superhero.

Once she was dressed, she quickly grabbed her makeup kit and started powdering her face. On a daily basis, she didn't like the time-consuming task of applying makeup, but she knew from overhearing conversations that Rave'N was definitely an occasion worth the effort. When her face was practically white, as is required in the traditional canon of Asian beauty, she started applying blush and managed to stop herself at the last moment. She decided to skip this part, deciding that deathly pale skin without the slightest trace of red would match her partner better than pink, vibrant blushes. She chose the darkest shade of lipstick she had, a burgundy shade of purple, and applied it to her lips, giving them a shade that contrasted quite strongly with the rest of her face. She took her hair out of its braids and after brushing it, decided to leave it loose.

Here is a representation of what Marinette will wear at Rave'N. It was made by me based on work "borrowed" from @zoe-oneesama. Yes, this is an edit because I can't really draw well. If the author of the original work so requests, the graphic will be removed.

[enchantedanimal]

first off: i saw your mothman coaster art and it's very cool :D

second off: you mentioned it was for a class you're taking? is that part of like a larger major for attraction design? i have a family member who has always been interested in that kind of thing and i didn't know there was something like that out there!

Tysm!!

In short: Yes, it's what I'm studying! People's reactions when I tell them are so funny bc no one has heard of it

As for a better explanation, I'll try my best to keep it from being horribly lengthy but its kinda complicated rn so bear with me (I also do not mind answering more questions about it if I know the answer)

So, my major is technically called Computer Graphics Technology/CGT, which is a digital design based major that has multiple things you can choose to concentrate in, kinda like a major within a major! I chose to concentrate in Themed Attraction Design (sometimes I just say that I'm majoring in that bc CGT tends to go over people's heads more), which is unique from the other concentrations in that it has a minor and a certificate if you don't want to take the whole CGT major. You also don't have to be into illustration/concept art- that's the role I've fallen into, but just in my group for this project we also have modelers, story writers, engineers, graphic designers, etc! They'll push you but let you work to your strengths.

I chose IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) bc it's one of the very few colleges that offer it! However like I said things are weird rn bc IUPUI is splitting itself into the two separate colleges after this semester (we're literally going through an academic divorce ✌️😞) so I'm on a teach-out plan of study which is likely different than students starting fall 24' since it'll be under Purdue Polytechnic and yada yada all that fun and confusing stuff. With the many changes, Purdue should still be keeping TAD as an option.

BUT ANYWAYS from my experience so far it's really interesting! You get a good amount of exposure to the themed attraction industry, such as yearly trips down to Florida for the IAAPA convention, WDW (we took some Imagination campus classes), and Universal in November (I went last year, it was really fun), as well as getting to listen and talk to industry professionals such as imagineers and ppl at universal creative (as well as museums, zoos, etc). It's definitely unique and going to theme parks with the excuse that it's for education is a bonus lol

[k00289234]

Graphic Design Workshop

Monday 22/01/24

On Monday I started the Graphic Design Discipline. It started with an introduction to the principles of design, which are alignment, repetition, contrast, hierarchy and balance. I found the presentation really interesting especially the demonstrations of how people will look at things in a specific order depending on size and placement.

We were then told to create designs using only squares with six expressive words; rhythm, movement, tension, chaos, order, staccato.

We then measured 6 squares onto a larger page that were 150mmx150mm. We cut out a load of 25mmx25mm black squares to create our designs.

After that we made a similar sheet but with 8 sections and were allowed to use circles, triangles and lines as well as squares. I really enjoyed this and found it a lot less limiting than the squares. We had to add two of our own words along with the original six so I chose 'power' and 'repeat' as they went with my project.

When we were finished those we went to the mac lab to learn about Adobe Illustrator. I found it difficult to listen to the instructions and follow along at the same time so I just watched for a lot of it. We were told to create one of our designs using the programme and I went with my movement design.

Tuesday 23/01/24

On Tuesday Sharon expanded on our previous work and wanted us to create a pattern from our project idea. She didn't want us to do anything very literal. She suggested to me that the pattern made by hand movements could be something I could work with which I thought was a really good idea. I went with the imaginary pattern your fingertips leave on a surface when you drum your fingers repeatedly.

We stared by making a brainstorm of different words to connect to the project. We then had to choose three words out of those to incorporate.

We made 4 squares of pattern suggestions and got everyone else to vote on what we should do. Mine was messy and probably confusing as I didn't think anyone besides myself would have to interpret it.

The top one on the bottom right and the ones in the top right ended up being the most popular. I then developed both of them more on a separate sheet to see which one I preferred. I ended up liking the one with the squiggly lines more. I liked how not only did it incorporate the imaginary fingerprints left from drumming your fingers but the lines also sort of show the way your fingers go up and down in the same rhythm.

I then got the coloured card from Sharon and started making the bigger version. I ended up only doing a red squiggly line and not a green one on top as I didn't have a lot of room for it or a lot of time.

I drew a squiggly line on tracing paper to get it right before drawing onto the red card. I folded the card over before I cut it out to make two identical red lines to put on the top and the bottom.

I then traced the oval shaped "fingertips" onto the green card. I added a little cutout inside them as well to make them more interesting.

I added it all together to make the final pattern.

When I glued it together I messed up the pattern a bit with the green part which I noticed too late. It's annoying because I spent so much time on it but hopefully I won't make that mistake again.

[dogshit-enchantment]

Just finished Four Swords Adventures and man. I'm glad I finally got the chance to go back and beat it but my god. Some of the later levels were kinda awful. Idk if it's just that I've fallen out of things with puzzle games or what but there were so many puzzles in the last 3 levels where they didn't explain it before hand, give any hints or idea as to what they could be, and never repeated them. Like there's one puzzle where u have to use a boomerang to hit a switch on the opposite side of the wall (like from another room), something I didn't know you Could do and something they never did before and never repeated after. Like most of the more difficult to parse puzzles had a little slab or ghost or something being like 'hey u gotta do smth with This Thing' but this one was stone cold Figure It Out.

I felt like the Tower of Winds was one of the best levels in the game, really utilizing the fact that you got Four Guys and really putting all the previous puzzles' efforts to the test. Really good level. Followed by the Palace of Winds which was fucking dogshit and felt like a slog of running back and forth exchanging items over and over. (Also the tower of winds being a primarily side scrolling level that utilized the Gameboy adapter as the primary way to explore rooms was really well done)

Also the gerudo desert was fucking god awful. I've been through some rough levels before but I fucking HATE the 'oh u gotta pick one of three directions. Oh you chose wrong cuz it's fucking random so we're sending u back!!' like I get it's supposed to be imitating the lost woods but the lost woods has sound and visual clues, this was just At Random and fucking sucked shit oh my god.

The parts I really enjoyed were the sound design, the way it meshed alttp and Minish Cap type graphics together, and the unique puzzle solving for having four dudes in formation. Probably the best puzzle (and one I had to fucking look up the solution for cuz it was a No Clue No Tutorial Final Level puzzle) was one where u have to go into the shadow realm, pick up ur other link from the light realm and carry him across a gap from between dimensions. Exceptional puzzle love that so much, WISH THEY HAD SET UP THE TUTORIAL PROPERLY SO I COULDVE SOLVED IT cuz there was at no other point any indicator that that was a thing you could even do.

Like it felt like they were doing way too much way too late, adding in new mechanics that should have been in earlier, and then reusing the same boss over and over again. I think you fight the fuckin color coded claw mini boss like 4 times, every time it's equally as easy and annoying. Also the gohma enemies were rly annoying, having homing attacks you can't block/dodge and go way too fast, not rly challenging so much as just smth to brute force. Also it never felt like there was real skill required in combat until like, vaati's fight which even that was just timing bomb throws. (And don't get me started on how mad I am that vaati never shows up in his hottie form, he's just in his fuckin balloon monster form and I'm sad about it)

The overall vibe of the game and speed of progression felt nice, the levels that were rly enjoyable (the Village of the Blue Maiden, both Hyrule Castle segments, the Lost Woods, and Kakariko) were huge highlights, the sneaking segments especially felt like a real test of skill and cheese and I really enjoyed it even if they were a bit frustrating to fail. And the segments that were more quest oriented were really good, there's something about a looooong quest line that they did really well.

The difficulty level of this game felt... Strange. It was like they didn't know how to create a difficulty curve. Repeat enemies made things boring and too easy, but since links hp resets with each stage they backed themselves into not being able to ramp it up. Also a lot of the 'unique' (not premade) enemies were... Kinda ugly, tbh. Like not as in monsters have to be cute, but as in the quality of the pixel art was really disjointed. Honestly all of the art was like that. Some assets that were blown up u could see the fuzzy pixel anti aliasing, where as all of the particle effects were Really crisp. Like downright the best part of the game kinda crisp. I fucking LOVE the particle effects in this game, as well as the lighting as a whole it's really pretty in that regard.

Idk this game has been something I've wanted to beat since I rented it as a kid so finally getting that chance I... I don't know. It feels like most of the game (especially the later parts) I was mostly just frustrated, but when it was good it was great.

TLDR; I think I would reasonably give it a 6.5/10, it's fine, it's got some great moments but has a lot of issues that make it frustrating.

[funarisjournal]

The Beginning: Drama Edition (Pt 1)

I would've come out with this essay a lot sooner, but a lot of stuff has happened. I only just finished re-watching this episode a few nights ago, after so many pauses...but I have a neat topic to write about today!

So, we're looking back at the first episode of the drama, but from the POV of a viewer who has seen the rest of the show already and putting that knowledge back into what we saw, back before they even got to know each other. However, this first part is just everything leading up to (points at pic) this point in the episode. Sit back, have a snack ready, because it's a long one!

Leading up to this fateful meeting, both ladies have pretty much been living a dull, routine life. Kasuga doesn't mind it, as we eventually learn this was the independent life she personally chose, but it certainly affected Nomoto. No friends (though we are treated to a pre-friendship interaction with a unnamed Sayama in this episode), no family nearby, no one to try out her true cooking prowess on. She is a starved artist, figuratively. Starvation, in this case, means no means to produce the stuff you want to create. Whether it be a lack of paints, or a desk to place your work on...or having people to actually share these large meals with. Eventually, it leads to less art and may become dormant for the sake of just trying to get by. But the urge to create just keeps building up...

Nomoto wakes up, heads to work, goes home and cooks small portions because that's all she's limited to, thinks about the what-ifs of making her dream portions but knows she can't, goes to bed and repeats it again. It dampers the soul, you know!

So what happens when a starving artist is finally given an opportunity to create? (aka being told that party-sized set of food is for only one person, and she's looking right at them)

YOU WANNA DEVOUR IT, OF COURSE! Or, in this case, you want to make ALL THE FOOD for this person you barely know! I mean, Nomoto all but salivating at the thought of making huge portions of food during this moment...

But no, no wait. Good on Nomoto for trying to hold back. Scarfing things down doesn't go well in the long run, after all. She tries, anyway. But the next day at work didn't go so well for her. She's reminded of what she's heard for so many years whenever she talks about, or shows off, her love for cooking: That traditional viewpoint that she's totally ready to be wife/mom material. It's like telling an artist who happens to draw in one style that, because they can draw cartoony things, they can totally get into the graphic design field.

Cough cough, I wouldn't know a thing about that, though. Ahem.

Like an artist who can't Take It Anymore and just starts drawing on a napkin or something, the dam finally breaks. There's this impression we get that she has done something like this before, especially if she hears the annoying "societal standards" talk from people. She HATES that! She was pretty much riding the path of the doldrums, going through her daily motions, until she got hit with with it again. She needs to cook so she can cope. Who cares if it's a lot of money, who cares about the consequences of making so much when Nomoto herself can't finish something like that. She needs to cook a ton RIGHT NOW.

Here's where the drama starts differing from the comic. The first episode of the drama actually mixes the first TWO chapters of the comic to give us a proper introduction to both women, and not just Nomoto. So, as we shift our focus away from Nomoto and her predicament, let's do a quick review of Kasuga at this point in her life...

As previously mentioned, Kasuga is also living a pretty routine life. She does her vendor work, and while she can cook some simple meals, she is shown to eat out a lot as well...and as we learn later, it's because she want to enjoy ALL the food the world has to offer. Cooking at home with her limited knowledge only goes so far with that, you know?

But she has her downsides, too. Like people assuming things for her because of her size and/or that she's a woman. I mean, look at that pitiful bowl of rice! I don't eat as much as Kasuga can, but even that wouldn't fill me up! Come on!

She does, at least, speak up and gets the situation corrected, but you eventually learn why that is - she was never allowed to speak up before, and she lived in such a horrible situation where she couldn't thrive...to the point of near-starvation, especially for someone her size. She was a growing, GROWING tall girl in her childhood. You know, the period where you definitely need the nutrients your body needs to develop healthily? It was a horrible time, and Kasuga does NOT want to relieve it in any capacity, even in a situation like going out and having some food at a sit-down place.

Another thing that the drama does a little different is how they portray Kasuga at the beginning here. She still has the same personality as her comic counterpart. She's quiet, keeps to herself, still a gentle soul. However, the drama doesn't really show how Kasuga can seem intimidating without trying to be (almost like a self-defense mechanism to avoid confrontations)

But I guess it's because it's hard to have piercing eyes that look down at most people when heights are little more realistic in the drama. Her actress is the tallest of the eventual main cast (S2), and she is tall in general (have you seen group pics with Emi Nishino towering above fellow musicians??), but the height differences are much smaller gaps in comparison. She can stare at someone with some scariness when she needs to (you'll see in a bit), but it's no unconscious intimidation maneuver like Comic Kasuga. What does that mean for us, though? It means we get to see the soft side a lot quicker. She's not cold, she's not aloof. She's just quiet.

Anyway, here's where it gets fun, folks. To blend the two comic stories together for this episode, we are treated to a unique scene taken in two POVs. For the first third of the story, it's in Nomoto's POV:

She hears the footsteps of her neighbor...Her neighbor that recently had all that food just for herself...

After Kasuga's third of the episode finishes up, we get treated to her POV of that same moment:

There's a whiff of that good-smelling food that her neighbor's always cooking up...

...And then, I caught these two particular screenshots and realized they basically happen at the same time between the two POVs. For this, I christen this moment as a special, drama-only Fateful Moment.

Nomoto having second/third/nth thoughts about her ideas right now, Kasuga briefly slowing down her gait as she passes by that good-smelling food...This was, honestly, a "Now Or Never" Moment. This moment, if decided incorrectly, would've doomed our pair to continue on, alone, with something (someone?) perpetually missing from their lives.

Unfortunately, Kasuga chose to continue her walk back to her apartment. After all, she has no connection to her neighbor, and they had a rather awkward conversation in the elevator beforehand. It would be strange to knock at her door and ask "What's cookin'?" No no, totally strange. Just keep living your life like you have been, Kasuga. It's safe. (and away from her trauma)

HOWEVER! We know Nomoto took the plunge. During her POV of that moment, she was frantically pacing back and forth, literally wondering "Should I? Maybe not... But maybe yes??" Upon hearing Kasuga's door close, she made that choice. It was impulsive, it was brash but here she was, standing in front of her neighbor's door and she already rang the bell.

She can't turn back now.

And now, for the most awkwardly awkward silence to have ever graced my screen (can't say the same for everyone, but it's definitely been for me!). This is the one time Kasuga really stares at Nomoto with defensive annoyance. The slow, single nod she gave in response to the question made it even better.

But...there was no turning back now. Kasuga decided to humor Nomoto's request, and now they're in the latter's apartment!

Kasuga is still on the defensive here. She is preparing herself for some sort of catch. Maybe her neighbor is taunting her after that encounter in the elevator. But ooh, that food sure smells good... Unfortunately, she doesn't make these thoughts known to Nomoto. Instead, Nomoto is treated to just one clarification-type question and then nothing but silence (and staring).

Now, Nomoto is regretting her choices. She let the impulsiveness win again, and now she's looking like a total creep and fool. Anxiety takes over as she starts rambling to explain why she invited Kasuga over without sounding even worse, but then just couldn't take it anymore and started to take the dish back...

And that was when Kasuga noticed her one chance at having something so HUGE offered to her, homecooked no less, was slipping away. She cuts Nomoto off, so quickly(!), to finally say:

This is just unheard of to Kasuga. This has never happened in her life before - someone offering her a mountain of food. For FREE. No catch!

For Nomoto? Now she's eager again. She really could've avoided the earlier moment by just saying "Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying [to eat all this food]", but it's done. Now she can't wait for a reaction. Someone's actually going to eat her cooking!

A cook finally gets to show off her skills. A gourmand finally gets to eat something that will suit her appetite...

....and that's where I'll stop for now. Join me next time as I actually dissect about 3 minutes' worth of show into another long essay (lmao)

[characterdesignillustration]

Team Project Multiple Styles

Received Brief:

What my style is out of the 4 we were given as we're in a group of four, I was given the graphic novel style.

I want to take inspiration from more of a comic book style, because it's the most recognisable style that comes to mind when it comes to "Graphic Novel" for me.

^Something sort of like this, but simplified. A lot of the scruffy lines won't be something I'll do in photoshop because 1) It's hard to do in photoshop specifically, 2) I want to practice my line work.

THE PROCESS:

^Colour pallet The below two images are the designs my teammates created for mobile/animation specifically. I'll use a lot of these design elements in my design, but probably not the half and half face, I don't think It fits the graphic novel design, which I want to be more realistic rather than cartoonish.

^Sketches

In these sketches I was mainly thinking about shape, and how I can communicate John's consistent personality trait of being a generally bad person. So, thinking about shape language I chose to go with lots of jagged shapes, especially concerning the facial structure. I wanted him to look villainous to stay inline with the comic book/graphic novel style to represent characters of villainous alignment with sharp, defined features.

Specifically important is the facial structure, and his sharp wood splitting chin. It's the most exaggerated element of his character, so it'll be a central feature to his character. The face helps reinforce the rotten personalities of Johnson Leebourne because it's sharp and jagged, made up of rectangles and triangles, shape language most associated with danger and villainy. I specifically took inspiration from The Joker, even more specific than that, I took inspiration from the Joker design from Batman: Under the Red Hood:

^The Joker from Batman: Under the Red Hood

^I've put the sketches into photoshop, I chose to take photos instead of scanning since scanning can blow out the image with sheer brightness. I plan to tackle this in multiple phases; 1) Sketch 2) Structured Outline 3) Final Outline 4) Values 5) Depth 6) Colour. Currently in the sketch phase moving into the structured outline.

Here's the structured outline, which I included to get an initial take on the digital outline because I feel like going into a final outline on the sketch layer could lead to an unwanted mess, here I can get a final design down pat digitally before I get to finalising the image. I've made the lines quite light as I'm going to trace over them in the next step.

^Here's the final outline, just going over in a darker colour, getting those little details in, and making an overall clean design. I've added lots of little creases and tension in both the clothes and face as in comic books have quite detailed surfaces.

Heres me adding the values in. I've placed this obtuse pink as the background colour so I could clearly visualise the tonality. A lot of this design/tone comes from other people's design.

Here's me adding some depth with shadows. I probably could've made highlights here, but I didn't have time. Usually the shadows would be more pronounced in this comic style.

Here's the colours. I tried to go with more desaturated tones with the colours, I'm not a fan of vibrance. This is also the final version before we get feedback.

Team Reflection 1: I felt like our team was pretty good. We didn't communicate much, but because of how easy to understand the brief was we came to similar but different conclusions in terms of design.

First Design Reflection:

I feel like I did a pretty good job on my design, even if it's quite different from the over designs. But, my colours are definitely too light, and the pink is too different from the peachy-pink of the other designs. Mine's more bubblegum pink and grass green, the others are much more toned down, and I definitely prefer their colours over mind 100 times over and I could imagine colour consistency will be a suggestion when we get our feedback form.

FEEDBACK FOR OUR GIVEN DESIGN BRIEF:

^Designs in response to our brief: (Top left = story book, Top right = animation, Bottom left = mobile game,

^the extra design that was missing form the pdf, the graphic design style.

Our initial thoughts:

The singular eye is a definite no, it's creepy as hell. The mouth is also a no, mainly for the tooth and moustache making the character look more like a person having been turned to slime rather than a slime trying to be a person. I appreciate the effort, but the designs don't really fit our vision too well, though I think it's probably due to our brief not being awfully clear on what schloop should or shouldn't look like, so it'd be worth being clear in our feedback.

Mainly thinking about removing a lot of the detail in favour for fluid and simplistic shape language, and a smooth design rather than jagged.

Our Feedback Form:

Feedback for the Slime:

THREE OVERALL SUGGESTIONS:

Facial Features – Remove the facial features (eyes, mouth, hair…), should be replaced with a sticky note on the face that has a small (On Mobile Design: Make this feature large and noticeable (readable at size)), simple face drawn on it with maker (some kind of happy/dumb expression).

Shape – Lumpier (Asymmetry), more transparent, more liquid (less human).

Clothing – Make him averagely dirty, as if he’s been in the sewer. Oversized too. Note: He doesn’t understand how to dress himself properly.

Accessories: Bow tie replaces regular tie, dark blue three-piece suit (pants please), shoes, Cup and suitcase are essential,

TWO SPECIFICS FOR EACH STYLE:

Storybook: Less defined writing on the cup is good, make the pose more asymmetric (less formal), remove highlights, no gas coming from suitcase, the skin texture is good here (this should be a consistent element over all the designs),

Animation: Best green, softer angles (conflicting shape language leads to confusing character portrayal), thin outlines, focus on shape language (round circles, nothing angular) over detail,    

Game: Good level of fluidity, use simple shapes, broad outline around the outside (this defines the silhouette), make the legs shorter, no fingers,

Graphic Novel: The suit needs to look like a proper suit, handedness needs to be consistent with the other designs, the legs need to be longer (less cartoonish proportions, more person like),

EXTRA: Please make the styles more distinct, we thought the animation design was the game design because of the broad outline.  

My Thoughts: I think our feedback might come off as quite blunt but it's better to be straightforward than vague. It gives specifics, which is what we were missing before.

Received Feedback For Our Designs:

What we like!

The direction you have gone with showing the split personalities at the same time is really cool, we think the way the graphic style has added subtle details such as the eyebrow and hair shapes really help convey that merged personality feel. We like the two very different approaches to the character between the upper and lower iterations where one shows the more comedic aspect, and one shows the more sinister side of Johnson

General feedback (Overall Appearance)

· More consistency with muted colours, Use shades of brown and black (colours you see in society)

(We want him to blend into society, a character where you only notice the different personalities through subtle changes, Lose the pink. (Imagine the show ‘The Alienist’, or Robert Downey Jr’s Sherlock))

· Make clothing more distressed and tattered, i.e. Hole in a finger of the glove, Patch on the jacket, Scuffed shoe, one collar up and one down – these will obviously not feature in the mobile game version due to size, but think if there is something?

(Again to help him have more subtlety in his appearance, creating these almost normal deformities in his clothing helps his personality shine through without using drastic colour combinations)

· Use consistent shapes - The animation and game versions use quite rounded shapes where and the others are more angular, we think picking one or the other and keeping it consistent throughout all iterations would help with recognising Johnson in all styles.

Specifics

Game

· More human like features, adding ears so the hair doesn’t look like dog ears, and keeping consistent with either soft or harsh features. Simplify further than current version.

Animation

· This one is quite similar to the Game version, almost too similar to the point where we cant think of any critique that hasn’t already been said above. Match pose of graphic novel character.

Graphic Novel

· Make the clothes more consistent.

The direction is amazing but to help him blend into society, make the colours the same as noted in the general direction above. Make the shoes match and have the pant leg on the pink side visible but roll it up like the sleeve is to keep that subtle appearance change without being too drastic.

My Thoughts: I pretty much expected this. We did stray quite far away from the initial brief, so it makes sense that subtlety was a main point of feedback. I agree with pretty much everything said, except for maybe making his clothes look tattered, which I'm pretty neutral on mainly cause it's just difficult to translate into design without it looking overly disheveled.

DESIGNING FOR FEEDBACK:

^Here's the new colour pallet we're using. Personally I like this a lot. The darker colours and focus on browns/reds is much more in tune with both my preferences, and the preferences given by team IDK's feedback. Just making the character blend into his surroundings.

This is my teammate's character design, I'm going to generally follow these colours.

Firstly responding to the tattered clothing feedback, I've come up with this design (dark outlined features) on a seperate layer. I did this so I didn't damage the original outline incase I didn't like the re design. This redesign adds a lot of detail to the body, I'm not too big on that because it creates a mess of squiggles that'd be hard to decipher upon a glance. So I'll have to remove some detail.

However, before moving onto dealing with detail related issue, I first finalised my small redesign for the clothing. I've made sure that both shoes match, I've got the rolled up pant leg to give the character asymmetry and to differentiate the two personalities.

I've removed some lines on the coat to tone down the complexity, but I still feel like detail is both too much and too little, so I asked my team for feedback.

This is a great idea and hadn't been something I'd thought about at all, and it makes complete sense, it's the missing element to perfecting the "Graphic Novel" style I'm going for.

This is the design with crosshatching. It looks more dynamic and adds direction to the motion of the expressions specifically as the the lines point in the direction the John's looking. This is something I'll have to experiment with further on future designs. But it also gives a strong sense of detail without over complicating the design itself.

My current progress colouring the character in. I'm not entirely sure about these colours specifically, they look way too desaturated. I'm not feeling the vibrance of the blue on the pants in combination with the brown of the shoe, it just looks like jeans, too modern looking in a way, so I might make the shoes a dark grey to match my team's designs while also desaturating the pant leg to draw attention away from it. The skin colour is way to dull as well. Dull is the word I'd use to describe these colours.

I've adjusted the colours a little bit, I'm still not a fan of how blue the left pant leg looks. Also, I've added the colour pallet image into my PSD file as a layer so I can easily compare and contrast the colours I'm inputing to the pallet. The hair will have to be darker and the skin more vibrant, this'll shift focus towards the face from the hair as I want people to see the facial features first.

Also, the crosshatching needs to be more prominent, so I'm going to go in and darken it using the COM + U menu.

This is my final iteration. The hatching is more apparent, the colours are much better, especially with how the lining on the coat that separates the two personalities matches the colour of the pant leg which adds this level of design consistency I like a lot. I've made adjustments to the hair and skin tone so they're balanced with each other where the hair doesn't take focus away from the face. I've adjusted some of the lines and covered some gaps in the fill as well to keep a good, clean and consistent design. I've added some shadows to the rolled up pant leg for extra detail, adjusted the lines and added some shadow to the exposed arm as well. The cane I've also added some shadow to for some extra depth.

OVERALL REFLECTION:

I enjoyed this group project, but I definitely feel like the brief we made ourselves wasn't awfully clear, and the feedback we gave was probably way too blunt and probably came across quite negative. Though, I suppose direct feedback is more helpful, I still feel bad for the team on the receiving end of our criticism. We wouldn't have to give more direct feedback if we'd had a more detailed brief to deliver in the first place.

^This is our A4 poster. I'm quite proud of my design personally, I put a lot of effort into making it absolutely right, especially for the feedback. I really like my team's designs as well, especially the story book design (bottom right) which unfortunately wasn't completed due to complications with sickness and such. I feel like the Half/Half visualisation of John's Dissociative Personality Disorder was more apparent in the previous design, and I would've liked to go in with more depth with this half/half personality. For example, with my design specifically I added the flower on the right side which represents the fun, and more silly side, and on the left side is the more vicious and dangerous side, he's got a darker colour pallet to emphasise this plus a cane that looks quite dangerous. The pant legs also represent these two sides with the right side having rolled up his pant leg and sleeve which can be seen as something quite unprofessional while the left side is opposite looking quite formal. In retrospect, a way we could've shown another subtle difference between the two sides would've been to have the right side's clothing look a little more shambled, more tattered, and the left side having his clothing all stitched up in an attempt to look more formal, or maybe just remove the tattered clothing on the left side. But all in all, I really enjoyed this process.

Response to Updated schloop designs:

I really liked the updates, overall a more consistent and cohesive direction. I still feel like we went overboard on the feedback which was an overcorrection to our initial brief which was quite barebones and didn't go out of it's way to detail exactly how the character was pictured in our minds, we didn't really communicate with each other well enough on that. But, the designs turned out great in the end.

REFLECTION

Personally I feel like this whole group project was a great activity to familiarise ourselves with the actual process of giving and receiving feedback on briefs and how to visualise what a client wants. I would've liked to have been given an easier style to work with other than graphic novel, but I did say "I'll be fine with anything" so it's not much of a complaint. It just meant I had to spend more time on this project than finishing the other pieces of homework we've had, cause I only accept my best work, and if it's not, all be damned.

[hm-chan]

Week 8 reflection

What?

This week is also a prototyping week for me to work on. Since I finished my coaster paper prototype, I started work on the interactive website using Figma. I listed what function pages have to include.

Sign-in page

Home page

Forum page

User page

Q&A page

Background page

Interactive section

About me page

Reading/video page

The interactive section is the most challenging part to build up because I have to draw many graphics and let users experience and interact with the website. My mood board inspires the website style, a simple pattern with a shape of solid colour. Although this is what style I have thought for the coaster rather than the website after the conversation with the technical support in the fab lab. If I want to add colour to the coaster, I must draw the colour by myself, and I don’t feel confident enough to do such stuff. Also, the material I chose for the coasters looks better with no colour added so I will pick another design. 

I’m using the Kiwi bird design, like the coaster design for the website icon. The icon colour is now black, but I’m still trying other colours for the best-looking options. The black colour hasn't active my desired results. I have done the first design for the Sign-in page, Forum page, Q&A page, background page, reading/video page and kind of about me page. I’m rejoicing that I have made some progress this week, and I hope to finish the first design of the user page and the interactive selection by next week. I designed to combine the video and reading on one page, but during the making process, I realised this decision would make too much content on one page, so I needed extra time to solve this issue. The new design is both of them have their page. 

I named the website KiwiNibble. This name combines the idea of eating habits with the Kiwi bird's association, suggesting a cute and playful connection to both food and the bird. Should I make another logo of the KiwiNibble or only use the Kiwi bird design? I will see if I have extra time to work on it first. Finishing the website first is what I’m going to focus on next week. I still have to change the text style or the colour in the future because they still can look better.

So what?

This week's work made me realise I hadn’t thoroughly thought through my project and had enough time to learn the whole idea. I didn't know enough about all the design details in the Inspiration and Ideation phases, so the prototyping time was slower than expected. If I had a clearer idea of what I wanted to achieve a few weeks before, I could have saved time and used it to design another logo instead of agonising over what to do or not to do.

In addition, various obstacles keep appearing in the process: too much content is concentrated on one page, the lack of technology makes it impossible to achieve the initial required effect, and the original design does not give good results. It makes me less passionate and more agitated. I repeatedly asked myself if this was really what I wanted to achieve.

Overall, my lack of consideration seriously affected my planning and implementation. 

Now what?

I need to make a list of things I need to think about for the whole project so that I don't have to spend extra time thinking about it again because something is missing or I haven’t thought about it. In addition, I will list the problems I am likely to encounter and consider ways to deal with them in advance. Early risk assessment allows me to be better prepared for possible problems and avoid being too anxious.

Reference:

Gloria.Chan. (2023). DES 301. https://www.figma.com/file/8rZQILNUwspy1Nts5nNaYF/DES-301?type=design&node-id=0%3A1&mode=design&t=98rn8AGvNHFV7dx0-1

[orchidelegance]

review - device 6

app store, $5.99 playtime: ~.5-1hrs rating: 6/10 replayability: 4/10

creative, eery, and immersive, i loved it but definitely expected more out of this one. device 6 by simogo, the company that brought us sayonara wild hearts and year walk, is an innovative side, up, down, and diagonal scroller that reimagines the way we interact with text. paired with an at-times classy, haunting, and beautiful soundtrack by daniel olsén featuring jonathan eng, device 6 has an ambiance completely unrivaled by any other text-based game (except maybe Maginary...)

the genre of device 6 somewhere between cultish spy conspiracies, scifi, 1920's jazz club, and a secret garden... whatever that means. similar experiences include the company and the bradwell conspiracy, but add in some hats and a lot of text. the game only makes sense after you finish it, and boy does it not take long to finish. my only complaint was how quickly i was done with it - i expected something a little more based on the setup. the puzzles were fairly simple and i figured the vast majority out on my own, excepting where i got lost in the text. can't reiterate enough how much of a fascinating medium and mechanic the devs chose for this story. definitely got the wheels in my head turning.

the text-based game is absolutely worth a try if you're interested in new ways of interaction and immersion - the game 100% brings you into its world (and if you've played it, you'll know i mean more than just the gameplay itself). i've never experienced anything quite like it, and i think Maginary is the only game that comes close as far as i know to having a similar mechanic. i'm also super obsessed with the graphic design (design in general), and i KNOW someone has written a medium article or something on it... i'll definitely be rewatching the intro video, not only for daniel olsén's music (i had the sayonara wild hearts soundtrack looping for months) but also the stunning animation and design.

rating a 6/10, would be an 8/10 if it wasn't so short and so sparse despite such a rich setup and plot. for $6, only a half hour to an hour of playtime...? nevertheless, an extremely innovative way of storytelling and gaming, and a premise i like very much. 4/10 replayability because it was so short that it feels like i already know everything and wouldn't really gain much by replaying it, but i would love to experience it again.

spoilers below

gosh, what an ending. i knew what was going to happen as it was happening, but the final blood splatter didn't scare me any less. i hope that final cigarette was good, anna. i want to replay it and see what would happen if i checked i agree and submitted to the device - would player249 be experiencing it the same way? i think there are a lot of missed opportunities with this game - the summary mentioned the doll as a key player, but it only appears once (twice if you count the shop at the end.) it was quite pretty. i liked the inclusion of all the art and edits, especially the venetian mask. again, the mechanics were amazing and really drew me in. having to constantly rotate my phone to read was a little annoying at times but mostly the novelty meant it was exciting rather than tedious. the mama/papa/baby bears was a little hard to figure out even with a guide, and another gripe i have is the sometime intelligible voices. i do like all the references that the devs threw in, and that they explained them in a blog post! if this was $2 or $3 i would be recommending it to everyone, but $6 is a little steep for what it is. nevertheless, i really enjoyed playing it, and the end is going to haunt me for a while. didn't think a 45minute game would trigger my psychosis but we'll see. i'll keep an eye out on my mail. good thing i have a roommate...

[starrysamu]

LOL. 🦈 anon and I interacting with each other through your blog. I don't think I have any questions about typography because I'm not in that field anymore. I'm content with leaving graphic designing to other people. :D

Yeah UX design and graphic design are different! And then you have some of my college classmates who were good at both. Afjkjgsggk.

To answer your question Remy, I loved my internships! For one job, I ended up returning a second time and my mentor actually put me in charge of designing a portion of the website/app. But one the challenging parts of the job was having to explain why I chose to create things a certain way during design reviews with different groups of people. Like there were 1) the UX experts that oversaw the designs for the whole company, 2) my business analyst who told me what the website/app is supposed to do, and 3) the programmers who made sure my design is actually feasible.

I worked the most with my business analyst and he wasn't rude but he was kind of intimidating. Getting any kind of critique is hard but it's needed. I imagine that if I continued in this career, I would've gained more confidence and reputation. I mean, I only had like four months of experience with them when I came back a second time. lol.

My mentor also critiqued me on how to improve with general people/ business skills. Like help? 😂 Getting (constructive) criticism everywhere. But she saw my potential and kind of wanted me back a third time. lol.

Working with the programmers was the easiest because I had some programming experience back then. In a sense, I was the one of the people telling them what to do. Which was kind of amusing as the intern. lol.

So I miss that job but I also don't. lollll. I loved designing but too much interaction with people for introverted me. But I know that with more practice, I could get used to it if I wanted to.

For now, my creative outlet is writing fanfiction. LOL.

Remy, you shouldn't have told me not to hold back. This is long! Like... Can I do read more in asks?

ugh mimi ur so right though critique can be hard to receive if it isn't delivered properly ugh

what kind of programming did u do like was it specific or did u dabble in several areas? i was learning python for a bit but it didn't fit with anything i was trying to accomplish so i had to drop it and it was like honestly ... kinda hard but i think if i gave it some more effort i could try to self teach???

IDK ..... IDK I'M NOT PROFICIENT IN THESE THINGS LIKE FOR A REASON IG

i'm glad u get to use that creativity elsewhere though, and for something that's kinda stress free!! i feel like applying stuff like that to something u enjoy is very cool and a very neat way of thinking about .... everything if that makes sense. idk like personally i think i wouldn't be able to take what i'm doing now and apply it to other aspects of my life so i think it's very admirable that u can if that makes sense ....

[toalltheficsivelovedbefore]

Captured - FOUR 1/2

***AN- WARNINGS: drinking implied, suggestive content but no graphic descriptions of smut.

—

NIGHT BEFORE - MARCH 8th, near midnight

You and your friends had been at the party for almost two hours. Yeri was designated driver so she hadn't done anything more than a shot when you first arrived, and Hyuck was nursing his third beer. You weren't much of a beer person, your poison being shots of straight liquor or whatever mixed drink your brother made for you.

Speaking of Ten, he’d dragged you over to watch him play beer pong. Even Taeyong had finally joined, after ignoring Ten’s and the others begging for a solid 45 minutes. A good smattering of the roommates were around the table, playing or just watching. Johnny caught your eye and sent you a wink before landing the ball in one of Ten’s and Taeyong’s cups. Your brother groaned, taking the drink when his teammate glared at him.

Sitting on a couch near the table, you found Lucas. Yukhei. At one point, Xuxi even.

Just two years ago, the two of you had been nearly inseparable. But your senior year had brought its challenges, and you’d ended up distancing yourself from him until you were fighting with each other. Ten and Kun were really the only ones that knew you two used to be so close. Ten because, well, he’s your brother, and Kun because he grew up in the same neighborhood and schools. But no one save for you knew why you had pushed Lucas away.

He’d caught you watching him.

A blush spread from your cheeks to your neck. Lucas smiled at you, nodding his head for you to come over.

He looked good. Real good. A deep green sweater hugged his shoulders and chest, making the current honey color of his hair stand out. His eyes looked bright as he looked you over, taking his time to observe your legs in the fishnet style tights you’d chosen.

Your favorite physical feature of Xuxi’s had always been his thighs. The way his jeans fit, and the way he sat on the couch, brought your eyes to his legs. Of course he noticed, just like you’d noticed him checking you out. Lucas gave that smirk he got when he felt smug. Your heart tugged. You didn't even realize you’d missed something as annoying as that look on his face.

Even hating him, you knew he was hot. You’d be an idiot to think otherwise.

“Hey, YN. Are you enjoying the party?” His voice was slightly husky. The look in his eye told you he had also had a couple of drinks.

You smiled at him. “Yeah, I am.” You were standing right in front of him, almost between his knees. His eyes were stuttering between your thighs, your mouth, and your eyes. “People are gonna think it's weird that we're talking so calmly.”

Lucas smirked again, less smug and more humored. “I think they've already noticed that we're not arguing as much anymore in the group chat.”

You nodded. Thoughts swirled in your mind. You couldn't be sure if it was the alcohol in your system making you want him, or if your old feelings were just catching up to you. Looking back at the table, surrounded by some of your closest friends, you moved toward the hallway, giving Lucas the same nod he’d used earlier.

He followed you a distance away before you stopped to look up at him. God the boy was tall. What’s he gotta be so tall for? Why were you just observing these things again now? His mouth was playing with a smirk still.

“Did you want to talk about something?”

“Show me what you've done on the project.”

His eyes flashed with confusion, and maybe disappointment? “Seriously?” Lucas’s hand scratched the back of his neck, a laugh escaping him. “You really took me away from the game to talk about class?”

The blush was back, staining your cheeks red. You moved farther away from him, toward the hallway that led to the stairs, which would lead upstairs, toward some of the bedrooms. He followed you with his eyes before physically moving. He couldn't help himself, it was like he was the moth and you were the ever glowing light that taunted him. The hallway was quieter, with no partygoers and the music dulled by the walls.

Lucas noticed figures near one of the other entrances into the hallway. When he squinted, they looked like Mark and Kun.

Your hand brushed his own, making his eyes snap back to you.

“You want to see what I'm working on?”

You nodded. “Yes.”

“Everything is on my computer, which is in my room. I can bring it down?”

The blood pounded in his head when you shook your head, your eyes never leaving his. “Let’s go to your room.”

NEXT MORNING

It was almost 5 AM when you woke up.

Not surprisingly, the sheets were tangled around the both of you, and even his arm had wound its way around your waist.

You turned your head toward Lucas. Xuxi. That’s what you’d called him last night, in the moment. That old nickname had felt powerful leaving your lips. His eyes had flashed with some emotion, and his hands had tightened on your hips, digging in hard enough to leave bruises.

Both of you had fallen asleep naked, tangled in each others limbs. When you were in high school, and even in middle school, Lucas had spent plenty of nights at your home, either passing out in the bed with you or on the pile of blankets and pillows you’d haphazardly thrown on the ground. Each time, you’d done almost this same thing. You woke before him and just watched him. You couldn't help it. There was something about his face when he slept. He looked peaceful for once. No crease in his brow, no wrinkle on his forehead, and his lips pouted just the slightest amount.

Your hand reached toward him. His mouth was warm and plush where you ran your finger along his bottom lip. Kissing Lucas was exactly like how you had always imagined it. Soft, tender, bright. And when he deepened it with the addition of his tongue, the butterflies had dive-bombed from your stomach to your sensitive core. You had both been hungry for each other, and Lucas made fast work of your clothes, then his own.

Honestly, you still had a bit of the afterglow, even hours after you had had sex. Something told you that it had to do with your feelings, but you chose to ignore that voice.

You ignored it because it would end up hurting in the end. And you so didn't want to be hurt over Wong Yukhei again.

You ignored it because the sun was drifting into the sky, and slanting into the room passed his blue sheer curtains.

This house was full of your brother’s (and your) closest friends. You couldn't be here when they all rose from their drunken slumbers, sporting hangovers and surely questions if they found you.

And you didn't want to see the look on Lucas’s face when he realized you were still there.

CHAPTER FOUR 1/2

RIVAL!lucas + fem!reader • social media au with some written

|| You and Lucas haven’t got along in almost two years. But your older brother Ten has kept him in your life by having him around as a roommate (plus 6 other annoying boys). As long as you and Lucas are fighting, the old feelings can’t catch up with you.... right? ||

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